What does the great day of the Lord mean in the mind of the Church?

The future second coming of the Lord Christ occupied the mind of the early Church, as is evident in its engagement with the word of God, its worship, and its instruction. This future event is the consummation of human history, when the Lord Christ shall appear on the clouds, and carry His Church comprised of all the faithful from Adam to the end of ages into the Father’s bosom, to partake of eternal glory. The great day of the Lord, as the Holy Bible calls it, shall be when the eyes of the heavenly and earthly are opened to discover the pinnacle of boundless divine love, offered to sanctified humanity. They shall enter into an exalted eternal communion with the heavenly beings, and the heavenly and the earthly shall exult together in this divine love which unites all to itself.

Early in his life, St. Peter witnessed the Lord’s transfiguration on Mount Tabor, and his heart was inflamed with anticipation, longing to hasten the coming of this joyous day, when we shall dwell in the “land of the living” with all the saints who are alive by the spirit; when

328 Cf. St. Isaac the Syrian, Mystic Treatises by Isaac of Nineveh , trans., A. J. Wensinck (Amsterdam: Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, 1923) Homily 27.

the faithful shall bask in radiant glory. Later, he wrote: “Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:11–13).

St. Ephrem the Syrian says, “Beware, my brothers, lest one of you be deprived of this joyous inheritance. For behold, He is standing at the door! The Light descended to us and enlightened us, drew us closer to Him, and raised us up with Him. He descended to us and for our sakes became like us, that He might make us like Him. He who does not die, descended to be among the dead, and made them dead no longer. He ascended to the Father, and He will come again in the glory of His blessed Father to judge the living and the dead. He became for us the path of life, filled with light and glory, so that we may walk in the light to the Father.”³²⁹

Cyprian the martyr says, “Oh, what and how great will that day be at its coming, beloved brethren, when the Lord shall begin to count up His people, and to recognise the deservings of each one by the inspection of His divine knowledge … What will be the glory and how great the joy to be admitted to see God, to be honoured to receive with Christ, your Lord God, the joy of eternal salvation and light—to greet Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the patriarchs, and prophets, and apostles, and martyrs—to rejoice with the righteous and the friends of God in the kingdom of heaven, with the pleasure of immortality given to us—to receive there what neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man!”³³⁰

So also the scholar Origen : “The account, therefore, of the entire and whole life is exacted by that which is called the kingdom of heaven which is likened to a king, when ‘we must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad’ (2 Cor. 5:10); and then when the reckoning is being made, shall there be brought into the reckoning that is made also every idle word that men shall speak (Matt. 12:36), and any cup of cold water only which one has given to drink in the name of a disciple (Matt. 10:42).”³³¹