The Apocalypse, Antichrist, & Second Coming (Dr. Scott Hahn) | Ep. 539

I realized second coming doesn't occur. Antichrist never is mentioned once. The rapture isn't a term that is employed. You know, the battle of Armageddon, that's one time, but it's near the end of the book. And we were just wrapping our our our minds around these theories that were based upon words and phrases that weren't even found in the book.

Okay. So, you would say that the book of Revelation isn't principally about the end of the world and the second coming, even though that's often how it's talked about.

That's right. Thank you so much for watching Pints with Aquinus. Before we get into the interview, I'd like to ask you to please consider subscribing. Over 58% of people who watch this show regularly are still not subscribed. So, please do it. It's a quick, free, easy way to support the channel. We really appreciate it.

Dr. Han, thank you very much for coming all the way down to Florida. It's great to be with you, Matt. We miss you up in Stubenville. Thank you. And the family, too. Yeah. Thanks.

Um, you wrote a book on Revelation called The Lamb's Supper. And this is a book that I'm seeing being discussed more and more online as people begin to feel and talk about the possible near end of the world. Wars and rumors of wars. It really feels like our culture and many places around the world are coming apart at the seams. And so I thought it would be good if we could discuss a little bit the book of Revelation, what that book's even about, what we misunderstand about it, and that sort of thing.

That would be fitting, I suppose, because the first Bible study I ever attended back in the early 70s as a a new convert. I was barely 14 was a Bible study on the book of Revelation and why we were living in the last times and how it was going to be all fulfilled within a matter of years, if not months. And uh wow, the semester was over. Summer came, you know, but not the second coming. And so I just played ball. I was a starting pitcher that summer. And then in the fall, there was another Bible study about two or three miles away and a different teacher. And of course, the topic was the book of Revelation. and he was taking a slightly different approach, but it was the same sort of sensationalizing futuristic how Lindsay the late great planet earth had been out maybe a year and a half or two which went on to sell I think over 50 million copies over 40 languages in translation in so it was the hot topic and by the time I was in the second study I was getting a little weary of all of the sensationalizing and so I just decided instead of beginning in the back of the Bible I would start I think It was my sophomore year, just begin in Genesis in the beginning and just read all the way through the Bible. And so I was think I think I went through it twice in high school and it was just the most amazing gracefilled exercise in my early life. And so when I went to college, I took Greek and it was going a little slow for me. And so I took an accelerated program with a tutor who ended up going to Oxford and she dis she basically decided that uh I would translate the book of revelation in its entirety. I was hoping a couple of friends of mine would join me but they bailed and so it took an entire semester to translate all 22 chapters and it was still halfway through my college studies. And so I remember feeling like this is weird Greek. It wasn't typical. In fact, it's been described as Semitic Greek. And so, it really took a long time to do it well. And at the end, I remember right near the end of the semester, I realized second coming doesn't occur. Antichrist never is mentioned once. The rapture isn't a term that is employed. You know, the battle of Armageddon, that's one time, but it's near the end of the book. And we were just wrapping our our our minds around these theories that were based upon words and phrases that weren't even found in the book. Millennium, okay, by the 20th chapter, but it just struck me at the time, I know what the book is not about, but I still didn't know what the book was about.

Okay. So, you would say that the book of Revelation isn't principally about the end of the world and the second coming, even though that's often how it's talked about.

That's right. I would say it's not primarily about that. I would also say it's most certainly not about that exclusively or else you would have to label it a false prophecy on account of the number of times that Jesus keeps saying I am coming soon. it is the time is near you know and so uh I didn't consider it a false prophecy at any level but at the same time it was really uh mysterious at every level and so it when I went off to seminary uh I didn't take any courses on the apocalypse uh I was still reading it studying it on my own but I'd really become you know so many evangelical protestants you know start off premillennial dispensational premillennial all about the rapture then eventually you become amillennial but I became postmillennial for a while and then amillennial all about revelation 20 the millennium the thousand years until I just you know we all called ourselves pan millill that is in the end it will all pan out and that's when we'll figure it out you know and so I was somewhat of a agnostic not a skeptic but still uh somewhat convinced that people who claim to know probably don't did that damage your faith at all as a 14-year-old having been told the end of the world's coming and presuming buying into that at some level.

It could have, it probably would have except around that time I discovered about an hour away what they called the Ligoner Valley Study Center. It was a recent startup by Dr. RC Sproul who became my mentor and I ended up having his son as a student at Grove City when I was a professor there. I spent a month living down in Ligonier at the study center, spending a lot of time with Sproul and with Gersner and with others too. And Gersner had a doctorate from Harvard and so he could handle all of these questions, my queries that you know I threw them. Yeah. And so it it didn't affect my trust in the word of God whatsoever. One thing I sometimes think about is all right, how many years do I have left on this planet? you know, maybe maybe 30, maybe 40 if I'm lucky. Right. So, I think to myself, all right, that's when the second coming of Christ is going to happen for me in a way.

Exactly. But if I believed without a shadow of doubt that in 30 years the Lord was returning, how might I live differently? And then I tell myself, well, that is going to happen at least in your death. And so, why aren't you living that way now?

So, I mean, I guess it might be an obvious question, but what is with the fascination of the Lord's return?

Well, I mean, it's something that he promised to do. It's also a mysterious oracle. Uh, it comes from the lips of our Lord in the form of a prophecy. It's his last discourse. Generally, we find it in Matthew 23:24 and 25. We call it the Olivet discourse because he gave it on the Mount of Olives. And it really is, it stands in stark contrast to the sermon on the mount, the first of the five sermons that he gives in Matthew. In fact, I shouldn't do this, but I'll advertise.

Do it. Yeah. The Emmas Academy with the St. Paul Center has a course that I just taught a really brief summary of the Gospel of Matthew where I divided up into the five sermons. The sermon on the mount from chapters 5 to 7, and then the sermon on the Mount of Olives, chapters 23, 24, and 25. And then there are three onechapter sermons. There's the mission discourse in Matthew 10. There is the parables, the seven parables in Matthew 13 and then is there is what is called the church discourse in Matthew 18.

Touch upon those. How do people get access to that?

St Paul. What's the URL? Paulcenter.com and they can just sign up and I I personally would love to do that to go through those videos. Yeah. I don't know if it's behind a pay wall. I hope it's not. But in any case, I hope it's worth it. I'm sure it's worth it. Yeah.

But the um the Olivet discourse um is really a strong message because he talks about not one stone be left upon another. All of the the blood the innocent blood of the martyrs will be required of this generation and this generation will not pass away before all my words take place. Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away. And so it's an ominous announcement of destruction and judgment upon the old covenant in general. the old Jerusalem in particular and the old priesthood with the animal sacrifices. And it culminates in Matthew 25. And so you're left wondering, won't that leave a terrible vacuum? No covenant, no Jerusalem, no temple, no priesthood, no sacrifices. What about the feast, the pilgrimages? You know, it's just going to be all washed away in a great tsunami. And then in the next chapter, the very next thing Matthew narrates is the institution of the eukarist, the new covenant, the new priesthood, the new sacrifice. And so it's not elaborate like it had been. You know, as St. Augustine would say of the blessed sacrament and all of the sacraments in the new, they're fewer. They're not merely symbolic. They're powerful and they're much simpler. You compare, you know, baptism with circumcision, for example.

Um, and so there is something going on in Jesus' public ministry as it reaches this day no long that is oracular. He's giving a prophecy. And so often you think that prophecy is merely predicting the future. And we have some prophets, you know, who, you know, who prophesy like that, you know, Isaiah 7:14, a virgin shall conceive. But generally speaking, prophetic oracles are mysteries, you know, and they're not just subject to human interpretation as we read in second Peter 1:19 that no prophecy is a matter of one's own private interpretation because prophecies, you know, are are wrapped in mystery. Plus, another point that St. Augustine has taught me and Aquinus taught Aquinus as well that scripture is not just a big book that contains several sections, one of which is called the prophets. Inspiration doesn't just render the Bible inherent. Presumably there are other books that have no error. But inspiration basically uh produces a result that all of scripture is prophecy. That all of scripture has dual authorship and the human writers are not just stenographers, secretaries taking dictation, but they are they are contemplatives. The hagiographers, the sacred writers are men of prayer, but they're also given a charrorism of prophecy. So they're able to predict, but not just simply, you know, connecting dots the way we do at the end of the year. Who do you think will be divorced in Hollywood in the coming year or who do you think the next pope will be or the next president? There's a predictive element, but there is so much more than that. Uh Cardinal Da Louu once said that prophecy is the typological interpretation of history. And that to me nails it. It shows why does Jesus not only prophesy the end of the old covenant, Jerusalem, the temple, the Levitical priesthood, the animal sacrifices, but he does it in an oracle that is layered with all of these quotations, citations, illusions, and intertextual echoes from the law and the prophets and the psalms, but especially Isaiah and Ezekiel and, you know, Daniel and others. So you cannot understand the new apart from the old. You can't understand what Jesus is doing apart from his pledge to fulfill the law and the prophets, not abolish. But it isn't simply restoring the way it was back in the golden age of David and Solomon. No, I mean there really is a death and resurrection of the old covenant. The old Jerusalem becomes the new. The sacrifice of the lamb becomes eucharistic. Ultimately, what the apocalypse is filled with is not only the imagery of fulfillment, but also lurggical imagery. Oh, yeah. More than any other book that somebody might call apocalyptic. And so, when you have your antenna up and you're listening closely for this, okay, you realize that the new doesn't abolish the old any more than say the butterfly abolishes the caterpillar. There is a metamorphosis quite literally that's the word for transfiguration. So the new is in continuity with the old but the analogy works in such a way that there is even greater discontinuity between the new and the old between the heaven and the earth between the new Adam and the old. And so you begin to get a sense with his death and resurrection and ascension that not only has heaven been affected by Jesus' offering, but heaven has been effectively repopulated with the martyrs and the saints and all of these people, the 144,000 from every one of the 12 tribes in Revelation 7, plus this vast number that no one can. But it's not just the end of time that it's going to be filled with all of these people. It's really in the fullness of time. Okay? And so when we read about Jesus' ascension, it's not just like a smooth or safe getaway. He's taking uh he's taking captivity captive as Paul says in Ephesians referring to Psalm 68. And so the descent into Hades, I love to ponder this especially in the aftermath of of Easter. We always emphasize Holy Thursday, Good Friday. We skip a day, then Easter Sunday. But holy Saturday was a Sabbath, a high Sabbath. And when Jesus is laid to rest, you know, there is a sense in which his humanity, his mortal frame is separated from his soul, but at the same time, it's forever united to divinity and his soul descends into Hades, not to experience the torment of the damned. Oh no, the damned aren't capable of experiencing suffering like our Lord did. His love enables him to suffer more, far more than anybody who's damned could possibly suffer.

Never thought of that before. Can we ponder on that for a moment?

Yeah. So you say, "Our blessed Lord suffered much more than the damned in hell because he was able to love more."

Yeah. When that when you look at what Jesus suffered from his heart, it wasn't just the physical pain. We know from experience that when we experience the pain of the soul, betrayal, denial, but then also these horrendous expressions of resentment and anger and hate that hurts so much more than my broken arm did or the three times I got stitches or whatever other injuries I've sustained or recovering from surgery. The pain of the soul is much deeper. But that's interesting and I think it so you can see that in when people unfortunately cut themselves or pull out their hair. They're doing that to escape an emotional pain that's much worse than the physical. It's a visible sign of an invisible hurt. Okay. Yeah. It's almost an anti-sacrament. What we do to our bodies we don't even realize. But that's true when we do the holy sacraments too. We don't realize holy but the idea you know St. Thomas does a great job in the sum of the terzia from 46 to 48 but earlier as well 1 to 26 but we can't get into all of that but but what he says is so beautiful and accessible that um it's not how much Jesus suffers that saves us it's rather the love of the second person of the trinity now expressed in his own sacred humanity especially his sacred heart and so Aquinus describes in various ways Why it is that the sadness, the sorrow, the anguish of Jesus is pointing to the mystery of how love enlargies your ability to suffer. It purifies it and it perfects that too. So that Jesus ends up suffering out of love more than anybody, more than everybody. He really is in he's suffering on behalf of everybody. And because his humanity is passable, it's capable of suffering. But because it's unfallen and united to the sun, he is able to suffer in a way that is much more profound. And again, love is what enables us to accept suffering. The more you love, the more you're willing to suffer. In fact, the more you love, the more you want to prove your love through suffering. More than just a ring for an engagement or a box of chocolates. you want to give yourself, but our capacity is so limited. Jesus wasn't. And so, he loves us to the end. It is finished. And then his body is laid to rest. On the Sabbath, it rests while his soul goes down. He's just brought about a new Passover, hasn't he? In establishing the Eucharist. And as the lamb of God, he can say, "Tatelisty, it is finished." Because he has concluded. He has fulfilled the Passover. But the Passover was not the end game. It was the means to the end of the Exodus. The ultimate Exodus is when Jesus descends into Hades with all of his love, with all of his perfecting human soul and proclaims to the souls of the faithful departed throughout the entire Old Testament. You know, Peter refers to those who were lost at the time of Noah. So he's proclaiming the fruit of his redemptive self offering, his sacrifice to all of them. And in that way, he's fulfilling the Sabbath that has never really been kept since the dawn of creation. You can read about that in Hebrews 3:4. There's still a Sabbath waiting for us. Well, Jesus fulfills the Sabbath on Holy Saturday by bringing about the greatest manu mission, the liberation of all of the slaves to death, all of those who are in the realm of Hades who were faithful and they died in a state of grace, but they've been waiting and wondering if they're ever going to be freed from the devil, from death. And so when he ascends into heaven, we see, for example, in Matthew 27 that these tombs around Jerusalem were opened and these saints were seen.

I've always been confused by that. Is that meant to be taken literally, do you think?

Quite so. Okay, explain what do you think happened there?

Yeah, I I I don't know exactly. I mean, we really dealing with the realm of mystery more than clarity. But it's a strange verse, isn't it, to stumble across? I mean, it's only in Matthew who's writing for most likely Jewish Christians who were living in and around what we would call Palestine, perhaps Antioch, but they were in the No. In any case, in Matthew 27, I believe it's around verses 51- 53, these tombs are opened and these saints are seen after the resurrection and then they're not. Well, where do they go? Well, that's the whole point of the ascension, that it's not just a safe getaway, the greatest comeback in history. M no, it really is Jesus fulfilling the ultimate new covenant Passover, the new covenant exodus, the new and greater Exodus. Because it's not just the Passover in Egypt. It's not just coming out of Egypt. It's not just arriving at Sinai, renewing the covenant. It is all about entering the promised land, conquering the promised land as our promised inheritance. Well, that geographical slice we call Palestine, the size of New Jersey roughly, that's a geographical sacrament or a sign, an icon of heaven, of course. And so Jesus is taking all of them up into heaven and empowering all of us through the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. And Pentecost, there's a certain sense in which the narrative arc of Passover and the Exodus ends at the at Pentecost. It was a Jewish feast first. It's when they renew the covenant. It's when they got the law from God, the Torah, which was this precious gift from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But when you get the law of God without the Holy Spirit to empower you to keep that law, well, we know what happened when they got the law because the Levites were invited by Moses to slaughter the worshippers of the golden calf, and 3,000 were slain by the swords of the Levites. Fast forward to the new Passover, the new Exodus, and then finally the new Pentecost and what Thomas Aquinas echoing Augustine echoing St. Paul calls the new law, the new covenant is the Holy Spirit who writes the law upon our heart, empowers us to keep what we wanted to but couldn't before. And so when the Holy Spirit is poured out and the new law is proclaimed in the gospel by St. Peter, then what happens? 3,000 people are slain by the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and resurrected in the waters of baptism. Just a coincidence. I'm sure the early fathers did not think so. Okay? And so, when we look at prophecy through the lens of typology and we understand that typology is not just a literary imagination, perhaps overworked, you know, it really is. I mean, there are some hyper typers who just get carried away. Yeah. But the New Testament writers aren't numbered among them.

Hyper typers. I love it. Um, Christ said he was coming back soon and it seems from my reading that the apostles believe that he may even be coming in their lifetime. How is that not an argument against Christianity? Where is he? It's been 2,000 plus years at this point. What do you say to that objection?

Yeah, and it's a common objection and I think it's a it's an objection that we've got to take more seriously than we generally do. Uh it was Bertrren Russell's big one. You know, he had other issues with Christianity, but this was for him decisive. You know, that Jesus clearly taught this and didn't happen. And so, we have to consign him to a great teacher. CS Lewis also admitted he struggled with the fact that Jesus proclaimed the kingdom and it didn't seem to deliver. And he also said that, you know, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the son of man coming in the glory of his kingdom. You know, in each case, you've got to do what Lewis failed to do, and that is study the text in its context. Um, and we, you know, Bur and Russell's more philosophical, but I think CS Lewis is like a good exhibit A because when you see what Jesus says and when he says it and where, you know, in Matthew 16, for example, we've just had the um, Cesaria Philippi, who do men say, who do you say? Peter says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. You are the rock. You are Petros. And on this Petra, I will build my church. I will build my church and the gates of Hades will prevail. Won't prevail. And of course, he has to stick his foot in his mouth and say, you know, you're not going to suffer all of these things. Get thee behind me, Satan. And all of that is a leadup to Jesus basically assuring them that they too will have to carry the cross, which is not encouraging news, you know, even if you've just been named the prime minister, the first pope. And so in that setting he says there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the son of man coming in his kingdom. And so as Ratzinger points out in Jesus of Nazareth you know you might have to turn the page but you have to move from chapter 16 into chapter 17 from Peter and the rock to the transfiguration. And so the transfiguration isn't just like the Fourth of July finale, you know, like, wow, we are privileged, the three of us out of the 12. No, there were some standing there, not nine but three of the 12 who then climbed presumably Mount Tabor and witnessed the transfiguration, which is a metamorphosis, and then some. And they also see the law and the prophets and Moses and Elijah being fulfilled before their very eyes. But they're hearing the voice of the father. This is my beloved son in the shikina glory cloud of the holy spirit. And there is the son. There is the trinity. The first public revelation to three of them. And the trinity is not like the special site in you know the museum of heaven where we get to go and see God. No. As you see in revelation 21:20, you know in the new Jerusalem there is no temple. For the Lord is the temple. the lamb who sits upon the throne and the living water that flows from the throne of the Lord and the lamb. Wait, stop. There is no temple in the new Jerusalem. You know, that's like we're going to renovate DC and not have a white house or a capital or a, you know, that's zany. Well, wait a second. No. The three-fold structure we call the temple is now fulfilled by the Lord, the father, the lamb, the son, the living water. And so to enter into the glory of the new Jerusalem is to enter into communion with the father, the son, and the holy spirit. The beauty, the glory, the majesty was anticipated there on the mount of transfiguration. And they were told, don't tell anybody until after the death and resurrection. And so it's consolation for Peter, James, and John, the leaders of the 12, that yes, you will have to suffer, but as Paul says in Romans 8:17, the suffering ain't worth comparing to the glory that awaits us. So just in terms of costbenefit analysis, put up with it and you'll be glad. You know, and I think if CS Lewis had done, and Ratzinger wasn't the first or necessarily the best, but he's a minority report that needs to be heard more often by people who aren't necessarily scholars and even by philosophers like Russell.

I'm not making the connection, which says more me than you. There are some standing here will not taste death. Peter, James, and John, are you listening? And they'll see the glory of the son of man coming in his kingdom. And they climb the mountain, okay? and they see the transfiguration and so so that what Christ said had to do with his transfiguration.

That's right. But okay, awesome. Isn't it the case though that and that's a petristic testimony as well?

Oh, interesting. So, this isn't just rewriting uh because No, it's not revision. It's any kind of, you know, modern but weren't the apostles convinced that Christ was going to return in their lifetime?

You know, I I point out in the Lamb's Supper in several places, and I also point out in a sequel called Letter in Spirit, uh I have a long quotation from Professor Yarislav Pelican, who was this great church historian in Yale, especially an expert in the early church fathers, and he admits that he assumed like everybody else that there was this so-called crisis over the delay of the perosia. And you notice two things. one he combs through all of the pages of the Petristic sources for decades as this worldclass scholar and he admits in volume one of his s of his multi- volume series on the Christian tradition that you cannot find any place in the petristic sources where they are saying that Jesus promised the end of the world would come during during that time in in his own lifetime or imminently that it would be the end of the world interesting Interesting. Yeah. And the second consideration worth examining is what he also points out and I have this extended quote in my book Letter and Spirit that the Eucharist was not perceived as some consolation like a consolation prize for the delay of the perosia. The Eucharist was in fact the way the early church celebrated the parosa. Because if you look up in any Greek lexicon, what is the meaning of this term that Jesus uses so frequently in the gospels and also in the epistles, you know, Paul and others, but also especially in the book of revelation. You know, perosi was a common Greek term employed back in the first century by Jews who spoke and wrote Greek. But if you found the definition, it would not be coming or second coming or future advent or final return. It would be simply this presence. Presence. So in Philippians 2 12 and 13, as in my presence, so in now in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. So presence is perosia. And so when a person is present, for example, if a a king conquers a town, there will be a date of his peria. He'll be coming, but the perusia denotes his arrival, his presence, because that's the moment of decision. Are you going to submit to his reign or are you going to have your city destroyed? And so parosia is presence. The presence of a person often a king who has conquered and he is returning to make himself present for you to have this moment of decision. So if you were living back in the first century as a Jewish Christian wanting to profess the mystery of Christ's real presence in the holy eukarist. Pelican concludes as a Lutheran. I want to say a big thanks to the College of St. Joseph, the worker based in Stubenville, Ohio. You'll recognize many of their faculty and fellows from the show. People like Dr. Andrew Jones, Dr. Jacob Eam, Dr. Mark Barnes, Dr. Alex Plato. Listen to this. Their program combines the rigor of an elite bachelor's degree with the practicality of training in the skilled trades. And their tuition model is structured so that students graduate without crippling debt. If you're a bright young man thinking about what college to go to, apply to a place where you not only learn the good, but gain the power to do it. Apply to the College of St. Joseph the worker. If you're a parent, look into this college for your children. And if you're not in either category, just consider supporting the mission. Go to collegeofjoseph.com/mattfrad to learn more. That's collegeofst.com/matfrad to learn more. There will be a link below. Thanks. that the Eucharist was not consolation for the delay of the parosa. The Eucharist was how they celebrated the eucharistic parosa. Because when you profess with faith that here is his body, blood, soul, and divinity, they're not shards of bone or flesh. No, it is the resurrected body and blood. It is the ascended, enthroned, glorified, divonized humanity of the God man. It's the divonized body, blood, soul, and divinity. I mean, it's taken us 2,000 years to find the proper formula for expressing this. But I mean, they don't even come close to capturing the fact that what our guardian angels see moments after, say, my son, Father Jeremiah, speaks the words of consecration. Not only is it not bread, it's not just Jesus hiding, you know, it really is the resurrected Lord, the Lord of glory. And so how do you express this? The Eucharistic parosa, one of my favorite theologians, FX Derwell, Durr RL. He's written a bunch of books, all of which are worth reading closely, but especially his dissertation that is really readable. It's translated from the French. It's still in print, though it was done in the early 50s. It's simply called the resurrection. And it's looking at all of the New Testament and finding this symphonic theology of how the only thing Jesus ever called the New Testament was the Eucharist. You and I have talked about he never said, "Write this in remembrance of me." He said, "Do this." He never wrote anything down. Most of the 12 never ended up writing anything. You know, over half of them never ended up contributing any books to the 27 we call the New Testament, but not because they were lazy or disobeying orders. He said, "Do this." And that's what they did. And so if we profess the real presence, we recognize that if we are alive at the end of time and we see Christ coming again, we might be surprised to find out that he won't have any more glory than he has right now, presently, you might say, in the tabernacle on the altar through the eyes of faith that can perceive the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings. And I think this is also a key that at least for me unlocked the mystery of the visions of John in the apocalypse too because Matthew, Mark, and Luke all include the Olivet discourse, the destruction of Jerusalem, the temple, the priesthood, the sacrifices. This generation won't pass away when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies. He's speaking in 30. By 70 AD, the Roman legions under Vespatian and Titus have arrived and laid waste. Josephus describes over a million Jews who perish in the Jewish revolt, the siege of Jerusalem. He himself, a Pharisee, was also a military commander who got captured. And as a P, he was also an eyewitness to the siege of Jerusalem. And how within one generation all these things took place and the judgment upon the old covenant, the old Jerusalem, the old priesthood, the sacrifices, all of that was wiped away. not to create a vacuum because the body of Christ in the church, the body of Christ in the eukarist, the body of Christ as the mysteries of faith all lead us to see. If we walk by faith and not by sight, we're going to say what Pelican said that the Eucharist is not a consolation prize for putting up with this postponed parosia. It is the parosia of the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings. If you have the faith to hear the word of God and at the same time, you know, it it it refers to what Jesus institutes in the Eucharist in the upper room. It it's where the sacrifice of the lamb of God is initiated. You know, Good Friday would have been a Roman execution apart from the Passover, apart from the Eucharist. As Paul reminds the Corinthians, Christ our pascal lamb has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us keep the feast. What feast? The Eucharist. So if the Eucharist is just a meal, as you've heard me say before, Calvary is just a Roman execution. So how do all Christians profess in the 21st century what no one could have recognized back then in the first century? This is not an execution. Okay, he's innocent. He's it's a martyr. Martyrdom. No, it's a sacrifice. Well, only if you see Friday in light of Thursday, this is where the sacrifice is initiated. It's more than rhetoric. It's more than ritual. That was his body laid down. That's his blood. And then that same sacrifice is consummated on Friday. And so it's more than an execution because he's not losing his life at the hands of the Romans. He's laying his life down with his own hands while fulfilling the old Passover and creating the new. And his body is also the temple. Destroy the temple and on the third day raise it up. Even the disciples didn't understand that one. Again, it's a prophecy, but it's a typology because on the third day, what you see in his resurrected body is a temple far greater than the old Jerusalem temple could ever be.

How would you use what you're saying right now to evangelize a Jew?

Yeah. What I would do is to show that throughout the Old Testament, you have this pattern. It might be called supersessionism because in the patriarchal period, who were the priests? The Levites. Levi hadn't even been born yet. So, who were the priests? The patriarchs. Noah builds the altar offers the sacrifice. So does Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And so, Rabbi Mymanades, Rashi, the great medieval rabbi and exedite. They all recognize that the priesthood of the father, the patriarch, and ideally his firstborn son, so that when the father dies, there's still a father figure who will also be a priestly mediator to unite the family. This continues all the way into Exodus. So the idea of the Passover which redeems the firstborn son and consecrates the firstborn sons including Israel which God told Moses go tell Pharaoh Israel is my firstborn son. And so the nation of Israel was called to be a kingdom of priests to all of the other nations like the gentile nations are younger siblings. And then the golden calf occurs and the Levites alone are obedient and they avenge God's honor after the the calf. And thus the next book is Leviticus. Yeah. As Hebrews 7 says, where there's a change in the law, there's a change in the priesthood. Or actually, it's the where there's a change in the priesthood, there's a change in the law. So when you move from every tribe being holy, all 12, and all the fathers and the firstborns being redeemed by the blood of the lamb and consecrated, a priestly service. Parenthetically, in Exodus 24, the young men are offering the sacrifices. Who are they? They're not Levites. The rabbis, the fathers of the church say they're the firstborn until they're replaced. They're defrocked. They're leasized. And so what do you need? Well, there's a change in the priesthood. There's a change in the law. What's the next book? Leviticus. Why? Because the Levites are now ordained to be the clergy. You read all about this in Numbers 1-5. It sure helped a lot for me to read all the way through all of this. Yeah. you know, in high school and just become so much more familiar with this material than most Christians are. I mean, we prefer the new. Jews prefer the old, but the new is unintelligible apart from the old and the old is like a story in search of an ending. But it doesn't stop with Leviticus because when you move from Moses to David, you move from Mount Si where the tabernacle, a tent barely big enough for the 12 tribes to assemble for worship, you move to the temple. So this is portable and it travels with them as they go through the desert and enter the promised land. But this is not portable, the temple, this massive sanctuary that Solomon builds, the largest precinct of which was the court of the Gentiles. Whereas at Sinai, Gentiles were excluded. Now at Zion, they're invited. So there are these tumultuous patterns of fulfillment. You know, it's sort of like uh the tadpole becoming a frog, you know, or I mean, these are silly childhood, you know, analogies, but they work well enough to show that there is this pattern where you move from the patriarchs to Aaron and the Levites. You move from Sinai and the tent to Zion and the temple. Then you move in the exile from a Davidic monarch where there is none. Cyrus the Persian is described as the anointed one by Isaiah. And so the high priest has now become the head of Judea. But get this. When you return to Judea after 70 years in Babylonian captivity without a Davidic monarch, you've now got a high priest. But the fact is you have, how do I say this? This is the birth of what you would strictly call Judaism because it's the tribe of Judah coming back to Judea under the high priest in the line of Aaron. But the other tribes, the 10 other tribes, this is not the restoration of Israel. This is simply the restoration of Judaism. Okay? And so you have these significant subtle but seismic changes in the religion of the Old Testament as we call it, the law and the prophets. And so to move from earth to heaven is already anticipated by the Jewish prophets. Isaiah here's holy, holy, holy being sung in the temple, but not by the Levitical choirs, but by the saraphim. Wait, where is he? He's not in the Jerusalem temple. He's in heaven. There's a heavenly Jerusalem. There's a heavenly temple. There's a heavenly liturgy. And Isaiah expects his readers to understand all of this. And in the second temple period especially, you find all this literature especially discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls in Kuman where they become not only aware that there is a heavenly Jerusalem, a heavenly temple, a heavenly liturgy where God is worshiped by the angels in a way that is analogous to what they're doing in the earthly Jerusalem, the earthly temple. But this is the reality what's going on up there. But it's inaccessible. So, we got to keep on slaughtering cattle, sheep, and goats until the Messiah comes, fulfills all of this. But what's it going to look like? Stay tuned because it's going to go beyond your wildest dreams. It's going to exceed your highest hopes, but it's not going to look like a before then after picture. It's going to be exactly what happened, and that is he's a high priest, but not from the tribe of Levi. He's a high priest after the order of MelkiseDC. He's a son and so he is exalted in heaven. And just as MelkiseDC is the first person to be called priest and what did he offer? Not cattle, sheep and goats but bread and wine and where Salem later identified with Jerusalem in Psalm 76 and Zion. You know all of these this is not like you know a kid just playing you know paint by number. This is more than connecting the dots. This is recognizing what Clopus and his friend were hearing and realizing and feeling when they said, "Did not our hearts burn within us as this apparent stranger opened up the scriptures?" And then why does Jesus withhold his identity until they're at the table in Emmas? He takes, he blesses, he breaks, and he gives. Their eyes are opened. He doesn't say it's about time. He doesn't say, "Do you have any questions?" He vanishes because the Lord of glory, the resurrected body, blood, soul, and divinity was just made known in the breaking of the bread. So that's why he had to leave or else he would have been a distraction from this eukaristic perosia, the real presence of the resurrected body that becomes the new blueprint for the worship of the early church, the liturgy of the word until our hearts are burning and then the liturgy of the Eucharist when the eyes of faith are opened.

Have you had any success in evangelizing a Jew to bring them into Christianity by showing them that the old is revealed in the new or do you know of many?

Yes and no. I would say on the one hand I've had five or six conversations like we're having with a Jew and it went someplace. It didn't go very far. And why? Well, because you know, hold still. You said you're thirsty. I've got a fire hose. you know, it's just too much. And so, what has happened over time in the last I'm now entering my 40th year as a Catholic. I can't believe it. But what's happened a number of times, I mean, dozens of times is that I've been in conversations, email dialogues, or persontoperson, face-to-face convers, you know, encounters with Jews who read the Lamb's Supper especially, but also a father keeps his promises. You know, I'm also fond of citing a rabbi and a Israeli biblical scholar, Baroo Lavine, who in his commentary on Numbers and also on Leviticus acknowledges that in the law and the prophets, what Jews call the Tanakh, you have always priesthood, an altar, a sacrifice in a sanctuary, you know, and and so now, ever since the temple was destroyed in 70 AD, Jerusalem and the sacrifice, the priesthood, all of that just wiped away. Y and we would believe transposed to the heavenly Jerusalem. Yeah. With the heavenly high priest, with the heavenly lamb as he's described in Revelation, as we'll see in a moment. You know, Rabbi Lavine points out that in rabbitic Judaism or what we would call synagogual Jud Judaism, we don't have a priest, an altar, a sacrifice in a sanctuary. What do we have? We have a rabbi taking a scroll and reading it. And the climax of this service would be what we would call the homaly, what might be the sermon or the word of exhortation. And and so he acknowledges forthrightly that you don't find the word rabbi anywhere in the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh. You don't find the word synagogue anywhere in the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh. You don't find a scroll except, you know, in an intermittent way at Sinai with Ezra and Nehemiah in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. But, you know, you you don't have a sermon centered service. You know, as a as a pro as a former Protestant minister, I'm like, I can relate. You know, we celebrated the Eucharist like four times a year. Every every service, every liturgy was sermon centered. And then he goes on in in the next sentence to point out that, you know, if you want to look for a priest, you know, in a uh at an altar offering a sacrifice Yeah. in a sanctuary, you'd have to go down the road to the local Catholic parish. And what does he conclude from all this? That there are transformations of our religion that we have experienced over centuries and centuries. Not for one moment is he conceding the fact that Catholic Christianity is the proper fulfillment. My point would simply be this, that Catholic Christianity did not redefine the religion of ancient Israel more drastically, more radically than rabbitic Judaism redefined it in terms of the synagogue, the scroll, and the sermon. So when Christ talks about not abolishing but fulfilling that phenomenon that we call pleosis pleosi to fulfill it's invariably transformative it's not merely restorative there's continuity you know so we have a Jewish royal high priest in the line of David not in the heavenly New York but in the heavenly Rome no the heavenly Jerusalem. So the continuity is such that you have greater fulfillment, greater continuity than you expected but also greater discontinuity. you know, um, a former teacher of mine, Father Francis Martin, quoted, um, uh, actually he was quoting Hegel, but, uh, the notion of sublation was used by Bernard Lauder to describe the mysterious pattern of fulfillment that it's not simply moving from

Infancy to childhood, or childhood to adolescence, or adolescence to adulthood. We see far more continuity, and yet, at the same time, discontinuity in the life cycle. But what you find when you move from the old to the new is you find a human prototype on earth that serves as an analogy or a scale model of what you will find in eternity when you ascend into heaven and you enter into what we might properly describe as Plan A. Okay, this is not just like God recovering from a bad fall. This is God revealing what he Paul states in Romans 15, that you have the natural, the human, the finite, the mortal, and then you have the immortal, the infinite, the divine. This was always Plan A.

We have a new headquarters. You've been in the St. Paul Center in Steubenville. We had a prototype, a blueprint. We couldn't have fit in the scale model, not one person. But, you know, if you realize we're we're waiting for something that goes beyond our wildest dreams, you're not going to say, "Nope, I don't I'm not convinced."

Okay. What should Catholics think of modern Judaism? And should we expect mass conversions before the Second Coming of Jews? Okay. So we should revere our fellow, I mean, know our those who believe in the law and the prophets, uh, those who are keeping the faith as well as they can, the best that they know it. At the same time, we should not withhold from them, out of a false sense of friendship, the fact that Jesus is a Jew, Mary is a Jew. And so, we are all part of a family. And as Pius XI said, spiritually speaking, we're all Semites, you know, by birth or adoption. And so, St. Thomas Aquinas would describe how the ongoing existence of practicing Jews, I don't think he called them faithful Jews, but he called them practicing Jews, it's unique among all of the different countries and all of the different races, you know, because they still are believing in the law and the prophets. They haven't recognized with supernatural faith the fulfillment. But this is why we ought to revere them. At the same time, we see Jesus was born into that line, the Blessed Virgin, and all 12 disciples. And so when you look at Revelation 21 and 22, what are the 12 foundation stones of the New Jerusalem? The 12 apostles, who just so happen to be all Jews? No, there's no coincidence there. There really is a proper fulfillment. And so to withhold the message and the mystery of that fulfillment from a Jew because he might not like it. Well, you probably didn't either when you first heard that you had to repent of your unbelief, of your own doubt and so on, you know. But I would say it's a betrayal of friendship to withhold this from Jews, or Muslims, or Protestants, or agnostics and atheists. I mean, Jesus didn't just die for Catholics. He died for all of us to enter into this fullness that again goes beyond our our wildest imagination.

What about conversions? I mean, our Blessed Lord says, "When the Son of Man returns, will there be any faith?" Or will he find faith on the earth? Which leads me to think, I guess, there'll be this mass apostasy of Christians falling away. But do we have any reason from scripture to think there'll also be conversions of the Jewish people? Yeah, I do believe, but it would take me too long. But again, I keep thinking, if only everybody listening or watching had an Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, we could do this in like 20% the time. You know, I could just have them read certain sections and then study the notes, the annotations, and they would make the connections because if we had the time to discuss Romans 9 to 11. Yeah. And what Paul is doing in those three chapters, you would discover what you hardly ever notice in Romans. Paul quotes the Old Testament more than any other of his 13 letters. Um, he also quotes the Old Testament more in these three chapters, Romans 9 to 11, than the other 13 put together. So that almost 40% of Romans 9, 10, and 11 are Old Testament quotes. But what you discover when you study Paul through Richard Hayes and Greg Beale and other people, and for that matter, Brandt Pitre, John Kincaid, and Michael Barber, and their amazing book on Paul, you discover that Paul never takes texts out of context when he cites them, when he quotes them, when he alludes to them. He he uses them evocatively. Like, you know, when Jesus said, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" He wasn't just complaining out loud. He was citing verse one of Psalm 22, which is a Tōd Psalm that begins with a cry of dereliction from a man who's truly afflicted. You know, they've pierced his hands and feet halfway through Psalm 22. So Jesus knowingly cites it because he knows it ends on a note of triumph, deliverance, and thanksgiving. So when you cite Old Testament texts, you've got to study their context. And you'll see why does Paul never use the word Israel in 1:8 of Romans? 1:8. He never uses Israel in Romans 12-16. He only uses Israel in 9, 10, and 11. And he uses it more there than everywhere else put together. Whereas the term Judaean, Jew, or Judean, drops out almost completely. It's used a dozen times in Romans 1:8. And it's used once or twice as he reminds you of what he said in Romans 1:8. But it's all Israel. Well, I mean, that's two ways of saying the same thing, right? No, Judaism is Judah coming back to Judea, but the 10 tribes never returned, though the prophets promised they would eventually. The tribes of Israel have been dispersed by the Assyrians for over 700 years. Okay. So, how about God's promise to restore all of Israel? Not just Jews. And so the what we're arguing in the notes of the study Bible and also in the Romans commentary that I did, uh, along with Curtis Mitch, who helped me with the study Bible as well. What we're trying to prove is that as Paul is sent out to be the apostle among the Gentiles, God isn't asking him to abandon his his people. God is not abandoning his people. As Paul says in Romans 11:1, "I myself am an Israelite." Is he a Jew? Yeah, because he lived and studied in Judea. But "I myself am an Israelite from the tribe of Benjamin." So he knows the tribal distinctions and he knows that Benjamin owned Jerusalem, but Judah had annexed it. So you couldn't join the 10 in the rebel coalition in the northern kingdom way back, you know, in 9:30 BC. And then they got wiped out long before Judea did by Babylon. They got wiped out by the Assyrians two centuries before. I mean, Paul assumes that look, if the Holy Spirit can convert Saul and transform my reading of the law and the prophets, then the Holy Spirit can help readers of Romans understand that as I go out among the Gentiles, where 10 out of 12 tribes have been scattered for 700 years, the hardening has come upon a part of Israel, a large part, approximately 10/12ths. As I'm going out and proclaiming the gospel among the Gentiles where the tribes of Israel have been scattered, that's going to set in motion the means by which all Israelites, not just from the tribe of Judah, but all Israel will be saved. Not every single Gentile and every single Israelite, but the called, the chosen, the graced from among the Gentiles and those who are chosen and graced and called among Israel. So if God had seemingly forsaken 10/12ths of Israel for over seven centuries and then set into motion, God consigned all to sin that he might have mercy upon all. God consigned even Israel to sin that he might have mercy upon Israel. And if he did that back then through Paul's ministry to set in motion the possibility of the conversion of the Israelites who were scattered among all of these Gentiles, then what's not to, you know, what's to stop him from doing something similar at the end of time with the Jewish diaspora as Jews have been scattered among all of the nations for 2,000 years. Seven centuries is a long time. 20 is even longer. But the arm of the Lord is not shortened that he cannot save the Jews at the proper time. And so I would say it's a both and. But it also calls for us to read the new in light of the old, and the old is fulfilled in the new in a way that is more like, you know, drilling oil rigs than it is just kind of scraping the surface and trying to figure out, okay, what does Jesus, what does Paul, you know, how do they explain the fulfillment of the old and the new?

It. You know, I've been at this now for 53 years, and to me, it's the single most profitable use of time and energy. Nothing is more fulfilling. Not the drugs, not the drink that we did back in high school. This is sort of what I was looking for. But I think the more people get drawn in as beginners, and then they get drawn further in as intermediates, and as they get drawn in as, you know, we met Brandon the convert right before our dialogue began. You can just see in his eyes, like, this is what makes me high. Yeah. And this is what will make people holy as long as it's not reduced simply to intellectualism. Yeah. Because the idea that God consigns all to sin that he might have mercy upon all. I mean, that resonates with the old, the new, John Paul, Benedict, Francis, and beyond. You know, what does it mean to say the church is the new Israel? Well, it's a lot of things. I mean, it's sort of like what, you know, what spoke of the wheel holds it together? Well, all of them do. Um, I would say the hub of this wheel is obviously Christ, and Christ is an Israelite. He is from Judah, the line of the tribe of Judah. So, we have the genealogies to back up the fact that God wasn't just kind of, well, I was just using poetic license there. No, there really is a sense in which the church of Christ, the body of Christ, is the new Israel. He's the new Adam. It is not a replacement of Adam, but rather a new Adam. When you read 1 Corinthians 15, you get a clear sense of Adam always was intended by God to be the prototype. Israel according to the flesh was always intended by God to be the prototype. In Romans nine, you hear about how God chooses. And as a Calvinist, I could relate because I thought he's sovereign. It's arbitrary. You know, Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. You know, Ishmael, sorry, it's Isaac. But what God is doing through Paul in Romans nine is showing that all of those who were descended from Abraham after the flesh are not automatically guaranteed salvation. Because look, who was the first son of Abraham according to the flesh? It was Ishmael. And no Jew would today say, "Oh, yeah. They're part of the promised seed of Abraham. He is disinherited." Okay, but from then on, it's everybody descended according to the flesh. Well, no, because it's not only Isaac who's younger than Ishmael, it's also Jacob who's younger than his twin brother, Esau. And then you continue reading in Romans nine and you realize there's a pattern. We've heard it before. I want to tell you about Hallow, which is the number one downloaded prayer app in the world. It's outstanding. Hallow.com/mattfrad. Sign up over there right now and you will get the first three months for free. That's like a lot of time. You can decide whether it's useful to you or not, whether it's helpful. If you don't like it, you can always quit. Hallow.com/mattfrad. I use it. My family uses it. It's fantastic. There are over 10,000 audio guided prayers, meditations, and music, including Myoofi. Hallow has been downloaded over 15 million times in 150 different countries. It helps you pray, helps you meditate, helps you sleep better, it helps you build a daily routine and a habit of prayer. There's honestly so much excellent stuff on this app that it's difficult to get through it all. Just go check it out. Hallow.com/mattfrad. The link is in the description below. It even has an entire section for kids. So if you're a parent, you can play little Bible stories for them at night. It'll help them pray. Fantastic. Hallow.com/mattfrad. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. So you think of, you know, the sons of Jesse. There are seven. Samuel doesn't find the chosen one. Do you maybe have one more? Well, yeah, but I mean, he's the eighth born. Show me. And he sees David, a man after God's own heart. So what is last is often first, and what is proud about being first according to the flesh often ends up being last. And that too is the warning that Paul gives the Gentiles in Romans 11. Just because you're being grafted on as unnatural olive branches to this natural olive tree. Don't boast because conceit is what caused these other branches to be cut off. And so if you give in to conceit, guess what? If God didn't spare the Israelites according to the flesh, he's not going to spare you when you succumb to hubris because of, you know, your own spiritual superiority. No, if you humble yourself, he will exalt you. If you exalt yourself, he has to humble you. So, he might have the opportunity eventually to get around to exalting you.

All right. Before we dive into the pages of Revelation, I want to ask you about what the scriptures talk about the Antichrist. This is obviously another fascinating topic like the end of the world, right? Um, and there's been multiple speculations out there on on the internet about whether or not the Antichrist is here or when he will come, what we should expect. So, what are some maybe misconceptions about the Antichrist and what does the scriptures teach about him?

Yeah. Okay. First, you know, whenever we do this sort of transition, it just strikes me like a brick. Sorry. That, you know, uh, you know, the fire hose, you know, or um, I I feel like, okay, bring me back back down from the stratosphere. So I apologize for what you always know I'm going to do. You know, not you got to get another fire hose. You're about to turn another fire hose on. That's why we're here. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Lord have mercy. Yeah. I uh, not everybody's been working at this for 53 years, and even people who've been working on much less than me do a better job. So it isn't like, oh, 53 years is all you know. No, I I I I am always feeling like a and a beggar standing on the shoulder of giants, you know, and drawing the riches from the the patrimony of the church. Okay. I did say earlier that Antichrist isn't found anywhere in the book of Revelation. It's only found in First John, then again in Third John. And I think it's significant because when you read about it, you realize, okay, no wonder the fascination and the speculation. It was already going on back then. In 1 John 2:18, "Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come." What was that? Okay. You, as you've heard that Antichrist is coming, and he's not denying it. Yeah. So now many antichrists have come. Okay, there's the genus, there's the species. It isn't just one person at the very end. It's already persons in the first century as the new covenant is beginning and the old covenant is ending. And then he goes on to say, "Therefore, we know that it is the last hour." And I would just stop and explain that when we hear about the last days, the latter days are the last days of the Old Testament. It's the end of the world. No, it's the end of the world as the people of God knew it. And so the new covenant ushers in not only the sacraments and the body of Christ, but as we were talking earlier about the ascension of Jesus and how he took all of the souls of the faithful departed from the Old Testament who were ready up to heaven and repopulated heaven so that the Catholic Church is not located primarily in Rome there in the Vatican because the Pope is not the head of the entire Catholic Church. The Pope is the temporary head of the Church Militant on earth. Whereas it's not the body of the Pope. It's the body of Christ. He is the head. We are the body. And so that has been actualized with the ascension and his enthronement far more than most theologians have expressed. But when you see this, you begin to sense, okay, it's the latter days. It's the last time. It's the end of the world as the people of God have known it since the beginning of the world. So when he says, "Therefore, we know that it is the last hour," he continues, "They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out that it might be plain that they are all not of us." And I would say I kind of line up with the majority of readers who would say that a large number of Christians in the first generation when John is writing, even though he's getting old, would have been Jewish Christians. We know the Ebionite heresy is one of the earliest. The Ebionites are Jews who believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of David and the Son of God like Solomon was called the Son of God. Yeah. But not the eternal, pre-existent Son of God. And then as it became clear, no, we worship him, then you can't do that with Solomon or anybody else. You know, they end up leaving. And so John goes on to explain how it works with regard to the Antichrist. So he says this, "Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist. He who denies the Father and the Son." So is Father and Son poetic imagery? Is it metaphorical, profound, sacred, but symbolic? Or is it real? It moves beyond the figurative. It is the metaphysical truth that God is an eternal Father and that he has sent Jesus the Christ, but he wasn't just anointed by John at the Jordan. He's anointed by the Father from all eternity, as the Cappadocians would say. So the Father anoints, the Son is the Anointed One, but the Holy Spirit is the anointing. And so it's not a fully formulated doctrine of the Trinity, but it is Trinitarian for sure. And so what does John go on to describe the anointing? And so he goes on to describe, "This is the Antichrist. He who denies the Father and the Son. Anyone who denies the Son does not have the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also." It's basically you've denied the creed. I believe in God the Father Almighty and in Jesus Christ His Only Son, which for Ambrose went back to the first generation. This was the form of the faith that the apostles would have you profess right before you got baptized, right before you got anointed. And so he goes on to say, "He who confesses that the Son has the Father also." And then he speaks of this anointing also and how you don't need anybody to teach you if you have the anointing and you do. It's like, well, you know what about my students at the university? I don't need anybody to teach them. Well, they have the anointing, the Holy Spirit. And so, the anointing is what the Father confers upon the Son, and it's borne witness by the Spirit. So, if you profess this primordial form of the mystery of the Trinity and the Incarnation, you are in communion with Christ, his body, the apostles, their successors. Whereas if you walk it back and say, "No, it really is still in the Old Testament age where it's metaphorical, it's prophetic, it's symbolic, it's profound, but it isn't real." This to me is the spirit of the Antichrist. So, does it evolve? Does it develop over time? Oh, of course it does. Because there are a lot of people who do not believe that Jesus is the Christ in the fullest and truest sense of the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, you know, and presumably, you know, the President of Presidents and the Prime Minister of Prime Ministers. I mean, we all owe him homage. We all owe him worship, but that wouldn't be appropriate if he's in any way created or finite. That would be idolatry.

So, it sounds like John is saying basically any Jew or Gentile who denies the Incarnation is an Antichrist. That's right. It doesn't seem very ecumenical or or or pastoral as we reach out to our. Yeah. I mean, I acknowledge it's not going to be the best way to start a conversation or build a friendship. You know, apart from the Holy Spirit, but as Paul states in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, he could have used poetic rhetoric, rhetorical flare, but he just preached the word of the cross. Why? Because it's going to be foolishness to the Greeks who seek wisdom. It's going to be a stumbling stone for the Jews who seek signs like Moses gave them 10 before the Exodus. But it is the the power and the wisdom of God. Okay? So the weakness of God is more powerful than the power of men. The wis the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man. Paul says, so what did he proclaim? The word of the cross. I mean, that's like leading with your chin. What results are you going to have? Well, whatever successful results you have are going to be blamed on one person. And it won't be Paul. It'll be the third person, the Holy Spirit. So, if you really want the Holy Spirit to really be the one who's not just my co-pilot, you know, not just my advisor, but my Lord, then you're going to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in love, but it won't necessarily always feel like love. And so, I would say that you have to deliver the truth. You know, put it this way. I've been thinking a lot about how Christ bore sin. You know, especially in light of Holy Week, we watch The Passion of the Christ as a family. And you can just see in the the scourging, you know, the the demonic hatred of those soldiers, you know, it's not just the Jews, it's not just the Romans, it's all of us. We resent God because we don't like that love that is so demanding and his will that is always so, you know, "Thy will be done," regardless, you know. And so, you know, Jesus didn't just bear sin in the sense of, well, our sin and our guilt was imputed to him, so for a few hours there was a total eclipse of the beloved Son, you know? No, I would echo what Father Thomas Joseph White has said, that if you see Calvary through the eyes of faith, you don't see a suspension of the love of the Father for the Son. What you see in Cal at Calvary is a Trinitarian epiphany. That never has the Son manifested the love of the Father as perfectly as the hours he spent bleeding out, pouring his blood on, not losing his life, but making it a gift of love. He is imaging the Father from all eternity. But when he enters time and he takes on sacred humanity that is that is passible, capable of suffering and dying, only when he suffers and dies, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you." And this is the new and eternal law, the new and eternal covenant. It isn't a tempor is bearing sin, not just in the sense, I feel your pain. You know, he is bearing the sin as the light of the world. When sinners sin against the light of natural law, the light of natural reason, they're sinning against God who gave them reason, who gave them the light of conscience, and all that. When they sinned against the law of Moses, that too was divine light. In fact, they're sinning against greater light. But when you sin against the light of the world, who is manifest in the natural law, the light of natural reason, who is manifest in the shadows of the Mosaic Torah, when you sin against Christ himself, you're sinning not less, but more. He's not bearing sin in a sort of empathetic way. He is the object of our hatred, our contempt. It isn't just like, I'm feeling your pain. He is feeling in his own humanity. God, you know, we don't diminish God's glory when we sin against him. He hates sin because it diminishes his life and glory in us and our prospects of having it eternally. So he he loves the sinner, hates the sin because he loves the sinner. So he loves the sinner more than he hates the sin. But the two are conjoined. They're interchangeable. And so there really is when he says, "Let this cup pass from me." Is this sort of what is he referring to there? I remember reading Padre Pio talking about somehow like bringing upon himself the sins of the world. But St. Maximus the Confessor is the one who nailed this with his own contemplative and critical study of Gethsemane. Okay? Because what he shows is that Christ has a a divine nature that is incapable of suffering. But he unites it to a human nature. And he chooses to unite it to a human nature that is passible, capable of suffering, or what Paul would say in the in the likeness of sin, because he's not sinned, but he has human nature that is basically bearing the weight of the post-fall condition. And so Maximus shows us that even Christ, who's unfallen in the garden, would have abhorred suffering and death. Just like Adam in the garden when he was tested would have abhorred suffering and death. When God said, you know, you can eat from all of the the all of the trees except for one, and the day you eat of that, you will surely die. The serpent said, the next page, you won't die. And so they ate, and they didn't die. A natural death. But in Genesis 2:7, God didn't just give our first father breath and life. He breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life. So he had life that is oxygen, breathing, that he had life that is divine, the Holy Spirit. We call it sanctifying grace. There's life, then there's life. Therefore, there's death that's natural. But then there's a deeper death that is supernatural. That's what God was referring to. It might have seemed like a riddle, but Adam had infused knowledge. Death was meaningful and dreadful. But in the mystery of faith, the loss of natural life was much more accessible and dreadful than the loss of this elusive mystery of divine life. But when he partook of the forbidden fruit, he committed what 1 John 5:16 calls mortal sin. And John there in First John is reflecting upon Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. So he has all of this in view. This is what the Catechism calls spiritual suicide, the loss of divine life. It's what we call original sin. So in the garden, Jesus is tested as a new Adam, and he has an upright, unfallen human nature, but it's not impassible like divinity. And so for him to download what is love in God only, even the angels don't have eternal perfect divine love, to download that into humanity, who humanity, even upright and unfailing, fallen, is going to abhor that. And so what we hear in Hebrews 5:es 7, 8, and 9, "Though a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And thus being perfected," and that's actually referring to priestly ordination in the Old Testament background, "thus being perfected, he became the source of eternal salvation to those of us who obey him." So we're going to have to carry our crosses. And before that, we're going to have to have the drama of Gethsemane where Maximus the Confessor says, "This is the hinge of the drama of salvation." It's one thing to say, "This is the cup of my blood. This is my body. Take, you know." It's another thing to actually give consent to what you know will be the greatest suffering and the most hideous death. And so of uniting his human will to love like the one will shared by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That in a certain sense is what would pop the cork. I mean, at that point, the treasure in his earthen vessel. I mean, it would pour out of him because now he knows he is moving on. And the cohort comes to arrest him. "Shall I not drink? The Father has for me." He says to Peter, "Put away your sword." John 18:11. You know, and so to me, we really underestimate what was going on in the Garden of Gethsemane and in that prayer where the human will unites to the divine will. You know, God has three persons but one will because will pertains to nature. Jesus has two natures and therefore two wills because he's got a divine nature and a human nature. And the human nature is going to resist suffering and dying, especially under those circumstances, until it accepts it because that's what the Father is willing. And so the Son of Man wills what the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have willed from all eternity to love with his humanity in a way that is only truly and properly godlike. You would to see on your screen download complete because now he's going to do on the cross what the Trinity does from eternity. He is pouring his life out as a gift of love. He's not losing it, though he, you know, looked to the pioneer and perfector of our faith who for the joy set before him endured the shame, despite no endured the pain, and then, and this is Hebrews 12, you know, so we're surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, and we look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame. This is not like, oh, this is play acting. No, he felt pain more than all of us put together because he was not only feeling it in his human nature as God. He was the object of our indifference, our contempt, our resentment of God. He bore sin in Isaiah 53, the suffering servant sense, because he becomes sort of like, you know, when they raise up the the bronze serpent. Yes. Because they had just cursed God. When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know how God loves the world that he gave his only Son to be cursed. Yeah. You know, to become a curse. Not by God pretending that he's sinful. Yeah. But by God allowing Jesus to bear in his own sacred humanity what God has borne from the very beginning with the first sin of the angels. It doesn't diminish God's glory. But boy, does the Son of Man feel the pain.

There's a lot of pushback against penal substitution theory online right now among Protestants, and then those who hold to it will say it's really being straw-manned. And I know we've spoken about this before, so we don't have to talk about it for long, uh, but what is penal substitution theory, maybe what's the closest we can get to it as Catholics before rejecting it? Because there certainly are some scriptures that seem to indicate as much, and even in the writings of Athanasius on the Incarnation, he seems to use this sort of legal language that Calvin did.

Well, the covenant does include a legal dimension, but it includes a cultic or liturgical dimension, and the temple is greater than the palace. The high priest is holier than the king. And so to use law to start with law is a misstep. But to just start with ritual is also confusing. So you got to start with Christ. You know, when he is approached by the scribe, and when he asks the lawyer in all three Gospels, what is the greatest commandment of all? Well, there's 613 to choose from according to the rabbis. But Jesus and the scribe, they both know. It's Deuteronomy 6:5. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, and all of your strength." So, it's not just loving God as you love yourself. No, that's the second commandment. And he quotes Leviticus 19:18. "Love your neighbor as yourself." Most people don't realize he's choosing two of the statutes out of the 613. And then he says, these are the two greatest, and they're not interchangeable. Clearly, the one is far greater than the other. The love of God with your whole self than your the love of neighbor as you love yourself. And so he then concludes, "On these two hang all the law and the prophets." We never allow that to have its full force. Wait a second. You've just given us the first two and most important hermeneutical principles for interpreting all the law and all the prophets. It's to love God with your whole being. All your strength, all your heart, all your soul, your mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. So this is what we call sanctification. The love of God. God alone is holy. Holiness is the perfection of love. That's why God alone is holy. And that's why God alone can sanctify us. And that is the first table of the Decalogue. The first three commandments deal with the first and the greatest command. No other gods. Don't take his name in vain. He won't hold you guiltless. And remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. The only time holiness occurs in the Decalogue. It's the longest of the commands and it's the most broken or most neglected, I suspect, as well. Then the last seven are more horizontal and human social, the love of neighbor as self. So if you begin, like Augustine does, with the love of God, that is the just demand of the law of God. It's a law of love. The only logic that holds this whole constitution together of the Torah and the prophets is love. God's love, but our love for God. And so in Aquinas and in Augustine and in our tradition as well, the Catechism, but even going back to Cicero, you have justice is giving to others what you owe them. And the greatest expression of justice is not honor your parents. That's what starts the second table. But to love God with your whole self. And so to satisfy justice requires us to satisfy divine justice. This is the thesis of my book. It is right and just while the future of civilization depends upon true religion. And so to love God with your whole self. I mean, you could say, "Sure, I do love you with my whole self." But how do you know that? Uh, well, the proof of love for my love for Kimberly was sacrifice. I would give up things that I liked because of what she liked. Then the engagement ring, then the mar, you know, all of these other things. Sacrificing what you want for the love of the neighbor, but sacrificing to God what? A ring? No. A chocolate cake? No. I mean, you're called upon to sacrifice all that you are. So to say, "I am," you know, this is why sacrifice is not the result of sin. Sin is the result of our refusal to sacrifice because we don't want to love God that much. We're not even able to love God that much after the fall. And so the logic of love is what integrates the whole Torah, the law of nature, the law of Moses, and the new law, the law of Christ, most especially. Only when you get that, do you understand that penal substitution is a counterfeit, you know? So, you have a judge and he's holy and just. You have all these guilty criminals who are guilty of heinous sins and crimes. And then you have this fellow walk in and say, "Your Honor, or Aba, you know, I'm innocent. You know, I'm righteous. I deserve a reward and yet I will take on their sin. So impute their sin and guilt to me and then punish me because I'm willing and I'm innocent." And then impute my righteousness to them and also my reward. And then when it's done and you've vented your wrath for those hours when I'm hanging on the cross, you know, we'll get, you know, we'll we'll reunite. You know, I mean, that's compounding human injustice with a sort of divine injustice. If you saw a judge do that, you would say this is a breach of justice on a huge scale. To punish an innocent guy because he's willing to die in the place of all of these guilty people. It's Trinitarian schizophrenia, at least temporary insanity or split, you know. And I know all of the defenses of penal substitution. I studied under the two godliest professors, Dr. Roger Nicole. I was his TA. He I was like a son to him. And then Dr. J.I. Packer. They were best friends. And they would refer to each other as he is the greatest defender of atonement theology, penal substitution. And Nicole would Packer would say that Nicole and Nicole and I spent probably over a hundred hours with them. I taught this. I believed it. And then I began to realize there are problems here under the surface, you know. And yet there are passages there in scripture. Isaiah 53, right? And so when you see the affliction of the servant, what you see is a servant who's going to bring about a new ex. I don't have the time to get into this, but the notes do in the study Bible that this is the new David. Nobody's called a servant of the Lord more than David is in the Old Testament. Nobody suffers even more than Moses. David suffers and writes all of these Psalms of lament and complaint because of all of his suffering as well. So there's a new Jerusalem. There will be a new temple. And there will be a new servant, a new and greater David, not just a new and greater. So he's afflicted. He suffers voluntarily. Why? Out of love. It's one thing to slaughter cattle, sheep, and goats and call them a sacrifice. It is another thing to suffer for the truth of God. Suffer for the love of God. I suffer with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Why? Because I love your law. I meditate upon it day and night. It's better than gold, more than honey from the honeycomb. That's David boasting about how God has empowered him through the Spirit to love him with practically all of his being, but not actually, because he's a sign that points to a greater than David, Christ alone who does. First 2 Corinthians 5:21, "He who knew no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God." Another key passage for Packer, Nicole, and others. Yeah. But in the Greek and in the Old Testament, and Paul's drawing from the Old Testament from chapter 2 Corinthians 3:4, it reaches a crescendo in five. "He who knew no sin became hamartia in the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament. He who knew no sin became a sin offering." So he's a holocaust. He's also a thank offering, a eucharistia, a todah. He's also a hattat, a sin offering. So he fulfills each and every one of the five sacrifices spelled out in Leviticus 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. There's another passage in Second Peter in 1 Peter 3 where, uh, he's a shepherd who lays down his life. But if if we trace this back to law, we have penal substitution. If we trace this back to holiness, it's one thing to be sanctified with the gift of the Holy Spirit. It's another thing to be justified with the justice of the Son, the King, who's also the High Priest who's in the temple. But just as heaven is over earth, temple over palace, Christ's high priestly holiness and sacrifice surpasses his kingly justice and reign. They're all inseparable, but you unite things by subordinating the lesser to the greater. And the greater is the love command. Deuteronomy 6:5. That is the only way that you can logically integrate all of the statutes in the law and the prophets and all of the actions of Christ. So in this book, "What is Redemption?" we published, we reprinted this, "How Christ's Suffering Saves Us" by Philippe de la Trinité. He knows scripture. He addresses Isaiah 53, 2 Corinthians 5, Galatians 3:13. "He became a curse for us," you know. And there I spell it out in my book, "Kinship by Covenant," that, uh, Christ was basically prefigured when the Father offered his only beloved Son as a holocaust. There at Moriah, Genesis 22, what Paul's referring to is how Abraham, the father, offered his only beloved Son as a holocaust. Tells him, "The Lord will provide himself the lamb." So that sacrifice is suspended. But that sacrifice shows us that the extent of divine love, the love of the Father and the love of the Son, is going to be manifested when Jesus comes. And to me, this is the key. This is the logic of love. It's not that Christ paid. It's not that Christ suffered the penalty, the punishment, the wrath, the rage of God the Father temporarily, but I mean so intensively that we could all go free. If he suffered as a substitute the penalty for our sin, then double jeopardy should apply. We shouldn't have to suffer. He's not a substitute. He's a representative. That's the Catholic view. It doesn't work in penal law in the Enlightenment world, but it does work in terms of Ansom and Aquinas. That if you see, justice is subordinated to love. That we owe God the greatest love, to love him with all of ourselves, even to the point of death, which would not be just, you know, shameful to die for God, to die for love of God is the greatest privilege the martyrs rejoiced over. And so you satisfy justice that way. But none of us do, because even the martyrs were born with original sin, with that irreparable debt. And Anselm points out that even an angel could assume human nature, but as a creature, he would still owe God complete obedience. And if he did suffer out of obedience, he would have basically said what we read in Luke 17, "I've only done what I was commanded. I'm an unprofitable servant." So, the only possibility of atonement. Truthfully, is a groundbreaking Catholic AI app built to help you know, live, and defend the Catholic faith with clarity and confidence. Whether you're navigating a tough conversation, deepening your understanding, or looking for daily spiritual guidance, Truthly is your companion on the journey. It's like if ChatGPT went through OCIA, got baptized, and made it its mission to proclaim the truth of the Catholic Church. But Truthly is more than just a Q&A tool. It's formation in your pocket. Take audio courses on topics like the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Eucharist, Purgatory, and why the Catholic Church is the one founded by Jesus Christ. Each course is designed to be accessible, engaging, and deeply rooted in the teachings of the Church. You'll also receive daily audio reflections, short, powerful meditations to help you grow in prayer and stay grounded in your spiritual life. Already downloaded by thousands of people worldwide, Truthly is transforming the way we learn, share, and live our faith. One question, one course, and one prayer at a time. Start your 7-day free trial today. Download Truthly on the App Store. [Music] Would be if God became man. That's Curasoma. Why the God-man? People ought to read it much more than they do. And Aquinas takes that to the next level in the Summa Theologica, that needs to be studied far more as well. It's so clear. It's so deep, but it's so understandable because ultimately what Aquinas is getting at, what Anselm was also pointing at, that Christ paid a debt he didn't owe because we owed a debt we couldn't pay. What is the debt? To satisfy justice. That isn't medieval law. That's biblical law. Because the justice that we've got to satisfy is the law of love. Deuteronomy 6:5, Leviticus 19:18. We've got to love God with our whole self. Have we done it? No. Our first father failed, and we no longer even have the sanctifying grace at birth that needed to do it. And so suddenly, vicarious satisfaction. Christ paid a debt he didn't owe because we owed a debt we couldn't pay. He satisfies divine justice. The justice rooted in divine law, divine law rooted in divine love. All the dominoes begin to fall. It all makes sense that he is a vicarious servant and a vicarious atonement is what he gains. It's vicarious satisfaction. So it is satisfying justice out of love. So all of the pain that he endures, he endures at the hands of these malefactors, the executioners. And as Aquinas points out, and as Philippe de la Trinité in this book, "What is Redemption?" not only handles all of the passages and the objections, he also draws from scripture, he draws from Aquinas. He's not only a Thomist, he's a Carmelite. So he's a mystic. He's a he's a contemplative. He sees how while the executioners are mocking him, torturing him, what is he doing? Like a good Stoic, keeping a stiff upper lip, you know, bearing it, you know, enduring. No, while they're torturing him, their evil is practically unlimited, but his love for them is infinite and eternal. So, while they're killing him, he's redeeming them. While they're humiliating him in disgrace, he's setting in the motion the possibility of not only redeeming them, but divinizing his torturers. It's like that goes beyond.

Who thunk it? I mean, at this point, our brain should be exploding. But even more, our hearts ought to be ignited by a love. It's like, if this is even half true, all I want to do is to die for you out of love for you and die to self and to love my neighbor as myself. But God, I am such a clot. I keep falling and failing. I am so flawed. But you are so patient. You are so infinitely merciful.

And so, you know, we have in our sin leverage with God as long as little children, we come back and say, "Daddy, I did it again." And he's like, "Okay, I'm willing to forgive you this time." No, he was dying on the cross to do it every time. He wants to forgive us more than we want him to. He's capable of healing us with the Holy Spirit empowering us to carry our crosses, including our own humiliations and flaws. And it's like this is good news on steroids. This is the gospel that should grasp every Catholic brain, every Catholic heart, and every leisure moment. And we ought to redefine the Lord's day in terms of learning this and teaching it to our grandkids.

Could you pause and spend some time on that line? I love that. That the Lord desires to save us more than we desire salvation or the Lord desires to offer forgiveness more than we desire to ask for it. Because I think most Christians have had the experience of falling into some shameful sin that they said they would never do again and they just feel so terrible and they know that if someone they loved continued to hurt them, they probably wouldn't keep forgiving them. Yeah. The devil knows how to do it, but divine love is what he wants to keep from us.

You know, because the the fact is, you know, the devil has this kind of schizophrenic role. On the one hand, he tempts us to do things. He takes away the sense of shame, says, "You know you want to. You've done it before. You've been forgiven before. So go ahead and indulge." And then he comes right back and flips. He becomes the accuser. "You did it again. You think God would forgive you. You think you even want to be healed. You think your contrition is sincere." You know, so the tempter gets us to fall and then the accuser gets us to feel too ashamed to even ask for forgiveness. You know, when the devil reminds you of your past, remind him of his future. He's a liar, a murderer, and a dimwit and will be forever.

On the other hand, God. I love that that line that Pope Francis used near the beginning of his pontificate. God never tires of forgiving. Yeah. But we get tired of apol of of of confessing. But the thing that we have to recognize is that salvation in a Catholic mode goes, it starts with forgiveness. It's essential. But it goes so far beyond forgiveness. It goes beyond re-education. It goes beyond healing us of the effects of the sins, you know, our own sicknesses. It goes all the way to the point where, you know, as Paul says in Romans 5, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. You could almost translate that hyperabounds. It infinitely abounds because you know we have leverage on God's mercy every time we come to him with our sin as long as we never are just saying, you know, sin boldly so that you know, you know, as Paul says, you know, so that sin may abound. No, of course grace is what we want to abound. And so if we never tire of confessing, he will never tire not only of forgiving us. He's a great healer. But he's also an even greater divonizer. He wants to do for us what we can't do for ourselves. And that is make us partakers of divine nature.

But in our own spiritual hubris and our own personal pride, we keep saying, "Okay, I'll take the wheel. You've forgiven me enough. I don't mean to embarrass you anymore." And that is such an act of presumption, such an act of hubris to think that we will never need to still be a little child to enter the kingdom of God. The more we grow to be like the saints, the more of a little child we'll become. And Mary will be there every time to pick us up. And we'll see why is she the new Eve, the ark of the new covenant. Why is she the queen mother? Why will she be the one who crushes the serpent's head? God does more with less. Behold the handmade of the Lord. My soul magnifies the Lord. All she wants to do is to love God with all she is.

All right. I want to. This is the gospel. Throw a brick in. Well, Catholics share this. This is more evangelical good news. You said earlier when I switched subjects, it's like a carpet being pulled out from under you. I don't mean to do that, but back back to the Antichrist. We've been friends too long for you to have to apolog. So there's a sense in which there are multiple antichrists or thousands or however however many. But then the scriptures also talk about the lawless one. So before we kind of look more into Revelation, can you talk about that? So when we talk about the Antichrist, is there going to be a historical figure that we can identify or that could potentially be identified as the Antichrist?

This is murkier waters than even the apocalypse. And that is 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Uh, we don't have the time to get into this, but again, the study Bible notes will help a whole lot and maybe we can have another conversation sometime. But uh, in in in first Thessalonians, you see that the Thessalonians are enduring persecution much like the believers are from their own fellow Judeans. And it warns of the wrath that will come upon them completely or at last the Judeans. And so the Thessalonians can learn from this too, that God allows us to suffer like he allowed Job to perfect his love because though you love me and you are innocent, your love is not perfected until though a son he learned obedience through what he suffered. So the Thessalonians, the Stubenvillians, you know, the PO folks down here in Florida, all of us need to. I mean, if the son of God could only be perfected through what he suffered, who do we think we are to be spared suffering? No, he doesn't exempt us. He endows our suffering with a redemptive power that it would never have. I mean, Colossians 1:24, redemptive suffering offered up. The strangest mystery of the Catholic faith, the most beautiful, the most practical, the greatest leverage we have with our Lord and with the saints, you know.

But first Thessalonians and then second Thessalonians 2 where you speak of the man of lawlessness. You also speak of a restrainer. Is it just one person, one time, one place? It could be, but it's probably not. It's interpreted as being one primary figure. All right. But even Judas is referred to as a son of predition. So similar language is used about. And this is why, you know, through the ages, the tradition says it won't primarily be Gentiles, pagans, unbelievers who do it to us because though they all contributed to Jesus' suffering and death, nevertheless, it was mostly his fellow Jews and his own disciples, Judas, Peter, and all the others who scattered. You know, he just is abandoned by them all. And so, I suspect the church will be betrayed, you know, not just by wolves in sheep's clothing, but wolves in, shall I say, shepherd's clothing. Because there's no reason to believe that the high priest, the priests, and the hierarchy only in the Old Testament could betray the body of Christ.

Well, what do we do in that situation since we're called to obedience to those over us in the Lord? Yeah. I mean, Jesus addresses that in Matthew 23. You know, don't do what they do, but do what they teach because they sit on Moses' Cathedral where we get ex Cathedral. And so there is an Old Testament magisterium that doesn't have the charism of infallibility, but it does have binding authority. And the Sanhedrin, the Sadducees who were priests, and the Pharisees who were lay scholars, scribes, teachers, they possessed it de facto. They weren't exercising it de jure. And so you you do what they say, but you don't do what they do. And in fact, you have to be willing to be the Joseph of Arimathea who, or Nicodemus the Pharisee, and to really find a way to stand up and or at least to stand out from those who are in the act of betrayal or denial. It is a it's an impossible predicament to prepare for. We can only have a special grace that's similar to the grace of martyrdom. Nobody can become a martyr on their own. Nobody can really be prepared on their own. You'll get the special grace when you need it in that hour.

I mean, there's definitely a handful or more than a handful of people who would say we're already there, that we have been betrayed by the shepherds. You know, I have a stack of pages and I don't know where it is and so I'm not going to bother you with all of this kind of, you know, looking through it. Um, but there is this catechism quote that describes how the truth of Christianity will not be vindicated through historical progress and political triumph. You know, as much as I love the social kingship of Christ and the feast of Christ the King, Christ's kingship is awesome, but it's actually subordinate to his high priesthood. So, the conquest that is political, that is medieval Christendom or whatever other period or place you want to point to is actually not as great as we think. But Christ's high priestly sacrifice where he says, "This is my body." But that's his physical body back in the first century. It's his mystical body, the Eucharist, throughout all of the centuries, which I think is the key to interpreting the apocalypse, as you know, from the Lamb's Supper.

But what we have to understand is what the catechism teaches that at the end of history, the final triumph will only occur through the church basically undergoing and enduring the pascal mystery. So what happened to the physical body of Christ must happen throughout history to the mystical body of Christ. And it has in Iraq. It has in Iran, North North Africa, and so many other places. The seven churches in Asia Minor, all seven places. Now it's illegal to even have a public mass. He came and he took the lampstand as he threatened to do, you know. And so what happened to the oldest brother, the firstborn, Israel, is going to happen throughout history to all of the younger siblings. All of the nations will stand in turn to get the gospel to love it, you know, and then to find out it's hard. Like Chesterton said, it's untried. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Untried. And then they'll begin rejecting it piece meal and then wholesale. And then they'll undergo what you see in 70 AD. That if God didn't spare the Jews, holy Jerusalem, you think he's going to spare New York or London or Paris? No way. We all have it coming in turn. And so what we have to see is that men of lawlessness have taken power. They've taken control, you know, in the church and outside of the church. What will get us through all of these persecutions, all of these betrayals?

And again, in my book, The Lamb's Supper, I point out how I'm going to pivot now instead of you do it. I'm going to pivot to the book of Revelation in this sense that whenever you take courses for modern critical scholars, they always say, well, you can't understand the book of Revelation until you see that it's simply an example of apocalyptic literature. You know, and supposedly with one fell swoop, you know, by categorizing it, you've explained it. That is such a fiction. Okay? You know, first of all, there was never any book before the Apocalypse that's in Greek. It's the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ, literally the unveiling. There was never a book entitled Apocalypse before the Apocalypse. So to kind of wave your wand and say, "Okay, look at Daniel 12. Look at Ezekiel 38 and 39, Gog and Magog. Look at Zechariah 10:14. Look at the book of Enoch that the book of Jude quotes. This is all apocalyptic. It's cataclysmic. It's symbol. It's symbolic. It uses beasts. It uses symbolic numbers to show, you know, good versus evil, God versus the devil, and all these forces. You know, that's apocalyptic literature. Okay? If you want a generic description that finds all of these elements in common, you don't find in any of those two things at least. Number one, this saturation with quotations and illusions, mostly illusions and echoes from the law and the prophets, practically every book. It actually has fewer Old Testament quotations than any other book of the New Testament, but it's got more exponentially more illusions and echoes than any other book. The second thing that it has that no other book called apocalyptic has, it has the liturgy. It has Christ as the high priest, Christ as the lamb, Christ addressing seven letters to the seven churches. You have a lot of heptatic patterns of sevens throughout all of Revelation. But you also have the liturgy. The only thing you find on every page of the Apocalypse, as I discovered, is the liturgy. That's wild.

Yeah. So then if if Revelation, by the way, real quick, Revelation is the only book that I know that's called both Apocalypse and Revelation. I don't know if there's any other book that has two names for it. Why is that? Well, there are other books like the book of Jubilees that has, you know, little Genesis and other things that are non-canonical. Okay. Um, but, you know, it's it's because the book of Revelation is drawn straight from a literal translation of the apocalypsis. To unveil or to reveal, I see are two ways of saying the same Greek term apocalypsis.

So, to sum it up then, so if the book of Revelation isn't primarily about the second coming, what is it primarily about? I think he just said it, but the Peruseia, okay, the real presence of the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Lamb of God, the lion of the tribe of Judah. And he's called lamb, using another term in John's gospel twice in chapter 1 and nowhere else. He's called Alpha and Omega, Lord of Lords, a bunch of things in the book of Revelation, but the one thing that he's called more than all of the other titles put together is lamb of God, lamb of God, lamb of God. In 28 verses, 29 times, he's the lamb of God. Why? Well, it could be the pascal mystery. The eukarist being instituted as the Passover of the new covenant where his sacrifice is initiated, transforming the execution of Good Friday into the consummation of that same sacrifice, Easter Sunday. He takes, he blesses, he breaks, he gives. So that now we're not just initiating or consummating, we are celebrating. It's a zikarone. Do this in remembrance. We're commemorating it. And when he ascends into heaven, he does so as a high priest who offers his glorified body continually in heaven before the angels and the saints and through the power of the spirit transforms the bread and the wine into his resurrected body, blood, soul, and divinity.

If he can do that through mortal men like my own son, Father Jeremiah, who just speaks human words over earthly matter, like bread and wine, I mean, I could say the same words over the same stuff. Nothing would happen. Who do you think you are, Jair? That you can say this over earthly matter and transform it into what? The creator and the redeemer of the universe. Not bad for a priest functioning by the power of the Holy Spirit participating in our only high priest. But just as a aside, what mass doesn't do is not it does not repeat the sacrifice of Christ. Everybody, I used to always weaponize that passage that is found in Hebrews once for all. Well, once for all can mean terminated. But if he's a priest forever and if he's a priest continually. And what is he offering continually? His own glorified body, then once for all means not over and done, but perpetual. That is, he's offering himself to the Father for us forever. In other words, you can't repeat something if it's never ending. And Christ's priesthood is never ending. Christ's priestly ministry is never ending. His intercession is never ending. But also the priestly offering of his own glorified body, blood, soul, and divinity is never ending. That's the true meaning of once for all. It's perpetuated. It's forever. The lamb slain from the foundation is now going to be presented on our behalf forever and ever. Amen. Hallelujah.

And in the apocalypse, I mean really the two major books in the early church, what Leviticus and Deuteronomy were for ancient Israel, the book of Hebrews and the book of Revelation were for the early church. A number of fathers, number of scholars have seen this and said something just like it. Because in Hebrews, the only book that refers to Jesus as priest, high priest, royal high priest after the order of Melchizedek, who offers bread and wine on earth there in Salem, the book of Revelation where he's called lamb of God, lamb of God, lamb of God. But he's also described as the lamb standing. Dead lambs don't stand. He's a resurrected lamb. He is the lion of the tribe of Judah. And the vestment that he wears in the opening scene is the liturgical linen vestment of the high priest. The fact that John is in the spirit on the Lord's day exiled on Patmos when he has all of these visions instead of presiding as the bishop of Ephesus over the holy sacrifice of the mass, he's exiled. So Christ comes to him and says, you can't do the mass. Well, come on up here, sir. Some core to lift up your hearts and we'll show you how we do it. You write it down. You take it back and you show them there aren't two churches. One on earth, one in heaven. Because there aren't two liturgies. There's the liturgy of the biblon, the scroll, seven seals. They're broken, but only by the lion of the tribe of Judah, the lamb who's worthy to break the seals and proclaim the scroll, the Bible, the law and the prophets because he's the only one capable of fulfilling the law and the prophets. And then all the action shifts from the liturgy of the word to the second half of the visions where you have an altar in heaven with seven chalices that contain wine. When they're poured out, they've become blood. The blood of the lamb, but also the blood of those who have rejected the lamb. And so you're going to see the marriage supper of the lamb in Revelation 19:9 where the bridegroom gives himself to the bride. This is my body. But you're also going to see the battle of Armageddon when you have the old Jerusalem and all the other nations rejecting this kind of divine love, this blessed sacrament because it's just simply too demanding and it's too hard to believe, even harder to live.

One of the things we see in the book of Revelation, it seems to be an illusion to the saints in heaven offering the prayers of the saints on earth. Is this Revelation 5, I think, right? Um, six. Do you think that that's a good text to point Protestants to to show that we have these beings conscious of what's taking place on earth and are offering our prayers? Yeah, I I think, you know, the old adage that I learned in seminary, to take a text out of context to use as a proof text is a pretext. And so, you know, to prove that we have water, you need more than an eyedropper. You know, the Catholic faith when it comes to the book of Revelation can carry its own water. So I would just say, you know, unlock the hydrant because what you have is so much more than just, you know, the the saints praying for us, God hearing their prayer, answering the prayer, and then sending us help. You know, I point out in the notes of re uh the study Bible that there are four interpretive options. There's a fifth one, the historical critical view that sees us as a political polemic against Rome, which means it's false prophecy.