Friday, December 30, 2005
THE SCALES OF JUSTICE
From Justin's quote from the writings of St. Gregory of Nyssa comes four laws--
1. The law of conscience for those who lived from Adam to Mount Sinai.
2. The law of creation for those who lived before Christ or never knew Christ.
3. The law of Moses for the Hebrews.
4. The Law of grace and the gospel for Christians.
Isn't this a sort of pluriform truth? If we see these four different standards of conduct applied to four different sets of people as all coming from the Trinity, isn't it reasonable to posit that there could be new laws in the future which would be used as the standards by which people of future generations will be judged?
Scripture tells us that in the last days:
I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy: your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Moreover, upon my servants and handmaids in those days I will pour fourth my spirit. And I will shew wonders in heaven; and in earth, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood: before the great and dreadful day of the Lord doth come. And it shall come to pass, that every one that shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved: for in Mount Sion, and in Jerusalem shall be salvation, as the Lord hath said, and in the residue whom the Lord shall call.(Joel II:28-32) (Incidentally, this passage is not in the NAB which stops at 27. I've quoted the Douay Rheims here.)
A similar passage appears in Acts:
'It will come to pass in the last days,' God says, 'that I will pour out a portion of my spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. Indeed, upon my servants and my handmaids I will pour out a portion of my spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy. And I will work wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below: blood, fire, and a cloud of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the coming of the great and splendid day of the Lord, and it shall be that everyone shall be saved who calls on the name of the Lord.'(Acts 2:17-21 from the NAB)
Do these visions and prophecy which are predicted constitute a new revelation and a sort of new covenant between God and man which would then require a new law? Are we in fact seeing this very thing taking place in Pentecostalism? In esoteric Christianity?
Wouldn't such a possibility have direct impact on interreligious dialogue? However, wouldn't such a possibility directly contradict the belief that Revelation was completed in Christ and is now closed?
Yet what if, as Scripture tells us, the day will come when the Jews will be converted? Will they then still be judged by the law of Moses, or will they then be under the mercy of Christian grace?
And another question that I've been considering over the last couple of months...are these visions and prophecy predicted for the last days solely from God as Scripture indicates, or are they both from God and from the evil one...because the esoteric Christians are prophesying?
If these two passages of Scripture do indicate a new covenant, then what we see taking place in Rome and in interreligious dialogue might have the blessing of God, and in the future all that will be required of man is that he call upon the name of Jesus.
This is wild speculation, I know, but trying to make sense of the doctrinal reversals on topics such as original sin, interreligious dialogue, and universal salvation have me searching everywhere for some sort of order in this chaos.
