The future is not an optional topic for classic Christian
teaching. It is intrinsic to all its other aspects.
—Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 5, I
HERE WE CONSIDER WHAT IT MEANS TO CONFESS Christian faith regarding such essential and weighty subjects as the future of history, the resurrection of the body, the return of Christ, the Christian hope, the final judgment, the communion of saints, and the life everlasting. This traditional order highlights the final hope that frames all finite thoughts and contextualizes all human acts. Our modest aim: to state accurately the classic consensus on these huge questions.
Already we have delved into numerous subjects pertaining to the end (eschaton) of history, but now, following the sequence of the Apostles’ Creed and the earliest baptismal confessions (Profession of the Presbyters of Smyrna, c. 180, Irenaeus, c. 190, Interrogatory Creed of Hippolytus, c. 215, Nicaea, 325, Constantinople, 381), we come to last things. The pinnacle location of issues of death, personal survival, and final judgment at the end of the sequence of confessional teachings does not suggest that these matters are less essential, but all the more decisive. Their climactic last position among the articles of faith does not imply their triviality, but their finality.
All things in Christian teaching point to a coming consummation. All the vital energies of the doctrines, moral teachings, and liturgies of classic Christianity focus finally on events yet to come that will illumine all present life.
Human life attains its final end not in this life but in a future as yet unpos-sessed. The truest, fullest blessedness does not appear in temporal life, but in eternal life to come (Titus 1:2; Ambrose, Of the Christian Faith 5.17.215–16; 3:7; Baxter, The Saints’ Eternal Rest). The drama of human rebellion in history comes to full recognition only in its last scene. The symphony is not played out until its last note.