ACC ~ John 5 v29

RESURRECTION TO ETERNAL LIFE OR ETERNAL DEATH

AUGUSTINE: The apostle answers you and says: I know what I am talking about. You say the pagans are delivered from the body of this death, because the last day of this life is coming, and they will be released in due time from the body of this death. The day is also coming “when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice, and those who have done good will come forth to the resurrection of life.” There you have the ones delivered from the body of this death. But he also says, “Those who have done evil will come to the resurrection of judgment.” See, they will return to the body of this death. The body of this death is coming back to the wicked. They will never be released from it. Then it will not be eternal life but eternal death, because it is eternal punishment. SERMON 154.16. [1]

[1] WSA 3 5:77.

PICTURE THE FINAL JUDGMENT

BASIL THE GREAT: Think again of your last day…. The distress, the gasping for breath, the hour of death, the imminent sentence of God, the angels hastening on their way, the soul fearfully dismayed and lashed to agony by the consciousness of sin, turning itself piteously to things of this life and to the inevitable necessity of that long life to be lived elsewhere. Picture to me, as it rises in your imagination, the conclusion of all human life, when the Son of God shall come in his glory with his angels… when he shall come to judge the quick and dead to give to everyone according to what they have done. LETTER 46.5. [1]

[1] NPNF 2 8:151*.

TWO OPPOSITE HUMAN FATES

GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: Those who have done good shall go into the resurrection of life, now hidden in Christ [1] and to be manifested hereafter with him. And those who have done evil shall go into the resurrection of judgment to which those who have not believed have been condemned already by the word, which judges them. [2] Some will be welcomed by the unspeakable light and the vision of the holy and royal Trinity, which now shines on them with greater brilliancy and purity and unites itself wholly to the whole soul…. The others… must endure the being outcast from God and the shame of conscience which has no limit. ON HIS FATHER’S SILENCE, ORATION 16.9. [3]

[1] Col 3:3.

[2] HE WORD IN THE BEGINNING | JOHN 1:1

[3] NPNF 2 7:250.