Episode 104: Year B – 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time
In this episode, we focus on four apologetical details in the readings for the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B. The first detail comes from the first reading, taken from Daniel 12:1-3. The apologetical topic is the reality of hell. The second detail is found in the second reading, taken from Hebrews 10:11-14, 18, and the relevant topic is the “once saved, always saved” doctrine that some Christians profess. Finally, the last two details that we will focus on come from the Gospel reading, taken from Mark 13:24-32, and the relevant topic is the accuracy and scope of Jesus’ human knowledge.
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Hey everyone,
Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.
I’m Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.
In this episode, we’re going to focus on four apologetical details in the readings for this upcoming 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B. The first detail comes from the first reading, taken from Daniel 12:1-3. The apologetical topic is the reality of hell. The second detail is found in the second reading, taken from Hebrews 10:11-14, 18, and the relevant topic is the “once saved, always saved” doctrine that some Christians profess. Finally, the last two details that we will focus on come from the Gospel reading, taken from Mark 13:24-32, and the relevant topic is the accuracy and scope of Jesus’ human knowledge.
Let’s start with the first reading from Daniel 12:1-3. We read,
In those days, I Daniel,
heard this word of the Lord:
“At that time there shall arise
Michael, the great prince,
guardian of your people;
it shall be a time unsurpassed in distress
since nations began until that time.
At that time your people shall escape,
everyone who is found written in the book.
“Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake;
some shall live forever,
others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace.
“But the wise shall shine brightly
like the splendor of the firmament,
and those who lead the many to justice
shall be like the stars forever.”
Daniel prophesies here of the end times when both the righteous and the unrighteous will rise from the dead. This is the doctrine of the bodily resurrection. Jesus makes this Danielic prophecy his own in John 5:28, where he states, “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.”
The relevant apologetical topic here, so I argue, is the reality of hell. And not just the possibility of hell, but the factual damnation of some.
First, the reality of hell. What clues us in on Daniel and Jesus referring to hell? Well, Daniel says some will rise to “an everlasting horror and disgrace.” Jesus says some will rise to “the resurrection of judgment.”
At first glance, this seems to be hell. But someone might counter and say it’s not necessarily hell, since the word “everlasting” in Greek can simply mean “from age to age” in the sense of a very long time.
The problem is that this counter blocks the opposite state of existence as being a reference to heaven. If Daniel’s “everlasting horror and disgrace” and Jesus’ “resurrection to judgment” merely refer to a temporary punishment, then Daniel’s “live forever” and Jesus’ “resurrection of life” must refer to temporary blissfulness. But all Christians agree that this state of existence refers to heaven, which is not temporary. Therefore, Daniel and Jesus aren’t referring to a temporary state of punishment. It’s just as everlasting as heaven.
Furthermore, those who aren’t rising to the resurrection of life, so Jesus says, rise to the “resurrection of judgment.” Judgment entails something definitive. So, the postmortem lot of those who don’t rise to the resurrection of life—that’s to say, those who don’t go to heaven, is definitive. And to speak of a definitive postmortem state of existence that’s not heaven after Christ’s Ascension is to speak of hell.
Now, some might counter that this only shows the possibility of hell, since Daniel and Jesus’ prophecy about the final resurrection could be a conditional prophecy—that’s to say, if there are some who are damned, they will rise too and receive everlasting torment in their bodies.
Although this would be a permitted reading of the text, it doesn’t seem to fit with the heaven side of the equation. We know that the reference to those who rise to everlasting life, or the resurrection of life, is not a conditional prophecy. This is proven by passages in the Book of Revelation that speak of human souls in heaven—Revelation 5:8 and chapter 7:9-17, and from infallible pronouncements by the Pope concerning the canonization of saints.
Now, why would Daniel and Jesus be offering a factual prophecy concerning the saved but only a conditional prophecy concerning the damned? There’s nothing in the text to suggest this sort of difference in the nature of the prophecies.
Therefore, we’re justified in interpreting the nature of the prophecy about the damned in the same way we interpret the nature of the prophecy about the saved—it’s factual and not conditional.
Let’s now turn to the second reading, taken from Hebrews 10:11-14, 18. The author writes,
Every priest stands daily at his ministry,
offering frequently those same sacrifices
that can never take away sins.
But this one offered one sacrifice for sins,
and took his seat forever at the right hand of God;
now he waits until his enemies are made his footstool.
For by one offering
he has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated.
Where there is forgiveness of these,
there is no longer offering for sin.
One detail that we could focus on would be the emphasis on the single offering of Christ for sins. This often is a sticking point for Protestants as it relates to the Catholic understanding of the sacrifice of the Mass. Given that we’ve talked about this topic over the past two or three episodes, I’m going to pass over it here.
The detail that I want to focus on is the author’s statement, “For by one offering he has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated.” Some Protestants appeal to this verse as evidence for the belief that when God justifies us, he forgives all our sins—past, present, and future. This belief serves as the basis for the corollary belief that once we’re saved, we’re always saved.
This is apologetically significant because such a belief runs contrary to what we believe as Catholics, namely, that it’s possible for a Christians to commit a mortal sin and lose his salvation.
So, what can we say in response?
I’ll share a few things here what I share in greater detail in my book Meeting the Protestant Challenge: How to Answer 50 Biblical Objections to Catholic Beliefs.
Our first response is that this text can’t mean all future sins are automatically forgiven, because the Bible elsewhere teaches that there are conditions for having our future sins forgiven.
Consider, for example, Jesus’ teaching in the Our Father: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12). Jesus then gives us commentary, saying,
For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (vv.14-15).
According to Jesus, a condition for having our sins forgiven is that we forgive others. But by making reception of the forgiveness of sins conditional, it can’t possibly be true that all our future sins are forgiven. What if we don’t forgive others in the future? Jesus seems to imply that it’s possible for a Christian to choose not to forgive his debtors, and thus not be forgiven himself. If our future sins were already forgiven, then such hypotheticals would be unintelligible.
Other elements in the Our Father give support for the ongoing need for forgiveness. Consider that Jesus also instructs us to pray for our “daily bread,” that God’s “will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” that God “lead us not into temptation,” and “deliver us from evil.” Are these requests that make only once in our Christian life?
If Jesus intends us to make these petitions in the Our Father on an ongoing basis, then it stands to reason that he wants us to pray for forgiveness on an ongoing basis, too. But Jesus wouldn’t intend for us to continuously pray that God forgive our sins if all our future sins are forgiven from the moment we’re “saved.”
For more biblical evidence that there are conditions for having future sins forgiven, again, see my book.
Of course, this just raises the question: “What did the author mean?”
As I argue in my book, the true meaning of the passage is that the grace Christ won on the cross for the forgiveness of sins can be applied to sinners at all times—on condition that they repent.
The meaning of “once for all” in verse 10 becomes clear in verses 11-12, where the author contrasts the repeated sacrifices that can’t take away sins with Christ’s single sacrifice for sins. The author of Hebrews writes,
And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.
The point the author is making is that Christ’s one sacrifice is sufficient to take our sins away (whenever we repent). He doesn’t have to offer himself again to merit the grace that forgives us of any new sins we commit. His single death on the cross 2,000 years ago was sufficient.
Concerning verse 14, where the author says that Christ has “perfected [Greek, teteleiōken] for all time those who are sanctified,” in light of the above passages we know that the author can’t mean that our future sins are forgiven. Therefore, he must mean something else.
A plausible reading is that Christ’s sacrifice makes complete provision for Christians of all times to achieve their goal of perfection. Not only does the Greek word teteleiōken (“he has perfected”) allow for such a reading,[i] it would also fit the context which speaks of Christ’s death precluding any further sacrifices for sins.
Furthermore, the phrase “those who are sanctified” can be translated “those who are being sanctified” (as it is in the ESV translation). The present participle suggests that there is an ongoing application of the merits of Christ’s single offering, unlike the Old Testament sacrifices, which needed to be constantly repeated. This militates against the way the challenge reads the text, since if our future sins were already forgiven, there would be no need for a continuous application of Christ’s merits.[ii]
We now turn to the Gospel reading, taken from Mark 13:24-32. Mark records,
“In those days after that tribulation
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from the sky,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
“And then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in the clouds’
with great power and glory,
and then he will send out the angels
and gather his elect from the four winds,
from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.
“Learn a lesson from the fig tree.
When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves,
you know that summer is near.
In the same way, when you see these things happening,
know that he is near, at the gates.
Amen, I say to you,
this generation will not pass away
until all these things have taken place.
Heaven and earth will pass away,
but my words will not pass away.
“But of that day or hour, no one knows,
neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
Some skeptics argue that Jesus was a failed prophet. And for evidence they appeal to this passage, along with Matthew’s parallel version in Matthew 24:34-36, where Jesus speaks of his coming as taking place within his current “generation.” Even C.S. Lewis, in his essay “The World’s Last Night,” says of Matthew 24:34, it “is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible.”
I deal with this objection in my book Prepare the Way: Overcoming Obstacles to God, the Gospel, and the Church. I’ll share some of my response here.
The key is to give skeptics good reasons to think that Jesus’ prediction doesn’t primarily refer to his second coming at the end of time, but to the Roman siege of Jerusalem that resulted in the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70. In other words, he’s not predicting the end of the world, but a world—the world of temple Judaism.
One clue to support this is the cosmic cataclysmic imagery that Jesus uses:
- the sun will be darkened,
- and the moon will not give its light,
- and the stars will be falling from the sky,
- and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
Prophets used this kind of imagery in the Old Testament when they were prophesying the impending destruction of God’s enemies:
- The destruction of Babylon: “sun,” “moon,” and “stars” no longer give their light (Isaiah 13).
- The destruction of wicked nations: stars “fall” from heaven (Isaiah 34).
- The destruction of Egypt: “sun,” “moon,” and “stars” are darkened (Ezekiel 32).
If this cataclysmic imagery was used by Jewish prophets not to foretell a cosmic apocalypse but to warn of the impending destruction of cities, then wouldn’t it be reasonable to conclude that Jesus, a Jewish prophet, would use the same imagery in the same way?
Jerusalem, in rejecting the Messiah and persecuting the fledgling Church, had in effect become God’s enemy just as Babylon and Egypt were. When Jesus’ prophecy is read against this Old Testament backdrop, the destruction of Jerusalem seems to be a reasonable interpretation.
The cataclysmic imagery also suggests the fall of Jerusalem because the temple was for the Jews a symbol of the whole universe.
The outer veil before the court of Israel had “embroidered upon it all that was mystical in the heavens” (stars and constellations) [Josephus, War of the Jews 5.5.4]. The seven lights of the menorah represented the sun, the moon, and the known planets at the time (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn). [See Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 3.6.].
The Old Testament affirms this parallel between the temple and the cosmos: “He built his sanctuary like the high heavens, like the earth, which he has founded forever” (Psalm 78:69).
Josephus even describes the temple in like manner in his Antiquities of the Jews:
If anyone without prejudice, and with judgment, look upon these things [in the Tabernacle], he will find they were in every one made in way of imitation and representation of the universe. When Moses distinguished the tabernacle into three parts, and allowed two of them to the priests, as a place accessible and common, he de- noted the land and the sea, these being of general access to all; but he set apart the third division for God, because heaven is inaccessible to men. [ibid., 3.7.81].
If the Jerusalem temple had cosmic elements to it and was understood to be a mini-cosmos, then wouldn’t it be appropriate to describe its destruction in cosmic terms?
Another detail is found in Luke’s version of the same prophecy, in which Jesus localizes the events in Jerusalem:
But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it; for these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written” (Luke 21:20–22; emphasis added).
By placing the events inside the city of Jerusalem, Jesus doesn’t seem to be referring to a worldwide event like the end of the world at the second coming of Christ. Which, if you think about it, makes more sense. After all, what if someone doesn’t have mountains to run to?
Finally, Jesus says that everything he describes would take place within a generation, which for the Jews was forty years: “Amen, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place” (Mark 13:30).
If Jesus made this prophecy around A.D. 30 to 33, and the temple was destroyed in A.D. 70 during the Roman siege, then wouldn’t that put the event within a generation?
These details give a strong indication that Jesus was not wrong in his prophecy concerning his impending return. Rather than prophesying about his glorious coming at the end of time (CCC 668–682), he intended his coming to be understood in the sense of God’s coming in the Old Testament, namely, that judgment is imminent (Jer. 4:11–13).
Some of the early Church Fathers saw these details as pointing to Jerusalem’s destruction in A.D. 70 as well. For example, when commenting on Luke’s version of Jesus’ prophecy about the destruction of the temple (Luke 21:5–6), the fifth-century patriarch Cyril of Alexandria writes,
The power of the Romans would tear it down and burn Jerusalem with fire, and retribution would be required from Israel for the Lord’s murder. They had to suffer these things after the Savior’s crucifixion (Commentary on Luke, Homily 139).
When Cyril comments on Jesus’ prophecy of the temple’s destruction in Matthew 24:1, he says the same thing, but adds that it was punishment for “slaying of the Lord.” (Fragment 266).
Jerome was another father who was open to this interpretation. In commenting on Matthew 24:23, where Jesus speaks of false christs and prophets arising to perform great signs and wonders to lead the elect into error, he offers three possible interpretations, one of which is the Roman siege in A.D. 70 (Commentary on Matthew 4.24.23–26).
So, we can be assured that Christ did not make a mistake about the timing of his coming.
Now, a related objection comes from what Jesus says at the end of our Gospel passage: “But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
This statement by Jesus has a twofold apologetical significance. First, it raises the question, “Does this undermine Jesus’ divinity?” Some, like Jehovah Witnesses, will appeal to it to prove that Jesus is not God.
But this is not the case. Remember, Jesus had two natures, human and divine. Therefore, even if we say for argument’s sake that Jesus didn’t know the day and the hour of the final judgment in his human intellect, it doesn’t follow he’s not divine for saying he doesn’t know the timing of the final judgment since he could still have it in his divine intellect and thereby still be divine.
Of course, this raises the second question that has apologetical relevance, “Did Jesus actually have such knowledge in his human intellect?” And if he did, how do we square Jesus’ admission of ignorance with him actually having such knowledge?
To the first question, it’s very complex and deserves an episode on its own. And because I’ve gone long enough already in this episode, I’m going to punt on this question.
To the second question, Jesus can rightfully say of himself “I do not know” even if he had the knowledge in his human intellect because such knowledge would not have come from his human nature—that’s to say, it wouldn’t have come from the natural mode of human cognition. Rather, it would have been infused in his intellect, or he would have had it in virtue of his human mind knowing the divine essence in the Beatific Vision.
The “I do not know” statement is an ambiguous statement that could mean “I do not know as a human being knows.” So, if he had the relevant knowledge by infusion or the Beatific Vision, it would be true to say that he doesn’t know it, in the sense that he doesn’t know it as human beings would know it.
Conclusion
Well, my friends, that brings us to the end of this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word. The readings for this upcoming 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B, provide us with opportunity to reflect on,
- The reality of hell,
- The possibility to lose the gift of salvation, contra the “once saved, always saved” doctrine, and
- The accuracy and scope of Jesus’ human knowledge.
As always, thank you for subscribing to the podcast. And please be sure to tell your friends about it and invite them to subscribe as well at sundaycatholicword.com. You might also want to check out the other great podcasts in our Catholic Answers podcast network: Trent Horn’s The Counsel of Trent, Joe Heschmeyer’s Shameless Popery, and Jimmy Akin’s A Daily Defense, and Tim Staples’ 1-on-1 with Tim, all of which can be found at catholic.com.
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I hope you have a blessed 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B. Until next time, God Bless!
[i] See William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 996.
[ii] This response assumes that a Protestant is using Hebrews 10:14 to refer to an individual who has already been initially saved. A Protestant could read “those who are being sanctified” to refer to those who are initially becoming members of the Christian community through the spread of the Gospel, and it’s those to whom the ongoing application of Christ’s merits are applied. In other words, on this reading the ongoing application of Christ’s merits applies only to those who are initially being saved. Once they’re initially saved, then all their future sins are forgiven. But such a reading would undermine a Protestant’s use of Hebrews 10:14 to prove that the future sins of a Christian are forgiven, and thus there would be no need to offer a rebuttal. A Catholic not only wouldn’t contend with the idea that Christ’s merits are continuously applied to those who are initially saved, but affirm it.