“THE WORLD’S LAST NIGHT”

   In 1960 a book authored by C. S. Lewis was published with the title, The World’s Last Night and Other Essays. Both the title and final chapter of the book connect with a question posed by the seventeenth century poet Donne (1572-1631). In Donne’s work, Holy Sonnet XIII, the following question is asked: “What if this present were the world’s last night?” C. S. Lewis captured this question as the foundation for an essay he wrote concerning the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The relevancy of this essay for apologetics, and its significance during all the years of one’s life on Earth are implied in what Lewis wrote in the following:

. . . [I]t seems to me impossible to retain in any recognizable form our belief in the Divinity of Christ and the truth of the Christian revelation while abandoning, or even persistently neglecting, the promised, and threatened, Return. “He shall come again to judge the quick and the dead.” . . . “This same Jesus, said the angels in Acts, “shall so come in like manner as ye have seen [H]im go into heaven.” . . . If this is not an integral part of the faith once given to the saints, I do not know what it is. . . .
The doctrine of the Second Coming has failed, so far as we are concerned, if it does not make us realize at every moment of every year in our lives . . . [the] question “What if this present were the world’s last night?” is . . . relevant. (qtd. in Dorsett 383, 390, emp. added)

   The Bible warns of skepticism concerning the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Peter, the apostle of Christ wrote of scoffers who mock “the promise of His coming [parousia]” (2 Peter 3:3-4). This is a “formula for expressing skepticism” by claiming the “promise is unreliable and God’s universe [is] a stable, unchanging system where events like the parousia [i.e. Second Coming] just do not happen” (Rogers and Rogers 588). It is skepticism aimed at “the predictions of the holy prophets, and commandment of the Lord and Saviour through [the] apostles” (2 Peter 3:2, ESV). Lewis was on target when he questioned how one could maintain consistent belief in the Christian revelation and, specifically, belief in the deity of Jesus Christ “while abandoning, or . . . persistently neglecting” the promise of the final return (cf. Hebrews 9:28) of Christ.

   The apostle Peter answered the skepticism manifest in the denial of the Second Coming as being the result of two basic overlooks. First, the skeptics “deliberately overlook this fact that the heavens existed long ago, and the [E]arth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and . . . the world . . . was deluged with water and perished” (2 Peter 3:5-6, ESV). Both (1) Creation at the beginning (cf. Genesis 1-2), and (2) the worldwide flood (cf. Genesis 7:11, 21-23) are supernatural historical actualities, which the skeptics “willfully forget” (2 Peter 3:5, ASV). Peter describes their error as shutting one’s eyes to that which is factual (cf. Rogers and Rogers 588). The skeptics affirm that “all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:4, ESV).

   The above two historical actualities answer the doctrine of uniformitarianism. This false philosophy remains at work in the skepticism of the naturalists in todays culture. Shelly provided an excellent summary in his 1979 book, Something to Hold Onto. He wrote, 

It is in this same philosophical position which is at the root of unbelief today. Supernaturalism is ruled out by such a worldview. The universe is held to be a closed system, and all things within it must be explained by purely natural phenomena.
. . . [S]uppose we assume . . . that natural law, as we observe it functioning in the universe, is all there is to reality. Where did the substance of the universe come from originally? Natural law is adequate to tell us how certain elements combine and function under certain conditions, but it cannot tell us how those elements got here in the first place.
Peter referred to another fact which the uniformitarians deliberately ignore. What about the great flood (which is attested by non-biblical as well as biblical sources)? That event demonstrates that things do not always proceed without interruption in this world. (115-16)

   Second, in addition to answering skepticism about the Second Coming by giving attention to the implications from the historical actualities of creation and the world-wide flood, Peter also answered the denial of the Second Coming with an appeal to the implications of the metaphysical properties of timelessness and longsuffering.

. . . [D]o not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come. . . . (2 Peter 3:8-10, NKJV)

   Lewis identified the above statement from Peter as metaphysical theology which “takes us out of the time-series altogether. As nothing outlasts God [cf. Psalm 90:1-4], so nothing slips away from Him into a past” (201). God, transcending time, sees with the full perspective. Man, lacking such, can be properly informed of the details only through special divine revelation (Scripture). Michael Green accurately and eloquently says it is explained “ . . . against the backcloth of eternity. . . . Psalm [90] contrasts the eternity of God with the brevity of human life [and] 2 Peter contrasts the eternity of God with the impatience of human speculations” (134). The infinite timelessness and longsuffering of God are the basic reasons provided by the special revelation of the Holy Scriptures as to why the Second Coming has not yet occurred. There is a great sense in which skepticism, working on a man, causes him to become more and more enslaved to things transient (of time) thus losing awareness (if he ever had such) of how God “would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

   Two great eschatological events facing every human being are (1) the day of one’s death, and (2) the day of Judgment (the Second Coming of Jesus Christ). For man, both are certain as to the fact they will occur (cf. Hebrews 9:27-28; 2 Peter 3:7, 10; Acts 1:11). Both are uncertain as to the exact time of their occurrence (cf. Genesis 27:2; James 4:13-15; Mark 13:32; 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3).

   In his essay, “The World’s Last Night,” Lewis observes a powerful connection these two great final events (death and the Second Coming) have with one another.

. . . [W]e should always remember, always take it [the Second Coming] into account. . . . [A] wise man should always take it [death] into account. . . . [W]hat death is to each man, the Second Coming is to the whole human race. . . . [A] man should “sit loose” to his own individual life, should remember how short, precarious, temporary, and a provisional thing it is; should never give all his heart to anything which will end when his life ends. What modern Christians find it harder to remember is that the whole life of humanity in this world is also precarious, temporary, provisional.
. . . [T]he personal triumph of an athlete . . . is transitory: . . . an empire or a civilization is also transitory. All achievements and triumphs, in so far as they are merely this-worldly achievements and triumphs, will come to nothing in the end. Most scientists here join hands with the theologians; the [E]arth will not always be habitable. . . . The difference is that whereas the scientists expect only a slow decay from within, we reckon with sudden interruption from without—at any moment. (“What if this present were the world’s last night”?) (qtd. in Dorsett, 391)

   Wonderful is the news that God has provided assurance that all can be victorious over death and victorious at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Through what has correctly been called “the best authenticated fact in ancient history” (Blaiklock and Blaiklock 70), the historical resurrection of Jesus, in conjunction with the blood of the cross of Christ and one’s appropriation of its benefits through obedience to the gospel, provides hope in death and hope at the Second Coming—the day of Judgment.

   “For our citizenship is in heaven from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by exertion of the power He has even to subject all things to Himself” (Philippians 3:20-21, NASV).

   “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all  everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31, NASV).

Works Cited:

Blaiklock, E. M., and D. A. Blaiklock. Is It—Or Isn’t It? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1968.

Dorsett, Lyle W., ed. The Essential C. S. Lewis. New York: Collier, 1988.

Green, Michael. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: 2 Peter and Jude. 1968. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984.

Lewis, C. S. “Reflections on the Psalms.” The Inspirational Writings of C. S. Lewis. New York: Inspirational, 1987.

Rogers, Cleon L. Jr., and Cleon L. Rogers, III. The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.

Shelly, Rubel. Something to Hold Onto: Studies in 1st and 2nd Peter. Nashville: Christian Teacher, 1979.