Orthodox Christianity, Vol II, Chp 32: "New Heaven" and "New Earth"

Christ Himself is and will be the King of the New Heavens and the New Earth, and neither Hell nor Hades will be a parallel kingdom that never ends just as every judgment in the Old Testament lasted only as much as was necessary for humility and repentance. Metropolitan Hilarion begins this chapter by investigating what “all in all” means in the Scriptures. Our experience of this earth is ruled by passions, various human rulers and tyrants, and the incessant demonic influences, all of which will not last in the Kingdom of God. Metropolitan Hilarion does not offer us a historical background of Origen’s apokatastasis and writings. He could have selected many passages from Ss. Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen, or Isaac the Syrian that would sway in favor of a scripturally rooted and Orthodox understanding of apokatastasis (restoration, reversal), not an heretical or pagan, platonic one. Many Orthodox, as well as other Christian scholars recently have argued that no ecclesial authorities considered his theology heretical during his lifetime, neither Rufinus or Jerome, but certain characters who were jealousy of Origen. But the scriptures do contain the teaching of “the restoration of all things” (Acts 3) and it is a well-known patristic term. Among most of eastern fathers, death is the primary problem and enemy of humanity, the source of sins, fears, brutality, and corruption. For the East, the resurrection dissolves this death. Western theology has tended to emphasize sinfulness and sins as well as the crucifixion first. In 1 Corinthians 15-22-28, Paul writes with a “universal” theme in mind that would lean toward Origen’s apokatastasis, but the use of the phrasing of “final transfiguration” for each individual person is not found. Metropolitan Hilarion presents several key scriptural passages that seem to speak in favor of or against universal salvation. What may surprise many Christians is that these passages can be read as either condemning that teaching or supporting it, as many church fathers have done. It may be saying that only the “righteous” receive the “final victory” or it may be saying that the righteous conquer with Christ and even the wicked are put into submission and finally bow down to God. John the Apostle at Patmos writes in the Book of Revelation 21 that the righteous and the wicked will worship the Lamb; all humanity participates in worshiping Christ in His Glory. When all bow their knee before God, He doesn’t need reluctant worshippers. The Apostle Paul teaches that “when all things are subdued to him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.” No human person has a choice about worshipping Christ Jesus. In Revelation 21, John inserts a positive statement about the unrepentant “kings of the earth” that was probably borrowed from the Septuagint passages of Isaiah 60, Psalms 2 and 88. It says that “the nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day – and there will be no night there.” Nothing “unclean” or sinful enters God’s kingdom is clear. These unrepentant and wicked people are also said to enter through the lake of fire and at the same they bring gifts and worship Christ, the Lamb. If Christ sanctified all outside the city on earth with his cross, likewise it would seem logical that his Light and Fire will cleanse all outside the heavenly city of Jerusalem. The Old Testament and the New Testament Scriptures together give us good reasons or foundations to interpret God the Father as giving sinners "corrective punishment or “chastisement” (kolasis) that would heal sinners in need of change; also, Metropolitan Hilarion has already mentioned in preceding chapters about how sin and corruption is “foreign” to the human body and soul, and that it requires precise healing. Apokatastasis can mean to restore from an illness. Gregory of Nyssa teaches that God will “become all, and instead of all, to us, distributing himself proportionately to every need of that existence.” Christ the Lamb is every blessing and good for creation. Nothing earthly will ever be able to become that source of life for us, not even the earthly sun and its light since God will be our Light. Isaac the Syrian teaches that God rewards our ascetical struggles by giving us different degrees of His Light when we enter His Kingdom without passing through any fiery trials. The idea of blessing is rooted in Old Testament prophecies where we find that God may bless all people. Orthodoxy does not teach that God changes in his love toward us, as Marcion taught in the early Church, a heresy condemned as Marcionism. God does not act kind in the New Testament to the nations, but He becomes angry in the Old Testament against the Gentiles and Hebrews. Like the Old Testament typology, in the future there will be people who were perfected in this life and enter the promise land, the imperfect who struggled to and hoped to find that promised life, and the wicked who are chastised by fire and their cities and idols are destroyed. It does not seem fitting to believe that God acts kind toward us now in this age, but He will become angry or loving people to the point of torture at the Last Judgment without a limit, since the Old Testament is filled with phrases and ideas that show exactly how God cannot bear to let “anger” and “judgment” last forever. Isaac the Syrian describes the new creation in his Ascetical Homily 58 as “the contemplation of divine beauty” by our noetic eyes. The powerful connection between seeing, loving, and salvation calls into question traditional understandings of free will. If all could see God’s beauty and love revealed, how could our nous depart from Him again to pick from the tree of good and evil? Just as a young couple are mutually enamored, just as if someone had a spiritually uplifting moment of clarity when they see an icon for the first time, so too God’s Divine Beauty may be overpowering to the viewer. That the Kingdom of Heaven will overcome all is our victory, and that all will worship the Holy Trinity in transfigured light is at least our eschatological hope. 

Orthodox Christianity, Vol II, Chp 31: Posthumous Retribution

That God wills universal salvation of each person is scriptural. Isaac the Syrian teaches from his homilies that even in Gehenna people are not experiencing a lack of divine love, but its fullness finally revealed to humanity. Free will is accepted by the Orthodox Church. God does not coerce us into loving Him, but He wants a willing heart. Irenaeus of Lyons teaches that not all angels and people choose to depart from God’s will. Departing from God creates an alternate, artificial reality, which Scripture and the holy fathers have called Hades. It is a spiritual experience that seems to be the natural consequence of self-isolation from God, a willful hiding from the truth just as the first parents did in the garden of Eden. But there will be no hiding place at the restoration of all things, as Scripture teaches. The Holy Trinity does not withhold goodness in any absolute sense just as God even now makes it rain on the just and unjust in this world. There seems to be an enigma between what the Holy Trinity wills and what creatures will against the Creator. It sounds as if creatures are allowed to maintain a co-parallel kingdom of Hades. But there is no paradoxical ending in Orthodox Christianity. Kenosis, meaning self-emptying or making room for the other, is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world; it is the eternal sacrifice for mankind. God’s self-emptying does not seem to ever end, according to Holy Scripture. No one has a choice to opt out of this experience of God’s love. There is already a difficulty, then, for our understanding of free will, which is often used to explain the destiny of individuals. The dogma of the universal resurrection too already begins to encroach on traditional understandings of free will as well as Isaac’s Ascetical Homily 18.

Protopresbyter Georges Florovsky teaches that there is only one possibility: all will experience God’s eternal, unchanging love. “Hades is a tear … a revolt and apostasy” writes Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev in this chapter. We might understand that an obstinate refusal of love will feel tormenting to certain individuals. But Orthodoxy does not advocate for the existence of an ongoing, never-ending war between Good and Evil, like some gnostic teachings and pagan philosophies have taught. A choice may be more like a decision to offer sacrifice to the Holy Trinity or to a creaturely being. Sin may be better understood as a wish to “establish another level of being.” But God is not a Being, and He is beyond beings. Metropolitan Hilarion writes that the possibility of people rejecting God’s love does not reverse the teaching that Hades will be destroyed; people will not disappear, but ontological places that once held us hostage do not need to exist any longer when Christ comes into His Kingdom. Christ did open up the scenario that all people in Hades can be saved through our prayers and ascetical struggles.

In the Old Testament, Sheol is translated as Hades in Greek. It was a gloomy prison of forgetfulness, where evil doers are tortured by their self-will and there is no communion with God or others; others seem to have gone to Abraham’s bosom, waiting place of the righteous. Christ reversed all of that by his descent into Hades. Gehenna is called the “unquenchable fire.” Some think Hades is described in more detail in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16. Real fire, real worms are not required to feel or experience the separation of a soul from what it can see as a loss of repentance. Gehenna (Hell) already starts in this life, Metropolitan Hilarion mentions, just as it is seen in the psychological disturbances of well-known characters such as Tolstoy, Nietzsche or Nebuchadnezzar who appear to become mentally ill. Repentance is an inevitable consequence for all people since all have sinned; whether we hide from God or bring our sins to Him in life now. Repentance is a “change of mind” (metanoia); it is an activity of the nous that is turned back toward its Creator, the Holy Trinity. Isaac the Syrian teaches that Gehenna (Hell) is the nous’ attempting to repent for the past in frustration, or “the inability to change one’s mind.” It is the sadness that amends cannot be completed in the old earth that has been burned up.  Even in this scenario, however, we already find an admittance of the wicked wishing to escape a never-ending, limitless punishment of Hell. Hades is also described as “excommunication” and “an inability to relate to God.” To know is to have seen, and Christ says in the Scriptures to the goats, “I know you not.” It is the original sin that hides our shame that seems to prevent communion again. Will there be mercy for those in Hell? Mark of Ephesus teaches that it is the seeing or “contemplation” of God that is felt to have been lost by sinners; it is what is unseen that is the suffering of souls. Symeon the New Theologian teaches similarly to Isaac the Syrian that sinners will try to repent in vain.

Unlike the dogma of purgatory (an infernal part of Hell) taught in Roman Catholicism, based on an interpretation of “paying the last penny” in Luke 12 and Matthew 5, Isaac the Syrian does not posit any “intermediary” place between Heaven and Hell. It is Orthodox teaching that we can pray for and change the fate of people now until the Last Judgment. Eastern theologians and fathers have frequently asked the question, can people in Hell be saved ultimately. There is the difficulty of understanding concepts like free will, time, eternity and “ages” while applying them to a new creation outside of created time. On the one hand, people may choose their inner experience in this life and even change through faithful prayers after death. On the other hand, they will not choose the outcome of reality, the resurrection to eternal life of some kind. That is only in the will of the Holy Trinity. Origen investigated this idea of the universal restoration (apokatastasis) of all things. That theme is found in the Book of Acts 3:21. Some have argued that his theology was posthumously anathematized by a council, however, similar thoughts in Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor appear too without any condemnation as well as many other patristic saints. In fact, his theology was not the concern of the council. There are several different meanings of restoration. It can mean a “moral rebirth,” “physical rebirth” and the soul and body reborn into their dynamic, original image. Origen may have been playing off two Greek words “age” (aion) and “worldly” often translated as “eternal” (aionios). The word eternal is actually a Latin word (aeterna) that means the same as “eons” “worlds” or “ages.” In the New Testament, Gehenna, punishment and the everlasting torment of sinners are specifically not described with the Greek word “aeidios” (never-ending, forever) but with the word “aionios,” that means “of an age, eon, world” that would include a limit. He inferred from this that the fires of Hell (Gehenna) could be instructive suffering for the salvation of “every rational creature” with the exception of the demons, which the holy fathers have experienced in ascetic struggles, by going through ages that are completions of time. In this way, eternity is not “never-ending” but more of the idea of cyclical ages that are completed. From Acts 3, Origen took the principle of “the end is like the beginning.” That would hint at the idea of non-linear time in passages of Scripture like Psalm 60 and the Book of Revelation that speak of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. There are also possible connections to the Hellenistic “eons” or circles of finished time periods in his writings, On First Principles. But if sacrifice is part of human nature, then it is from the beginning of reality. The question is how can the wicked, if they so will it, offer sacrifice rightly in the end? There were other critics of Origen’s investigation. Georges Florovsky critiques Origen by calling his apokatastasis a “rejection of history.” Emperor Justinian oversaw the Council in 553 AD that supposedly anathematized Origen and his writings, who coerced Pope Vigilius of Rome to attend the council. Justinian thought it unfair to believe in universal restoration when some strived in asceticism and others did not in this life. Isidore of Pelusium also teaches that salvation cannot be coerced but only carried out by “persuasion.” The Church decidedly rejected the “pre-existence of souls” or a pagan conception of apokatastasis. But Origen’s influential and thought-provoking theologoumena still held a persuasiveness for Russian theologians such as Bulgakov, Berdiaev, Lossky and Sourozh. To imagine a world where the Devil will no longer “rule” humans as captives and where the constraints of the laws of this age are gone, Death is bound and defeated, no one really knows what this new kind of life of the ages will fully entail. So, the next chapter discusses this theme of the newness of heaven and earth that is to come soon.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol II, Chp 30: The Last Judgment

The Book of Ecclesiastes warns to impart wisdom to a young man that how his time is spent matters; whatever he sets his eyes on will look back at him later in judgment. The Last Judgment begins in this life is an Orthodox teaching. We have a moral responsibility to others and ourselves. Mercy and forgiveness are the main criteria. Without love for others there is no belief in God. A 16th c. icon of the Last Judgment in northern Russia depicts Christ surrounded by all people and angels, seated in glory and light with books opened by his angels as well as the demons thrown into the eternal fire. The scene is not a “threat” to be good, but a revelatory reality that Christ has been given the authority to judge by God the Father. This teaching is not a fear tactic to manipulate us into being good. Mercy flows out of the heart, not a coercive act of kindness. We too are images like icons that can be read visually like books, imprinted with letters of our lives. 

The religious authorities in the New Testament prefigure foolish disbelief. The Apostle John says, “He who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment.” Hearing and believing involve both physical sight and ears as well as the noetic activity of the heart and our soul. The sheep and goats are already being separated based on who rejects the Gospel and who has apostatized. John Chrysostom teaches that “our thoughts will stand forth…[to] condemn … exonerate us.” Christ is the judge, but not the condemner. He reveals each person’s nous, their heart, and He reveals humanity. Orthodoxy teaches that all have been given enough of their own judgment to decide what is right or wrong. For Jews, they will be held to the words of the Law. For Gentiles, they will be held to their inner law, what we call a conscience, or inner knowledge. Christians are judged by the Gospel of Christ. All of these moral criteria come from the Most Holy Trinity, not merely a theory of natural law. They are lamps to enlighten our path in this life. To know is to see the other mercifully. The Greek word for “I know” comes from the root verb that means “I have seen” (oida). For the Latins, morals came from their forefathers that they called the mos maiorum. That can be translated as ancestral way or the way of the elders. They followed this unwritten ancestral way alongside the written legal documents. It was a highly interpersonal web of social relationships that was treasured by them up until Roman citizens began converting to Christianity. Gaius Lucillius, for example, said that virtus meant that a man was able to know what was right or wrong, upright or disgraceful, useful or useless. All cultures follow a way of behaving, a code of mores that have been given to understand God the Creator in our actions toward others, no matter what level of light is given to our minds. Whether by Law, Conscience or Christ, the soul is assumed to exist. Basil the Great teaches that our bodily actions become imprinted on our soul like a painting, and that we are all judged by people who lived in similar situations and positions as we did, since cultures vary, and we are born into different times and places. There is no room for rebuttal of unfairness. 

We will also be judged by books. Our decisions and actions will be written down, Cyril of Jerusalem teaches. We will see an image of ourselves and our relation to others “in an instant.” We can also see this kind of icon of ourselves even now in our behavior toward our neighbors, foreigners and family. Like icons that are painted with shades of light and symbolism of divine fire, we will experience the Light of the Trinity at the Last Judgment. If we struggle against the passions and acquired belief, we feel the warmth of Light and see His Glory without fear of judgment. If we knowingly turn from repentance, apostatize and are still obscured by passions, we become blinded by the light of love, as even now we are not able to see this light in ourselves or others. The Day of the Lord is not so much overshadowed by the coming doom of “dies irae” – a hymn on the Last Judgment written by Thomas Celano in the 13th c. as a prayer for the dead – but in Orthodox theology it is more of a joyful daylight that has already come for people who have pursued God’s commandments and have shown kindness, as Symeon the New Theologian taught. Christians who wash themselves in the baptism of death and add to that tears of repentance will have no fear or mourning. In stanza 18 of the Latin hymn dies irae, it says, “That tearful day, from which glowing embers will arise the guilty man to be judged. Then spare him, O God.” People who sought out “the blessing of the world” experience the Divine Light as a love that wounds their soul and body; their appearance will be as if they were surrounded by these loving flames. No one is deprived of God’s love after death, even in Gehenna, teaches Isaac the Syrian in his Ascetical Homily 18. The next chapter, then, discusses the justice that each person receives posthumously and hopefully.  

Orthodox Christianity, Vol II, Chp 29: The Universal Resurrection

The New Testament records that Paul preached the gospel publicly to the Athenians at the Areopagus, the Hill of Ares (Mars), the god of War, to believe in the resurrection by appealing to what their own poets wrote, “For we are also His offspring.” The ancient Hellenistic and Latin peoples have been criticized for anthropomorphizing their deities. But their poetic traditions could serve to help them believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Likewise with other nations. Athens and Jerusalem can have a lot to do with each other. 

Orthodoxy preaches that at the end of the eschaton every person, whether wicked or repentant, will be resurrected into an eternal life. The Hebrew prophets of the Old Testament spoke of this resurrection. Isaiah prophesied about the earth casting out the dead like a harvest of souls from the ground. Daniel prophesied about death as if it were sleep. Ezekiel prophesied, as we remind ourselves on Holy Saturday, “You, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” He also says, “Behold I will bring upon you the breath of life … I will put my spirit into you,” which refers to the first creation in Genesis while it looks forward to the universal resurrection. Second Maccabees too is an example of the older Jewish belief in the resurrection, even though some sects around the time of Jesus, the Sadducees, doubted this doctrine. Orthodoxy teaches dogmatically that man’s “original nature” is eternal in both body and soul. There is no original sin that will last, since sin, decay and death are foreign to the body and to the soul of mankind. 

There are many examples and proofs of the resurrection from the cycles of nature itself, as Clement of Rome taught, in the way it rejuvenates itself and how the passing of time recurs as if it were eternal. It should be a fundamental belief of humankind. Science and many cultures today have no issue with explaining how mercury comes together naturally, or how a seed dies to grow into a tree, or how dry and dead soil regrows itself into a forest. Night and day descend and ascend; the fruits of the earth die and grow again. Farming is full of apt images of eternity imbedded around us. Scientists have explained how atoms stay together to form chemical compounds or elements from the periodic table as if they are spontaneously attracted to each other in beautiful patterns. Ezekiel too explained how the body and the soul return, “I looked, and behold, sinews and flesh grew upon them and skin covered them.” Scientist have often doubted the existence of the soul, however, while believing that a seed continues to live after its own death. Nevertheless, the body is immortal, and the soul eternally bears the “stamp” of it; it will not be saved separately from each other, as Justin Martyr and John Chrysostom have taught. We think today that math and the laws of nature are eternal, but the gospel teaches that the body of each person will return in its own form, some transfigured by glory and grace, others by the passions that stayed with them. Gregory of Nyssa taught that every human has its own form or eidos. The body stamps onto the soul. The incarnation of Christ stamped our humanity with his divinity. And we will have an elemental body again made of “the same stuff,” Gregory taught. The cosmos will be saved with our flesh because a body needs an environment in which to live and move. How our whole nature will reunite is not a scientific question, but a question of refashioning the beauty that God has made. The sin that took away grace is removed by death. The grace that was lost is given back by the resurrection. 

The Apostle Paul teaches that we cannot compare anything to this new life and world of the resurrection. But we do know that it will be filled with light and glory and fire. When Christ resurrected and the Apostles met him on the road to Emmaus, they knew him by his “voice and gestures” not so much by his earthly appearance. The recognition of each other at the resurrection requires that we experience a very similar voice and gesture of those whom we have known or have some connection to on this earth. Ephraim the Syrian teaches that children who died in the womb as well as younger children will be resurrected as adults, and these mothers and children will recognize each other, even if they had never met on earth. Age and physical appearance imply growing old, and that belongs to the corruptibility of this world. Deeds done in this life that shine in the next is an important feature of discerning who other people are in the resurrected kingdom of God, not possessions, wealth, skills, clothes or other more circumstantial things. 

The resurrection of the judgment and the resurrection of life go hand in hand, and it is the reason for having the mysteries of baptism into death and confession of sins in Orthodoxy. Baptism will reunite us not only with the form of our own bodies, but with the people we knew. How we experience being in a sinless world may differ according to how we behaved and treated others while we lived. The next chapter discusses the teaching on the Last Judgment, a revelation not only of God but of humanity itself.