Is The Apocalypse Relevant to Salvation?

Ioannes

I had a rather unpleasant conversation the other day. The person I was conversing with must not have understood what I was trying to say. This person tried to tell me that I should concentrate on my salvation not on the Apocalypse. What confused me about this is that, aren't we supposed to be focused on His second coming? Is that not part of our salvation? It was very frustrating as she basically would not let me complete a sentence and kept confusing my words.

What do you think?

yousiegtennis

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gr

It would seem that both our "immediate" salvation (if this night, my soul is required of me, where will I be?) and understanding the signs of the second coming are both incredibly important, and entirely interrelated.

If we don't seek to understand the signs of the end of times and the falling away, how can we stand in the time of antichrist?  Our Lord tells us that there will be many false prophets who will lead many astray-- that includes Christians.  We are warned of these, and given the signs, so that we can be prepared to avoid falling.

If many (including Orthodox) are led astray by heresies such as the rapture due to a lack of understanding of the end of times, if, God forbid, these times are ours, will we not be led astray and lose our salvation?  What about our modern-day obsession with miracles?  The antichrist will use false miracles to lure us (and false miracles do exist today.  If we follow every "miracle" we see, we will surely be in trouble when the devil puts on a show of even more convincing "miracles."

Do we seek discernment?  Do we know what the signs are of true miracles versus fake ones? 

Preparing for the end-times gives us good practice for today.  If we learn what the Fathers taught so that we can avoid following false prophets and the antichrist at the end of times, will that not also help us to weed out false teachers and teachings that we encounter today, of which we are unaware?  If we learn to practice discerning thoughts and miracles for those times, will that not help us discern the same things today?  These same things have fooled and led astray Christians throughout all ages.

My father in confession has often told us that many church fathers felt that the end of times were in their age.  They did not lose anything in being prepared-- and we look at them as a model of Orthodoxy for us to mimic.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that we start obsessing over dates (and we don't know the time or the day).  But our Lord commanded us to watch.  Shouldn't we listen?

Ioannes

In my particular conversation with this very zealous, often over zealous, person I tried explaining that its no about dates, but signs. We must live each day as if the Lord is returning. And as gr correctly pointed out it is directly related to our salvation. Christ tells us to watch for the signs, I at no point said anything of dates and times. The reason it is so important, again as gr said, is because it keeps us skeptical in the sense that we are constantly examining what is happening and then develop the ability to not be deceived, therefore not falling away.

Many of the church fathers commentaries on the Gospel of the Apocalypse state that many things will not be known until the time grows closer to the end. And this book is unique in that it constantly is revealing new things to us, this helps us in protecting ourselves against satan. The fathers speak that this time will be unlike anything the world has seen. Heresy and temptation will be so strong that even the elect might be deceived, if that is possible. The danger in not being away is evident, it will come upon you in a very unsuspecting way, you might not think it, but it will overcome you and destroy you. Otherwise Christ would not have commanded us to watch. Even in the parable of the 5 wise and 5 foolish virgins. Both were righteous in that they practiced celibacy and were seemingly the same in all things. The foolish forgot their oil, which is perceived as practicing the Orthodox spiritual life, and they did not watch and therefore missed the coming of our Lord, or the Apocalypse, which means "an unveiling" or "a revealing' as in the case of the virgins. There was a warning, and a revelation.