Come Again in Glory to Judge the Living and the Dead

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Second EDITION

PART ONE
THE PROFESSION OF FAITH

Department Ii
THE PROFESSION OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

Affiliate TWO
I BELIEVE IN JESUS CHRIST, THE ONLY SON OF GOD

ARTICLE 7
"FROM THENCE HE WILL COME Once again TO Estimate THE LIVING AND THE Dead"

I. HE WILL Come up Once again IN GLORY

Christ already reigns through the Church. . .

668 "Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living."⁵⁴⁹ Christ's Ascension into heaven signifies his participation, in his humanity, in God'southward ability and authority. Jesus Christ is Lord: he possesses all power in heaven and on globe. He is "far higher up all rule and authority and power and dominion", for the Begetter "has put all things under his feet."⁵⁵⁰ Christ is Lord of the cosmos and of history. In him human history and indeed all cosmos are "set along" and transcendently fulfilled.⁵⁵¹

669 As Lord, Christ is also caput of the Church, which is his Body.⁵⁵² Taken up to heaven and glorified after he had thus fully accomplished his mission, Christ dwells on globe in his Church building. The redemption is the source of the authority that Christ, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, exercises over the Church. "The kingdom of Christ [is] already present in mystery", "on earth, the seed and the beginning of the kingdom".⁵⁵³

670 Since the Ascension God's plan has entered into its fulfillment. We are already at "the last 60 minutes".⁵⁵⁴ "Already the final age of the earth is with the states, and the renewal of the world is irrevocably under way; it is even at present anticipated in a certain real style, for the Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is existent but imperfect."⁵⁵⁵ Christ'due south kingdom already manifests its presence through the miraculous signs that nourish its proclamation by the Church.⁵⁵⁶

. . .until all things are subjected to him

671 Though already present in his Church building, Christ's reign is nevertheless notwithstanding to be fulfilled "with power and dandy glory" by the King'southward return to globe.⁵⁵⁷ This reign is still under set on by the evil powers, fifty-fifty though they have been defeated definitively past Christ'south Passover.⁵⁵⁷ Until everything is subject to him, "until in that location be realized new heavens and a new globe in which justice dwells, the pilgrim Church, in her sacraments and institutions, which belong to this present age, carries the mark of this world which will pass, and she herself takes her place among the creatures which groan and travail still and await the revelation of the sons of God."⁵⁵⁹ That is why Christians pray, above all in the Eucharist, to hasten Christ's return by saying to him:⁵⁶⁰ Marana tha! "Our Lord, come!"⁵⁶¹

672 Before his Ascent Christ affirmed that the hour had not withal come for the glorious establishment of the messianic kingdom awaited by Israel⁵⁶² which, according to the prophets, was to bring all men the definitive order of justice, love and peace.⁵⁶³ According to the Lord, the nowadays fourth dimension is the time of the Spirit and of witness, but too a fourth dimension still marked by "distress" and the trial of evil which does not spare the Church building⁵⁶⁴ and ushers in the struggles of the terminal days. It is a time of waiting and watching.⁵⁶⁵

The glorious advent of Christ, the hope of Israel

673 Since the Rising Christ's coming in glory has been imminent,⁵⁶⁶ even though "it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Male parent has fixed by his own dominance."⁵⁶⁷. This eschatological coming could be accomplished at any moment, fifty-fifty if both it and the final trial that volition precede it are "delayed".⁵⁶⁸

674 The glorious Messiah'southward coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by "all State of israel", for "a hardening has come upon part of State of israel" in their "unbelief" toward Jesus.⁵⁶⁹ St. Peter says to the Jews of Jerusalem afterwards Pentecost: "Repent therefore, and turn once again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the fourth dimension for establishing all that God spoke past the mouth of his holy prophets from of quondam."⁵⁷⁰ St. Paul echoes him: "For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean just life from the dead?"⁵⁷¹ The "full inclusion" of the Jews in the Messiah's salvation, in the wake of "the total number of the Gentiles",⁵⁷² will enable the People of God to reach "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ", in which "God may be all in all".⁵⁷³

The Church building's ultimate trial

675 Earlier Christ's 2nd coming the Church building must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.⁵⁷⁴ The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth⁵⁷⁵ volition unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the course of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism past which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.⁵⁷⁶

676 The Antichrist'southward deception already begins to have shape in the globe every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic promise which tin can but be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the proper noun of millenarianism,⁵⁷⁷ especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism.⁵⁷⁸

677 The Church building will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection.⁵⁷⁹ The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, non by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God'due south victory over the final unleashing of evil, which volition cause his Bride to come down from heaven.⁵⁸⁰ God'due south triumph over the defection of evil will accept the form of the Final Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.⁵⁸¹

* II. TO Gauge THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

678 Following in the steps of the prophets and John the Baptist, Jesus announced the judgment of the Last Twenty-four hour period in his preaching.⁵⁸² Then will the conduct of each one and the secrets of hearts exist brought to light.⁵⁸³ Then will the culpable unbelief that counted the offer of God'southward grace as goose egg be condemned.⁵⁸⁴ Our mental attitude to our neighbor will disclose credence or refusal of grace and divine love.⁵⁸⁵ On the Last Day Jesus will say: "Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did information technology to me."⁵⁸⁶

679 Christ is Lord of eternal life. Full right to pass definitive judgment on the works and hearts of men belongs to him as redeemer of the world. He "acquired" this correct by his cross. The Father has given "all judgment to the Son".⁵⁸⁷ Yet the Son did not come to judge, but to save and to give the life he has in himself.⁵⁸⁸ Past rejecting grace in this life, i already judges oneself, receives co-ordinate to one's works, and tin fifty-fifty condemn oneself for all eternity by rejecting the Spirit of love.⁵⁸⁹

IN BRIEF

680 Christ the Lord already reigns through the Church, but all the things of this world are non nonetheless subjected to him. The triumph of Christ'due south kingdom will not come up about without one concluding attack by the powers of evil.

681 On Judgment Twenty-four hours at the end of the world, Christ will come in glory to achieve the definitive triumph of good over evil which, like the wheat and the tares, have grown upwards together in the course of history.

682 When he comes at the end of time to guess the living and the dead, the glorious Christ will reveal the secret disposition of hearts and will render to each man co-ordinate to his works, and co-ordinate to his acceptance or refusal of grace.

549 Rom 14:nine.
550 Eph 1:twenty-22.
551 Eph one:ten; cf. 4:10; i Cor 15:24,27-28.
552 Cf. Eph 1:22.
553 LG 3; five; cf. Eph 4:xi-13.
554 1 Jn two:18; cf. 1 Pet iv:seven.
555 LG 48 § iii; cf. ane Cor x:11.
556 Cf. Mk 16:17-18,xx.
557 Lk 21:27; cf. Mt 25:31.
558 Cf. 2 Thess 2:seven.
559 LG 48 § 3; cf. 2 Pet 3:thirteen; Rom 8:19-22; 1 Cor 15:28.
560 Cf. 1 Cor eleven:26; 2 Pet 3:11-12.
561 1 Cor sixteen:22; Rev 22:17,20.
562 Cf. Acts 1:six-7.
563 Cf. Isa eleven:1-9.
564 Cf. Acts 1:8; 1 Cor seven:26; Eph five:xvi; 1 Pet 4:17.
565 Cf. Mt 25:1, 13; Mk 13:33-37; 1 Jn 2:xviii; iv:3; 1 Tim 4:1.
566 Cf. Rev 22:20.
567 Acts 1:7; Cf. Mk 13:32.
568 Cf. Mt 24:44; 1 Thess v:two; 2 Thess two:3-12.
569 Rom eleven:20-26; cf. Mt 23:39.
570 Acts iii:xix-21.
571 Rom 11:15.
572 Rom xi:12, 25; cf. Lk 21:24.
573 Eph four:13; 1 Cor 15:28.
574 Cf. Lk 18:8; Mt 24:12.
575 Cf. Lk 21:12; Jn 15:19-twenty.
576 Cf. ii Thess 2:4-12; 1 Thess five:ii-3; 2 Jn 7; 1 Jn 2:18,22.
577 Cf. DS 3839.
578 Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, condemning the "false mysticism" of this "apocryphal of the redemption of the lowly"; cf. GS twenty-21.
579 Cf. Rev xix:1-9.
580 Cf Rev 13:8; twenty:7-x; 21:2-4.
581 Cf. Rev 20:12 ii Pet iii:12-13.
582 Cf. Dan 7:x; Joel 3-iv; Mal 3:19; Mt 3:vii-12.
583 Cf Mk 12:38-xl; Lk 12:1-3; Jn 3:20-21; Rom 2:16; ane Cor 4:5.
584 Cf. Mt eleven:twenty-24; 12:41-42.
585 Cf. Mt v:22; 7:1-v.
586 Mt 25:40.
587 Jn v:22; cf. five:27; Mt 25:31; Acts 10:42; 17:31; ii Tim 4:i.
588 Cf. Lk 21:12; Jn 15:19-twenty.
589 Cf. Jn 3:18; 12:48; Mt 12:32; 1 Cor 3:12-15; Heb 6:iv-6; x:26-31.

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