Apocalyptic Ethics

Sources: Karl Barth, "The Strange New World of the Bible," in The Word of God and the Word of Man (Harper, 1957); Willis Barnstone, ed., The Other Bible: Ancient Alternative Scriptures (HarperCollins, 1984); Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 3d ed. (Oxford, 2004); I. Howard Marshall et al., Exploring the New Testament: A Guide to the Letters and Revelation (IVP, 2002), chapter 21; John O'Keefe and R.R. Reno, Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible (Johns Hopkins, 2005).

Reading: Rev 1:3.

I. Israel's Developing Futurology
The variety of outcomes from Genesis 3-11 onward build into symbols of what follows death.
'Something greater' is promised and increasingly grasped, dawning in the New Testament era.

II. Apocalyptic: A Paradigm for Interpreting Reality and Responding
The entire New Testament is apocalyptic in philosophical/eschatological outlook.

What does that mean?

A basic apocalyptic assumption: The world is the grip of evil, and helpless to overcome it on its own.

Possible responses:

Submit: Succumb to pessimism, dysphoria, depression, fear/anxiety (sufferers).
Fight: Resist anyway, and lose (Zealots in the Jewish War and Bar Kochba Rebellion).
Deny and avoid: Seek a comfortable distance and even advantage within the system (the wealthy).
Collaborate: If you can't beat them, join them (Herodians, tax collectors).
Escape: Abandon this evil world for some ideal spiritual realm (Hellenistic Jews).

A further apocalyptic assumption: God will deliver from evil:

God is coming to act to end the evil, destroy its system, and restore a good, even perfect order.

Further possible responses, all apocalyptic in character:

Retreat: Withdraw outwardly to stay pure until then (Essenes, monastics).
Clean up: Withdraw inwardly to become pure for then (Pharisees, mystics).
Invite victory: Await and invite the Reign of God (John the Baptist).
Conquer: Respond to the news of the now-approaching Reign of God,
by entering it through Jesus' grace (Jesus of Nazareth).

III. The Ground of Apocalyptic Ethics
How we see the future powerfully informs how we respond in the present.

This is already the logic of the latter prophets,
but flowers in Jewish apocalypticism (passages of Joel, Amos, Zechariah, and especially Daniel).

Apocalypticism informs ethics and visions of goodness in various ways:

It respects the need and availability of justice in God's hands, including in the present.
Our present is relevant to an ultimate that is otherwise unavailable to individual persons and to all creation.
It identifies ultimate and everlasting ends, as well as temporal means that lead to them through God's wise power rather than ours.
Perseverance in 'hopeless' situations is not only plausible but compelling.
Results and consequences can still be partly or wholly postponed, or unmeasurable.

Apocalyptic ethics cultivate patience and perseverance as virtues grounded on hope.

Pre-Christ, hope is grounded in the exodus and God's other demonstrated signs and wonders of deliverance.
The Son of Man's resurrection confirms and re-centers it.

IV. Apocalyptic Ethics' Shape
Living 'expectant lives' will shape the qualities that qualify us to inherit the Kingdom.

Our actions will not 'bring the Kingdom';
Instead, faithful actions will highlight the Kingdom as a future-and-present, earthly-and-heavenly reality.

Some NT examples of 'apocalyptic ethics':

It pursues godliness for present life and life to come (1 Tim 4:8):
trust, patience, perseverance, gratitude, love, hope, gentleness, humility, etc. (Matt 24-25).
It surrenders the relationship-killers on New Testament “vice lists” (for instance, 1 Cor 6:9-11, 2 Tim 3:1-5).
It longs for fulfillment and both mourns and rejoices in the meantime (Matt 5:3-16, Rom 8:18-26).
In a word, it fosters readiness for his appearing (Luke 12:39-40).
Our qualities that the Lord judges worthy (1 Cor 3:10-15) will be relevant not just to what precedes his coming, but especially to what follows it, so it is realist.

The Lord expects both successes and failures:

Despite our failures, God receives and rewards the service of the faithful.
Despite our successes, the Lord must still return to set all things right.

The Kingdom's arrival in Jesus anchors Christian apocalyptic ethics:

The Son gets his Father's goodness, and shares it with even the not-yet-comprehending, by grace through faith.
Lasting goodness results from Christ’s passion and resurrection.
Jesus' infinite goodness truly merits the Father's exaltation.
In his reign and appearing goodness returns, glorifying Son and Father in the Spirit.
The worthy Christ includes victims as well as forgiven enemies and persecutors in his spreading fellowship.
Jesus expresses genuine goodness in a bad and hardened world.

V. The Church's Deteriorating Futurology
Appreciation for the NT's apocalyptic perspective fades.
The multiplicity of good and bad final outcomes deteriorates as Gentile Christians lose the New Testament’s apocalyptic plot.
This reduced expectation to a disembodied 'heaven' or 'hell' on the basis of faith and/or works.
Distortions grew:

eternally disembodied personal futures, heaven as a never-ending worship service, neglect of present-age conditions or preoccupation with them in reaction, etc.
Platonism filled in gaps from neglected Jewish-Christian apocalypticism.
Christianity's 'interim ethic' adapted to this narrowed expectation, and
Christian ethics developed in these distorted contexts,
displacing and replacing virtues proper to our true apocalyptic context.

Appreciation of Jewish apocalyptic expectation has recovered somewhat in the last couple of centuries, bringing fresh opportunities for significant reform.