After the terrible judgment. Eternal life of the righteous and sinners after the Last Judgment

I am interested in the following question: after the Last Judgment, will there be such a thing as “time”?

Hieromonk Job (Gumerov) answers:

Holy Bible begins and ends with indications relating to time: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth(Gen. 1:1) - there will be no more time(Rev. 10:6). biblical at the beginning indicates that time is a creation of God. It is the fundamental property of the created world. God confined His creation to time. Time is the measure of earthly duration. It has a beginning and an end. The Creator set certain rhythms to which the entire world created by Him is subject: the movement of the heavenly bodies and the alternation of day and night associated with this, the cycle of the seasons, the change of generations of people. There is a time for everything, and a time for every thing under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die(Eccl. 3:1-2). In relation to the temporal existence of the world, God remains transcendent. Man lives in time, and God lives in eternity: My days are like a canopy evading .... But thou, O Lord, abide forever(Ps. 101:12-13). Time inevitably flows towards its end.

There is cosmic time and historical time. The first is cyclic, the second is progressive. No progress or social evolution, but only an eschatological perspective determined by Divine Providence. History does not obey the law of circulation, as the ancient Greeks believed. She is heading towards the end events. This goal determines the meaning of history. The time of the history of the sinful world will end with the last Judgment: When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory, and all nations will be gathered before Him.(Matthew 25:31-32). When the Judgment ends, then time will stop. Then people will enter into the eternity of God.

In the world religious tradition the idea of ​​the Last Judgment is quite widespread. Christianity, which speaks of the responsibility for their actions before the face of God at the end of time, at first glance, is no exception. And in the minds of the majority of believers, and in the imagination of the townsfolk, and in art, something like this picture was established: after the death of the world, the Almighty will resurrect all mankind, and each of us will receive a reward for those deeds that were committed by us in the days of earthly life.

This is the well known model. But if you carefully read the gospel text and delve deeper into the meaning of the heritage of the holy fathers, it becomes clear that this familiar and, in general, correct scheme is actually not as simple as it seems. Moreover, traditional Christian eschatology is the doctrine of last days universe - in its vision of the Last Judgment is unique and very different from similar ideas that exist within other religions.

The essence of the understanding of the Last Judgment, as the holy fathers of the Church saw it, is that the final fate of each of the people is determined not only by God, but also by man, and this process is based not so much on the principle of “earn - receive”, but on Divine Love. It is she who makes the Last Judgment truly terrible ...

In the Russian text of the New Testament, eschatological passages abound with such words as "judgment", "judgment", "judgment", "retribution" and the like. Therefore, in the mind of one who reads the Holy Scriptures, an involuntary analogy with legal literature sometimes arises - the pictures of God's judgment are very similar in their context to the usual earthly trials. But one has only to open the original Greek and Hebrew texts - and the usual Russian-language phrases are filled with completely new unusual content.

One of the main concepts of jurisprudence is justice - a principle that allows you to keep social forces in some balance, if necessary, punishing the bad and encouraging the good. The Greek word for this term is dikaiosyne. It is also used by the creators of the Bible to point to Divine justice. Ultimately, this led to the fact that Western Christian thinking, which did not completely get rid of the pagan worldview, put an equal sign between the two justices. But the Hebrew text does not give sufficient grounds for drawing such conclusions.

The fact is that the Greek "dikaiosyne" in the Old Testament texts is used to convey an even more archaic word from the language of the ancient Israelites - "tzedakah". Modern Hebrew understands this term as a type of charity obligatory for all believing Jews, which is aimed, again, at achieving social justice - if you are rich, you must different ways help the poor.

However, in more ancient times, even before the coming of Christ, "tzedakah" served as a synonym for such concepts as "saving divine grace", "mercy", "compassion", "righteousness", "love". And the holy fathers, knowing this, speak of God's justice in a different way than, say, lawyers or lawyers do.

In Eastern theology, sin is seen as a distortion of God's original plan for man and the world. Therefore, justice (if we use this particular term) is conceived here not in legal, but rather in medical categories - as the restoration of harmony that existed in the universe before the fall of the devil and man.

Finally, such a return to the original state of the world will occur at the end of time, when God will renew all of His creation. The entire cosmos will then become truly real, as it will return irrevocably to its Creator.

Church tradition speaks of the immutability of God. Including - and about such immutability, which suggests that our Creator always and equally loves everyone, regardless of the baggage of evil deeds that each of us has accumulated over the years of life. But what is a man?

Everything is more complicated with him - he fell willfully, and he commits sin willfully, and he can come back to his Lord only of his own free will. One can struggle with sin and gradually move towards the light all one's life, returning the soul to its original state of grace. Or you can completely surrender to sin, enslaving yourself to it and eventually becoming incapable of accepting the love that will be poured out on a person in Eternity.

On earth, in the conditions of a fallen world, we can often not notice either the participation of God in our lives, or His love for us. When the present existence ceases to exist, God's presence will become such a tangible reality that even those who did not know Him, or did not want to know, will enter into it and be its direct participants - whether they like it or not. In this fact lies the whole tragedy of the Last Judgment - the soul of every person will be enlightened by the light of the Divine, and this light will reveal all the most hidden deeds, feelings, thoughts, emotions and desires that have accumulated in the human heart. After all, it is the very book that, according to the gospel story, will be read at the Last Judgment.

Usually, “the last judgment on mankind” in popular culture is perceived as the announcement of the verdict by God: “You are to the right, you are to the left. The decision is not subject to appeal." And poor, unfortunate people who have no good deeds behind their souls will no longer be able to appeal. However, the following words of St. Simeon the New Theologian speak of something completely different:

"V future life a Christian will not be tested whether he renounced the whole world for the love of Christ, or whether he distributed his property to the poor, whether he abstained and fasted on the eve of the holidays, or whether he prayed, whether he lamented and mourned his sins, or whether he did anything else good in his life, but he will be carefully tested whether he has the same resemblance to Christ as a son has to his father” (St. Simeon the New Theologian, Word 2, §3).

Photo by Svetlana Andreeva. Project

THE FINAL JUDGMENT OF GOD.

There will come a day, the last day for this human race (John 6:39); as there is the last day for each person separately, the day of the end of the age and the world (Matt. 13: 39), as there is the day of the death of a person, the day established by God will come, “on which he will judge the world righteously” (Acts 17: 31) , i.e., the judgment is universal and decisive. That is why this day is called in Scripture the Day of Judgment (Matt. 11:22 and 24); day of judgment (2 Pet. 3:7); day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God (Rom. 2:5); day of the Son of Man (Luke 17:22); day of the Lord (2 Pet. 3:10); the day of Christ (2 Thess. 2:2); in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 1:14) because the Lord Jesus Christ will appear on earth already in His glory to judge the living and the dead; great day (Acts 2:21; Jude 6), according to those great events that will then take place.

The second coming to earth of the Lord Jesus Christ is a dogma of Orthodoxy and is contained in the seventh member of the Creed. In the same part, the dogma of the future Last Judgment of God over humanity for its earthly life, for his deeds.

It is clear that the opening of judgment precedes the coming of the judge and then the appearance of those who are judged: people and demons. Consequently, all the testimonies of Holy Scripture about the second glorious coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to earth, about the resurrection of the dead - remain evidence of the reality of the universal judgment. Here is the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself about the final judgment, the testimony of St. apostles, St. fathers and teachers of the Church.

Jesus Christ teaches: “For the Father does not judge anyone, but has given all judgment to the Son ... He has given Him authority to execute judgment” (John 5:22 and 27); and elsewhere he says: “For the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he will reward each according to his deeds” (Matt. 16:27). And the apostles preached about judgment: “For he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, by means of a Man whom he has ordained, giving proof to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31); “Behold the Lord comes with ten thousand of His holy angels, to execute judgment upon all, and to reprove all the ungodly among them in all deeds” (Jude 14:15); the apostle Paul testifies many times about the universal, final judgment, and, finally, John the Theologian writes about the same thing (Rev. 20: 11-15)

The Holy Church has always confessed this dogma of universal judgment. In the symbol of Athanasius we read: “(Christ) will come to judge the living and the dead, by His coming all people will be resurrected with their bodies, and they will give an answer for their deeds.” This dogma is testified by all the holy fathers and teachers of the Church in their writings.

Here is a soul-shattering picture of the final judgment on mankind, a picture that the word of God presents us (Matt. 25:31-46) and which is confirmed by a sound mind. The parts of this picture are: 1) Judge - God, 2) accomplices in court - Angels and apostles, 3) defendants, 4) subject of judgment, 5) separation of the righteous from sinners, and 6) final sentence to both.

In the first place of the picture of the Last Judgment, according to the testimony of Jesus Christ Himself, the Son of God will appear as God the King and Judge, sitting on the Throne of His glory, surrounded by all the saints. Angels and St. apostles. Sitting on the Throne is a figurative expression taken from ordinary kings! They sit on the throne in especially important circumstances.

Further, the executors of the will of God are presented, or, as it were, partners in the court - Angels and apostles: "and he will send his angels with a loud trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other" (Mt. 24: 31), and they will gather from His kingdom all stumbling blocks and those who do iniquity, and will separate the wicked from among the righteous.” Here is the participation, the activity of the Angels at the Last Judgment. The Jews usually convened meetings by means of trumpets, which served Jesus Christ as a symbol for the figurative speech of the assembly of all mankind for judgment by means of angels with a loud trumpet voice. This is figurative speech, and one should not think that Angels will be sent with trumpets. No, one last trumpet will sound (1 Cor. 15:52), the trumpet of God (1 Thess. 4:16), at the sound of which the Holy Son of God will be sent. Angels; at the same time, according to the sound of the same trumpet, the resurrection of the dead will follow. [ however, the doctrine of many trumpets (seven in Revelation) was probably widespread in Judea, because in the 3rd book of Ezra, which describes events clearly related to recent years it is said about some - "at the third trumpet" happened (3 Ezra 5:4) - ed. golden-ship] The countries of the world (east, west, north and south) the Jews usually called the winds. The sent Angels will gather for judgment all people from all countries of the world, they will gather both the righteous and the evil, and will separate the first from the last.

Then the part that will be taken at the judgment of St. the apostles, this is what the Lord said: “Truly, I say to you that you who have followed Me are in everlasting life, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you will also sit on twelve thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. 19: 28). Here, the thrones of the apostles do not mean their thrones, but first of all the glory and honor with which they will be honored primarily before all when they begin to reign with the Lord and participate in glory. The Messiah will judge all, to whom alone God gave all judgment (Jn 5:22); but the Lord says that the apostles will also judge - in the sense that all believers, participants in the glory and dominion of the Messiah, will also be partners in the judgment of the world, about which the apostle Paul later wrote: “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? (1 Cor. 6:2)

And here the apostolic court, represented by the Lord, had in its image, a symbol of the court of advisers, courtiers, surrounding earthly kings and helping them in the matter of judgment. The twelve tribes of Israel are the name of the people of God, a people once chosen and beloved by God; in the present saying of the Lord, “the twelve tribes” takes on the meaning of the whole people beloved by the Lord and redeemed by Him, namely, all Christians subject to judgment. So the apostle James calls all Christians the twelve tribes.

Paradise will present its celestials - the righteous souls - to the place of judgment, and the hell of its dead - the souls of sinners, and the union of souls with their bodies will follow. Then a fatal verdict will be pronounced on the righteous and sinners, and each will receive his full reward for the deeds of earthly life.

Unbelievers, as those who did not accept redemption, at the Terrible Universal Judgment of Christ will be condemned to deprivation of eternal blessed life in Christ; and with them those of the believers and baptized who spent their earthly life contrary to the law of Christ. By the time of the Last Judgment, all those who have ever lived, without exception, will be resurrected and will undergo the final judgment, which is evidenced by the words: “They will look at Him who was pierced” (Zech. 12: 10). All the resurrected will look (plural number), including those who crucified the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence, unbelievers, in short - all of humanity. Not only people will be brought to judgment, but also fallen spirits, whom, according to the testimony of the apostle, “God did not spare, but bound with the bonds of hellish darkness, handed over to watch for judgment for punishment” (1 Pet. 2:4). And the apostle Jude also writes: “And the angels who did not retain their dignity, but left their dwelling place, he keeps in eternal bonds, under darkness, for the judgment of the great day.”

If a person consists of spirit, soul and body, then the visible, external life and activity of a person is nothing but an expression, a manifestation of the life and activity of the soul. Thoughts, desires, feelings are objects of the immaterial world. They constitute the invisible activity of the invisible soul, and, being expressed in words and deeds, they constitute the visible activity of the body as an organ of the soul, i.e. human activity. So, both the internal (spiritual) and external (bodily) activity of a person will be judged at the judgment. According to the dual nature of man and his dual activity, which will be condemned at the universal judgment, both the reward and punishment will be twofold: spiritual, internal (for the soul) and external, feelings corresponding to the new human body.

Each person at the last judgment will give a strict and complete account of all thoughts, desires, feelings, words and deeds for all earthly life. Of course, sinful thoughts, desires, feelings, words and deeds will not be remembered at the judgment if they are washed away on earth in due time by true repentance.

The activity of the soul is manifested in the visible activity of a person, in his words and deeds, so that words and deeds always correctly characterize the moral state of the soul, good or evil. Everything that is meant by the word “idle” used by the Savior - unusual, inconsistent, indecent for Christian activity - will be condemned in court; “I tell you that for every idle word that people say, they will give an answer in the day of judgment” (Matt. 12:36).

Words are the essence of the expression of thoughts and feelings of a person and, in general, his inner, moral state; a person is known by them, as a tree is known by its fruits. If the words of a person are truthful, honest, pious, edifying, then they show a good person, and such a person will be justified in judgment; if the words are false, impious, then they point to the evil heart of a person, and such a person cannot receive justification, but will be condemned. Justification and condemnation at the judgment depends on faith and deeds, while words mean only the inner, moral state of the soul. An idle word is one that contains lies, slander, arousing indecent laughter, i.e. the word is shameful, shameless, empty, having nothing to do with the case.

The Apostle Paul writes about the judgment of the invisible, secret spiritual activity: “Judge not in any way before the time, until the Lord comes, who both illuminates the hidden in darkness and reveals the intentions of the heart, and then everyone will be called from God” (1 Cor. 4:5 ). So, at the judgment, each person will give a strict and complete account for all his activity, both for the internal, spiritual (Matt. 12: 36), and for the visible, external, i.e. for all words and deeds the Lord will repay everyone (Rom. 2:6; 2 Cor. 5:10).

At the last judgment, before the gaze of the moral and spiritual realm of spirits and souls, all life, the earthly activity of each soul, both good and evil activity, will be visible. Not a single innermost thought, not a single sigh, not a glance, not even the slightest bodily action will be hidden. Everything right and wrong, unless it is cleansed in advance by proper repentance, everything will be visible to everyone: angels, saints, and people. “It is not without reason,” says John Chrysostom, “there is no judgment for so long, it is not without purpose that the universal, final judgment on mankind has been postponed for such a long time; given the time of intercession before God for one another.” With the advent of the decisive hour of the fate of mankind, this intercession collapses; then neither prayers, nor petitions, nor friendship, nor kinship, nor tears, nor good intentions and desires, nor virtues will help us. At that fateful hour, neither the prayer of sinners to the saints, nor the prayers of the saints to God for mercy on sinners will become ineffective. The prayers of the saints will not help the condemned, nor the intercession of the father will alleviate the fate of the condemned son, nor the tears of the children will free from eternal torment their unfortunate parents; neither a husband will help his frivolous wife, nor a wife her husband. And the very love of truth will no longer allow intercession for those who have completely rejected it; it would be unnatural to ask for the Kingdom of Heaven for someone who resolutely did not want it, and therefore is not adapted to a life full of peace and love, not fit for the life of saints. Then love, kinship, friendship, acquaintance will lose their beneficial meaning, and any relationship between souls who love truth and truth, and those who are at enmity with them, will finally disappear, and the memory of sinners will cease to disturb the souls of saints who have pleased their Lord.

At the Last Judgment, when everything secret is revealed, the righteous and sinners will see and recognize each other. Sinners in hell, seeing until that time the saints in paradise, but not seeing each other, now they will see and recognize, as Athanasius the Great writes in the “Word about the Dead”. But their date will be joyless! Why? Because the cause of eternal condemnation was ourselves and our loved ones on earth, with whom we now have to meet. Will we really hear gratitude from our loved ones when, having remained on earth after them, we spent our lives like the brothers of the evangelical unfortunate rich man?

St. John of Damascus, warning us against such a terrible meeting with our loved ones on the day of judgment, writes: “We will try with all our might so that on that terrible and terrible day our relatives do not reproach us for neglecting them; especially those of us to whom they entrusted the care of their property and left it. For let no one think that at that terrible event we will not recognize each other. The fundamental eye of the soul is the organ of sight and knowledge, as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself testifies in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

True, the rich man, while on earth, knew and, perhaps, saw Lazarus more than once, and therefore it is not surprising that he recognized him; But how did he recognize, according to the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ, Abraham, whom he did not know before and had never seen anywhere? So, we conclude and testify as the truth that at the trial everyone will recognize each other, both acquaintances and strangers. St. John Chrysostom writes about this truth as follows: “We will recognize not only those who were familiar to us here, but we will also see those whom we have never seen.”

St. Ephraim the Syrian writes: “Then the children will rebuke their parents for not doing good deeds; on that day, many of their acquaintances will be seen unhappy, and some of them, noticing them placed at the right hand, will go away from them, saying goodbye to them with tears.

“Then,” says St. Gregory the Theologian, i.e. on the day of the general judgment - I will see you, my beloved brother Caesarea, bright, glorious, cheerful, just like you often appeared to me in a dream.

St. Demetrius of Rostov, addressing the weeping parent, says about the death of his son, as if in consolation: “You will see him (i.e. the deceased son) in the grace of God among the righteous, in a bright and cool place.”

Thus all the pastors and teachers of the Church teach that we shall all see each other in due time. Consequently, all mankind from the first to the last person will appear for judgment: “All nations will gather before Him” (Matt. 25:32); “Who will judge the living and the dead” (2 Tim. 4:1), because “He is appointed by God Judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42).

What could be more terrible and stinking than that state of souls when all our secret and obvious deeds, words, thoughts and desires are revealed before the eyes of each, when each clearly sees all the activities of the other? Then our love and hypocrisy, truth and untruth, will obviously be revealed to everyone. John of Damascus says: "It will be a great heavenly shame when everyone recognizes another and is himself recognized." And then the Lord “will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on His left” (Matt. 25:33), i.e. The Lord will separate the righteous from the sinners; then unbelief will separate the father from the son, the daughter from the mother, and the spouses will have to part forever. Faith will save some, and unbelief will destroy others.

“And he will separate them (those who are judged) from one another, as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. And He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on His left.” Since there will be Christians and non-Christians at the judgment, then one part of the judgment is the judgment on Christians, which is from the questions of Jesus Christ and the answer of the judges, which relate directly to Christians. The teacher of languages, the chosen vessel of the Holy Spirit, also confirms this, saying: It is fitting for all of us (i.e. Christians, both righteous and sinners) to appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ, so that each of us receives for our internal and external activities on earth (i.e. for their thoughts, desires, feelings, words and deeds) full retribution: either reward or punishment (2 Cor. 5: 10).

The other part of the judgment (over non-Christians) is briefly depicted in the words of Holy Scripture. Judgment on Christians will be carried out by Jesus Christ Himself; believers will be judged according to their works, and therefore our works will condemn us or justify us. The deeds of love and mercy offered by the Lord at the judgment to Christians, as those who know His all-holy will, alone will bring the Kingdom of Heaven, already prepared for them from eternity; and to others who stand on the left side, as they also know the will, the commandments of God, but neglect them, punishment will be announced; they will go into eternal torment.

All Christian activity, all our mutual relations with one another must be based on eternal divine love. According to the degree of Christian love, some will be placed on the right side, and others on the left. The right side is generally more honorable than the left; it is usually intended for higher persons, kings and elders in general, for relatives, relatives, friends. The right side, according to the word of the Lord Jesus Christ, is a place for the blessed, a place for the children of God, heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven, and the left side is a place for the damned, the outcast, because they themselves voluntarily rejected the blessings prepared for man in his afterlife.

Therefore, Jesus Christ will turn to those standing on the right side and pronounce the verdict of eternal fate, explaining the reasons for it: come, blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world for your good deeds on earth. They (deeds) are directly related to Me because you did them to My lesser brothers. You fed the hungry, gave water to the thirsty, received strangers, gave clothes to those in need, visited the sick and forgot those who were in prison. The omniscient God from eternity foresaw the actions of people, and therefore, according to their actions, from eternity he also determined rewards and punishments. For good deeds - life, the Kingdom of Heaven. And for the evil - death, eternal torment.

True Christians, His followers, Jesus Christ calls His brothers, as close to Him in spirit, in disposition and in suffering: “Whoever does the will of My Father in Heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother” (Matt. 12: 50) The Apostle Paul also testifies to this recognition by Jesus Christ of His faithful servants as brothers: therefore he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, I will proclaim your name my brethren” (Heb. 2:11, 12). The unity of the Lord with His true followers is the closest unity: the unity of faith, love, spirit and action. Therefore, everything that we have done for our neighbors, the Lord refers to Himself and rewards, as it were, for what was done to Himself: “Do it for me”, or: “He who receives you, receives Me” ...

Therefore, he will turn to Christian sinners, standing on the left side, and say: “Depart from me, damned, into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41), because you did not have a living faith and active love. The Savior, in his speech addressed to the righteous and the condemned, no longer says anything about faith, because faith here is shown by deeds. Therefore, works of faith justify some and condemn others. Deeds of love and mercy justify those standing on the right side of judgment, and the absence of these deeds condemns those standing on the left side to eternal fire.

Another part of the final judgment is the judgment on non-Christians, on those who do not believe in Christ. The Savior leaves this judgment to be performed by the apostles: “Truly I say to you that you who have followed Me, in everlasting life, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you will also sit on twelve thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. 19: 28) . How to understand the meaning of this judgment? The apostles, being with you, with all other Jews, of the same kind, having received the same education as you, brought up in the same laws and according to the same habits, leading the same way of life as you, believed in Me, and you - no. What prevented you from believing Me? Therefore, they will be your judges! The twelve tribes of Israel are the name of the people of God, a people once chosen and beloved by God. This saying is taken in the sense of all mankind, whom God loved so much that He also gave His Only Begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him would be saved. Beloved is Israel - and the whole world is loved: humanity, redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ. But since only those who believed benefited from the redemption, those of the twelve tribes who did not believe correspond to the whole mass of the people who do not know their Redeemer.

The saved believers will be a clear reproof for unbelievers, they will be evidence, judgment and condemnation for their unbelief. "They (i.e. the disciples of Christ) will be your (unbelieving Jews) judges." “In re-being” - this expression means the future transformation of the world, the restoration of the original perfection of the world that was before the fall of Adam; restoration, transformation, having to follow at the end of the world. Disciples of the Lord St. the apostles in the new afterlife will reign with Him and participate in glory, and will judge - in the sense that all believers, participants in the glory and dominion of the Messiah, will also become partners in the judgment of the world. This is a figurative expression taken from the king-judge, surrounded by advisers, jurors, helping him in the court case. Chrysostom understands the judgment of the apostles in the same sense in which Jesus Christ spoke about the judgment of the southern queen, the judgment of the Ninevites.

About that judgment of the saints, not only over the unbelievers, but even over evil spirits, the apostle Paul teaches this: “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? But if the world be judged by you, are you not worthy to judge unimportant things?” (1 Cor. 6:3) All the holy fathers and teachers of the Church recognized this image of the universal judgment as undoubtedly true.

(from the book of the monk Mitrofan (Alekseev V.N.)

“How our dead live and how we will live

and we are after death. SPb., 1897)

THE END OF THE CENTURY - THE WORLD

After the general, solemn, open, strict, terrible, decisive and final judgment on spiritual and moral beings, the end of the world will immediately follow on the same day and moment, the end on earth of the grace-filled kingdom of Christ and the beginning of the kingdom of glory, the beginning of a new, blessed life of the righteous and eternal life - the suffering of sinners.

After the judgment will follow the end of the world, the end of the age.

This truth was witnessed by Jesus Christ Himself in His parable of the seed: “The harvest is the end of the age, but the reapers are the angels. Therefore, as they gather the weeds and burn them with fire; so it will be at the end of this age” (Mark 13:39-40). It should not be understood by this word - the end - the destruction of the world; the existence of the world will not end, the world will not be destroyed, but will only change - just as a person does not annihilate, changing and turning from a state of decay into incorruptibility, from mortal to immortal.

With the change of man, a new dispensation of the world will follow, in accordance with the coming new order in the kingdom of Christ. The change of the world will be brought about by fire, according to the testimony of the word of God. Thus, the apostle Peter says: “The current heavens and earth, contained by the same Word, are saved for fire for the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly people… But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, and then the heavens will pass away with a noise, but the elements, having flared up, collapse. the earth and all the works on it will melt” (2 Pet. 3:7, 10, 12). That the end of the age, the end of the world, will really follow sooner or later, is confirmed by Divine Revelation and science. Revelation ascribes the change of the world to fire, and science, besides fire, admits as a means of changing this and other ways that can put an end to the present state of the earth, and consequently to humanity living on it.

Here are the testimonies of the word of God about the reality of the end of the world. V Old Testament the prophet and king David wrote about the end of the world as follows: “In the beginning, you, Lord, founded the earth and the heavens - the work of your hands; they will perish, but you remain; and they all become worn out like a garment, and you will change them like a garment” (Ps. 101:26-27). As nature favorably corresponded to the state of the souls of the first people before their fall, so it began to unfavorably correspond to man after the fall “the creation was subjected to futility, not voluntarily, but by the will of him who subjected it ... For we know that every creature groans and suffers together until now” (Rom. 8: 20, 22). Those. as a result of the fall of man, the whole creation involuntarily submitted to the work of corruption, groans and sympathizes with us, which was not the case with nature before the fall of the ancestors. Then, i.e. before the fall of the first parents, according to the words of the Apostle Paul and the book of Genesis, it is clear that the creation was “very good” (very good), that peace reigned in all spiritual and sensual creation, i.e. concord, union, harmony, joy, bliss. Consequently, everything created by God was in unity, union, mutual relationship and communion with its Creator-God and among themselves. Everything was in peace and harmony until man himself, the king of nature, violated them. With the fall of man, the union of all creation was broken. Out of the peaceful agreement came a hostile rebellion, sown in God's creation by the enemy of peace and love. Thus nature must exactly correspond to the new spiritual man. The entire visible material world, lying in evil, must be cleansed of the disastrous consequences of human sin and be renewed in order to come into line with the renewed man: “and creation itself will be freed from slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

The renewal of the world will take place on the last day by means of fire, so that nothing sinful will remain in the new heaven and on the new earth, but only righteousness will live. The change in man will immediately be followed by a change in nature, and then there will be new earth and the new heaven, according to the testimony of the Creator of heaven and earth Himself, who created them and is able to change them according to their purpose: “heaven and earth will pass away”, and in another place: “as long as the world stands”, or “the sky and earth will sooner pass away, sooner will the world the end will come” (Matthew 5:18); "I am with you all the days until the end of time." And all the words of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself can be seen that the present heaven and earth will only pass away, but will not be destroyed, and according to David, like old clothes, they will change into new ones (Ps. 101:26,27), which is also confirmed by the Apostle Peter, saying : "We are looking forward, according to the promise of the Lord, a new heaven and a new earth, where only righteousness will reign" (2 Pet. 3:13). And John the Theologian really saw in Revelation a new heaven and a new earth; “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1).

In the same way all the teachers of the Church taught about the end of the world. St. Irenaeus: “It is not the essence and substance of creation that is abolished (for the One who created it is true and strong), but the image of this world passes, i.e. that in which the disorder occurred ... When this image passes away and a person is renewed and rises to incorruption, then a new heaven and a new earth will appear.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem: “Our Lord Jesus Christ will come from heaven, He will come with glory at the end of this world on the last day. For this world will come to an end, and the created world will be renewed. Since debauchery, theft, adultery have become extremely widespread, and bloodshed follows bloodshed (Hos. 4: 2), so that this wonderful abode of all living things does not remain forever filled with lawlessness, this world will fall in order to again be better ... The Lord will remove heaven not for to destroy them, but to bring them back to at its best. Listen to the words of the Prophet David: in the beginning, O Lord, You founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain ... But someone will say, why he speaks clearly: will they perish? This is evident from what follows: and everything, as the clothes become dilapidated, and how the clothes will be changed. After all, it is also said of a person that he perishes, although we understand that if he is righteous, then a resurrection awaits him: so exactly do we expect a similar resurrection to heaven.

St. Basil the Great: “The foreshadowing of the dogmas about the end and change of the world is also what is now briefly handed down to us in the very beginnings of the inspired teaching: “in the beginning God created” ... That which began with time, out of all necessity, will end in time. If it has a temporary beginning, then do not doubt about the end ... but they (learned pagans) did not find one of all the ways how to comprehend God, the Creator of the universe and the righteous Judge, who rewards everyone worthy according to deeds, and how to fit in the mind, arising from the concept of judgment, the thought of ending, because the world needs to change if the state of souls also passes into another kind of life. For how real life has qualities akin to this world, so the future existence of our souls will receive the lot characteristic of its state.

Bl. Jerome: “It is clearly shown (Ps. 101:27) that the death and destruction of the world does not mean its conversion into nothing, but a change to the better. Likewise, what is written elsewhere: “there shall be the light of the moon as the light of the sun” (Isaiah 30:26) does not mean the destruction of the former, but a change for the better. Consider what has been said: the image passes away, not the being. The same is expressed by St. Peter - "he did not say: we will see other heavens and another earth, but the former and ancient, changed and better."

They also taught: Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch, Minucius Felix, Hippolytus, Methodius, and others. ".

The history of the existence of the world represents three great periods. From the hands of the Creator - the source of love - everything came out, according to His own testimony, "goodly," i.e. perfect and perfect as much as needed for the first time. If everything created were not perfect and beautiful, then what would be the disorder of the world after the fall of the ancestors? In the creation of God, we see the marvelous order of all things and the harmonious arrangement of each thing. Every thing is assigned to a higher or lower service in the realm of nature. In the realm of nature, just like in the house of a wise and prudent ruler, everything is arranged nicely and according to order, i.e. the lower directly serves the higher as subordinate to it. Inorganic beings primarily serve the organic, and these - sentient, and sentient - rational; these latter are appointed for the solemn, direct and visible service of God, whom everything serves directly or indirectly. Life is given to the whole world by the Holy Spirit, without Whom everything is dead. Therefore, in the creation of God, the main component creation is the spiritual and moral world, on the state of which the state of the physical world also depends. So it was at the beginning, immediately after the creation. Unity and harmony in the whole creation - everything was very good. Everything was subordinated to man, a spiritual and moral being; everything worked for him, and physical nature was in harmony with spiritual and moral nature. Then earth and sky, i.e. the atmosphere and all its phenomena were in favorable relations with man.

Damage occurred in the spiritual and moral nature and the consequences of this responded immediately and in all creation, in all visible physical nature. Unity of thought collapsed, harmony disintegrated, everything fell into a state alien to love, everything revolted mainly against the culprit of misfortune - a person from whom, so to speak, like poison spread throughout the world, changing his blissful state to a state under the wrath of God. Now the whole world lies in evil (1 John 5:19), as the word of God testifies, what happened after the fall of the first parents; consequently, before the fall in the moral world, the world did not lie in evil, but truth lived in it.

The Word of God reveals to us three periods of the world's existence: 1) before the fall, 2) after the fall, and 3) after the restoration. The first state of the world, or the first period of its existence, has the character expressed by God Himself that everything is very good. In the fulfillment of the law, as the natural purpose of every creature, was its bliss. Violation of the law put the creature in a state not natural to it, therefore, opposite to bliss. By the will of the Creator-God, everything served each other, everything depended on each other, and the bliss of both the whole and the parts was contained in the mutual relationship. There was nothing but love and the fulfillment of laws. Everything was striving to fulfill its purpose, and in this striving were life and bliss. There could be no disagreement, because it contradicts God's words that "everything is good."

God the Creator among His creation. Spiritual and moral and physical world must fulfill their purpose, mutually acting one on the other, as components of one polysyllabic whole. The law of action is defined - the fulfillment of the will of the Creator, the achievement of the goal of one's destination, the pursuit of perfection.

Representatives of the works of God or His entire creation, spiritual and moral beings - spirits and souls, Angels and people, the family of one Father, the kingdom of one King - are created and live for one purpose, having one and the same law and one nature. Unanimity united the Angels and forefathers, should have united all of humanity, if not for the fall. Man, mysteriously united from soul and body, made up decisively one whole; and soul and body mutually acted upon each other in a joyful direction. This truth is revealed by itself from the present state of a person, in which the spirit rises against the body and the body against the spirit, according to the word of Jesus Christ: “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 24:41). This is natural to the present state of the world and man; therefore, it was not natural to the first state of the world and man, when everything was good. If, even today, union, harmony, or, as it were, sympathy between nature visible and invisible, moral and physical, mutual relationship and mutual influence of one nature on another, is strikingly noticed, how can one prevent the joyful mutual action of these natures among themselves before the appearance on earth evil?

Even now, when everything is sighing, sick, we see the favorable attitude of bright sunny weather to the spiritual state of a person, and at the same time to his visible nature - the body. In sunny weather, they say, the soul is somehow more cheerful, more joyful, at the same time, with the liveliness of the spirit, the body comes into a special active state; something joyful is reflected both in the soul and in the body. And vice versa: cloudy, foggy, rainy weather produces something sad, dreary, disposing the body to inactivity. In short, good weather has a favorable, joyful effect on the entire human body, while bad weather produces an opposite effect in the human body: sadness in the soul and exhaustion in the body. Both sick and healthy, against their will and desire, feel the state of the weather, the atmosphere. A satiated body hinders the activity of the spirit, and a cheerful disposition of the spirit produces in the body a desire and zeal for work, so that even external activity is filled with some kind of inexplicable joy. Thus, from the present state of the world and man, we unmistakably conclude, relying moreover on the testimony of God's Revelation, that in the first period of the world's existence, "everything is good"; we conclude about the marvelous harmony of the parts of the entire creation of God, in which only bliss was possible.

So, the purpose of everything created by God, which has man as its crown, is bliss, striving for perfection, eternal life. In the kingdom of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, life in all His creation, life in a primitive earthly paradise, where everything breathes harmony, bliss, where everything serves each other with love and joy, where heaven and earth are in union and harmony with the spiritual and moral world (with ancestors), or physical nature in union with spiritual nature, as in man the body with the soul. This is the first period of the existence of the world in its innocent, sinless, blissful state, with its character and distinctive property, testified by the Lord Himself: “everything is good”. In the concept of "good" there is no concept of "evil". But how long did the first period of the existence of the world last, i. his blissful state, and what was the measure and degree of bliss? The Word of God didn't reveal it. For the violation of the law of God, the law of morality, it was not the destruction of the guilty and the world that followed, but the most righteous punishment. Punishment followed, not the destruction of what should exist forever. Punishment is not annihilation, the cessation of being.

From the character of the second period, however, it is only revealed that the bliss of the first period is lost, and evil, which was completely absent in the first period, now dominates the world in such a way that good itself does not remain without an admixture of evil: “the whole world lies in evil! » Here is the character or distinguishing feature the second period of the world's existence. With the fall of the ancestors, all visible nature immediately changed in properties: 1) the body rebelled against the spirit, 2) the earth changed its fertility, and by changing the properties of the earth, which fell under unblessing and curse, the atmosphere also changed, heaven and earth changed, the animals took up arms against the former his king, etc. The second state of the world, or the second period of its existence, has its own distinctive character, opposite to the first and also expressed in Holy Scripture: "the whole world lies in evil." The life once given to the world is not taken away, but the life of bliss or blissful life has changed into a life of weeping and sorrow. That which was bliss is taken away for breaking the law. So exactly how often we, willfully destroying health, fall into illness. The spiritual-moral and physical nature of man was closely united with one another, constituting the spiritualized flesh or the incarnated spirit. Now is not the same as before; Now, according to the words of the Apostle Paul, the parts of a person have risen one against another: the spirit fights against the flesh, and the flesh against the spirit, and a person often does not what he wants, but what he hates, doing the will of the body and enslaving the spirit to it.

When two natures in a person mutually act on each other, then the physical world is in union, harmony and in mutual relation with the spiritual and moral world, i.e. his beings, as quickened by the same Holy Spirit, who gives life to the whole world. Changes in the moral world did not remain without regard to the invisible, physical world. During the suffering of the God-man, the earth shook, the veil of the church was torn in two, the stones fell apart, the sun faded, and many dead were resurrected.

The disorder of the moral world reached its limit and was reflected in the visible physical nature, in the global flood, according to the testimony of the word of God. The fall of the ancestors began the second period of the existence of the world, a disorder in the moral world (disobedience to God the Creator). And then more and more changes began to follow in physical nature, which were finally completed in a universal event - the flood, which finally changed both the earth and the sky, i.e. atmosphere. After the flood, the former heaven and earth were gone; water has changed the earth, and the earth is always in relation to the atmosphere; consequently, a change in the sky - the atmosphere - followed. And then, according to the words of the apostle, “the present heavens and earth” appeared - the state of the world lying in evil, alien to truth, about which it is no longer possible to say that the current heaven and earth are “very good”, for the earth is deprived of blessing, cursed, but with the earth and all air elements are at enmity. Significant - and very significant! - reduced against the first period, human life, and the very conditions of life worsened. This is the second period of the existence of the world, in which the changed heaven (atmosphere) and earth are called by the Apostle Paul the current ones. This name already confirms that the present time heaven and earth are not what they were before the flood. The word “current” corresponds to the present tense, therefore, for the future tense or to express the transformed world that is to come, we find the word “new”: both heaven and earth, according to the testimony of the apostles John and Peter.

And, finally, the third state of the world will come, or the third period of its existence, where everything is new: man, and heaven, and earth, and where only truth lives, according to the testimony of the Apostle Peter. So, in the third period of the existence of the world, there will again be a new heaven and a new earth, different from the present. The present heaven and earth will not be destroyed, but will be changed into new ones through fire, just as the first period of the existence of the world and man gave way to the second through water. Water and fire have an important, mysterious meaning in religion in general. Just as gold is cleansed of foreign impurities by fire, so the world (heaven and earth, i.e. the earth with its atmosphere) must be cleansed of evil through fire, according to the apostolic testimony. Then again for the new renewed man there will be both a new heaven and a new earth, in which only truth lives, and the word “very good” can again be attributed to the restored world and man. Otherwise it can not be.

To reconcile faith with science is, it seems, the direct purpose of modern knowledge. If every science is a systematic exposition of truths relating to any subject, then it is clear that these truths, obtained by science, must be in agreement with revealed truths, as about this God Himself testified: "I am the Truth and without Me you can do nothing."

It is only at the present time that revealed truths have begun to be confirmed by modern knowledge and come into agreement with science. The Apostles Peter and John the Theologian testify to us about the third period of the world's existence, about the changed new earth and sky. And the scientific study of the structure of the universe admits that the dead worlds (hence, our planet - Earth) can begin to live again, and therefore be followed by the abode of beings. The Word of God does not speak of death, the destruction of the earth, but testifies only to its change, which will happen to the people living on it at the moment of the end of the world, i.e. everyone will die and immediately rise again in a new and better form with all those who have died before. At the same time, there will be a change in the land. Science sees a reason that can again bring dead world bodies back to life.

All beliefs and a sound mind testify to a person about the beginning and end of the world, and this thought belongs to a person at all stages of his development. So, for example, the belief of the Chinese about the end of the world is as follows: a certain Feso, who originally discovered salt in China, was eventually recognized by them as a god. Feso will come back to earth only to herald the end of the world. In ancient Greek mythology, in one of the myths, there is a prophecy, or, as it were, an indication of the dogma about the end of mari and its transformation through fire: “With the victory of good over evil, light over darkness, the end of this world will follow, and for the future life this world will be transformed into a better one through fire , i.e. old world burn down." About the fact that sooner or later the end of the world must come (not in the sense of termination, destruction, but only transformation into better world and precisely by means of fire) Heraclitus taught 500 years before the birth of Christ. He directly said that the world, making eternal and endless circulations, will finally converge with the beginning, which, according to his teaching, is the primordial fire, and burn out. But it will not be destroyed, but will change, because from the ashes will come new world. Democritus, the creator of the first mechanistic worldview, taught: "if worlds can arise, then they can also disappear." But to disappear does not mean to stop being, as Democritus himself taught that “nothing that exists is indestructible”, which means that only the image, appearance, old being changes to new.

Science says that our planet Earth has many ways of destruction and the surest of all recognizes the fire that fills the interior. the globe. The teaching that the world will be destroyed by fire passed to us from the ancient Jews and now there is a teaching Christian Church and all its teachers and writers. Science recognizes the possibility of the end of the world through fire as a situation worthy of probability.

Indeed, one can almost certainly assume that the surface of the ball on which we build our cities and dwellings is of a small thickness, and that behind this thin layer all the minerals are in a molten state. On the other hand, it has been proven that this thin surface of the globe is constantly fluctuating, and that thirty hours do not pass without something more or less happening somewhere. strong earthquake. We, therefore, live on a thin raft, which can sink to the bottom any minute, i.e. into the abyss of fire!

(from the book of the monk Mitrofan (Alekseev V.N.) “How our dead live and how we will live after death” St. Petersburg, 1897)

REVELATIONS FROM THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

The saints of God loved to meditate on the bliss of the righteous, and some of them were honored with special revelations about life in paradise.

Similar information.

Last Judgment- the last, universal Judgment of God over the world, which will take place at the second (while all dead people resurrected, and the living will change (), and each will be determined by the eternal fate of his deeds (,), words () and thoughts.

The Holy Fathers spoke about the fact that there is a kind of "memory of the heart" that imprints everything, our whole life - both internal and external. And at the Last Judgment, this book, written in the depths of our soul, will open, as it were, and only then will we see what we really are, and not what our inflamed one painted us. Then we will see how many times God called us to salvation, punished us, had mercy on us, and how stubbornly we resisted grace and strove only for and. Even our good deeds we will see eaten away like worms by hypocrisy, pride and secret calculation.

At the same time, the judgment is not only what will happen after death. Judgment is made by us every second of our earthly life. The Last Judgment is not trial but only a final statement of fact. Each of us in the course of life is spiritually determined in relation to God.

Why is the Last Judgment called the Last Judgment?

Announcing the Second Coming of the Messiah and the subsequent universal Judgment, the prophets and apostles called this “Day” the Day of the Lord, great and terrible ().

This Day is also called the Day of the Wrath of God (). Therefore, the name “Terrible” was assigned to the future Judgment not because the Lord would appear before the eyewitnesses in some deliberately formidable form. He will appear before the gaze of those gathered in the splendor of His glory and majesty, as a Mighty and Just Judge. This, of course, will cause fear in those around you, in someone - reverent, and in someone - the strongest dumbfounded: "it's terrible to fall into the hands of the living God!" ().

Horror and restless awe will accompany sinners from the knowledge that at this Judgment all their sins will be revealed, promulgated, weighed (and not only committed deeds, but also those that remain unfulfilled: secret sinful desires, thoughts and thoughts), and for each will have to answer before an incorruptible and impartial Judge.

In addition, the Last Judgment will take place publicly, in front of the whole world: in front of a host of angelic hosts, in front of billions of people, including those closest to them, relatives. At this last Judgment, the sinner will no longer be able to deceive either his personal conscience, or those around him, or, of course, the All-Seeing Judge with reservations and excuses convenient for him. The Light of Divine Truth, the Light will illuminate any unrepentant lawless person, will illuminate each of his crimes, actions or inactions.

A ship with slaves came to a certain city, and in that city there lived one holy virgin, who was very attentive to herself. She, having heard that this ship had come, was very glad, for she wanted to buy herself a little girl, and she thought: I will take and raise her, as I want, so that she does not know the vices of this world at all. She sent for the owner of the ship, and, calling him to her, found out that he had two little girls, exactly the kind she wanted, and she immediately gave the price for one of them with joy and took her to her. When the owner of the ship departed from the place where this saint was, and barely moved a little, one harlot met him, completely depraved, and, seeing with him another girl, wanted to take her; agreed with him, gave the price, took the girl and left with her. Do you see the mystery of God?

Do you see the judgment of God? Who can explain it? So, the holy virgin took that little one, brought her up in the fear of God, instructing her in every good deed, teaching her monastic life and, to put it briefly, in every fragrance of the holy commandments of God. The harlot, having taken that unfortunate woman, made her an instrument of the devil. For what could this infection teach her, if not the destruction of her soul? So, what can we say about this terrible fate? Both were small, both were sold, not knowing where they were going, and one ended up in the hands of God, and the other fell into the hands of the devil. Is it possible to say that God will exact equally from both one and the other? How is that possible! If both fall into fornication or some other sin, can it be said that both of them will be subjected to the same judgment, although both have fallen into the same sin? Is it possible? One knew about the court, about the kingdom of God, day and night she studied in the words of God; the other, the unfortunate one, has never seen or heard anything good, but always, on the contrary, everything bad, everything devilish: how is it possible that both should be judged by one judgment?

So, no person can know the judgments of God, but He alone knows everything and can judge the sin of everyone, as He alone knows.
Rev.