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The Parousia of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

H. P. Owen
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Extract

The Second Coming (otherwise called the Parousia)1 of Christ constituted a serious problem for the apostolic Church. One of the earliest of Paul's Epistles (1 Thessalonians) shows how quickly his converts became discouraged when some of their number died before the Lord's appearing. In reply Paul repeats his promise that the Lord will soon return, although in his second epistle he has to give a reminder that Antichrist must first make a final bid for power (1 Thess. 4.15–18, 2 Thess. 2). Similarly the author of Hebrews, writing to a disillusioned and apathetic group of Christians some decades later in the first century, recalls the words of Habakkuk that ‘the Lord will come and not be slow’ (10.37). Finally 2 Peter, the latest book of the New Testament (written, perhaps, as late as the middle of the second century), continues to offer the hope of an imminent Parousia to be accompanied by the world's destruction and renewal (ch. 3). If Christians are tempted to despair they must remember that the word of prophets and Apostles is sure (v. 2) and that with God ‘a thousand years are as one day’ (v. 8).

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , June 1959 , pp. 171 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1959

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References

page 171 note 1 In my use of the word ‘Parousia’ I am following the normal practice of the New Testament where the word ‘nearly always means Christ's Messianic Advent in glory to judge the world at the end of this age’ (Baner's Wörterbuch).

page 174 note 1 The change in direction was inevitable once the Son of Man stood for the Messiah instead of the Saints. The persecuted remnant ascends to heaven; the victorious Messiah descends from it. Cf. 1 Thess. 4.16–17.

page 176 note 1 We have also to take into account the background of Jewish apocalyptic, ‘for every Jew would have understood the prediction of a new Temple to be meant eschatologically, and a new Temple building was expected from the Messianic era’ (Kümmel, Promise and Fulfilment, English trans. 1957, p. 101). See further Strack-Billerbeck, iv, 2.929, ff. This background explains the transition in Mark 13.4–5fF and in particular τατα in v. 4. ‘They (sc. the disciples) assume that the fall of the Temple is part of a larger complex of events, and it is about this that they ask’ (Farrer A Study in St. Mark, p. 363).

page 179 note 1 See Noack, B., Das Goltesreich bei Lukas, pp. 39–50.Google Scholar

page 180 note 1 Jeremias follows Dodd in his treatment of these parables (The Parables of Jesus, English trans, pp. 38–40, 45–52). Nevertheless Jeremias believes that Jesus taught that the last hour had come, and with it Israel's last chance of repentance before the End (pp. 126–39, 153–7). For a criticism of Dodd (and Jeremias) similar to the one offered here see Kummel, op. cit., p. 21, pp. 54–58.

page 180 note 2 See especially Fuller, R. H., The Mission and Achievement of Jesus, pp. 21–25.Google Scholar

page 181 note 1 Mowinckel, S., He that Cometh (English trans, p. 321).Google Scholar

page 182 note 1 B. Noack, op. cit., p. 44.

page 182 note 2 I do not myself see a contradiction between Luke 17.20 and Luke 21.5ff (= Mark 13.2ff). Luke 17.20 () probably means not that there will be no signs heralding the Parousia but that these signs cannot be used as the basis of a precise prediction, since only the Father knows ‘the day and the hour’.

page 182 note 3 Manson, T. W., The Teaching of Jesus, p. 282.Google Scholar

page 185 note 1 So far as I know the term is (significantly) absent from the Qumran Scrolls, although Christ's outlook, like the outlook of the Baptist, is similar to that of the Covenanters in that (a) they all envisage an imminent End and (b) they all interpret the End as the fulfilment of Scripture.

page 185 note 2 I am assuming (what cannot here be argued) that the Jews never expected a suffering and dying Messiah, certainly not a Messiah whose sufferings were redemptive and whose death was a necessary prelude to his glory. Mowinckel has proved these points beyond doubt (op. cit., pp. 325–33, 410–15, 448–50).

page 187 note 1 I am myself inclined to the view that Matt. 16.18–20 comes from the Resurrection-appearance to Peter mentioned in 1 Cor. 15.5.

page 187 note 2 E. Best has shown that Jewish apocalyptic writings nowhere relate the Messiah and his elect as intimately as they are related in Pauline and Johannine thought (One Body in Christ, Appendix B).

page 188 note 1 See Descamps, A., L'Aitente du Messie, pp. 81–82Google Scholar, and Kürnmel, op. cit., pp. 83–87.

page 189 note 1 I do not, of course, wish to deny that the Spirit transforms matter, and in particular our fleshly bodies, now, in our present life; this must be so since He proceeds from the Incarnate Lord; my sole point is to contrast the inward, invisible character of this transformation now with its outward, visible character hereafter. The bodies that the indwelling Spirit now quickens are still ‘mortal’; hence we wait for their ‘redemption’ (Rom. 8.11, 23).

page 191 note 1 Jesus the Messiah, p. 50. Cf. pp. 14–17.

page 191 note 2 For the eschatological significance that Jesus attached to His death see especially R. H. Fuller, The Mission and Achievement of Jesus, ch. 3. In order express the continuity of Christ's saving work before, on and after the Cross Jeremias (The Parables of Jesus, p. 159) speaks of ‘an eschatology that is in process of realisation’ (‘Sich realisierende Eschatologie’). Dodd accepts this German phrase although, as he says, it is difficult to render into English (The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, p. 447).