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(ETERNAL) DESTRUCTION

When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.
(2 Thessalonians 1:8-9)

The Bible asserts that when Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, returns he will come to judge the nations. Jesus himself describes the scene speaking of himself as the Son of Man:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. (Matthew 25:31-32)

Jesus then affirms those he judges to be unrighteous ‘will go away into eternal punishment’ while ‘the righteous (go) into eternal life.’

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PERDITION

Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.  (John 17:12)

Jesus prays in respect of twelve men, those the heavenly Father gave into his care, and he reflects that he discharged his duty even to Judas, who he calls the ‘son of perdition’.  Judas he ‘lost’; and the translation is of the Koine Greek verb, ἀπόλλυμι apollumi, which is formed from the prefix apo, ‘away from’, and ollymi, ‘to destroy’, thus, ‘to utterly destroy after being cut away’.

Judas hanged himself and, in circumstances that are tantamount to the bathetic, ‘falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out’, Acts 1:18.

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TAKEN

‘Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left.Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left.’  (Matthew 24:40-41)

Jesus is speaking to his closest disciples and the context is his return, ‘the coming of the Son of Man’; however, what Jesus is describing, where some are ‘taken’ while others are not, is usually referred to as ‘the Rapture’.  The word ‘rapture’ comes to English from the medieval Latin raptura which means to seize forcibly, (it is also the derivation of ‘rape’).  

The Greek verb Matthew employs is παραλαμβάνω paralambanó and although the verb lambanó is an active verb that conveys the sense of aggression, it is modified by the prefix para ‘close or alongside’.  That people are ‘taken’ may be forcible and one without consultation, but does this suggest that this is something to be feared?

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ARMAGEDDON

For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty… and they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.  (Revelation 16:14&16)

Armageddon has become the byword for complete and utter catastrophe; but in the Bible, it is location associated with several battles.  Transliterated from Hebrew to Greek, Ἁρμαγεδών, this is Harmagedon, from הַר har, ‘hill country’ and Megiddo, a city in the old tribal land of Manasseh overlooking the Jezreel Valley.  Today, the site is known as Tel Megiddo and is found 19 miles south-east of Haifa in the north of modern Israel.

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WICKED

There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.  (Ecclesiastes 8:14)

Kohelet, the unnamed author of Ecclesiastes, conducts a thought experiment.  If this was indeed Solomon, then he pours all his God-gifted wisdom into considering what mortal life is like without God.  One of his themes is the unfairness that the wicked gain and the righteous lose – and he is not wrong, but only if the death is the end and a just God does not exist.

The word that translated ‘wicked’ is the Hebrew adjective רָשְׁע rasha and it means ‘guilty’, ‘criminal’ or ‘evil’.

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WORSHIPPING (GOD)

‘O King of the nations!

    Who will not fear, O Lord,
    and glorify your name?
For you alone are holy.
    All nations will come
    and worship you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.’ 

(Revelation 15:4)

This is the heavenly song of the faithful ‘overcomers.’  They declare the Biblical truth that everyone will worship God in the eternal, even those that rejected and denied His existence.  So, are all the worshippers of one mind?  Are all willing?

The word translated here as ‘worship’ is the Greek verb προσκυνέω proskuneó from pros ‘towards’ and kyneo ‘kiss’.  This describes obeisance, the action of kneeling before or even lying at the feet of another to kiss the ground, not daring to kiss the object of supreme reverence.  

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(God’s perfect) JUSTICE

For the Lord is a God of justice;
    blessed are all those who wait for him.  (Isaiah 30:18b)

The Hebrew word translated ‘justice’ is מִשְׁפָט mishpat, and covers a range of meaning, that includes all things related to judgment, regulation and condemnation.  It upholds that justice is served when transgression is punished.  

Made in God’s image, humankind seeks perfect justice and finds the world lacking it.  Scripture affirms this, asserting that, seen through a temporal lens, justice can only be found at two events, the cross and the final judgment.  Thus, it is important to wait for justice to be done.

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ANANIAS

… a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife’s knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet.  (Acts 5:1-2)

Ananias is a Jewish name derived from חֲנַנְיָה Chananyah, which means ‘God has been gracious’; it is common enough that it is given to three different men in the Acts of the Apostles.

Ananias was the High Priest during the establishment of the church and he confronts Paul at the apostle’s trial in Jerusalem.  Not realising his identity Paul insults him (ibid 23:3) calling him a ‘white-washed wall’ (a common term for a hypocrite, similar to that which Jesus himself used, Matthew 23:27).

Another Ananias also featured in Paul’s life, but this time to bless and heal the newly converted apostle (Acts 9:10-18).

However, Luke records the troubling tale of a further Ananias, in that he is judged and summarily slain for his sin.  

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STEPHEN

They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit… (Acts 6:5)

Stephen was among the founding members of the church in the immediate aftermath of Jesus’ ascension.  His name is Greek, Στέφανος (Stephanos) and it means ‘crown’.

Stephen was one of seven ‘deacons’ (from διακονέω diakoneó to serve ‘waiting tables’) chosen to oversee a dispute arising from perceived inequity in dispensing alms to the widows within the church.  We need to remember that at this early juncture the church bar a very few exceptions (such as the author of Acts) was Jewish, but Luke’s text shows that there were two types of Christian Jew, those who had kept the Law of Moses, and others who had adopted the ways of the prevailing culture and become ‘Greek’, these Luke refers to as Hellénistés, or Hellenists.

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CUP (of wrath)

But God is the Judge:
He puts down one,
And exalts another.

For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup,
And the wine is red;
It is fully mixed, and He pours it out;
Surely its dregs shall all the wicked of the earth
Drain and drink down.  (Psalm 75:7-8)

The Hebrew word translated ‘cup’ is כּוֹס kowc, which is a small owl (possibly with saucer-like eyes).  The cup of judgment is figure used employed by Jesus and later John.

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