JUST IN THE PAST FEW YEARS, significantly, the figure of "Jesus"
has been thrust into strange prominence in America. On stage and in films
long-standing prohibitions against portraying the person of Christ have been
abrogated. Sensationally popular musicals present blasphemous parodies of His
life. The "Jesus Movement," which was largely "charismatic"
in orientation, spread spectacularly among teenagers and young people. The crudest
form of American popular music is "Christianized" at mass
"Jesus-Rock Festivals," and "Christian" tunes for the first
time in the century become the most popular in the land. And underlying this
whole strange conglomeration of sacrilege and absolutely unenlightened worldliness
is the constantly reiterated expression of seemingly everyone's expectation and
hope: Jesus is coming soon.
The careful observer of the contemporary religious scene - especially in
America, where the most popular religious currents have originated for over a
century - cannot fail to notice a very decided air of chiliastic expectation.
And this is not only true of "charismatic" circles, but even of the
traditionalist or fundamentalist circles that have rejected the
"charismatic revival." Thus, many traditionalist Roman Catholics
believe in the coming of a chiliastic "Age of Mary" before the end of
the world, and this is only one variant on the more widespread Latin error of
trying to "sanctify the world," or, as Archbishop Thomas Connolly of
Seattle expressed it [as] "transforming the modern world into the Kingdom
of God in preparation for His return." Protestant evangelists such as
Billy Graham, in their mistaken private interpretation of the Apocalypse, await
the "millennium" when "Christ" will reign on earth. Other
evangelists in Israel find that their millenarian interpretation of the
"Messiah" is just what is needed to "prepare" the Jews for
his coming [17]. And the arch-fundamentalist Carl McIntire prepares to build a
life-size replica of the Temple of Jerusalem in Florida (near Disneyworld!),
believing that the time is at hand when the Jews will build the very
"Temple to which the Lord Himself will return as He promised" (Christian
Beacon , Nov. 11, 1971; Jan. 6, 1972).
Thus, even anti-ecumenists find it possible to prepare to join the
unrepentant Jews in welcoming the false messiah - antichrist - in contrast to
the faithful remnant of Jews who will accept Christ as the Orthodox Church
preaches Him, when the Prophet Elijah returns to earth.
It is therefore no great consolation for a sober Orthodox Christian who
knows the Scriptural prophecies concerning the last days, when he is told by a
"charismatic" Protestant minister that, "It's glorious what
Jesus can do when we open up to Him. No wonder people of all faiths are now
able to pray together" (Harold Bredesen, in Logos Journal ,
Jan.-Feb., 1972, p. 24); or by a Catholic Pentecostal that the members of all
the denominations now "begin to peer over those walls of separation only
to recognize in each other the image of Jesus Christ" (Kevin Ranaghan in Logos
Journal , Nov.-Dec., 1971, p. 21). Which "Christ" is this for
whom an accelerated program of psychological and even physical preparation is
now being made throughout the world? - Is this our true God and Saviour Jesus
Christ, Who founded the Church wherein men may find salvation? Or is it the
false Christ who will come in his own name (John 5:43) and unite all
who reject or pervert the teaching of the one Church of Christ, the Orthodox
Church?
Our Saviour Himself has warned us: "Then if any man shall say unto
you, Lo, here is the Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise
false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show signs and wonders, so as to
lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Behold I have told you beforehand. If
therefore they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the wilderness, go not
forth; Behold, he is in the inner chambers, believe it not. For as the
lightning cometh forth from the east, and is seen even unto the west, so shall
be the coming of the Son of man" (Matt. 24:23-27).
The Second Coming of Christ will be unmistakable: it will be sudden, from
heaven (Acts 1:11), and it will mark the end of this world. There can be no
"preparation" for it - save only the Orthodox Christian preparation
of repentance, spiritual life, and watchfulness. Those who are
"preparing" for it in any other way, who say that he is anywhere
"here" - especially "here" in the Temple of Jerusalem - or
who preach that "Jesus is coming soon" without warning of the great
deception that is to precede His Coming: are clearly the prophets of
antichrist, the false Christ who must come first and deceive the world,
including all "Christians" who are not or do not become truly
Orthodox. There is to be no future "millennium." For those who can
receive it, the "millennium" of the Apocalypse (Apoc. 20:6) is now;
the life of grace in the Orthodox Church for the whole "thousand
years" between the First Coming of Christ and the time of antichrist [18].
That Protestants should expect the "millennium" in the future is only
their confession that they do not live in it in the present - that is, that
they are outside the Church of Christ and have not tasted of Divine grace.
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