His Glorious Appearing

Summary

The Lord of Spirits Podcast Episode: "His Glorious Appearing" Date: August 11, 2023 Hosts: Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick & Fr. Stephen De Young

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Episode Overview

This episode continues the podcast’s eschatology series by examining what Orthodox Christianity means by the "Second Coming" or "Glorious Appearing" of Christ. The priests reframe standard assumptions—critiquing both secularized and pop-Christian views of Christ’s return—by exploring the biblical and patristic roots of Orthodox understanding. They discuss language, expectations, biblical prophecy, resurrection, the transfiguration, and what it means for Christian life today.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Framing the Modern Anguish for the Spiritual

• The hosts open with a reading from First Enoch and reflect on the modern world's "haunting" by spirits and the hunger to break from materialism, to see reality’s spiritual depth.
• [00:00 - 02:01] Fr. Andrew introduces the episode as a deep dive into "the second coming of Christ," the spiritual reality behind it, and its integrality to Christian faith.

2. Pop Culture, American Christianity, and Eschatological Anxiety

• The hosts joke about climate change, pasta, and Robert Frost, using humor to ease into weighty material and highlighting how deeply eschatological themes (the end times, Christ’s return) saturate American culture.
• [11:06] Fr. Andrew: “Here in America, for our foreign listeners, there are billboards...a sign that says 'Jesus is coming back soon.' Or my favorite, 'Prepare to meet thy God.'”
• Both critique the prevalence of millennialist thinking as often reactionary, disconnected from historic Christian teaching.

3. Dispelling Common Myths About the Second Coming

• Refuting the ‘Cope’ Theory:

  • The idea that the church invented Christ’s return as a way to cope with the delay of immediate messianic fulfillment is historically ignorant and biblically unfounded (see [13:12], [17:46]).
  • Millennarian fervor is not unique to modern America; it has appeared repeatedly across Christian history (e.g., the Millerites’ “Great Disappointment,” Crusades, Reformation—[15:06], [16:17]).

• Preterism & Other Shortcuts:

  • The temptation to historicize or symbolically “complete” Christ’s coming (e.g., by assigning it to 70AD) is reductive and contrary to the Church’s living expectation.

4. What Does the 'Second Coming' Really Mean? Language Matters

• Literalism vs Symbolism:

  • The Ascension is not about Jesus rocketing into the sky, but the enthronement ‘at the right hand of God’ as depicted in Daniel 7. The iconographic presentation (Christ on a cloud) embodies symbolic, not scientific, reality ([27:02]–[28:12]).

• Christ's Presence Now:

  • Christ is not absent. “His ascension into heaven was not him leaving” ([22:51]), but a change in the mode of presence—now manifested especially in the Holy Spirit and in the Eucharist.
  • [32:34] Fr. Stephen: “Christ is present everywhere. He hasn't gone away where he needs to come back.”

• On 'Spiritual' Language:

  • Greek Bible terms translated “spiritually” are often misunderstood as “unreal.” Fr. Stephen insists: "The Holy Spirit is real and the Holy Spirit is God" ([39:02]). The "spiritual presence" of Christ—especially in the Eucharist—means real presence by the power of the Spirit, not just an idea.

5. Biblical Language for Christ’s Appearing

• The hosts go in depth analyzing three major Greek terms in the New Testament:

  • Parousia ("presence" or "coming"): Used for the in-person arrival of not only Christ but Roman emperors—stressing bodily presence, not just spiritual ([45:01]–[55:54]).
  • Epiphaneia ("appearing"/"manifestation"): Links to Old Testament theophanies and 'the Day of the Lord' ([56:37]–[58:33]).
  • Apokalypsis ("revelation"/"unveiling"): The last day is when Christ is “unveiled”—His presence revealed, not newly arrived ([59:05]–[61:16]).
    • [60:35] Fr. Andrew: “He’s there, but—like you said, veiled—and then…he reveals himself.”

• All three highlight that the “return” is not about Christ coming from absence, but about his current presence becoming universally manifest and visible.

6. Why Does the Messiah 'Return'? Jewish Context & Psalm 110

• Ancient Messianic Expectations:
  • The idea that Judaism was monolithic on end times and messianic expectations is a modern myth ([67:09]). In the Second Temple period, ideas about messiahs and the end varied widely.
  • The “two appearings” (enthronement and judgment) are rooted in Jewish Scriptures, especially Psalm 110 and Daniel 7.
    • Psalm 110: Shows the Messiah enthroned among enemies—a real reign prior to final judgment ([79:07]–[82:43]).
    • Psalm 2, Daniel 7: Similarly describe an already-enthroned Lord whose final, visible victory is still future.

7. Resurrection, First Fruits, and the Transfiguration as Key to Christian Hope

• Christ’s Resurrection: The ‘First Fruits’

  • Christ is not just resuscitated (like Lazarus), but the first of the new, transformed humanity ([98:29-101:56]).
  • [103:04] Fr. Andrew: "All those other people died again. Whereas Christ will die no more.”

• Transfiguration as a Glimpse of Our Destiny

  • The Transfiguration (celebrated as a major Orthodox feast) reveals the endgame: the world suffused by the uncreated light of Christ, humanity and (eventually) all creation radiant in the Holy Spirit.
  • [115:46] Fr. Stephen: “...the world to come is an actual world. It’s a material world, a material universe, in which we’ll have bodies.”
  • It’s not just “this world with all the bad stuff gone”—it’s the world transfigured.
  • The second appearing will unveil the true reality hinted at in the Transfiguration—Christ glorified, ruling in the midst of his saints ([119:45]–[124:37]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On presence and ascension:

  • Fr. Stephen: "His ascension into heaven was not him leaving." ([22:51])
  • Fr. Stephen: "Christ is present everywhere. He's not absent from any place. He hasn't gone away where he needs to come back." ([32:34])

• On spiritual realities:

  • Fr. Stephen: "Spiritual is not opposed to real, because the Holy Spirit is real and the Holy Spirit is God." ([39:02])
  • On the Eucharist: “…the Holy Spirit makes Christ present on the altar. In the Eucharist.” ([42:40])

• On history and expectation:

  • Fr. Andrew: "In America, for our foreign listeners, there are billboards... 'Jesus is coming back soon.'" ([11:06])
  • Fr. Stephen: “This is not a cope. There was no need for a cope.” ([17:18])

• On the Resurrection:

  • Fr. Andrew: "All those other people died again. Whereas Christ will die no more... The way his body functions, his human body, is now significantly different after the resurrection." ([103:04])
  • Fr. Stephen: “The Holy Spirit is the atmosphere of the world to come.” ([110:12])

• On the Transfiguration:

  • Fr. Stephen: “They are beholding… the resurrected Christ before he died.” ([114:56])
  • Fr. Stephen: “…the world to come is an actual world. It’s a material world, a material universe, in which we’ll have bodies… Beyond that, we can’t understand.” ([116:40])

• Closing perspective:

  • Fr. Andrew: "We should be truly looking forward to the second and glorious appearing of the Lord but not in a way that's about fear and anger and hyperactivity—...it's time to repent." ([128:08])
  • Fr. Stephen: “…this age…is a part of what Jesus does as the Christ—as the Messiah—ruling in the midst of his enemies. He is active; he is at work in the world continuously.” ([130:08])

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Opening & Theme Setup: [00:00]–[02:01]
• Pop Culture & Eschatology in America: [10:01]–[16:17]
• Refuting Misreadings of Christian Expectation: [13:10]–[18:30]
• Problems with 'Second Coming' Language: [19:16]–[32:34]
• On Christ's Presence Now & Spiritual Reality: [32:34]–[44:13]
• Biblical Terms for Christ’s Manifestation: [45:01]–[63:44]
• Why Two Appearings? Jewish & Scriptural Roots: [66:26]–[78:08]
• Psalm 110 & Daniel 7 in the New Testament: [77:22]–[86:08]
• Resurrection & 'First Fruits': [98:29]–[106:41]
• Transfiguration as a Glimpse of the Kingdom: [110:12]–[117:44]
• Practical/Spiritual Application—Repent, Be Transfigured: [126:00]–[134:01]
• Final Reflections: [134:01]–[137:23]

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Theological & Spiritual Takeaways

• The Orthodox expectation of Christ’s return is not escapist, speculative, or fear-based. It is about reality’s fullness being unveiled—Christ enthroned, reigning even now, and the world (and us) being drawn stepwise into transformed glory.
• Christian life is not “pause mode” or a waiting room; it is engagement—repentance, communion, and being suffused by the Spirit now, in anticipation of the world to come.
• The Transfiguration isn’t an exotic add-on to the Gospel but a preview of what God intends for all creation—a radiant, resurrected, Spirit-filled kingdom.
• The “second appearing” is not a fix for a failed messianic age, but the full unveiling of what is—the seen and unseen joined in Christ, God with us, for eternity.

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Recommended Further Listening/Episodes Referenced:

• Son of Man
• Messiah
• Millennium
• Antichrist
• Make Straight the Paths for Our God (on St. John the Forerunner)
• How to Read (and How Not to Read) the Bible
• Sacred Geography

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Final Thought:
Be hopeful, be faithful—actively seek to participate in the life of the Resurrection now. "Let us, too, be suffused—in moments, in glimpses—with the light and love of the Holy Spirit, so that at Christ's glorious appearing, we may enter His joy."

Transcript

[A]

He will be a staff for the righteous with which for them to stand and not to fall. And he will be the light of the nations and the hope of those whose hearts are troubled. All who dwell on the earth will fall down and worship him. And they will praise and bless and celebrate with song the lord of spirits. First Enoch, chapter 48, verses 4 through 5. The modern world doesn't acknowledge, but is nevertheless haunted by spirits, angels, demons and saints. In our time, many yearn to break free of the prison of a flat secular materialism, to see and to know reality as it truly is. What is this spiritual reality like? How do we engage with it? Well, how do we permeate everyday life with spiritual presence? Orthodox Christian priests, Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Fr. Stephen DeYoung host. This live call in show focused on enchantment in creation, the union of the seen and unseen as made by God and experienced by mankind throughout history. Welcome to the Lord of Spirits.

[B]

Good evening giant killers, dragon slayers, scorpion stompers. You are listening to the Lord of Spirits podcast. My co Host, the Very Reverend Dr. Stephen DeYoung is with me from Lafayette, Louisiana where it is a 1000 degrees and 200% humidity. And I'm Father Andrew Stephen Damick in the cool, clear, lovely Emmaus, Pennsylvania. And we're back live. So if you are listening to us live, you can call us at 855-237-2346 and you can talk to us and we're going to get to your calls in the second half of the show. It's great to be live again after the last two pre recorded episodes in July. Although next time we're going to have to do another pre record as I will be away. Oh well, tonight though, being the country, I know I'm. I'm headed across an ocean.

Yeah, yeah. Tonight we're going to continue our series on eschatology. We're talking about what is commonly referred to as the second coming of Christ. But is that the right way to refer to it? And why is the Messiah coming twice anyway, after the ascension, are we just sort of waiting around for him, trying to hang on until he comes back, or is there something happening? So Father, are we just in pause mode while Jesus is off doing something else for a while?

[C]

No.

[B]

That was a good pause though. Yeah.

[C]

Could have been a little bit more.

[B]

Pregnant pause, but it was a pause.

[C]

I would just like to thank all the boomers listening for not sorting your recyclables.

Causing much of this part of the country to be on fire. Currently oh, wow.

[B]

Is that what does it.

[C]

That's what I'm told.

[B]

So I've heard.

[C]

Worst summer in recorded history. You guys couldn't ride your bikes to work. Thanks bunches.

[B]

We've just lost our super.

Anyways, you know who you are. Those who just tuned out.

[C]

Yes. Oh, there's. There's a couple groups. Right. There's the boomers who are offended. It took me literally. There's the other people who are mad that I made a joke about climate change rhetoric. There's another group that.

Thinks I was acknowledging climate change. They're also tuning out. So I really fine tune these things to alienate as many people as possible with each word.

[B]

Well, you know, we can stand to lose a few listeners.

[C]

Yeah. Even after Pasta Gate.

We still have a few we could spare. Oh, that was a real culling. I think it's true.

[B]

Yeah. I think we lost a lot of people after you said that pasta is wet bread. They were, like, deeply offended.

[C]

Yes, yes.

But I calls them like I sees him. Right. You gotta just. Somebody had to say it. We were all thinking.

[B]

Right?

[C]

So, yes.

You know, there's the whole debate about whether the Earth is going to be destroyed, this time with fire. And while I have a certain amount of anecdotal evidence at the moment to agree with that.

We'Re actually talking about.

Let'S generally term Christ second coming tonight.

[B]

I mean, some say it would be destroyed in ice.

Which would surprise twice as nice. No, I'm blanking on the actual wording of that poem.

[C]

Yeah, ice is too close to water, man.

Like, Xan could change both into water and into ice.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[C]

That's just like Jaina could do any animal.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[C]

So, like, that's too close to the flood.

[B]

Now we're stepping on the whole Wonder Twins theme that Steve Christopher and Christian Gonzalez had going on in pop culture Coffee Hour.

[C]

We could go into deep cuts, or at least I could go into deep cuts on the Wonder Twins, but I think no one wants that.

[B]

But.

[C]

But they are better than, you know, they replaced another group of sidekicks. Are you aware of this? Super Friends?

[B]

Oh, boy. I mean, I remember watching that show a lot when I was quite young. I mean, I had a great fondness for Hanna Barbera cartoons.

In those days. I mean, it was just. There's a ridiculous show.

[C]

There's a segment of our listener base that just loves this kind of stuff at the beginning of the show.

[B]

That's right.

[C]

Zan and Jaina were the hip, cool Vulcan replacements.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Wear the purple outfits for Marvin, Wendy, and Wonder Dog.

[B]

Wow. I vaguely remember that. Especially I remember Wonder Dog, man. I'm going to have to go look that up after the show.

[C]

And if you want to go really deep cut.

The only reason I'm saying this over the air is to prove to everyone once and for all you do not want to mess with me. In pop culture trivia.

Wendy of Marvin, Wendy and Wonder Dog was actually Wendy Prince and was the niece of the military nurse whose identity Wonder Woman took over to be her secret identity after the original Diana Prince died.

[B]

Nice.

[C]

In World War II.

[B]

Wow.

[C]

So.

[B]

Wow.

[C]

No one will ever come at me in Pub Trivia now, man.

But anyway, yes, Christ Return.

Is what we're talking about tonight.

[B]

If someone does come at you on Pub Trivia, we know that it will be a herald of the end of days.

[C]

Yeah.

If two. Two nerds that dense come into contact with each other, I think it would open up some kind of rift.

[B]

Yeah, we got.

[C]

We just got triggered.

[B]

We just got a comment on Facebook saying we can do better than Robert Frost on this podcast. How dare you, sir? How dare you?

[C]

I just did better than Robert Frost.

[B]

Oh, come on.

[C]

I gave you.

[B]

I mean, there's better than the History.

[C]

Of Marvin, Wendy and Wonder Dog.

[B]

That is pretty wonderful. But you know.

Something? There is that doesn't love. Anyway.

Moving on.

[C]

I mean, I have to say, I'm not a huge Rover fan.

[B]

That's okay. It's okay. You don't have to be.

[C]

I could go with that.

[B]

But, you know, wouldn't this be a nice time in Louisiana to stop by woods on a snowy evening, just throwing that out there?

[C]

It's not possible.

[B]

Yeah, so.

[C]

Yeah, so it just makes you feel worse.

Yeah, I was so desperate on Sunday that I said we were celebrating holy theophany.

[B]

Wow.

[C]

Instead of transfiguration. That's how desperately I wanted it to be. January, please.

[B]

Where it's only like, what, 85 on January 6th?

[C]

Yeah. Yeah, man. Toasty78 outside the AC works can handle that.

So, yes, the return of Christ.

Which we're actually going to start talking about. I mean, I know we've now just wasted a bunch of your time with that whole intro, but we are actually going to start talking about the topic here in the first half. Yeah, there's that.

[B]

So we're balancing that out a little bit.

[C]

Yeah, there's that.

And obviously this is sort of a critically important part of.

Our eschatology series. And we've obviously also already alluded to it. We alluded. Alluded to it back in the Antichrist episode where we talked about.

The Antichrist being destroyed by the breath of his mouth at Christ's appearing, we talked about it obliquely in the millennium episode, obviously Last Judgment, Christ is the judge. Right. But now we're sort of going to go head on to this and.

There are a number of issues surrounding this. They got to give people the lay of the land of why this is something that needs to be addressed. Because probably a lot of our listenership, since the majority numerically of our listenership is in the United States.

The return of Jesus Christ is something that has probably been of an outsized importance in their religious life.

[B]

Yeah, I mean I was just saying in our pre show that I have a digital copy of the late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey.

And I threatened to read parts of it on air and you weirdly says something about copyright. But.

[C]

Yeah, I mean I don't believe in it, but I could be victimized by it.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, but I mean. Yeah. Idea that Jesus is coming back soon. I mean like literally there's here in America of foreign listeners, there are billboards. You could be just driving down the road and you will see a billboard or some random little sign or even just a bumper sticker or step up to somebody's house and see a sign that says Jesus is coming back soon. You know, or my favorite, prepare to meet thy God. You know, kind of vaguely threatening. Yeah, I mean this is, it's not everywhere present, but I mean it's, it's definitely a thing. It's definitely a part of American culture. This sort of millenarian idea.

[C]

Yeah. And there are a not insignificant number of sort of parachurch ministries out there who present the gospel in terms of Christ's return.

They present the gospel as Christ is returning soon. You need to get right with God so you don't end up getting sent to hell at the Last judgment. Yeah, right. That's explicitly how they present the gospel ending of every episode of Jack Van Impe Presents. Right.

Both in his early mustachioed days and his later clean shaven days.

Yeah. So.

Yeah, for a lot of people it's taking on an outsized sort of importance. But.

We'Re going to be coming at it as is our want more from the perspective of the way it's treated in terms, in terms of discussions of ancient Christianity and.

The scriptures and the Bible where it's treated as first of all is sort of this weird Christian novum in the sense that.

It'S presumed that there's not an inkling of this Anywhere in the Hebrew Bible or even the Christian Old Testament.

That the idea that Christ left somewhere in the ascension and is going to come back was some kind of cope, basically by the. By his disciples to explain why Christ didn't start the Messianic age.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Immediately.

[B]

Oh, he. He's.

[C]

He's coming back and then he's gonna do all that other stuff. Right, right.

And.

Because in large part, because it's assumed to be this cope, then it's assumed that.

While they all expected it to come. Him to come back during their own lifetimes, not in the sense that they thought he could return at any time, but that, like they concretely believed, no, he's gonna come back within like 40 years or something.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And then, you know, there's this whole idea then. Well, once you assume that, well, okay, so then that means that all these ideas, like just the church as an organization or institution, sacraments, all these things, those must all be later after everybody got disappointed.

[B]

Yeah. Because why would you do all that stuff if Jesus is going to come back, like any second?

[C]

Right. And therefore, since this was just this cope, it was until that blew up that then they said, oh, well, I guess we need to lay down roots and build this. Build this institution.

And then what you would presume if any of that were true would be that sort of the expectation of Christ's return would go away. Which, if you've studied any church history, you know, is not the case.

In fact, there have been several significant periods of this kind of fervor that's come around in the. Came around in American evangelicalism in the latter half of the 20th century. Has happened a whole bunch of times in the past.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, just Even just the 19th century in America, like my personal favorite, the Millerites who came out here to Pennsylvania and, you know, gathered in the wilderness, waiting. I think it was, what was it, 1842.

Like October 19, 1842. I'm just throwing that off the top of my head. It might be a little wrong.

And, you know, Jesus is coming back on this day. And. And then when he didn't, it was called this one of my favorite names for an event ever, the Great Disappointment.

And then they coped with, well, he did come back, but it was like in heaven kind of thing.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

If any Millerites out there listening to me right now, I'm not sorry. Come on, guys.

[C]

Yeah. That is weak sauce, man. At least Harold Camping had the decency to get out of the business. Right?

[B]

Right. He said, oh, my bad. I was wrong.

[C]

But I Mean, this was around in the 18th century, the 16th century. Right. Like over and over again. If you actually go back and read, read some of the preaching surrounding the Crusades.

If you actually look at what the Crusade preachers were preaching from Peter the Hermit on the Crusade preachers were preaching, we need to go and claim Jerusalem, because once we've claimed Jerusalem, Christ will return to it.

[B]

Wow. How? 1948 of them.

[C]

Yes, exactly. Right, so this is all through Christian history, right? That, that. Well, and around the year, 1,000 people were selling their land all over Europe.

[B]

Well, and, and little known fact as well, which is surprising to me that this is a little known, although it was little known to me until someone told this to me, I guess by definition. But you know, the Reformation, there was a huge amount of millenarian fervor surrounding the Reformation. Like a lot of the early reformers really thought that Jesus was about to come back.

[C]

Like then Rome had been the great apostasy.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

And now it had been revealed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so this is a constant.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And it goes all the way back. So, right, we're going to be addressing the fact that this is not a cope. Right. There was no need for a cope. That means there's also no need for preterism. By the way.

Predatorism is just basically saying like, oh, yeah, Jesus kind of did return during their lifetime in 70 AD.

[B]

Yeah.

Yeah.

[C]

Just kind of dumb. I'm sorry, right.

This is the first time I've said predatorism is kind of dumb on the air on this show. So if there are predators. Laugh. Sorry, not sorry.

But this is actually.

We'Re going to talk about is Christ what we commonly call Christ's Second Advent or Second Coming. And we're going to talk about the actual biblical language. This is baked into the cake. This is built into the package. This is in the New Testament. And specifically it's in the way the New Testament reads the Old Testament. The New Testament sees this being in the Old Testament.

And once you understand the way that the New Testament is reading this out of the Old Testament, once you understand that, there's no reason based on that to think that they thought this was going to be a super short period of time. Yeah, it could be right. But there is no link in this to any, to any particular period of time. And this is not just an issue of there being a bunch of messianic promises that Jesus didn't keep. And so, well, he'll do that next time around. Right. That's not at all what's happening. So the first thing, as we just mentioned, that we have to kind of address is the language.

Right. And we talk about Christ's second coming or his return.

Part of the problem with Second Coming is a lot of people take that as if it's in, like, parallel.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

With Christ's nativity. Right, right. So, like, the. The whole plot of the Omen 3 is that the Antichrist, played by Sam Neill, thinks that Jesus is going to be born as a baby again.

[B]

I had to look that up. 1981 supernatural horror film. Well, that explains why I didn't watch it.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

I mean, I was. I was. That was right around the time of my life when, you know, relevant to this episode, I was being traumatized by films like A Distant Thunder and Thief in the.

[C]

Yeah, there you go. You know, so the. The Omen 3, I'm gonna spoil for everyone. The Antichrist, whose name is Damien Thorne, Inconspicuously nice.

Is.

Elected President of the United States, of course.

[B]

Wow. That's very late. Great Planet Earth kind of stuff.

[C]

Yeah. So he could become the world ruler, but believes that Jesus is going to be born as a baby again. And so goes around trying to figure out what baby it is and killing babies. That's basically the plot of the.

[B]

Wow. I mean, I feel like I read that somewhere already.

[C]

And the demons are all rottweilers. It's a whole. It's a whole thing, so. But.

[B]

It'S always some kind of demon dog, isn't it?

[C]

Always a demon dog, yes. Thanks, Son of Sam. Anyway, so David Berkowitz did that to all of us.

So that the end of the movie is just a complete deus ex machina. The end of the movie is just Jesus returns.

And it's like, duh, he wasn't gonna be born as a baby idiot.

[B]

Wow.

[C]

Like, that's how the movie ends.

[B]

Wow. You know, notably, Larry Cart of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 1.5 stars out of 4, praising Sam Neill's performance. Is the only thing the film had going for it.

[C]

Well, there you go.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

So. But yes. So.

Hopefully most people don't follow that language. To think that there's some kind of parallel there between Christ, Nativity and the Second Coming. Although there are other. I won't go into them all at any level of detail because that would get really tedious. I know.

[A]

For.

[C]

For even our audience. There are a number of other works of fiction where that happens or Jesus is born somewhere.

[B]

Well. And frankly, there are new religious movements of the 20th century that claim that their leader is that.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. They're kind of doing a Buddha rift. Jesus reborn, like Dalai Lama Buddha rift.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it is a thing not just in fiction.

[C]

Right. And so that makes sort of Second Coming, Second Advent.

A little misleading as a way to speak. Right. It's not that it's wrong to say that. It's just that way of speaking could be a little misleading. The other big one, of course, that I. I'm sure we've alluded to on the show before is that Christ's return.

Kind of implies that he left. Right.

[B]

Which I mean, he said, lo, I am with you to the end of the age. Which was not like some weird sick joke, you know.

[C]

Right, right. When he said that Right before the Ascension, like immediately before the ascension in Matthew 28.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

To make very clear him, his ascension into heaven was not him leaving.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Right. Was not him like going away somewhere.

[B]

And.

[C]

Part of. So part of the problem here is.

I think an over literal reading of the Ascension.

And you sometimes, especially if you know the orthodox icon of the Ascension has it. Right. A lot of other popular paintings and depictions of the Ascension. It's sort of Jesus jumping up into the air.

[B]

Yes. Right.

[C]

Or taking flight like Superman.

[B]

Yep.

[C]

I know of at least one Episcopal church where they release balloons.

[B]

Wow.

[C]

On Ascension Day.

[B]

Please. No.

[C]

Gosh. Kind of lame. But so, Right. Like, so this idea that Christ sort of floated up into the air and so he's out in space or.

Up there somewhere. Right. Like I said, that's a. That's a sort of goofy, weird, over literal reading.

This is pretty much, by the way.

If you've noticed by being on the Internet ever at all, this is pretty much the atheist playbook for the Bible. Is you read the Bible in some kind of goofy super literal way and then point out how goofy it is.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And act like you've refuted the Bible in Christianity.

[B]

Right. Y.

[C]

Right. But so that's. That's not what's actually being depicted in the Ascension. Right. So we've talked a lot before other show about Hebrew cosmology. Right. Where the earth was.

Imagined or seemed to be round, flat, supported by pillars. What's under the pillars? Nothing.

There's water down there, but the pillars aren't on anything.

And then there is a dome of the sky right above.

And God's throne. Right. What we would call heaven. Right. Was in the heavens. Right. Was above that.

Right. As we've talked about on this show many times, the Bible is not making a. Never makes a scientific claim that that is True, Right.

[B]

It's just the way the Bible language is used, Right.

[C]

The Bible speaks to people who. That was their mental image of the cosmos.

[B]

Right?

[C]

And so just like God uses human languages.

Right? And any given human language has. Has good and bad elements for conveying certain things.

[B]

Right?

[C]

So also God spoke to them in the language they understand. He didn't explain string theory to Moses. Right. Like.

So this is how they view it. This is how he talks to them. If God was speaking to someone today or communicating something today to someone, giving someone a vision today, he would do it in terms that they could understand. He would use their language and he would have the universe depicted the way they imagine it. Guess what? The way we 21st century folks imagine the universe is not the way the universe really is either.

[B]

What? I thought we were the most informed, the most advanced, the final chapter of history.

[C]

Thank you. 19th century Germany.

Yeah. So we're not either.

So if God came and talked to us today about the universe, the way it really is, the way he understands it to be as its creator, we would not know what he is talking about.

Right. He would have to communicate to us in our terms in order to communicate. And God does that throughout the Scriptures.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So he did that with the disciples and the apostles.

And so when the disciples saw Christ go into the heavens, carried by a cloud, this is why the icon of the Ascension, Orthodox icon, depicts Christ sitting on a cloud.

[B]

Yep. Right.

[C]

Not just flying.

This was communicating to them. The scene we've talked about several times in Daniel seven of the Son of Man coming before the ancient of days to be enthroned.

Right at his right hand.

[B]

Right?

[C]

So if you asked, right, jump at the tardis, go back to that day, right? The angels say to the disciples, hey, why are you still standing here? You guys have work to do, right? Stare it up into the sky. And you said to them, hey, what happened? What did you just see?

[B]

Right?

[C]

What they would tell you they just saw was Jesus being taken up to the throne of God and seated at his right hand. That's what they would tell you they saw.

[B]

Yeah.

Right.

[C]

Is that what a GoPro attached to their head would have recorded? No.

Right. No, it is not. But that's not the way ancient people thought, Right? And God was able to communicate not only in words from human languages, but through human imagery, through human actions.

[B]

Right.

[C]

When Christ cleanses the temple, he's communicating something through that action.

[B]

Right?

[C]

So, yes, this is. And.

This is one of those places where a certain group is going to be like, why does he sound so condescending when he talks about this.

Because this stuff seems like it should be basic, but it's amazing how many people.

Not all. I want to say, no, no, no, no, no, no. This means Jesus flew up into the sky from the top of this mountain right at this time on this date. And you need to affirm the accuracy of that historical fact or you're not a Christian or something. Right.

Which is not how Christianity works, is not how the Scriptures work. We've talked about this before. If you need more of this, go back to our how to read the Bible how and how not to read the Bible episode.

But so this also means that we can't interpret.

Right. That communication to the disciples who were there at the time, seeing it was clear. But we can't now go in through our 21st century scientific lens and try to interpret this in terms of time and space, in terms of temporal and spatial categories.

Right. Like by asking the question, sorry, Calvinists and the extra Calvinisticum, which I know I've bashed a lot on the show, but asking the question where is Jesus? Or where is Jesus body? Now.

Shows you don't get it.

Right. That shows that you don't get it.

Jesus body is a physical body, but it's not somewhere in the material universe occupying material space.

It doesn't need to be. He's God. Yeah, Right. Just like God's throne is not in a particular spot.

Occupying particular space. If you asked about the measurements of God's throne, it would show that you don't get it. Right.

We're not talking about a literal chair somewhere.

Right. Or in this case, a literal throne chariot somewhere.

[B]

Right.

[C]

God's God's rule, which is what God's throne represents.

[B]

Right.

[C]

His reign, which is what him being seated represents. Right. And is. Because there's not a difference between represents. It is his rule is everywhere.

Treats his throne is everywhere.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Which means the other throne at his right hand is everywhere and the one seated in it is everywhere.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And so that means.

That Christ is present everywhere. He's not absent from any place. He hasn't gone away where he needs to come back.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Now, that said, there is obviously something that changes at the time of the ascension.

Right.

Christ was also, by the way, as God everywhere during what we call his earthly life.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, there's.

Is it the anaphora of Saint Basil the Great that says, you know, like in the grave of the body, but in Hades where the soul is God and in paradise with a thief and on the Throne of the Father and the Spirit. Was thou, Christ, filling all things thyself uncircumscribed? No, that's in even Chris Austin's liturgy, now that I think about it.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

I mean, he's, he's.

[C]

That's what he was dead, Right, right, exactly.

[B]

He's still all those things in all those places all at once, you know.

[C]

Right. But. But.

He was present in a different sense, obviously, with his bodily presence.

Of the myth of the disciples.

And this is a little bit brain breaking.

In terms of if you try to figure out how it works. So don't try. We're talking about God. But this is parallel to, remember, we're told over and over again, especially in St. John's gospel, that Christ's body is the temple.

Right. And if you look at the Old Testament, the Old Testament is completely clear that God is everywhere.

If I go to the depths of Sheol, there He is. If I go to the top of the mountains, there he is. If I go. Right. God is everywhere. And it's also equally clear that he is present in a special way among his people in the tabernacle and in the temple.

So when St. John in his prologue says the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and then when he talks about from very early in his Gospel, right. Destroy this temple. I'll rebuild it in three days. And St. John adds the parenthetical comment he was speaking of his body, just in case you didn't get it.

[B]

Right.

[C]

He's drawing a direct parallel to this.

Right. It's not that all of a sudden now the Logos of God, Right. The divine Logos is only present.

You know, where Christ's body is, Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And no longer present any of the other places.

He is still present all the other places, but he is present in the special way. Allah, the temple, Allah, the tabernacle. Right.

Allah, Any theophany in the Old Testament, for that matter.

Among his disciples. And it's that.

Kind of presence, that immediate bodily presence where they could look with their physical eyes and see his face.

Right. And touch him, etc.

That is what changes at the Ascension.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So the way or the mode in which he is present changes.

[B]

Yeah. Which I mean.

Even if you just look at what he says at the Ascension, that would seem obvious, like, okay, they're not seeing him bodily anymore. And yet he says, I'm with you always to the end of the age. So, okay, that's pretty straightforward.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Still get ourselves tied into knots trying to figure it out though. Right.

[C]

The place where this is described as much as it can be described to us humans is, appropriately enough, since I just referenced the early parts of St. John's Gospels. In the latter parts of St. John's Gospel, particularly surrounding Christ's prayers in the presence of the disciples and then his prayers for the disciples.

Before his arrest, that we read at great length in that first Gospel reading on Holy Thursday.

Where Christ talks about the Holy Spirit.

That the key change that happens at the ascension is that rather than Christ being present in their midst in this physical way, this mode of physical presence where they can see.

Him with their eyes, hear him with their ears, touch him with their hands, that he is now going to be present among them in.

The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit who is going to come after the Ascension, makes Christ present.

And so this language.

That then permeates the rest of the New Testament.

Becomes a stumbling block for a lot of people in modern translations, because we get this word spiritually.

Where the Spirit in spiritual or spiritually isn't capitalized.

[B]

Yeah. And it sort of means.

Not real.

[C]

Yeah. Like some ephemeral way or some allegorical.

[B]

Or analogical way, like being spiritual but not religious.

[C]

Yeah, like just some vague, you know. No, that's true. Spiritually now.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And that means not really.

And again, in the text, this is quite the opposite. In the text, this is capital S. This is the Holy Spirit.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And so in debates, and yes, we're going to be touching on the Eucharist here. So especially in these debates, but in others as well.

This dichotomy is drawn between spiritual and real.

And again, the Eucharist is a clear place. We just debates. There's. Well.

These groups, Roman Catholics, Orthodox Lutherans, believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. And.

Calvinists, who at least the handful who follow Calvin, believe in the spiritual presence or. And maybe even some other Protestant groups will use that same language, even though their meaning is even more ephemeral than Calvin's. Right.

And yes, spiritual is not as opposed to real, because the Holy Spirit is real and the Holy Spirit is God.

[B]

Right, Right.

[C]

And so a place where we. Where we see, I think, are a good example of this issue in interpretation is when people are.

Interpreting.

Passage says, wherever two or three are gathered in my name.

There I will be in the midst of them.

[B]

Yep.

[C]

And a lot of interpretations of this are just, hey, man, two or three Christians.

Some pretzels and an acoustic guitar.

[B]

Right.

[C]

There's Jesus hanging out with us.

That's not what it's saying.

At All. And the key part there is what does it mean to gather in Christ's name?

Right.

That's not just.

A random phrase. That's not just like the purpose. Like, hey, we gathered this week to re watch Breaking Bad. Next week we're gathering to talk about Jesus, right? That's not just the topic.

This is picking up the language from the Old Testament, going all the way back into Genesis, of calling on the name of the Lord.

And to call on the name of the Lord didn't just mean to say Yahweh out loud, Right. Calling on the name of the Lord meant worship, and specifically it meant sacrifice.

Right. And you can read the psalm verse, I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Which we sing, you know, as a communion hymn at a number of the feasts of the church.

[C]

Right. So this is, this is referring to the Eucharist.

That when Christians gather to celebrate the Eucharist, Christ is there with them. And how is he there? He's there in the power of the Holy Spirit, the core of the orthodox divine Liturgy. This is why for us, the epiclesis is the most important part. More important than the words of institution, more important than anything else.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Because it is at that epiclesis where, just as the Holy Spirit made Christ present in the womb of the Theotokos at the Annunciation, the Holy Spirit makes Christ present on the altar.

In the Eucharist.

And so again.

Right. Someone will say, well, wait a minute, isn't Christ everywhere?

And we'll say again, yes, just like God was everywhere in the Old Testament, but especially in the temple. Yeah, but especially in the tabernacle. But especially in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, but especially of the Eucharist.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So those aren't at odds with each other.

If you understand this in the Scriptures.

[B]

So.

[C]

That means.

Hypothetically, you could describe every Eucharistic celebration as another coming of Christ.

Of Christ again becoming present with us. Right.

And so when we talk about what is commonly called Christ's second coming, we again, we need to be more specific and make some distinctions. Right. Because what we're talking about, that comes at the end, before the day of judgment, etcetera, Right. Is this unique event, this unique coming.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Of Christ. And so the New Testament uses a few different words.

To explain this. By the way.

[B]

For.

[C]

The people listening live.

This may not be relevant to the people listening to the recording, but for people listening live, yes, I am in a wind tunnel where they're testing aircraft engines.

[B]

Speaking of live Listeners, though we actually have someone listening from Scotland tonight, so good on you staying up late. Yeah.

[C]

Enjoying your beautiful temperatures.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

So.

The most common term and the Greek term that you're probably familiar with, because.

To deal with sort of the misleading nature of talking about Christ's return or his second coming, a lot of times if you're reading, you know, high popular into academic literature, they'll just use the term parousia, untranslated from Greek to refer to what we call Christ's second coming.

[B]

Yeah. Which is. I don't know, it's kind of a weird flex, I think. But okay.

[C]

I mean, like I said, I kind of get why they do it. The English translations don't really do justice to the word, but. Yeah, sometimes it's just weird because you.

[B]

Still have to explain it.

[C]

Yeah. You still then have to explain if.

[B]

You, you know, if you care whether people who read your stuff understand you.

[C]

Yeah, well, you know, a lot of people make, make a good market out of muddying the waters to make them appear deep. Right. Like you make it deliberately semi intelligible so everyone just assumes you're smart. And nobody wants. It's like the Emperor's New Clothes. Nobody wants to admit that they didn't get it.

I'm not talking about anyone's work in particular. I'm saying sometimes that happens Here.

[B]

I was thinking of post structures literary theorists, but. Oh, you know.

[C]

Oh, they're, they're.

Annoying.

[B]

I suffered through a lot of that stuff when I was in undergrad.

[C]

I was like, yeah.

[B]

What? What?

[C]

Yeah, I don't really have a good apologia for Jacques Derrida.

No.

[B]

For so many reasons, you know.

[C]

I mean, yeah, he was less fascist than Heidegger, but.

Way worse. Read like.

That'S saying something with old Mark. Anyway.

[B]

All right. Potter. Sia. Fancy Greek word.

[C]

It's not actually that fancy a Greek word.

[B]

That's true. I mean, it's another one of those, though, that doesn't. That it doesn't super work to just etymologically pull it apart because it kind of means like being alongside or being with. I mean, I mean, it sort of works.

[C]

Sort of works, but kinda. But you know, Butterfly.

[B]

Yeah, right.

Breakfast.

[C]

Yeah, so it's, it's pretty commonly used in St. Paul. I'm just gonna Jack van impu you a few references that you can slow this down and look up later if you're so inclined. 1st Corinthians 15, verse 23, 16, verse 17. 2nd Corinthians 7, verses 6 and 7, 10, verse 10 Philippians 1, verses 26, 2, 12, 1 Thessalonians 2, 19, 3, 13, 4, 15, 5, 23, 2 Thessalonians 2:1 and 8 and 9. Except he could do it faster. And from memory, he's a big.

[B]

He's a real pro, you know, So.

[C]

I have to give him that.

Yeah. And not all of those, by the way, as we're going to mention in a minute, have to do with. With Christ's return.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Some of those are other uses of the word.

[B]

Yeah. Some are just about other people and not any particular, like, special moment. They just. It means. And so. And so showed up.

[C]

Yeah. Or was there, or. Yeah.

So it's also other places in the New Testament. Get ready for another list. Matthew 24, verse 3, verse 27, 37, 39 James 5, 7, 8, 2 Peter 1, 16, 3, 4, and 12. 1 John 2, 28.

I'll use the term parnesia. So in terms of what it means, in terms of really nailing down what it means.

Normally. Normally almost 100% of the time, if you want to know what a Greek word means in the New Testament, you need to see what it's used to translate in the Greek Old Testament.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Because literally a lot of the.

New Testament writers are thinking in Hebrew or Aramaic and writing in Greek.

[B]

Right. So they're kind of. It's kind of a clunky.

[C]

They're translating in their head.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Right. And this is where a lot of New Testament interpretation goes wrong, is jumping right into lexica of general Greek and classical Greek without referencing the Greek Old Testament tradition.

So that is almost 100% of the time.

[B]

The.

[C]

The thing that you need to do. I'm gonna. I'm gonna go ahead. This is gonna get a bunch of people mad.

But I don't think I've really ticked anybody off yet tonight. So here we go. Kini Greek, or coin a Greek, as it's sometimes called, doesn't exist and isn't a thing.

[B]

Dun, dun, dun.

I feel like I should have some kind of jingle ready for whenever you say that kind of thing.

[C]

It's biblical Greek.

[B]

Someone get me a budget for a good soundboard.

[C]

It's Hellenistic Greek written by Semitic language speakers. That's all it is.

[B]

Yeah. It's Greek as a second language.

[C]

It is not a separate dialect. It is not a separate language. It doesn't exist outside the Greek scriptures. And liturgical Greek is just the continuation of that.

Using that same pattern, which is overlaid. If you haven't studied Hebrew and Aramaic, you can't understand it properly now. Now our Greek listenership is picking up pitchforks and torches, but deal with it. It's true. It is verifiably true.

[B]

How dare you? How dare you.

[C]

If you want to prove me wrong.

Give me an example of kini Greek outside of the Greek scriptures. Because everybody else who writes at that time, Philo Josephus in Greek, it's not the same dialect.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, mostly most of the time now actually you hear people refer to it as biblical Greek. Like I'm taking biblical Greek.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The common kini means common.

It became the common Greek because it was biblical Greek.

It was the other way.

The same way that the Latin vulgate was not like vulgar Latin at the time St. Jerome made the translation, it became the common Latin due to St. Jerome's translation.

Anyway, so now that's irritated a bunch of people. Now I got, I got some Latin folks mad at me too at that last little bit. I bet.

So all that said, remember how I said almost 100% of the time, this is the exception, Parousia.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Because parousia gets used a bunch in the Christian Old Testament. The Greek Old Testament.

Never once used for God.

What do I mean by that? I mean all the places in the Hebrew Bible as they're getting translated into the Greek Old Testament tradition, all the places in the Hebrew Bible that talk about God visiting his people the day of the Lord.

God appearing, God coming to Abraham, God coming to Mount Sinai, God coming on the last day in judgment, none of them use the term paroussia.

To refer to it.

So there is no direct connection to using that Greek term to refer to anything related to the end of days, the Last Judgment, etc.

So this is the one case where you do have to go and look at how it's used in the, the Greek.

Surrounding, particularly in the Roman world.

In the first century A.D. when St. Paul and the other New Testament writers are using it.

And the way it was used was to refer to someone being present in person.

Right. Them visiting or their arrival. St. Paul uses it this way to describe himself coming to visit one of the churches.

[B]

Yeah, my, my parousia.

[C]

Right.

So it's being there in person. He makes this contrast between, oh, you know, he seemed bold in his epistles, but then when he was here in person, when he was, when he. Parousia. Right. Then something else. Right.

So often it was used to refer to the visit of the Roman emperor or another official, a senator, a general, a governor.

And the idea was sort of their.

[B]

Rule.

[C]

Is already present.

Right. So the understanding in the Roman Empire, right. Caesar, even though they believed him to be divine, or at least be possessed by a divine spirit, he was only in one physical place at a time.

Right. Nevertheless, Caesar's rule or his dominion or his power extended over the whole empire.

So that dominion or that rule of Caesar was already in Thessalonica. But then if.

Caesar comes to Thessalonica in person, Right. That would be his parousia.

His sort of bodily presence.

And so this makes it a particularly good word for what we're describing here, because remember, the New Testament writers do not see Christ as being absent.

Right? His kingdom, his rule, his authority is here and everywhere.

But there comes a day when he is again present in person the way he was before his disciples on that mountain in Galilee right before the Ascension.

Supary is helpful in that way.

There are a couple of other words, though, that are used in the New Testament to describe this. One of them is epiphanea.

I. E. Epiphany.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Which means appearing or manifestation.

[B]

Yep.

[C]

And this one we can and should go back to the Greek Old Testament tradition. Right? And there we see this one gets used all the time regarding God.

For example, in the theophanies, when he appears to Abraham, this is the word that's used.

[B]

Right.

[C]

When he manifests himself to Abraham.

Over and over again. And of course, theophany is built out of the word epiphany, Right.

It's just got the theos appended instead of the preposition.

But it's also importantly, not just used for those sort of general theophanies, but epiphaneia is used in at least a few places to describe the day of the Lord, that on the day of the Lord, God is going to appear.

[B]

Yeah. Right.

[C]

And Those are in, for example, Joel 2, verse 11 and 31, and Malachi 3, verse 23. So you see, those are fairly late Old Testament books in their Greek translations.

And then St. Paul picks up this language. This is where it's often translated in English. His glorious appearing, or his appearing in glory, or the appearance of his glory, depending on how the English translators chose to render it.

And Those are in two Timothy 4:1:8, second Thessalonians 2:8, and Titus 2:13, for example.

Use that language. So again, it's not that Christ is absent and becomes present again, it's Christ is present, but not in a visible way, and he appears or manifests himself.

And then, relatedly.

The language of apokalypsis, right? Apocalypse, the obvious English transliteration, which means to reveal or Uncover.

And this is used repeatedly in the Greek Old Testament to talk about when God reveals himself to the prophets, to commission them. So, for example, 1st Samuel 3, 7, 21, when he appears, reveals himself to Samuel the prophet. 2nd Samuel 7, verse 27, he reveals himself to David. Amos 3, verse 7, talks about him revealing himself to the prophets in general. This language is used previous episode, we talked at length about Balaam son of Beor. He tries to curse Israel instead ends up blessing Israel. And that's because in the Greek text, God reveals himself to him in numbers 22, 31, 24, 4, 16. And this language is used to describe this last day and what happens with Christ. That Christ is revealed in 2 Thessalonians 1, 7, 1 Corinthians 1, 7, 8, and 1 Peter 4:13, with this idea that Christ is still present. Present, but his presence is in some way veiled and then gets uncovered.

[B]

Yeah, which. That's one of the reasons I like this particular word to describe what's happening. Because, like, he's there, but, you know, like you said, veiled. And then, okay, now he's unveiled. He's not anymore there, but he becomes apparent. He reveals himself.

[C]

Right, Right. And so you could see, the other thing that this connection through the word apocalypsis brings out is that there's this overlap between the prophetic vision of the prophets in the Old Testament and.

The appearance of Christ at his quote, unquote, second advent. Right. In terms of what is seen and who is seen and how he is seen. And this then likewise dovetails with one of the orthodox churches called the Vision of Christ and His Uncreated Glory, which is an experience given to certain saints by God.

But one of the key elements of it.

According to St. Gregory Palamas, is that they are seeing him with their eyes.

[B]

Yeah. It's not just some kind of mental vision or dream.

[C]

Right. They're seeing it with their eyes, which means this is the kind of presence, this is the kind of revealing that is going to happen for everyone on the last day.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Is going to constitute what we call Christ's return or Second coming.

[B]

Yep. All right, well, that's been our first half, so we're going to take a little break. And we will be right back with the Lord of Spirits podcast.

[A]

Father Andrew, Stephen Damick and father Stephen DeYoung will be back in a moment to take your calls on the next part of the Lord of Spirits. Give them a call at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-ADIO.

[B]

This is Andrew Williams. My new book, From Object to the Struggle for Spiritual Vision in a Pornographic World, shows how we can stop objectifying others and instead see the spiritual reality in everyone we encounter. From Object to Icon, is now [e-mail].

[C]

Faith.Com A new edition of the Good Samaritan, a first of its kind catechism.

[B]

Written specifically for young people to communicate.

[C]

The unchanging truths of the orthodox faith, is now [e-mail] faith.com.

[A]

We'Re back now with the Lord of Spirits, the Father Andrew, Stephen Damick, and Father Stephen DeYoung. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

[B]

Hey, that was pretty short and sweet for commercials, and we didn't even have to listen to one with your voice on it, so thankfully.

[C]

Yeah, I don't know how that first book is. It's brand new, so of course, I haven't read it.

[B]

Yeah, it's brand new.

[C]

Delightful accent.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

There's an audio book to pick up, right?

[B]

Yeah. I got to talk to him a little bit as we were working on the book initially, you know, when we were sort of deciding whether or not to accept it. And yeah, he's got a great accent. An actual Englishman.

[C]

Yes. I'm sure we sound like warbling geese to him, but we find his accent delightful.

[B]

It's true. Although, you know, I've noticed that when people from other countries, especially.

British people, do an American accent, a lot of the time they just kind of default to Texas. Like, that's what an American accent is.

[C]

There is the cowboy thing, but the other thing is they sort of over pronounce. Ah, that sound.

[B]

Yeah. Right.

[C]

Because they don't do that sound. They have like the chimpanzee. Right, Right. So if they're doing America, it's like.

[B]

Chimpanzee, which is kind of a little Brooklyn Y, I think.

[C]

Yeah. I listen to a lot of Doctor who audio dramas, and.

When they've got British actors doing Americans, I feel judged.

It's judgy.

[B]

Come on.

[C]

Big finish.

[B]

We accept it. We need to. I mean, if there's anything America needs to do, it's repent. I mean, a little.

[C]

Hey. And I'm. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Well, welcome back, everybody. It is the second half of the Lord of Spirits, and we're. We're ready to take your calls. If you got something you want to talk about. If you feel that you're about to be raptured, call in. We'd love to talk to you on.

[C]

Your way up and explain to you that you're not.

[B]

That's right. It's 855-AF-RADIO. That's 855-237-2346.

So. Right. Okay. So we talked about this idea of appearing. Right.

[C]

You know, and the various Christ appearing, not people disappearing.

[B]

Yes, right, exactly. Yeah. You know, the various words that are used for that in the scriptures and of course, appearance of God and all this kind of thing.

So what, what is this then, about a second appearing? Right. That there's two of them. What is that all about? Like, why does that need to be a thing? As you said earlier, did Jesus come in like, oh, oh, actually, you know, I'll do the rest of that stuff later by, you know, like, what's going on? Why is there. Why are there two.

[C]

Right. Well, so.

This is part of that false construct again.

Right. Which is.

This idea that, first of all, there was sort of one uniform view in ancient Judaism and that that one uniform view was the Messiah is going to show up one day. He is then immediately during his lifetime, going to inaugurate the world to come.

[B]

Yeah. And everything will be.

[C]

And the resurrection of the dead and eternity and all of that. Right.

And if you've been listening to this show for a while, you know already, that's bunkum. Right. Like, first of all, there was no uniform view by quote, unquote, Judaism in the first century. There are Judaism.

At best.

Some people have even said you shouldn't even talk about Judaisms because that implies more organization than the. There was. Right. Like Judaisms makes people think that there were like different denominations or something. Right. That had like structure, internal structures and hierarchies and stuff, which some Jewish groups had and some didn't. Right.

And those folks say you should really just talk about the religious beliefs and practices of Jewish people during the period.

Right.

Which is a different kind of approach. So the idea that there was this monolithic view and that.

Therefore the disciples would have to figure out how to defend the reality of what Jesus of Nazareth did over against that monolithic view doesn't hold water.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So before we dive deep into that, we actually do have someone calling from. Well, his phone is from Texas. I'm not sure if he's from Texas.

[C]

But Are you implying he's using a stolen burner phone?

[B]

Well, you know.

We recently got a phone for one of our kids, and then the kid calls me and it says that it's in Utah. I'm like, wait, what? Somehow his phone number Is from Utah. I don't know.

[C]

Your kid's flirting with Mormonism, Father.

[B]

Or maybe just the phone is Mormon.

[C]

You know, that could be.

[B]

Could be, yes. Anyway, we have Paul calling from Texas. Maybe so, Paul, are you there with us?

[D]

I am. Hello, Father.

[B]

Good evening. Welcome to Lord of Spirits podcast. Are you indeed in Texas, or is.

[C]

It just your family in the Republic of Texas?

[D]

Yeah, I indeed am in Texas.

[B]

Alrighty. Well, we have recalled the Alamo.

[D]

Well, then we can be at peace.

[B]

Okay, good.

[D]

Okay, so my question is kind of a question that I'm hoping can provide some contrast. Even after the episodes about spirit and how much that's helped, I'm still a little bit muddy on some things.

[B]

Okay.

[D]

I recently learned in reference to when Christ confirmed that St. John the Baptist came in the spirit of Elijah.

That that's not Elijah's return. That apparently was prophesied, which I didn't know about until recent Sunday school either, and that some of the church fathers believe that both Elijah and Enoch are. Could be the two witnesses in Revelation. Now, I only reference that to ask y' all maybe contrast a bit more. What. What being present in spirit means as opposed to being bodily present. Because I do know, perhaps y' all have seen a show called Messiah. It seemed like they kind of explored the idea of somebody being, you know, returning in spirit. Like as though Christ returned, but he returned in some other human individual and that's his return.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Which obviously is incorrect, but I was so muddy on the waters that even though I knew it was wrong, I was still really confused. It was an enjoyable show either way. But.

Yeah, if you could just please explain that a little bit more to give some contrast.

[B]

Right. I mean, so when Christ returns, it is Christ. Right. And, you know, I mean, it says right at the end of the Gospels, you're going to see him come in the manner in which he. You're seeing him ascend. Right. So, I mean, that's one of the things that's kind of funny about all these people who say, you know, oh, this is the second coming of Jesus. I'm like, well, but, like, we have pretty clear description of what that's going to be like, you know, from the angels who speak to the apostles right after the ascension. Right. So, like, it's not going to be some weird secret or, you know.

But. But yeah, I mean, I think it's an interesting question, right. That John the Baptist is Elijah, but not. But not. He's not the second coming of Elijah. Right. It's not.

[D]

Which I thought he was before my priest elaborated on that. I was very completely.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there is this tradition that he and Enoch are going to be the two witnesses that appear at the end, you know, before the second coming of. Before the second manifestation of Christ. I'm trying to see I have to revise my own language, you know, because I'm sitting here with Father Stephen digitally. So, yeah, I don't know. Father, you want to help Paul in Texas out here?

[C]

Yeah, yeah. So. And back in the episode we did about St. John the Forerunner, we talked about the relationship between him and Elijah and how Elijah is more like a patron saint to him. Right. And the idea of the mantle of Elijah. Right. And so, yeah.

The two witnesses being Enoch and Elijah in Revelation is picked up actually from Second Temple Jewish literature that talks about Enoch and Elijah because they're the two figures in the Old Testament who don't die.

That they return in some capacity. Right. And either finish their life or do something. In the case of Enoch, a lot of times that's connected to. There's one of the very commonplace things in Second Temple Jewish literature and the New Testament is.

This connection between.

The days of Noah, right. In which Enoch is in that lead up to when God is going to destroy the world, judge the world under Noah and.

The end of this age. Right. And so it's considered sort of particularly appropriate that Enoch come back, would come back in that context. Right.

The book of Enoch and other Enochic literature that's written in the Second Temple period is really playing with this idea that they believed they were living in the great tribulation following the exile, that they were coming to the end of the age. And so it was like, oh, well, these prophecies of Enoch from the last time the world got this bad, they're particularly relevant again now. And you even see this coming in.

The New Testament, right. When it talks about.

Christ glorious appearing and it talks about, you know, as in the days of Noah, people were being married and given in marriage and all these things were. Right. There are these sort of similar comparisons. Right. But.

Yeah, that it's the actual people reincarnated in some sense. Right. Is taking it a little too literally, right. That this, this is about a sort of spiritual dynamic of people prophesying and living and speaking in certain situations. The parallels between those situations and those people.

[B]

Yeah, I don't think it's. I mean, I think it's okay to say, like for instance, the Apolitikan that we sing for the prophet Elias calls him the second forerunner of Christ, God's coming to us. Right. Which is in line with that tradition of him being one of these two witnesses. And I think it's okay to say Elias will come before the end. How exactly that plays out, I don't really think we know. You know, is that going to be him showing up on earth again? Him. Him or people acting in the way that he did? You know, like, I don't think we totally know. Right.

[C]

I mean, it is possible that literally.

Elijah and Enoch could show up in some capacity. Right. Eschatologically. Yeah, we're not ruling that out. Yeah, but. But I don't think.

It literally happening is demanded by what's being said in Scripture either.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Okay. So you, in contrast to Christ, bodily returning he himself, not somebody else, in some other way, would it be fair to say, kind of like what Father Andrew Stephen Damek just said, that maybe coming in the spirit of somebody is more about behaving in their, like their mantle of, like, their pattern of action, like the way they operate, the way they think, the way they speak.

[C]

That that's kind of a short way to take it. I would. I would go back and listen to the episode about St. John, the forerunner. We go into that in more detail in the way that, like, you know, St. John says he isn't Elijah and then at another point Christ says he. That he. He was.

[B]

Right. Yeah, the episode.

[C]

So he both is and isn't in different senses. Right.

[B]

The episode, if you're looking it up, if you haven't listened to it yet, is called make straight the paths for our God.

[D]

So I will check that out tomorrow. Thank you very much, Fathers.

[B]

You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you very much for calling in. All right. Why don't we talk about Psalm 110? I mean, the New Testament does all the time.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So we're getting it back into. Right. This idea that. So not only is there no sort of monolithic Judaism that has one view of exactly what the Messiah is going to do when he comes. If you go back and listen to our Messiah episode, you'll know that during the Second Temple period, a lot of different Jewish groups were expecting multiple messiahs.

[B]

Oh, yeah, right, right.

[C]

And not just. I mean, apropos to the caller. Right. Not just some who thought, well, Elijah's gonna come and then the Messiah is gonna come, but priestly Messiah, kingly Messiah. Right. That they had a lot of different views. Right. And.

So there wasn't some need.

Imposed by necessity to keep their movement alive in the face of some embarrassment for the New Testament writers to come up with this idea of the Messiah coming twice.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So where then did they get it?

[B]

Right.

[C]

And so we're going to talk about some of the scriptures of the Hebrew Bible and then the Greek Old Testament tradition from which.

They get it. And the first of those is, as Father Andrew mentioned, Psalm 110, 109 in the Greek. This is the most quoted Hebrew Bible Old Testament text in the New Testament over and over again. Book of Hebrews is just a meditation on. It gets quoted everywhere. So it's critically important. If the major theme of the New Testament is that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah.

This is the key text that's being used to describe what that means.

Throughout the New Testament.

And also, I know we talked about this way, way back in the long ago time, like an early episode, like in the fir, within the first 10 episodes.

During one of the episodes I remember we talked about why we say Yahweh live on air.

And one of the key reasons we gave is that the way English Bible translations do both Yahweh as Lord and other words that mean Lord as Lord makes it hard to follow some passages.

[B]

Yeah. And Psalm 110, verse one is sort of ground zero for that.

[C]

Right. Which is, of course in English, is usually the Lord said to my Lord.

[B]

Yeah. But it's in Hebrew. It's Yahweh said to Adonai.

[C]

Yeah. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. And then verse two talks about ruling in the midst of your enemies.

Which.

[B]

Is kind of before and after the ascension.

[C]

Right, Right. So reading this. Right. Christ quotes this, of course, to the Pharisees and scribes and says after giving them the first verse, says.

If.

The Messiah is David's son, how does he call him Lord? Right. And it says they went away discouraged, unable to answer him. Well, one easy answer would have been, this isn't talking about the Messiah.

[B]

Right.

[C]

But that was not an option for them, apparently.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So this shows there was broad acceptance that this psalm is talking about the Messiah, that the Adonai here is the Messiah. Right. It's the Lord Messiah.

And what does it say here? The Lord Messiah is enthroned.

Is enthroned at the right hand of God.

But he's not enthroned to rule over the now perfectly justified and purified earth.

Over a time of abundance. He's enthroned to rule in the midst of his enemies. His enemies are still out there. They're still out there causing trouble for some period of time.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And then at the end of that period of time, something else happens. And in verse five.

Right, and this is another place where you read it in English and it says, the Lord is at your right hand.

And just reading that quickly in English, that may sound like, well, is the. You me, like God is always at my right hand. Or if you look at it, the Lord there is not Yahweh. The Lord there is Adonai again.

[B]

Right, so Christ.

[C]

Right, so it's the Lord, the Messiah is at your meaning, Yahweh's right hand. Right. That's where he was in verse one. Sit at my right hand.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And then it describes him destroying the enemies.

[B]

Yeah. Shatter kings on the day of his wrath.

[C]

On the day of his wrath. The day. Right. So there is this period of time between the enthronement of the Messiah to rule and the final judgment, the final destruction of the enemies. There's a period of time, and there's nothing here to suggest that it's short, long, medium. Right.

Nothing here to suggest length.

Another passage from the Psalms, Psalm 2.

Why in the King James? Why does the heathen rage?

[B]

Why do the heathen rage such a great word?

[C]

And the nations plot in vain. Yeah.

But in verse two, they plot against Yahweh and his Messiah, or his Christ in the Greek.

[B]

Yeah. Against the Lord and his anointed, as it says, like in the esv. Right.

[C]

And verse three makes clear that this isn't talking about David.

[B]

Right. Because it says, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their courts from us, which.

[C]

These are the nations.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. David is not in bondage.

[C]

David didn't rule over the Gentiles.

[B]

Right, Right.

[C]

David didn't rule over the nations. He ruled over Israel.

[B]

Right. Yep.

[C]

Right. So it's the Messiah who's going to come to rule over the nations.

[A]

Right.

[C]

The ultimate Messiah, the ultimate son of David.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Who's going to do that? And then in verse four, he who sits in the heavens laughs, and the Lord Adonai holds them in derision. Right, so this is the two of them laughing.

[B]

Yeah. Kind of sharing a joke between themselves.

[C]

Yes. At the kings and the rulers of the nations. Right.

And then in verse seven, when you get the coronation language, it's Yahweh said to me, you are my son, today I have begotten you.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So this is the Messiah's coronation. Right. His enthronement.

Right. It's the son. Verse nine is interesting.

The original Hebrew has, you shall break.

Well, okay, the Hebrew, as it's typically vowel pointed in the mass that are Hebrew text, has, you shall break them with a rod of iron. The Greek has, you shall rule them with a rod of iron. And you can get rule instead of break based on different vowel marks.

[B]

There you go, a nice little deeper, deep cut there.

[C]

Yeah.

So again, you have this period of time depicted where.

The Messiah is reigning at the right hand of God, and there are still these enemies.

Who at some ultimate point are going to throw off their shackles, see battle of Armageddon, etc. And then be defeated by the Messiah.

We won't go into too much detail on daniel7 again just because we keep coming back to it over and over and over again.

[B]

Go see our Son of Man episode if you really want to do all that again.

[C]

But Daniel 7, son of man, is enthroned, the right hand of the ancient of days. In verses 13 and 14. It talks about how he's enthroned over the nations. But then there's this period of time between his enthronement and the saints taking possession of the kingdom and the beasts being judged, right? So there's this period of time. See the millennium episode recently, the Son of Man episode. We go more into that, into Daniel 7 and the details of that there. But again, there's this period of time.

Right? This period of time. And it's that period of time, excuse me, that we talked about in the millennium episode. But that also.

Represents why that ultimate judgment by the Messiah is described as a second coming, right? Because it's after his enthronement and this period of time.

And so the fact that Christ is seated at the right hand of God the Father, right.

Becomes an important.

[B]

Statement.

[C]

In the New Testament and then subsequently in the Creed and in Christian theology.

So.

The first kind of place that comes up is in the gospels, in Matthew 26, 64, Mark 14, verse 62, Luke 22, verse 69. These are all parallel passages. These are all Jesus speaking to the high priest, right? He says, from now on, you'll see this Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, or sitting at the right, which.

[B]

Which makes angels super unhappy when he says that, right?

[C]

But this Son of Man sitting at the right hand, right? And coming to judge, right? That's. That's the important part here, right? That this is a thing. So I know friend of the show Bart Ehrman.

Based on the, shall we say, less than nuanced way he has made some of his arguments in his popular level books has convinced a lot of people that the title son of man was not referring to any kind of heavenly or eschatological figure ever.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So there's a period of time when people took any time the phrase son of man appeared in the New Testament. It was referring directly to like Daniel seven and all, everything. Right. Obviously you're gonna be able to find exceptions to that. Right. So obviously we have to say, well, no, not always. Right. But due to the way Bart Ehrman and others. Bartima is just most well known one and the friend of the show.

The way he made that argument, he's now convinced a lot of people that just like it never means that. Well, here's three examples parallel passage where it clearly means that.

[B]

Yeah, And Bart, you know, you're a friend of the show. Why don't you go listen to our.

[C]

Son of man episode or just call in.

[B]

Yeah, call in. I would love to hear you talk to him.

[C]

He will jump. If friend of the show Bart Ehrman ever calls this show, he will go straight to the front of the line.

[B]

Yeah, why not?

[C]

We will immediately take the call. We will devote the rest of the show to talking to him if necessary, as long as he wants to talk.

[B]

Wow, that is the biggest invitation you've ever given on this show.

[C]

Yes, yes. And I mean it.

So.

Then, so then after the ascension, what we find through the rest of the New Testament are just repeated references, some of them almost seeming offhand right, to Christ. The fact that Christ, that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God.

So here's another Jack Van impe list. Mark 16, verse 19, Acts 2, 33, 5, 31, 7, verses 55 and 56, Romans 8, 34, Ephesians 1, 20, Colossians 3, 1, Hebrews 1, verse 3 and 8, verse 1 10, 12, 12, 2, 1 Peter 3, 22. Right. Those all refer to Christ being seated at the right hand of God. And this of course, is part of the Nicene Creed that we recite not only that Christ ascended into heaven, but that he is seated at the right hand of the Father.

And so when we confess this, make reference to this. There are a number of levels here, right? The first level, the most immediate maybe level, is that we're identifying Jesus as the Messiah by identifying him with his existing Messiah. Traditions of the Messiah, the Lord Messiah being enthroned at the right hand of God.

[B]

Right?

[C]

But this also, the fact that Christ is enthroned at the right hand of God speaks to the activity of Christ as the ruler over the nations, meaning over the world, which is a rule that he shares with the saints, his role as high priest.

As you can see in the references I just gave from Hebrews, which he shares with the saints as priests. So there's an activity here. There's something Christ is doing. And so this period of time is not just like a pause. It's not just like, well, Jesus did half of the Messiah stuff and then took a break.

And then he's going to come back and do the rest of it.

[B]

Right?

[C]

Right. It's. This is part and parcel of what the Messiah does. Right. He rules in the midst of his enemies for a time.

He rules over the nations while his enemies, these spiritual enemies, these kings and rulers of the earth, these beasts and Daniel are still active in the world. Right. This is part of what the Messiah was going to do. Jesus is doing it. Right. Is the idea here. This is necessary according to.

The Old Testament. And so it requires that there be these two different manifestations of Christ, one which culminates in his enthronement and then the second one where he appears to render judgment.

On the enemies.

[B]

All right.

So.

This has been the second half. It's actually very brief compared to the first one for us. But yeah, for us it's true, it's true. I mean, there are some other shows, there are some much more concise shows on ancient faith radio, but this is not one of them.

[C]

This was originally going to be a one hour show.

[B]

Hey, that is true. This was in its original conception. But I don't think we've ever done. With the exception of some of your little brief ones that you've done, like when I've been traveling or something like that that you did solo. I don't think we've ever had one that's actually been under an hour.

So. Yeah. All right, well, we're gonna go ahead and take our. Our second break and we'll be back with a third half.

[A]

Father Andrew, Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung will be back in a moment to take your calls on the next part of the Lord of Spirits. Give them a call at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

[C]

Hi, do you know me? I'm Fr. Stephen DeYoung. My new book, An Introduction to Extra Biblical Literature, is now available. A lot of Christians today divide ancient Jewish and Christian literature into two categories. What's in the Bible, what's not in the Bible. Christian east, however, has traditionally had a third category, a middle category. Books that are read privately in the home. The Greek word for that is Apocrypha. These texts from the centuries before and the centuries after the incarnation of Christ that go beyond even the larger canons of Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, reveal to us the religious world and theological framework of the apostles and early Church Fathers. In this book, Apocrypha, I survey these works which connect elements of liturgy, scripture, iconography, patristic writings. Familiarity with these works will enhance readers understanding of the breadth and depth of the Orthodox Christian faith. Buy your copy of An Introduction to Extra Biblical literature [e-mail] faith.com that's store.ancient faith.com.

[A]

We'Re back now with the Lord of Spirits with Father Andrew, Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

[B]

I mean, why are we advertising that book? I mean, it's been out for.

[C]

That was awful.

[B]

Four months. I think it's because we said something about the first one not having first commercial break. Not including you. Trudy's like, well, I'm going to get him on this one.

[C]

I mean, bad enough I'm boiling in a bag, but.

Now I got to hear this.

[B]

Oh, well, I mean, the book came out four months ago. Shouldn't you have another one by now? Or.

[C]

It's coming.

[B]

It's coming. It's coming. All right.

[C]

Well, actually, there's. There's like a point one five coming and then another one coming.

[B]

Oh, that's true.

[C]

I can elaborate on that anymore.

[B]

That's true. I. Yeah, I don't want to reveal that to everybody because. Because what you're talking about has not been released.

[C]

Yes. I'll just let that sit.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

People puzzle over it for generations.

[B]

What does that mean?

[C]

What is he referring to with the 0.15?

[B]

Let's do some gematria on that. Gematria. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. All right. Well, it's the third half. You know, I read in our group recently, someone was really bugged by that. They're like, why do they say third half?

It's like, well, training you to deal with a little ambiguous, a little bit of ambiguity is one of our side missions here in the Lord of Spirits podcast.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

If.

[C]

If you can't roll with us on that. Like.

We got a lot of stuff in this show that you're not prepared.

[B]

I know, I know. One person was like, will someone please explain this third half thing to me? Look, it's a Show and a half. What can I say? Yeah, yeah. So. All right, well, in the first half we talked about.

Appearing, right? Coming, appearing, parousia, epiphania, you know, whatever, apocalypse. And then the second half, if you're just joining us, we were talking about the idea that there is this period between Christ's enthronement at the right hand of the Father and then, you know, the second appearing. The second appearing, that he's doing something in the midst of that time. So. Yeah, so. And what does this have to do with the end? The end. End.

[C]

Right. Yeah.

[B]

So.

[C]

Well, if people went and read Psalms 110 and Psalm 2, they know that Christ is going to return and fill the earth with corpses.

[B]

Right? Very Christlike behavior. Because he's literally Christ.

[C]

Yes.

But no, that's talking about the defeat of the spiritual enemies, like we mentioned. But yeah, there are other realities tied to this, right? To Christ's glorious appearing.

And not just the other topics we've talked about in other eschatology episodes.

And part of the key to understanding this is.

Understanding some things about the way Christ's resurrection.

Is described.

Which of course precedes his ascension and enthronement.

And that centers around the language that's used concerning Christ of him being the first fruits of the resurrection. So, for example.

One of the identifiers of who Christ is in Revelation 1:4, there's a whole series of titles there, the surrounding verses, but one of them is the firstborn from the dead.

This same language is used in Colossians 1:18. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

That's firstborn. First Corinthians 15, verse 20, First Corinthians 15. The whole chapter is St. Paul talking about.

The resurrection of Christ and the resurrection in General. In verse 20, he calls Christ the first fruits of them that slept. That's more King James for you.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I just.

[B]

I never get tired of that language. It's so good.

[C]

And in Acts 26:23.

In St. Paul's sermon there, he refers to Christ as the first to rise from the dead.

[B]

Right? Which, you know, someone might be thinking, now, wait a minute, wait a minute. Okay, first to rise from the dead. Didn't Lazarus rise from the dead? Didn't Jesus raise a couple of other people? Yeah, the son of the widow of Nain. Yeah, Elias. I mean, there's, you know, the. The unnamed guy who's. Whose body got dropped on the bones of Elisha because, you know, relics do that sometimes.

Right? So, I mean, that's.

I think that when people think that. Which, I mean, it's a natural question to have, right? I think that they believe or they conceptualize that rising from the dead means simply coming back to life.

[C]

Like resuscitation.

[B]

Resuscitation, yeah, exactly.

[C]

They hit you with the paddles, you start breathing again.

[B]

Right, right.

[C]

Which isn't actually how those paddles work, but I digress.

[B]

I've never.

[C]

The way they work in TV and.

[B]

Movies, I've never had them used on me. So I really. I don't know.

[C]

But, yeah, I mean, it's waiting. Eventually there'll be some trend where people just use them on each other at parties or something. We'll get there. We got to tide pods. We'll get there, too. Defib parties.

[B]

This is the darkest timeline.

[C]

Right? So this is where that first fruits language becomes important, right? Because when St. Paul is talking about the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, he's talking about something different than just that kind of resuscitation.

Right? Just that kind of biological life being restored as it is now, but you're still mortal. Right? So Lazarus died again eventually, as did all of those other folks. Right. That we mentioned.

And St. Paul uses specifically.

Agricultural metaphors, right? So a seed goes into the ground and it dies, right? What it was, dies. It breaks open, it breaks apart, and then it becomes something else. It grows into something else.

And that's his kind of language for describing the resurrection at the end. So there's this element of transformation, of growth and transformation that requires the old to die, to wither, to be broken away. Right? And so then this is pointing to. This language itself points to the difference between Christ's resurrection and those other people being brought back from the dead. And that Christ is raised and his body is transformed.

[B]

Yeah. And also, I mean, this seems like an obvious point, but all those other people died again.

Whereas Christ will die. No, more like because. Not because, like, surprise. Let's just keep waiting and see if he dies again. It's that the way that his body functions, his human body functions, is now significantly different after the resurrection.

[C]

Right? And so the first fruits, right. Is the first of the crops to spring up, right? And if you're familiar with the Torah, there's an offering of first fruits.

You go and take those first fruits and you offer them to God, you burn them up.

[B]

Right?

[C]

And.

This is. We have to. In order to understand ritual, a ritual like this, we have to understand what is the State this induces in the participant, right? How does this affect. What does it do? And how does it affect how the participant experiences the world? Right. If I'm a subsistence farmer, if the survival of my children depends on me having a good crop this year, right.

Then when I get that first crop that springs up, my natural inclination is going to be, okay, harvest this, keep it. Because a lot of things could happen between now and the rest of the harvest coming. Yeah, that could wipe out all or most of the rest of it. But then at least I would have this, right? At least I would have these firstfruits. And God says, no, you take those and you give them to me. You burn them up, which requires that person then who is offering that to God as a thank offering. He's offering thanks for a harvest that hasn't come yet.

[B]

Right.

[C]

This requires the ultimate kind of trust within faithfulness.

That the rest is going to come. And so.

St. Paul describing Christ as the firstfruits is especially apt here. His resurrection is not only sort of the place where we see what ours might look like insofar as we can possibly understand it, but it is also the guarantee that causes us to then trust that the rest will happen in the future.

Also, this connection to first fruits may be the first inkling.

That some of our attentive listeners might have that this is actually a sneaky transfiguration episode.

It's going to get less sneaky as we go through the rest of it.

[B]

I'm shocked, I tell you.

[C]

So, when talking about.

The resurrection, right? Because of course, what happens at Christ's second coming is the resurrection of the dead. And in talking about that resurrection in 1 John 3, 2, St. John says, beloved, now, we are children of God. What we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when he appears, we'll be like him, for we will see him as he is.

So the appearing of Christ triggers this transformation of humanity.

Both the humans who are alive at that point and those who have died.

So Christ's appearance then triggers St. Paul's harvest. Right. If that's the resurrection, the rest of the crop coming in. But St. Paul in Romans 8 goes even farther than that, than just talking about humanity.

[B]

Yeah. So you've got.

What, Romans 8, starting verse 19. We're not gonna read the whole chapter. St. Paul says this. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now, hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

[C]

Right, so St. Paul has, you know, if we look at this as dominoes from St. John, right. Christ appearing triggers this transformation of humanity. This transformation of humanity. The revelation, the appearing of the sons of God. This triggers the. The transformation of creation as a whole.

[B]

Yeah. Because the whole creation is groaning for the revealing of the sons of God.

[C]

And this is. St. Paul is talking specifically about the redemption of bodies of the material world, of the transformation and transfiguration of the world.

[B]

Sorry, not, sorry, Gnostics.

[C]

Yeah. Of the creation.

Plug. Robin Phillips book here.

And this is in keeping with what St. Paul says, for example, in Ephesians 1, 13 and 14, about the holy Spirit being the down payment.

On our salvation, the sort of deposit.

So to go back to something we said all the way back in the first half, right. 1 Corinthians 15, St. Paul famously talks about us having a spiritual body in the resurrection. And again, as we said, some people take that to mean. Oh, spiritual, like ephemeral.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Woo woo.

[B]

Like a Star Trek episode where they become. They evolved to be pure energy.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

And no, again, this is capital S. Spirit. So this is a body that is permeated by the Holy Spirit.

And so what we're talking about is not just with humanity, but with the entirety of creation being suffused with the light of the Holy Spirit, the presence of God.

And so we can say in a certain sense that the Holy Spirit is the atmosphere of the world to come.

And.

Since now we're. We've probably pretty clearly outed ourselves to. Everyone is sneakily doing a transfiguration episode.

The transfiguration is kind of a weird feast in the sense that a lot of people don't know what to do with it.

It's not sort of part of the. Right. Christ is. Is born, he ministers in Galilee, he goes to Jerusalem.

He'S crucified, he rises, he ascends into heaven. He's seated at the right hand of God. Right, yeah, that's that sort of storyline. The transfiguration is just sort of dropped in there.

[B]

Yeah. Like, wait, wait, he's doing what?

Which, I mean, it's funny because I recently saw, and I mean, a lot of people, I think, think this way. I actually recently saw. Not that I've watched this show, although I actually had someone contact me recently say, you should watch this show. But that show, the Chosen, I haven't seen it, and frankly, I don't intend to see it. But.

I saw. And I saw this. You know, I checked this to make sure that this was real, because I actually posted about this and a lot of people said, that can't be real. I was like, no, no, no, it's real. The guy who directed that, he said something to the effect of. All these people have been asking me, are we going to have the transfiguration in our show? And then he said, you know, what would that really add to our story? I was like, what now? Maybe he's messing with everybody. I don't know. But I think that's. That's an attitude that a lot of people have is like, what is. What is this here for? Is it Jesus saying, oh, hey, by the way, I'm God, you know?

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Or.

[C]

If you could even do that with it. Right, right. So it's not in most.

Church circles. Right. It's not a heavy focus. Right. The Orthodox Church is One of the 12 great feasts.

[B]

Right.

[C]

But you go outside.

The Orthodox Church, it's not as well emphasized, shall we say.

And.

In getting into why it's so important. Right. Obviously, one of the first places we go is in the hypnography surrounding the feast. And the hypnography surrounding the feast.

Makes it clear that this is happening, that Christ takes Saints Peter, James and John onto the mountain before the Passion.

[B]

Yeah. Yep.

[C]

And so this has something to do with the fact that they're about to witness his suffering and crucifixion and death.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And so we could take it at kind of that surface level then and say, oh, well, okay.

They're about to witness that. So Christ is sort of revealing his divine identity to them so that they won't fall into despair.

[B]

Yeah. Which, I mean, is one of the texts that our hypnography takes. It's not the only one.

[C]

Yeah. But it's at a very surface level.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It says, you know.

Reveal thy. You know, it's reveal thyself to the disciples. I think this is in the Kentuckian. So that when they would see the crucified, they would know that Thy suffering was voluntary. Like if, if that's who he really is, then yeah. I mean, he's, he's, he's accepting crucifixion right now.

[C]

If that's all that's going on there, it kind of didn't work.

Because we know that those three disciples did.

[B]

Yeah, right.

It's only John, really. Right. That hangs around.

[C]

Yeah. And even he ultimately. Right.

So, I mean, he was with them, hiding in the room. Right. He was there disbelieving the women.

[B]

Yeah. He wasn't out preaching. Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

So.

But there's sort of more to it than that. Right. Because this isn't just a question of having Christ's identity confirmed, but they're seeing again with their physical eyes.

Christ in his uncreated glory, which means they're getting a glimpse of the resurrection.

Right. So they are beholding with their eyes.

The resurrected Christ before he died.

[B]

Yeah. Think about that one for a second, everybody.

[C]

Yeah.

Time and space aren't real, guys.

[B]

But if you understand resurrection correctly, not just where he says, I am the resurrection. Right. Also a little mind bending if you think too much about it. But if you understand the resurrection is not just about coming back to life, but as about the fullness of what a human is destined to be.

Equal to the angels, all of that kind of stuff, then that makes more sense. It's about this elevation.

Right.

[C]

And so this is a glimpse of the resurrected Christ. Christ's appearances after his resurrection, his resurrection appearances are a glimpse of the world to come.

Right. There are a series of glimpses and images. We did an episode about them. You can go back and listen to it. There are series of glimpses of the world to come. Come. It's going to come after the general resurrection, which is. The general resurrection isn't just the resurrection of all the people. It is all the people, but it's also the whole creation, the whole cosmos.

And what does that look like?

On one hand, we don't know.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Can't understand the details. But what we have confirmed to us here in the New Testament and in Christ is that the world to come is an actual world.

It's a material world, a material universe in which we'll have bodies. Right.

And it is an actual life.

Right. It's not just staring intently as a disembodied orb.

At a glory cloud harps on clouds.

It's actual life in an actual world. And beyond that we can't understand. Right. Don't know what it's like to be a bat.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Don't know what it's like to be a resurrected human in the world to come. It's not just this world with all the bad stuff gone.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Right. This world with no pasta and bit of honey.

[B]

You trigger all those people again.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Someone's throwing their phone against the wall even as we speak.

[C]

Right. It's not just this world with the bad stuff taken out. Right. It is a world that is transformed and suffused with the Holy Spirit.

[B]

Filled.

[C]

With people who are filled with. And suffused with the Holy Spirit. And I don't know what that's like.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

We can't know what that's like until. And unless we get there.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, all we get is like, we see little visions, we see little glimpses at sometimes, but that's not the same as being there of doing it, you know?

[C]

Yeah. Yeah. And so we've said all this now about this being the whole cosmos being resurrected and all the people being resurrected and this actual life in the actual world to come. But what about. What if there's somebody who looks at that and says, nah.

Who doesn't want to be a part of that?

That's what we're talking about next time.

[B]

That's. Yeah, that's our next episode.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, this turned out to be a relatively short one. It's kind of. I'm a little shocked, honestly.

[C]

Still over two hours.

[B]

Yeah, it's true. But, you know, I guess if there's going to be any episode where no man knows the day nor the hour, this would be the one when I get to go home and go to sleep.

So, you know.

Right. I'm not going to read from late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsay, as tempted as I am to do that. But.

I did want to talk a little bit about the. You know, we ended up with the transfiguration in a lot of this. And I think that there's another angle from which to understand the transfiguration that.

Makes a lot of this clear or maybe gives us just another. Another way to contemplate this amazing, amazing reality that we're talking about.

And that is if we think about the Garden of Eden. Right. And we think about also the fact that Moses and Elias are standing there with the Lord on that mountain.

So if you think about Eden. Right. And we've talked about this before on the show, but I'll just touch. You know, maybe you guys didn't listen to the spiritual geography episodes, which I recommend you do.

Sacred geography, I should say. You know, Eden is. Is on a mountain, which is not maybe super obvious from the Genesis text. Although there's talk about four rivers flowing out, which means at least that it's on an elevated place, because rivers flow out from elevated places. That's how gravity works. But then if you get to it, I think is Ezekiel 28. Ezekiel 28 speaks about when the devil is thrown out of paradise. It says he is on Eden, and then he was thrown down from the mountain of God. So it's very clear that Eden is a mountain in that text. So Eden is a mountain, and it's a garden on a mountain where God dwells with his people. Right? It's the way that God created everything to be. And then let's think about Moses and Elias for a minute. So Moses, who appears with the Lord on Mount Tabor at the transfiguration, he has spoken with God in the Old Testament in the Torah on Mount Sinai, right? In the hymns for transfiguration, there's references to the mountain covered with smoke. Well, that's not Tabor. Tabor doesn't get covered with smoke. That's Sinai, where there was smoke and. And all these other signs that they saw there. And you know, the Lord shows to Moses the vision of the creation and gives him the Torah and he brings it down to the people of Israel. And his face is shining. He is transfigured such that the people can't look at him, and he has to be veiled in order for them to be able to look at him. So that's Moses with God on the mountain, sharing this communion with him. And then also think about Elias. He's on Mount Horeb, and he also has a vision of God on the mountain. It's a little bit different. Moses speaks with the Lord face to face as a man speaks with his friend, but then also has this vision where he can't look at him. He can't look on his face. And then Elias's vision is more like that.

He experiences this mighty wind, there's earthquake and fire, and then this gentle breeze or still small voice, depending on which translation you're reading. And he hears him there and he comes out and he has to wrap his face in his mantle because he can't look at God and live, right? So Elias also meeting with God on the mountain and having this experience with him, this vision, this communion. So on Tabor, Christ is there. And again, it's Moses and Elias, and they're on a mountain together. And Peter, James and John are there as well. One of the hymns. So if you come To Matins, which people come to matins. You do not know what you're missing. Please come to matins or orthros, you know, which if you're in an Antioch, you know, the Greek church is on Sunday morning before the Divine Liturgy. If you're at a Russian tradition church, it might be, if they're doing it on Saturday night, paired with vespers, as. As vigil. But come to matins. Okay? One of the hymns of Matins says that, and I'm paraphrasing a little bit here, but it says that on Tabor, Christ is Christ appears in glory with Moses and Elias to show that in the age to come that he will stand in the midst of the gods. That's what it says in that hymn. And.

So if you look at the transfiguration, that's what you see is going on, that it is Christ ruling over the divine council.

And you know, there's a reason that we chose the icon of the transfiguration as being part of the sort of logo of this podcast, because this is what's going on in the Feast of the Transfiguration.

And if you understand all of these mountains in the right way and you understand what it means for. For human beings to be resurrected and to be transfigured and to become truly like Christ, to be adopted sons of God, then you understand that as Father said that we're looking at the resurrection, we're looking at the kingdom. This is the kingdom of God. And what do you know? In the chapter right before it, Jesus says there are some standing here who will not die before they've seen the kingdom of God coming in power.

And.

St. Theophylact of Okrid and I'm sure probably other saints. I know that he said this because I just read it this past week. He says that the reason that Jesus said that in the chapter before is because of what he was about to do on Mount Tabor. Meaning that what we see on Tabor is the kingdom of God. That's what that is. Right? So as we think about Christ's glorious appearing.

The transfiguration is not an event that happens in its deepest sense before it. The transfiguration is actually the moment when we see it revealed to us in a partial way. It's not in its total fulfillment as yet, but there is a very real sense in which what is visible at the transfiguration, Jesus standing there on Mount Tabor, Moses and Elias there with him, Peter, James and John with them, who as some of the church Fathers say they themselves were transfigured somewhat because that's what enabled them to see the transfiguration. That all of this together is what the second appearing of the Lord is about. And it is what we're aiming towards as Christians. That's what Christianity is for, is for that.

Right? And.

This kind of millenarian thing that a lot of Christians have, including, I'm sorry to say, some orthodox Christians who should know better, they have this sense of, oh, it's the time of Antichrist. I mean, we talked about this in our Antichrist episode, but. But do you know the scripture? People like, it's in John's epistles, Antichrists have come and are.

It's been the time of the Antichrist because, wow, this is the time when the Lord is ruling in the midst of his enemies. So it is the time of the Antichrist and has been for all this time. And the problem with thinking that the end of the world is going to happen any second now, that is literally true. It could happen, right? But if you orient yourself towards that, not in a way where you are oriented to really repent, but instead you're oriented to try and make other people do stuff. You know, whether it's condemning them or pushing them or whatever it might be, trying to cause schisms, messing with parishioners in their churches.

All stuff happening right? Now.

If you're doing that, then you're not doing it right. You know, if now, if you are oriented towards the second appearance of Christ such that it's like, oh, I need to repent, I need to repent, then you are doing it, right? But the reason that we're repenting is not just like, oh, wow, there's something big and bad happening. I don't want that to happen to me. Although, okay, I mean, again, see our next episode. But really, it's, wow, the transfiguration, wow, the resurrection. I want to be part of that, and I can be part of that. And the reason I can be part of that is because I'm saved by grace through faithfulness. So be faithful, be more faithful, increase your faithfulness. That's what the project is. So as Christ is ruling in the midst of his enemies, as he's driving them out from every corner of the earth, we participate in that by driving them out from the corners of our own hearts, right? Not by treating other human beings as though they are the enemy. They are not. If they are acting like the enemy, then that is because they are slaves. They are slaves to the enemy. And we want them to repent, too. We want them to be brothers and sisters, too. We want them to be with us, too. That's what it means to be Christian, right? Do we love them?

Do we love them? It's a good question. So.

Yeah, there's so much going on here, and in a real sense, all those mountains, Eden, Sinai, Horeb, Tabor. We could also add in Herman and Zaphon and some other stuff if we want to get really deep and weird. But longtime listeners of the podcast know what I'm talking about. All of those mountains and these meetings with God, these dwellings with God, in a real sense are kind of all happening at the same time, the same place. Because whatever is truly righteous enters into eternity and becomes, in a way, permanently present. Past, present, future, beyond time.

It's awesome. It's awesome to think about. So, I mean, we should be truly looking forward to the second and glorious appearing of the Lord, but not in a way that's about fear and anger and, you know, hyperactivity and, you know, hyperventilating and other hypers. That's not what's going on here. So it's time to repent. It's time to repent, Father.

[C]

So dovetailing off that a little bit.

One of the major.

Important things I think that hopefully we got across tonight is that.

This period between Christ's ascension and his glorious appearing is not sort of him hitting pause.

On accomplishing the Messiah stuff.

That Christ is that this age in which you and I.

Were born and will live out our lives is a part of.

What Jesus does as the Christ, as the Messiah ruling in the midst of his enemies. He is active. He is at work in the world continuously. And that means it's also not a pause for us.

It's not a waiting room. It's not about doing our best not to commit any sins too horrible.

Before we check out.

It's not even just about.

Repenting of our sins in this world. A lot of times we lose sight. Even as Orthodox Christians in the Orthodox Church, there's a lot more emphasis placed on theosis, for example. And anyone will tell you that, yes, we believe theosis is salvation, theosis is salvation, but we still tend to fall into.

Talking about our salvation in mostly negative terms.

I mean, there's a reason for that. Like, for me, most of what I'm at work on doing right now, the present moment is repenting of my many sins, right?

That's the major way in which, for me, the positive aspect of drawing closer to God is happening is I'M still working my way out of the mud, right?

I'm not at the getting cleaner and cleaner stage. I'm at the extricate yourself from the pit.

But there is that other stage. There is that positive.

That positive element of our salvation.

And that is that contrary to what some of our non orthodox Christian friends.

At least have in their theology books, glorification, as it's called, is not just something that happens after we die. It's not just something that happens after Christ returns, but it's something that is beginning now. It is something that is active in the world now. The Holy Spirit is active in the world now. And while he has not yet fully suffused the whole creation and my whole being is a person.

He is still here and he is still active. And so.

This life is not just a question of repentance or of enduring suffering and hardship. Both of those are realities for us.

But it's also a life in a world where moments where days, where friendships, where marriages.

Where all kinds of spiritual relationships can be suffused with the light and the love and the peace that the Holy Spirit brings.

Where these glimpses of the Resurrection are possible. And when they happen, they are real.

Just like St. Peter got turned down when he wanted to build the booths on the Mount of Transfiguration and stay there forever.

Those moments don't last for us forever. And you can go and read the lives of Saint Seraphim, of Seraph, Saint Simeon, the New Theologian saints who received the vision of Christ in uncreated glory, talking about the fact that even for them, as a great saint.

Far more holy and closer to God than I will ever be.

That vision did not last their entire life.

It was a.

Fleeting experience, a powerful experience, but a fleeting one.

And these other realities of repentance and of suffering and of joy in this world all returned afterwards.

So I don't want to leave off this episode, especially given the topic of next episode. Just going to be kind of a downer.

Without that positive aspect.

That the Holy Spirit is the deposit and the down payment of that world to come, that he is here now, that we do receive these glimpses and these moments, and that we can be about trying to infuse through love, through joy, through making peace, we can go out and actively suffuse moments of our life and parts of our life and areas of our life with that grace of the Holy Spirit, even if it is fleeting.

But those glimpses we get of glory are what then empowers us to deal with the other harder things that we have to do and we have to endure in this life.

[B]

Amen. Amen. Well, even though it's been 2 hours and 16 minutes, that's our show for tonight. Thank you very much everyone for listening. If you didn't happen to call us and get through live, we'd like to hear from you. You can email [e-mail] you can message us at our Facebook page page. You can send me reviews of all the works of Hal Lindsay. Leave us a [e-mail] LordOfSpirits I mainly.

[C]

Want to review Barney Miller. Join us for our live broadcast of the second and fourth Thursdays of the month at 7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific.

[B]

And if you are on Facebook, you can follow our page and join our discussion group. Leave reviews and ratings everywhere and memes naturally, but most of the importantly, share this show with a friend whom you know is going to love it.

[C]

And finally, be sure to go to ancientfaith.com support and help make sure we and lots of other AFR podcasters stay on the air and Father Andrew stays in the air as he travels from country to country.

[B]

Thank you, good night and may God bless you and keep you.

[A]

You've been listening to the Lord of Spirits with Orthodox Christian priests, Father Andrew, Stephen Damick, and Father Stephen DeYoung, a listener supported presentation of Ancient Faith Radio. And I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts and the elders, and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and Blessing. Revelation chapter 5, verses 11 through 12.