§ 129. The Destruction of the World and the Consummation of Salvation.

Every divine judgment of the past is but a type of the final judgment, which on the great day of the Lord brings all the godless, even those of the past, finally to destruction (a). On that day, that is to say, the present world perishes in fire, which carries away those who have sunk into the corruption of the world (b). At His Parousia, which is deferred only to give Christians room for repentance, Christ appears as the Saviour from this destruction (c). Then the eternal kingdom begins in the new world, into which those Christians zealous for virtue enter for their reward, there to live for ever as saved (d).

(a) While Jude refers the prophecy of the Book of Enoch of the divine judgment (vv. 14, 15) to the ȧoeßeîs of his own day (§ 128, d: éπроþýτеνσεν кaì TOÚтois), he can say that the libertines have been for long destined for this judgment (ver. 4), which hands them over, that is to say, as ảσeßeîs to the judgment of God, and henceforth will not be slow to assign them final destruction (ii. 3). Bodily death forms an emblem of this destruction (aтáλeia, 3, 7, 9, 16), which, as § 34, c, 57, d, is in the first place regarded as a sudden and violent end; under it the generation of the people of Israel, that were delivered from Egypt, fell, because, on account of their unbelief, they were not delivered a second time. (Jude 5); the sudden perishing of the company of Korah (ver. 11), or the dreadful end which overtook Noah's contemporaries in the great flood (ii. 5; comp. § 50, d). A yet more definite emblem is to be found in the perishing of Sodom and Gomorrah (ii. 6: ὑπόδειγμα μελλόντων ἀσεβεῖν), inasmuch as these cities burn in an inextinguishable fire under the sea which covers them (Jude 7). In conformity with this, accordingly, destruction, as § 34, d, 126, b, is regarded under the symbol of fire, as a judgment of God. If, finally, the emblematic divine judgment does not spare even the angels who were guilty of unnatural unchastity with the daughters of men, Gen. vi., and for which they are bound in the prison of Hades (TapTapúoas) with everlasting chains, and covered with deep darkness (Jude 6, 2, 4), destruction

is thus regarded as the thickest darkness, i.e. as the deepest misery ($ 34, d), as Jude 13, where the libertines are pictured as wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness is reserved for ever (comp. ii. 17). All these acts of judgment are, that is to say, but preliminary: wicked angels (ii. 4), as all the godless, are only kept, so to speak, in their provisional prison for the judgment of the great day (Jude 6), i.e. the day of judgment (ii. 9, iii. 7), which is here, according to the way of the old prophets, spoken of as the day of the Lord (μépa κvρíov, iii. 10, 12; comp. § 40, d), because on it God with His myriads of angels (comp. Heb. xii. 22) appears as the Judge of the world (Jude 14, 15), before whom in His glory all stand, to receive their decisive sentence (ver. 24).

(b) But the whole present state of the world has fallen under p0opá,1 and it is therefore, as with Paul (§ 99, b), appointed to destruction. The way in which the author more exactly regards the impending destruction of the world, it has been unnecessarily sought to explain from the contemporary philosophical ideas. Quite in harmony with the account in Gen. iii. 5, he regards the heaven and the earth in their original form as proceeding by the creative word of God from the waters of Chaos (Gen. i. 2), and this in such a way that the origin of the heavens was brought about by the separation of the waters (vv. 7, 8), and the origin of the land by the gathering together of the waters (vv. 9, 10). This old world perished by the waters of the flood (iii. 6; comp. ii. 5), and the present form of the world is protected by God's word of promise (Gen. ix. 11) against any recurring flood (iii. 7). Yet if it, too, is to perish, there remains now only fire as the element to bring about this destruction; and as, according to note a, on the ground of Old Testament representations, the wrathful judgment of God is regarded as a consuming fire, it is easy to think, that the destruction of the world resulting from the day of judgment will be brought about by fire in a

1 It is hence said, i. 4, that those born again have escaped the peopá ruling in the world (§ 128, b), while those, who but by instinct, so to speak, like the irrational animals, understand only earthly things, while they turn such things to mere personal gratification, have thereby fallen under the peopά appointed for such things (i Toútois pésíportai: Jude 10; comp. ii. 12, 19).

special sense, for which this present form of the world is, so to speak, reserved (ver. 7). On the day of the Lord the heavens will be dissolved in fire, and will pass away with a noise; their firm elements, by which, perhaps, he is thinking of the stars, will melt with the heat, and the earth with all its works will be burnt up (vv. 10, 12). Since, now, the godless will be destroyed on that day (ver. 7), and, according to ver. 12, on account of the coming of the day of judgment the destruction of the world follows, there is here quite evidently implied the idea that the destruction of the world removes even the godless (comp. § 126, b, with § 33, c), and hands them over to destruction as to death, from which there is no more any deliverance.

(c) The day of judgment and of the destruction of the world is infallibly at the same time the day of Christ's Parousia, which the apostles, according to i. 16, proclaimed, and therefore His coming is designated, iii. 12, by this technical expression (§ 57, c; 63, d; 98, a, footnote 1). If Jude applies the apostolic prophecy of a frivolous moral laxity, which should appear ἐπ ̓ ἐσχάτου τοῦ χρόνου, i.e. at the end of the pre-Messianic period of the world, as it also occurs, 2 Tim. iii. 1 ff. (comp. § 110, a), to the libertines of his own day (vv. 17, 18), it is clear from this that he believes himself already standing in that last time. The last time has also come in the view of the Second Epistle of Peter, as in that of Peter (§ 48, a) and of the Epistle to the Hebrews (§ 117, c); nay, it has even already far advanced, since in the reproduction of that prophecy he refers it directly to the last day (iii. 3 : ἐπ' ἐσχάτων τῶν ἡμερῶν). He expects above all for these days frivolous scoffers, who will throw doubt on the coming of the Parousia generally, because it had not come

2 But Christ appears, according to § 127, c, as the Redeemer, as in Peter (§ 50, d) and in the Epistle to the Hebrews (§ 126, c), or at least, as Jude 25, as the Mediator of redemption from the judgment and from the destruction of the world, from which the righteous are to be taken away, but so that they are delivered directly by the resurrection from death (comp. § 34, b). It is this deliverance which is common to all Christians (Jude 3), the type of which was the deliverance of Israel from Egypt (ver. 5), by which even the seduced may be delivered, by their being snatched as a brand from the fire (ver. 23). It is hence from the above quite arbitrary, when Baur, p. 319 f., asserts that our Epistle shows a complete abandonment of the original hope of the Parousia (comp. also Schenkel, p. 371).

during the first Christian generation, during which it was expected; and generally any change on the present form of the world, which had already stood so long, was not to be looked for (iii. 3, 4; comp. § 112, 6). But the polemic against such anticipated doubt was all the more necessary, as complaints had already begun to be made in the Church as to the delay of the Parousia, to which the author objects that the postponement was no delay, but an act of God's longsuffering, as He would lead even those Christians who had fallen away to repentance (§ 21; 40,b; 124, c), and so would save them from destruction (ver. 9). If God, therefore, according to His long-suffering towards lost Christianity, had by this postponement of the judgment given time for a second repentance, as He once gave to the people of Israel, in addition to their first repentance (§ 42, 6), then they ought to look at God's long-suffering as a ground for their salvation (ver. 15), and so to hasten the coming of the day of the Lord in this way, that by their holy walk they would render any further delay for repentance unnecessary (ver. 12). But from this also it is clear, the approaching end is a motive to strive after Christian virtue (§ 128, 6).

(d) With the Parousia the eternal kingdom of Christ begins (i. 11; comp. § 110, b), and, according to the fundamental principle of the doctrine of retribution (§ 32, b; 51, d; 57, b), the entrance into that kingdom is represented as an equivalent reward (πIXOPNYNOńσetai), for this, that the Christian has done his part (ver. 5 : éπixopnyńoare) to make his election firm (ver. 10). Christians, moreover, are at the judgment by no means free from all defects, and therefore expect at it the mercy of their Lord Christ (Jude 21) to save them (comp. Jas. ii. 13, and therewith § 57, 6). But the eternal

3 If the author directs this teaching of his regarding the destruction of the old world by the flood (note b) against the latter objection to be expected as to the destruction of the world that was at hand, he makes it good against the former, that, according to Ps. xc. 4, the divine measure of time is different from the human, and therefore God cannot be bound in the determination of the Parousia by a time fixed by a human measure (iii. 8). But the day of the Lord will certainly come, and when quite unlooked for, like a thief in the night (ver. 10; comp. § 33, a).

On the other hand, the destruction of the godless is the recompense of their unrighteousness (ii. 13), which they received on this account, that, like Balaam,

kingdom of Christ begins, on the ground of the promise (Isa. lxv. 17), in the new heaven and the new earth, in which righteousness dwells; therefore the highest ideal is realized (iii. 13), and the eternal life is given to them (Jude 21). The perfect kingdom is therefore also no earthly one, as the present form of the world has passed away (comp. § 34, a; 99, b; 126, d). From the point of view of this future expectation, the earthly life looks like a pilgrim life, as with Peter (§ 51, a, footnote 1), our body like a pilgrim's tent, which we strike in order to enter the eternal home (i. 13, 14; comp. 2 Cor. v. 1, 4, 6, 8).

SECTION III.

THE JOHANNEAN APOCALYPSE.

CHAPTER VI

THE APOCALYPTIC PICTURE OF THE FUTURE.

Comp. B. Weiss, Apocalyptische Studien (Stud. u. Krit. 1869, 1); Hilgenfeld, in seiner Zeitschrift, 1869, 4.

§ 130. The Precursors of Christ's Second Coming.

The Apocalypse will reveal the immediate future, the central point of which is occupied by Christ's coming to judgment, which is immediately at hand (a). As precursors, it designates a series of preparatory judgments of God, whose object is, in vain, to be sure, to rouse the unbelieving world to repentance (b). But the Church of God also, gathered out of all they sinned for the sake of earthly enjoyment, because they loved the wages of unrighteousness (ver. 15; Jude 11). But as, according to § 32, d, the greatness of the sin depends on the greatness of the motive one had to avoid guilt, it were better for the backsliding Christians never to have known the way of righteousness, because now, when the end has become worse than the beginning (comp. Matt. xii. 45), their punishment may be only the more severe (ii. 20, 21).