Time is ending, short, and evil

Three truths about time in light of Christ's return

“He will come.”

Those three words in the Apostles’ Creed summarize one of the most foundational truths of Christianity. We are the people who believe that Christ will come again.

To be honest, this doctrine makes Christianity weird. We expect a Judean man from the first century to appear in the clouds and judge the world. When you think about it as if you are hearing it for the first time, it sounds rather wacky.

Yet, there is no way to dissect the doctrine of Christ’s return from every other doctrine of the Christian faith, including his sacrificial death. It is all part of a singular plan that God made before creation for “the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1:10).

We believe in the ending of the present age and the coming of the age-to-come, and we believe that this eschatological transition has already been inaugurated by the death and resurrection of Christ and will be brought to completion at his return. Only through our faith in Christ’s return and the establishment of the eternal order can we make sense of the Christian life and even Christian ethics.

As we reflect on this new year that we have been given, it is good to remember three truths in light of Christ’s imminent return: Time will end. Time is short. And time is evil.

Time will end

Christ’s return promises that time—this age—will end. Of course, time in the sense of the eternal age will go on and on forever, but the present age is passing away. It will come to an end at the return of Christ.

Therefore, do not love what is dying. Peter admonishes us, “Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness” (2 Pet 3:11)! Knowing that everything in this age will come to an end ought to align our priorities with the age to come, and we ought to pursue the eternal rather than the temporal.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Time is short

While we should not love things that belong to this epoch, we nevertheless have a responsibility to make the most of our time in this age. The truth of Christ’s return and the brevity of our own lives both teach us that, one way or another, our time here will be short. James writes, “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (Jas 4:14).

In light of the brevity of time, James reminds us not to plan presumptively but to always submit our lives to the Lord’s will (Jas 4:13–15). Yet it is equally true that the brevity of time should push us to make the most of our time for the glory of God and the good of others.

Moses prays, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Ps 90:12). When we understand the brevity of our lives, we grow in wisdom, knowing better how we ought to utilize our short lives in the fear of the Lord.

Time is evil

Paul reminds us that “the days are evil” (Eph 5:16; cf. Gal 1:4). Therefore, we ought to be “redeeming the time” (Eph 5:16 KJV), which means to utilize time rightly for the glory of God rather than for evil. The opposite would be to love this age and the wicked things that are done in the darkness of this age (Eph 5:18–19).

But another application of this basic fact can be found in Paul’s commands to the rich in 1 Timothy 6:17:

“As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.”

The rich are not to put their hope in the transient riches of the present age, but to trust in the rich God of eternity.

This same logic should be applied to almost every area of our lives. This age is evil, and everything within it is marked by suffering, disappointment, and tragedy. In our suffering, we often put our hope in “next year will be better,” but we should not put our hope in the uncertainty of next year. It will likely not be better than the year before, and it may be worse.

Because time is evil, we must put our hope in God and what he is doing for us and in us:

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor 4:16–18).