Biblical Catechesis: The Church is the “Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16)
… “and so all Israel will be saved” (Romans 9:26)
“[15] For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. [16] Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule, upon the Israel of God.”
Galatians 6:15-16 (RSV)
“Israel according to the flesh, which wandered as an exile in the desert, was already called the Church of God. So likewise the new Israel which while living in this present age goes in search of a future and abiding city is called the Church of Christ.”
Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium #9.3
Keeping Galatians 6:16 and Lumen Gentium #9.3 Together
The one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ does not accept Millennialism which teaches that before the final judgment, Christ will establish a thousand-year [millennium] reign on earth and reign from the earthly city of Jerusalem. It is a misappropriation of Revelation 20:4-6. Christ’s kingdom “is not of this world” (Jn 18:36). The Catechism of the Catholic Church #676 condemns Millennialism and its various forms under the broader title of millenarianism:
The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only 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 name of millenarianism.
Jesus’ reign already began with his Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father. His Second Coming and the Final Judgment will be visible and glorious before everyone and bring the temporal order of humanity to a close (cf. CCC #676). Nothing earthly, nothing temporal, will remain afterwards and so there cannot be an earthly reign of Christ from an earthly Jerusalem at the Second Coming. Since Christ’s Ascension and until his Second Coming, Christ’s reign is extended by his Church. Christ empowered his Church to make himself present in mystery and so unite heaven and earth through orthodox worship, belief, and works (cf. Rom 12:1-2) and so spread the kingdom: “whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven and whatever you lose on earth is loosed in heaven” (Mt 16:18; 18:18).
Already in mystery and sign, the true Jerusalem “comes down out of heaven” (Rev 21:10). Only that which has become a “new creation” (Gal 6:15) can enter it [nothing unclean] because it has received the Spirit of faith in Christ by the “washing of water with the word” (Eph 5:26) in Baptism. The true Jerusalem & Zion is spiritual and heavenly. It transcends anything earthly: “the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother” (Gal 4:26); and so, through the liturgies which Christ established, Christians “have come to Mount Zion…the heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb 12:22).
[“Disputation on the Holy Sacrament” (circa 1509-10) by Raphael. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.]
Zion joins to earth only within the foundation of the twelve apostles (Rev 21:14), the Israel of God. Through apostolic succession and mystery, God gives admittance to the Lamb at the new Jerusalem’s center (Rev 21:22-23) by the authority Jesus gave “to bind and loose.” This is a clear reference to the divine liturgy and making present the body and blood of Christ as Jesus commissioned at the Last Supper and which John explains in Chapter 6 of his Gospel. Under the appearance of bread and wine, Christ comes as the “lamb who was slain” (Rev 5:6;1 Cor 11:26) and gathers the baptized (Rev 14:1) as “the Israel of God” (Gal 6:16) in the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:10), present now in sign and power (Heb 6:5) but in full glory at the end of time.
Entrance into the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21:10 is entrance into God’s true temple through the “new veil” of bread and wine (Heb 10:19;1 Cor 5:8b) at the Sacrifice of the Lamb (1 Cor 5:7b, 11:26; Rev 21:22). To enter God’s temple (which is the Lamb shown in 1 Cor 5:7b, 11:26) is to be a priest through Christ’s priesthood (cf. 1 Pet 2:5,9 by being baptized) who receives Holy Communion. It is why those who died in Christ as martyrs and those brought to life in the first resurrection [baptism & communion (Jn 6:58)] are both already partaking in eternal life and “priests of God and of Christ…who reign with him a thousand years” (Rev 20:6c). [Here I do not yet make distinctions between the sharing in Christ’s priesthood by Baptism and the distinct ministerial share in apostolic succession.]
The “thousand years” of Revelation 20 is the age of the Church, the new Israel of God in the Messiah who gives eternal life and makes us part of the “new creation” (Gal 6:15) and partakers of “the powers of the age to come” (Heb 6:5). Christ’s priests, those already sincerely partaking in the Lamb when heaven and earth are joined in the liturgy which Christ established (1 Cor 11:23-32), will have nothing to fear at the final judgment and general resurrection of all who have died. “Over such the second death has no power” (Rev 20:6b) because they were already reigning with Christ in the “Israel of God” (Gal 6:16).
[“Pentecost” (1732) by Jean Restout. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.]
The great Church Father and Doctor, Saint Augustine of Hippo summarizes Revelation 20 accordingly in the City of God, Book XX, at the end of Chapter Six:
As, then, there are two regenerations, of which I have already made mention — the one according to faith, and which takes place in the present life by means of baptism; the other according to the flesh, and which shall be accomplished in its incorruption and immortality by means of the great and final judgment — so are there also two resurrections — the one the first and spiritual resurrection, which has place in this life, and preserves us from coming into the second death; the other the second, which does not occur now, but in the end of the world, and which is of the body, not of the soul, and which by the last judgment shall dismiss some into the second death, others into that life which has no death.[1]
Christ and his Church’s reign on earth until the Second Coming and final judgment is like Christ’s first coming: in poverty, meekness, sorrow, and bearing the weight of sinful humanity. It is an extension of Christ’s salvific office and applies Christ’s atonement and one-time sacrifice in the liturgy. There, Christ returns veiled in sacrament, can die no more, but continues to sanctify us. The Church is pure where the Spirit of Christ reigns and ministers despite the frequent sinfulness of the office-holders and members who cause grave scandal. Nevertheless, the repentant and those with faith in Christ are granted entrance to the true Tent (Heb 8:2, 10:19) and heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 22:14).
For these reasons, the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ does not accept the pre-Millennialist theology of dispensationalists. Pre-Millennial Dispensationalists [PMD] deny that the Church is already the beginning of the “thousand year” [millennial] reign of Christ spoken of in Revelation 20:4-6. Not only do PMD take the “thousand year” reign literally instead of canonically, symbolically, and liturgically, such dispensationalists make a false distinction between Israel and the Church. They read Revelation falsely and so conflate Romans 11:26 “and so all Israel will be saved” with false Pre-Millennialist interpretations. Such dispensationalists think Paul is referring to Israel according-to-the-flesh [“all Israel will be saved”], when actually he is referring to God also brining gentiles into the new covenant and so it is actually reference to the reconstituted Israel of the Messiah.
The mistake of the Pre-Millennial Dispensationalist is to believe that God’s promises still belong to Israel according-to-the-flesh instead of the doctrine explained in Saint Paul that Christ brings the Israel according-to-the-flesh into the true promised land and Zion only by their becoming a new creation in Christ because “Christ is the telos of the law” (Rom 10:4). The true Jerusalem is life in the Holy Spirit, a kingdom of priests (cf. 1 Pet 2:5,9). The true Jerusalem is no longer an earthly city, the once “great city” of Revelation 18 which was destroyed (& named in Rev 11:8 as Jerusalem where the “Lord was crucified”). Earthly Jerusalem was surpassed by God in 70 A.D. and so the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21 was revealed as a surety that “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29). As God’s Jerusalem is no longer an earthly city, so neither is Israel an earthly State ever since Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension to the Right Hand of God:
Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written,
‘Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and shout, you who are not with labor pains; for the desolate has more children than she who has a husband.’
Now we brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now. But what does the Scripture say? ‘Cast out the slave and her son; for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.’ So brethren we are not children of the slave but of the free woman. (Gal 4:25-31)
Israel according-to-the-flesh does not inherit the true promised land because one cannot be born from above by “blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man” (Jn 1:13). This is why Paul says in Galatians 6:15: “neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” and then affirms that this entrance into Christ, the new creation, is “the Israel of God” (Eph 6:16). There can be no other Israel to come than the one God re-constituted and re-established in Christ, “the telos of the Law” (cf. Romans 10:4; Rev 21:10).
It is for this reason that Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium teaches: “Israel according to the flesh, which wandered as an exile in the desert, was already called the Church of God. So likewise the new Israel which while living in this present age goes in search of a future and abiding city is called the Church of Christ” #9.3. Israel according-to-the-flesh [race & circumcision] was not replaced by the Church of God. Rather, it was always the Church of God that was awaiting the Messiah to reach God’s true promises. In not following the Spirit it falls from the promises while those who follow the Spirit through faith in Christ enter God’s Israel. Now that the Messiah has come, Israel is re-established as the Church of God’s Messiah…the Church of Christ which was the telos of God’s promises: eternal life (Rom 10:4; cf. 2 Pet 1:4). The Christian Church did not sequentially follow Israel, rather Israel was always meant to become more spiritual and for all humans: “Christ is the telos of the law” (Romans 10:4).
Misreading of Galatians 6:16 by Pre-Millennial Dispensationalists
Lacking an understanding and acceptance of liturgies established by Christ and the Apostles, and lacking an understanding that Levitical ceremonial law became obsolete in Christ who is the true temple “with better sacrifices” (Heb 9:23 re: liturgies Christ instituted), Pre-Millennial Dispensationalists [PMD] have a false reading of the Book of Revelation. The dispensation of Moses was brought to a close by Christ: “what once had splendor [the dispensation of Moses] has come to have no splendor at all, because of the splendor that surpasses it” (2 Cor 3:10). “No splendor at all” = obsolete since it is surpassed. Surpassed means it is taken into a higher form with real heavenly value by the power of Christ himself. Levitical Temple liturgy didn’t simply end in becoming obsolete, it took the surpassing form of Christ the High Priest, in the order of Melchizedek.
The PMD reading of Revelation and Christ’s Second Coming is more in accord with external and temporal political rule rather than liturgical and priestly reign; the entrance NOW into “the new and living way” (Heb 10:19-21) and into the “true Tent” (Heb 8:2) and “sanctuary” (Heb 10:19), the splendor of “heaven itself” (Heb 9:24). “The time is coming AND NOW IS” (John 5:25). Since Revelation is more about the liturgical reign of Christ already from heaven, and PMD reject the value of liturgy uniting heaven and earth in mystery (cf. Mt 18:18; Heb 12:22), they cannot see the New Jerusalem in the Church’s liturgies or understand Christ’s institutions of the mysteries.
As a Fundamentalist ideology, Pre-Millennial Dispensationalism [PMD] is more an earthly concern with nations and a political Messiah than becoming a “partaker of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4) and “growing into Christ in every way” (Ephesians 4:15). Lacking a doctrine of justification which includes on-going sanctification (1 Thess 4:3,8) [“the renewal of the mind” Rom 12:2 or “our inner nature being renewed day by day” 2 Cor 4:16], Christ’s reign is viewed by PMD more politically and legally rather than spiritually and by interior grace and developing union. And so, such dispensationalists develop the idea that the Church is just a time and era for gentiles to accept Christ and that the Church is going to be re-absorbed into a governance from an earthly Jerusalem [whose splendor is already clearly past]. Such dispensationalists read Revelation 20 as Christ’s reign for a thousand years on earth before the last and final judgment. For them, there are different and continuing dispensations for Israel according-to-the-flesh in distinction from the Church which has become actually the Israel of God:
For the dispensationalist, the earthly people of Israel and the spiritual community of the Church must be sharply distinguished. The one is entered by natural birth, the other by conversion – the ‘new birth.’ Both have promises and prophecies given to them which must be distinguished and separated. In the millennium, the Church will reign as the "bride of Christ," while Israel will be restored to its ancestral land and inherit the earthly kingdom forecast by the prophets. This particular emphasis within dispensationalism accounts for the enthusiastic Zionism manifested by many Fundamentalists.[2]
How do they ignore everything Saint Paul says in Galatians and think Saint Paul means Israel according-to-the-flesh in Romans 11:26 when he prophecies that “all Israel will be saved”? After all, Paul is clear that “by works of the law [Levitical ceremonial law] shall no one be justified” (Gal 2:21) and God’s covenants and promises now continue on through faith in Christ which is central to “the Israel of God” (Gal 6:16). There are at least three mistakes involved in missing this: 1) not reading the Book of Revelation in accord with the Letter to the Hebrews [liturgically]; 2) not reading Romans through Galatians when Galatians was written first and Romans relies upon it; and, 3) mistranslating and misreading Galatians 6:16. Points 2 & 3 must now be addressed, moving backwards from Point 3 to Point 2.
The opening of this essay read Galatians 6:16 that those who had become a “new creation” in Christ (Gal 6:15) were “the Israel of God” (6:16). These included the Jews [“circumcision”] and Greeks [“uncircumcision”] of 6:15 who now live by faith. The RSV translation made it obvious and the tradition of the Church as shown in Lumen Gentium #9.3 added authority to the translation that the new “rule” and those who follow it are “the Israel of God” (Gal 6:16). However, the more stubborn Pre-Millennial Dispensationalists will argue against the understanding of the RSV translation. They try to distinguish God’s Israel from the Church when Paul really wants the reader to distinguish Israel according-to-the-flesh from what has become the Israel of God in fulfillment of the promises to Abraham.
This is the original Greek of Galatians 6:16:
“καὶ ὅσοι τῷ κανόνι τούτῳ στοιχήσουσιν εἰρήνη ἐπ᾽ αὐτοὺς καὶ ἔλεος καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν Ἰσραὴλ τοῦ θεοῦ.” Bold mine.
This is the RSV translation:
“Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule, upon the Israel of God.”
Without sufficient knowledge of Greek grammar, some readers will argue that the translation into English should read “and upon the Israel of God.” After all, in the Greek there is clearly a kai (“and”) to which no word corresponds in the RSV translation. The problem with demanding that kai be translated by “and” is that kai can have senses in Greek that “and” cannot have in English. The word kai in Greek, like the word “namely” or the phrase “that is” in English, is often used to introduce a re-wording for the sake of clarity or amplification, but “and” is seldom used that way in English. In Galatians 6:16 the kai signifies that the phrase that follows, “upon the Israel of God,” rewords an earlier phrase, “upon those keeping the rule.” Its use here conveys that “the Israel of God” are one and the same people as those who keep the rule. The new rule, implicitly faith in Christ which causes “new creation,” is what now constitutes “the Israel of God.”[3]
Standard Greek Grammar texts explain these cases: “kai often = namely, for example, and so where an antecedent statement is explained either by another word or by an example”; this is done “often to set forth a climax and not an alternative.”[4] In other words, and contrary to Pre-Millennial Dispensationalists, Saint Paul is not establishing “the Israel of God” in 6:16 as an alternative to those who have become a “new creation” in Galatians 6:15. Rather, by including kai in the final clause of Galatians 6:16 he is emphatically stating that the circumcised and uncircumcised who have become a new creation because they accepted his new “rule [of faith]” are “namely” the “Israel of God.”
Anyone who would interpret the meaning as though the Israel of God is distinct from the new creation in Christ is simply reading the Greek wrongly. They are ignoring the clear and entire context of Galatians and all of Paul’s writings prior to Romans 11, namely/and that God’s people, God’s Israel are now justified by faith in Christ and not works of law [i.e. fleshly circumcision]. Otherwise, the Jews wouldn’t have bothered persecuting Paul for this very teaching that the Israel of God now includes the Gentiles.
Must Distinguish “Israel according-to-the-flesh” from “all Israel” in Romans 11:26
This leads to the importance of recognizing the language chosen in Lumen Gentium 9.3. The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church distinguishes “Israel according to the flesh” from the “new Israel” (“the Church of Christ”) in order to enable Romans 11:26 to be read correctly; namely, that “all Israel will be saved” is in reference to the mystical body of Christ, inclusive of Jew and Gentile (cf. Gal 6:15-16). Otherwise, one can easily fall into the trap of various forms of millenarianism when reading the Book of Revelation, like the Jehovah Witnesses and Pre-Millennial Dispensationalists. The Book of Revelation must be read primarily liturgically to understand the triumph of the New Israel, just as the liturgical emphasis was primary in the fall of Jericho by the Old Israel.
In Romans 9:6-8, Paul has resumed his argument from Galatians 4:25-31 and again explains “not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel…this means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned as descendants.” Notice in the above Romans 9:6-8 in bold, Paul’s meaning of the word Israel shifted within 2 words of each other. In the first instance it is a reference to Israel according-to-the-flesh, but two words later it is in reference to the “Israel of God” from Galatians 6:16. Paul thereby reaffirms his writing in Galatians 6:15-16 in Romans 9. He is clear that those who keep his rule that circumcision does not matter, but only “new creation” through faith in Christ, are “[namely] the Israel of God.” Thus, some people who call themselves Israel are clearly not the true Israel.
Romans 11:26 must be read in agreement with Galatians and Romans 9. This can only be done by making distinctions about Israel in terms of “according-to-the-flesh” and according to the rule of Galatians 6:15-16 which brings the Gentiles into the reconstituted “Israel of God,” the Church. When Paul speaks about a “hardening has come upon part of Israel” (Romans 11:25a) he is referring to Israel according-to-the-flesh. When he continues in the last half of the verse “until the full number of the Gentiles come in” (Romans 11:25b), he is speaking about the new rule from Galatians 6:15-16. When he finishes the thought and says, “and so all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26), the meaning of Israel has shifted “from the flesh” to “God’s Israel” according to the Spirit in Galatians 6:16 and promises of Galatians 4:31. It is the same maneuver Paul made in Romans 9:6-8.
One should not read Romans 11:26 that Paul is prophesying a massive conversion of all remaining Jews on earth to Jesus Christ at Jesus’ return in glory from heaven. While that would be wonderful and nice, and with God we Christians also “will that all men be saved,” it is just not within the framework of Paul’s thought in the canon of the New Testament. There will not be a return to earthly Jerusalem with a 1,000 year reign of Christ before the Final Judgment anywhere in Paul. Such would be a conflating of false Pre-Millennial Dispensationalist readings of Revelation 20 with false readings of Romans 11. Paul was not writing about Revelation 20 or any earthly reign of Christ to follow the age of the Gentiles. When Paul speaks of “all Israel” being saved it is a reference to the full mystical body reaching completion and not a fleshly or earthly Israel.
[“The Last Judgment” (1431) by Fra Angelico. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.]
Paul is more concerned with the interior renewal of all Christians through orthodox worship, life in the Spirit, and total surrender of our lives to God (cf. Rom 12:1-2), not a political or temporal Millennium. Christ rules from heaven through his Church until his mystical body is complete so that we can be taken into the Father’s eternity through participation in Christ: “When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to every one” (1 Cor 15:28). The problem with scandalous Church office-holders who should have been excommunicated will be dealt with at their deaths and the Second Coming.
There will no longer be time for conversion at Jesus’ return in glory at the Second Coming. Time will be fulfilled and there will no longer be time to change, no more time to receive mercy, time ends. This is why we must repent and accept Jesus before we die [first resurrection] and before he returns [resurrection of a glorified body] which prevents the “second death” (Rev 20:6,14). The mercy of which Paul was marveling in Romans 11:28-36 is that God has been trying to give the Jews more time to accept the Messiah by simply allowing a “time of the Gentiles” (cf. Lk 2:24) before the Second Coming. By bringing conversion to the Gentiles in accord with God’s mystery in Christ (cf. Eph 1:9-10), Paul is trying to make the Jews jealous and reconsider their obstinacy towards Jesus. The mercy to the Gentiles is God’s additional mercy to the Jews “that by the mercy shown to you [gentiles and Romans] they [the Jews] also may receive mercy” (Rom 11:31).
While not in a manner in keeping with today’s overly optimistic ecumenical efforts, Saint Augustine explains that more time for everyone is the purpose and providential role of God’s permitting a “hardening” to come upon part of Israel [the Jews rejecting Christ]. In Augustine’s “Exposition on Psalm 59,” the great Father and Doctor of the Church establishes the context for interpreting Romans 11:25-26 by explaining God’s mercy by reference to Romans 11:24. This reference is seen at the end of this excerpt when he discusses the wild and natural olive branches. He gives a spiritual & eschatological interpretation of the Psalm to demonstrate how the natural branches of Israel that were cut-off still are serving a purpose, a warning against pride and testimony to God’s faithfulness:
Why of the Jews, “Slay not them, lest sometime they forget Your law”? [cf. Psalm 59:11; 58 for some editions]. Those very enemies of mine, that have slain me, do not Thou slay. Let the nation of the Jews remain: [certainly] conquered it has been by the Romans, [certainly] effaced is the city of them, Jews are not admitted into their city, and yet Jews there are. For all those provinces by the Romans have been subjugated. Who now can distinguish the nations in the Roman empire the one from the other, inasmuch as all have become Romans and all are called Romans? The Jews nevertheless remain with a mark; nor in such sort conquered have they been, as that by the conquerors they have been swallowed up. Not without reason is there that Cain, on whom, when he had slain his brother, God set a mark in order that no one should slay him. Genesis 4:15 This is the mark which the Jews have: they hold fast by the remnant of their law, they are circumcised, they keep Sabbaths, they sacrifice the Passover; they eat unleavened bread. These are therefore Jews, they have not been slain, they are necessary to believing nations. Why so? In order that He may show to us among our enemies His mercy. My God has shown to me in mine enemies. He shows His mercy to the wild-olive grafted on branches that have been cut off because of pride. Behold where they lie, that were proud, behold where you have been grafted, that lied: and be not proud, lest you should deserve to be cut off.[5]
Implicitly, Saint Augustine is following what the Lord prophesied about Esau and Jacob (cf. Gen 24:23b): “the elder shall serve the younger.” God preserves the Jews to be at the service of mercy to all who are called to enter the Church, Jews and Gentiles. Resuming to explain Romans 11:28 “they are enemies of God for your sake,” he applies the spiritual meaning to Psalm 59:
For, behold, the Jews are enemies [cf. Rom 11:28], whom this Psalm seems to imply; the law of God they hold, and therefore of them has been said, “Slay not them, lest sometime they forget Thy law:” in order that the nation of Jews might remain, and by it remaining the number of Christians might increase. Throughout all nations they remain certainly, and Jews they are, nor have they ceased to be what they were: that is, this nation has not so yielded to Roman institutions, as to have lost the form of Jews; but has been subjected to the Romans so as that it still retains its own laws; which are the laws of God. But what in their case has been done? You tithe mint and cummin, and have forsaken the weightier matters of the law, mercy, and judgment, straining a gnat, but swallowing a camel. [Matthew 23:23-24] This to them the Lord says. And in truth so they are; they hold the law, hold the Prophets; read all things, sing all things: the light of the Prophets therein they see not, which is Christ Jesus. Not only Him now they see not, when he is sitting in Heaven: but not even at that time saw they Him, when among them humble He was walking, and they were made guilty by shedding the blood of the Same; but not all. This even today we commend to the notice of your Love. Not all: because many of them were turned to Him whom they slew, and by believing on Him, they obtained pardon even for the shedding of His blood: and they have given an example for men; how they ought not to despair that sin of whatsoever kind would be remitted to them, since even the killing of Christ was remitted to them confessing....[6]
Jews and Gentiles can still accept Jesus through the mercy which God continues to show the Jews by giving the Gentiles time to enter the New Covenant. The Jews stand as a reminder of the promises of God to mankind which the Messiah would and has fulfilled. The close of the age of the Gentiles is not a new age for Israel according-to-the-flesh as the false Pre-Millennial Dispensationalists have spread their false teachings since the 19th Century. Rather, it is the time for judgment upon every nation on the face of the earth because the age of mercy is fulfilled for Jew and Gentile. The age of the Gentiles closes with the Second Coming and Final Judgment. Mercy will be poured out before the End, but no temporal age follows the Second Coming. All is dissolved with fire (2 Pet 3:10).
[1] Saint Augustine of Hippo, City of God, translated by Marcus Dods, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 2, edited by Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887). Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120120.htm>.
[2] Ernest R. Sandeen, “Toward a Historical Interpretation of the Origins of Fundamentalism,” in Church History, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Mar., 1967), pp. 66-83 at 68. Digital at JSTOR.
[3] I am indebted to Greek scholar Kevin Tracy, PhD, University of Pennsylvania, a professor at Christendom College for guiding this explanation on usages of Greek “kai.”
[4] Herbert Weir Smyth, Greek Grammar, revised by Gordon Messing (Harvard College, 1920, renewed 1966 & 1984) at #2869-2870 on p. 650.
[5] Saint Augustine, “Exposition of Psalm 59,” Part I.18, translated by J.E. Tweed, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 8, edited by Philip Schaff. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888). Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801059.htm>
[6] Ibid, Part II.1.