The Age To Come Has Begun: The Age To Come Has ALREADY COME, So Don't Look For It To Arrive, But Rather WATCH As It Unfolds In The Here And Now

One of the problems with having a five-second memory is you tend to forget stuff you have learned. Fortunately, our identity is elsewhere, and it remembers. If you learn to listen, it will remind you. I noticed that my copy of The World is Learning Compassion was from the library of Ray Jarman, whose book The Grace and the Glory of God I happen to have. Dr. Jarman preached a lot from apocalyptic writings, and I got concerned again about the future of the earth.

God gave me a word: watch.

Oh. So I do not wait and look for it to come in the future, but WATCH THAT APOCALYPTIC STUFF HAPPENING HERE AND NOW!! It is not coming; it already IS. In Jesus we have entered into that history. We can watch the apocalypse working itself out in our PRESENT lives. We are told to not believe people who tell us it is coming.

I do not think anyone has made this presence of the future clearer than C. H. Dodd. You can get Dodd's The Apostolic Preaching and Its Development free as a pdf online. It is a small book, less than a hundred pages. It is a whole lot easier to read than his The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, which requires ability to read Greek and Hebrew. The online pdfs do not include the 18-page Appendix that is in the book. In mine, chapter three on Paul and John and the Appendix on Eschatology and History don't have many lines that are not already underlined and annotated in the margin. That's why you need the hardcover: you are going to underline and annotate the heck out of this thing. THE BOOK IS A JEWEL.