The Life of All Lives - Our Saviour Jesus - 12
The Return of Christ
When Jesus was taken up into heaven, the believers who were looking intently into the sky suddenly realised they were being spoken to. Two angelic visitors appeared and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
It is to this hope that we turn in our study today. The angels were only confirming what Jesus himself had taught the disciples. “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” With these words Jesus comforted his disciples shortly before his crucifixion.
The ‘Second Coming’ of Christ (as it is often called) lies at the heart of the Christian hope for the future. This world has not seen the last of Jesus. That is what we believe. It is deeply embedded in the teaching of Christ, in the teaching of the apostles, and it should be embedded in the convictions of Christian people.
It is to be lamented that few areas of Christian teaching have provoked more controversy – not (this time) with non-Christians, but among Christians themselves. Believers question the fundamental faithfulness of other believers simply because they take a slightly different view of what the Bible teaches about future events. It is remarkable, but it is true!
One of the main causes of this problem is that we fail to understand the main purpose of the prophetic passages in the Bible. Many leap to the conclusion that they are there to enable students to devise a chronological scheme of future events. Great industry and imagination are expended in the effort to demonstrate how alleged ‘proof texts’ really do support the favoured scheme, which will then be said to be ‘obvious’ to anyone with half a grain of spiritual intelligence.
In extreme cases, such Christians will delight in trying to show how world events fit into their scheme, and some are even tempted to become date-setters. The new millennium and the shocking events of September 11, 2001 provided a field day for such people. It is a very human failing with a very long history. Even the disciples showed signs of it. Matthew chapter 24 records that Jesus made a remark about the future of the temple in Jerusalem. The disciples were soon asking, “Tell us, when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Why do so many go so wrong? They go wrong because they fail to learn that the prophetic passages of the Bible are there principally to tell us how to live for God now in the light of what is to come in the future. It would have been perfectly simple for God to give us a step-by-step description of the precise sequence and timing of future events, but he hasn’t. And don’t believe anyone who claims that he has!
So we are going to explore some of the practical implications of the Second Coming of Christ. However, before we do that it is only right that we say something about the competing views that have developed. Is there a general principle to keep in mind when we are evaluating them and forming our own conclusions?
I believe there is, and that principle is this: The Second Coming of the Lord Jesus is always presented in Scripture as the great, final, climactic event of world history. It brings the present age to an end and ushers in the final judgment and the age to come when there will be ‘a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.’
We must allow this great event to have the place that the Bible gives it, and so we must treat with the greatest caution any scheme that reduces the Second Coming to a mere staging post. Many problems in Biblical interpretation are caused by failing to get the broad picture before going for the detail, and this is the broad picture that the Bible paints.
What then are the main practical implications of the return of the Lord Jesus?
The first is that it is a powerful incentive to holiness. In 2 Peter chapter 3, in which Peter has been telling his readers about the coming day of the Lord, he says, “So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.’ A similar thought is expressed in 1 John chapter 2: “Dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.” The return of Christ is a powerful antidote to worldliness.
The second practical significance of the Second Coming is that it is a great source of comfort and encouragement to believers. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, Paul has been addressing the concerns that these recent converts had about their fellow-believers who had died. He explained that they would certainly not miss out on this great event, but that the ‘dead in Christ will rise first’. He then says: “Therefore, encourage each other with these words.” Again in chapter 5, he says, “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” These things were taught not to turn these believers into glorified fortune-tellers, but to help them in their day-to-day Christian lives.
The third point is that the return of Christ should prompt us to watchfulness. In Matthew chapter 24 Jesus said, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” We are not to become so absorbed with the things of this world – even the good and legitimate things – that we lose sight of the great perspective that the Christian hope brings. We should always remember and never forget that the best is yet to come!
Finally, we may say that the Christian’s vision of the future should spur him on to prayer. The final book of the Bible, the Revelation of Jesus Christ, draws to a conclusion with these words: “The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!”” The image is of the Holy Spirit and the Church in unison praying for the Lord Jesus to return in splendour and bring God’s purposes to their great conclusion. And as John lays down his pen, he writes, “He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.”