The Youngest Day by Karl Bernhard Ritter 1928

Revelation 21 "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end".

So John , the seer, prophesied and I'd like to leave those words just as they are without adding anything; it would have been said all that is to be said about the youngest day. For a melody of faith sounds here that fills the whole book of the seer; and all terrible and wonderful visions of John on the island that is called Patmos, the visions of judgement and the end and the fall of the dragon being from the bottomless pit, and the visions full of consolations and redemption and of the triumph of the lamb are like accords to this melody on the victory of eternal love. Therefore the book of the seer and together with it the whole Holy Bible concludes with the prayer for this victory of love, as it is revealed in the One, whose form makes visible, what was from the beginning, and what therefore will be from eternity to eternity, with the prayer for the return of him whose kingdom will have no end (Luke 1:33): Come Lord Jesus! (1.Cor.16:33).

When faith receives the word from eternity in time, how could faith do anything else than look for that day, when time flows into eternity. So faith stands on the threshold between time and eternity. What God has begun he must complete (Phil.1:6). His kingdom is an eternal kingdom. Therefore life of faith here in the time is just a beginning, a dream of promise.

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known" ( 1 Corinthians 13:12). It is the incomprehensible venture of faith, that dares to trust in the word of eternity and so to live in the world but not from the world and not for the world. And for him time turns into advent, into expectation of him who comes. He lives in the shine of the rising Easter Sun. And so his life becomes really life, turns into the eternal movement from bondage to freedom, from death to victory, from forlornness into perfect community. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity (1.Corinthians 13:13).

When is the youngest day. The legend tells: At the brink of the world there is a mountain looming up to the clouds. Every thousand years a bird comes and whets his beak at this mountain. And when the whole mountain is worn off, then the first day of eternity has begun. The youngest day is not in the calendar of time. Time is finiteness, but eternity has no time. So the day of eternity is today and tomorrow and in thousand years. Nonetheless we have to speak about the youngest day, the end of finiteness, because all time sublated, that is: done away and yet kept and raised up ⁽¹⁾ in eternity.

Because faith is obedient to the word, that sounds from eternity into time, therefore it stands in the expectation of the youngest day. So the New Testament is filled with the double advise:

(Matthew 24:34:) Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

And the other seemingly contradictory: (Matthew 24:36) But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. We know no end of time; nonetheless we live in each moment at this end. It follows from that the attitude of faith: (Matthew 25:13: ) Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. On the wall of the Sixtina Michelangelo has painted the Last Judgement. Christ stands on the height . With a powerful gesture he raises some from the depth. They rise in light and leave behind the grave of the world like a garment. But others without hold stagger down step for step into the extreme darkness. Is it a vision of a future event? Or is it not rather a sight of what happens incessantly, a deep view into the true reality of all life, a confession of a shattering experience? What is painted there happens on and on in every single moment. All life is a rising and falling, a dawn and a dusk. Incessantly judgement is being executed, on salvation and on condemnation is being decided. (John 3:19:) "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, ...". Isn't this judgement constantly present, the depth of all life, at all times, though it is true that light shines from the beginning to the end of all times, as it is written: (John 1:4) "In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness ...". However the true light, that enlightens all people who come into this world, it comes into the time. The word became flesh. Eternity turns into history. Only thus time becomes truly the stage of eternal happening. And therefore we speak about the day Christ comes again, because he has come in history. Within time itself an end is set to time. The youngest day is so incomprehensible and mysterious like the day about which we sing: "The eternal light comes in and gives a new shine to the world" (Luthers Christmas hymn: "All Praise to you eternal Lord" ⁽²⁾), and is nonetheless a day in our time, he middle of all times.

What is covered shall be revealed. Therefore we speak about the youngest day. What happens at all times in the secret depth of live, and what always is a beginning, because it is not full-filled, because it is not completed, and penetrates and transforms all forms of life, it will be the truth and also the reality and the whole.

We are so used to comprehend the spirit just as inwardness. But faith wants the whole life, wants that inside and outside become one. Faith lives in the tension which time and again is being reconciled in the hope of faith. Believing wants to become seeing so that 'God may be all in all' (1.cor.15:28). What is experienced in faith, awaits its appearance in all steps of being, on all levels of realisation. And so we are used to see ourselves as individuals. But what is our life without the connection to all living things (cp. Psalm 145:16)? Is individual fulfilment even thinkable? Thinkable otherwise than in accordance with the fulfilment of the whole? Is not just this the depth of the knowledge of God, that He is love and therefore His kingdom is perfect community-building of all life? So judgement and salvation in full reality is only to be found on a day when all life, the whole creation and the whole history comes to its goal. Therefore faith waits for the youngest day, when in one judgement the whole body, whose inseparable members we are, is raised to eternal life and the whole world perishes.

Das Gottesjahr 1928, S. 89
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1. The very common German word "aufgehoben" like the Latin word "tollere, sustuli sublatum" includes all three meanings "abolish, maintain and sublimate" and became an essential term in Hegel's Philosophy.

2. The translation in LBW denies that Jesus is the saviour of the whole world.