SEEK 32 – The Second Coming
Question: When will Jesus come back. Also, who is Jesus going to take and who is he going to leave behind? Will Jesus also take the innocent children of the people who are not Christians?
Bible Reading: Matthew 24:36-51
Text: “So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour you do not expect him.” (Matthew 24:44)
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was one of the biggest grossing films ever. As is the case with successful movies there has to be a part two. So what follows the Cross? At the time of writing Gibson is planning The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection which, according to the trailers will have as much to do with the Second Coming of Christ – as it will with the actual resurrection. Given the speculation about the Second Coming, and the drama involved, it certainly offers a filmmaker like Gibson a great opportunity for special effects and bloodthirsty horror. And therein lies the problem. There has been far too much speculation about the Second Coming. It is good for us to distinguish between the speculation that adds to the Bible, the unbelief that takes away from it.
In ASK 23 the question was about the end of the world – I won’t repeat what is said there – other than to remind you that we don’t know when the end of the world will be. And so, we don’t know when the return of Jesus will be – although we can be sure that every day brings it a day closer.
But let’s look at Matthew 24 and draw from it some certainties about the second coming which I hope will help answer your questions.
- It will happen. The Second Coming refers to the visible return of Christ to the earth.
- Before it does happen there will be great trouble on the earth, great apostasy in the Church, and many false messiahs.
- The Second Coming, unlike the First, will be with great power and glory (v.30). Everyone will see. This will be a world-wide event – and will signal the end of the world.
- We do not know when it . Even Jesus when he was on earth did not know (v.36).
- We need to be ready. Because we do not know when he will come, we must live every day as though he were about to return. It’s a bit like your parents going away and leaving you to have the house to yourself. You know they are going to return, and you know they don’t want to see the house in a mess. You don’t want to upset them, so because you don’t know when they are going to come back, you have things ready for them. We are to keep watch.
- We are to long for it. At least Christians are. Again, it’s like a child standing at the window waiting for their father to return. Or have you ever seen one of those welcome home videos of soldiers returning from a tour of duty overseas? The child longs to see their parent, or their returned father. So, we must be longing for Jesus. That’s why the early Christians prayed ‘Maranatha’ (1 Corinthians 16:22) Maranatha is one of the few words in the Bible that is in Aramaic – the language that Jesus spoke. Maranatha means ‘come, O Lord’. It is also reflected in the Greek of the second last verse of the Bible (Revelation 22:20) – “Amen, Come, Lord Jesus”.
You ask about who Jesus will leave behind. I suspect that is because you have been influenced by a particular teaching about the Second Coming, called the Rapture. This is the belief that Jesus will return secretly in the clouds and ‘rapture’ his people up to heaven, then he will return again with his people to reign for a thousand years, then he will go away, and then return again. I’m not sure how many ‘comings’ that makes! It seems to me far more complex than the Bible is. I think the biblical evidence is that there will only be one Second Coming – and that that will usher in the end of the world, the judgement day, the second resurrection (that is the reuniting of believers’ spirits with their bodies). It will be an astonishing event. No one will be ‘left behind’ – in the sense of being left to live on earth. But only believers in Christ will be gathered with him to take part in the great wedding feast of the Lamb.
“Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord”. (1 Thessalonians 4:17)
In terms of your question about children go back to question 16 where we discuss that.
The important thing for you and I is that we do not get so caught up in the speculation about details that we forget the most important truth here – Jesus is returning, and we need to be ready for that.
Consider: If we really believed that Christ could return at any time, what difference do you think it would, or should, make to our lives? Is this a comforting or challenging truth? Or both?
Further Reading:
The Momentous Event – W.J Grier
Prayer: Lord, we thank you that you have promised to return and that it will be soon. Even so we pray ‘Amen, Come, Lord Jesus”
SEEK 31 – Before Birth – Where was I Before I was Born?
Does ACTS 7 vs 49 maybe add balance to the skewed way we sometimes view this doctrine as children? His presence is already here with us, at all times and in all places. He is already intervening and completely sovereign………
Thank you for this look at Matthew 24. You are spot on when you say that the main point is that we are to be ready when Jesus returns. I believe this is supported by the fact that Jesus emphasizes the need to be ready in Matt. 24 and also in 25. The two chapters are a unit. Jesus spends more time telling us to be ready than he does about what is going to happen. So why does He spend so much time on having to be ready? The big question is why do we need to be ready? What difference does it make? If it is like our parents coming home and finding the house in a mess, then we should be concerned about that. But it appears that Jesus warns us of a greater consequence. After warning about those who were not ready when the great flood came and were swept away (24:37-39), Jesus gives 4 teachings/parables about not being ready in these two chapters. In these warnings from Jesus, the end result is to be sent to a place where there in weeping and gnashing of teeth (24:51), being locked out of the wedding feast of the bridegroom (25:11-13), being cast out into outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (25:30), and going away into eternal punishment (25:46). A close look at the 4 warnings indicates that Jesus is not warning unbelievers, but believers. They are people He put in charge of giving His servants their food at the proper; they were invited to marriage supper of the bridegroom; and they were His own slaves/servants to whom He entrusted His possessions. The final warning is not so much a parable as it is a description of what will happen when Jesus comes to judge those on earth. Those who will inherit the kingdom are those who did what He said to do, to help the poor and needy. That is what it is to be ready on that day, to have done what He said to do. Jesus was warning all believers to be ready for His return by having done what He said to do. Some of us, true believers, will not be ready.
Ironically, it is not to much a dispensationalist rapture that is gaining ground these days as it is Partial Preterism. PP regards the Coming of Matt 24:27, 30 to be fulfilled in AD 70. The influence of voices like R T France, N T Wright, R C Sproul and others seems to be influencing young evangelicals, The weight of ‘the time is neat’ (Rev 1, 22) and ‘all these fulfilled in this generation’ is having an effect. In my view, OT passages like Zech 12-14 are not given enough consideration, Also, it his hard to know when Jesus comes in AD 70 since the desecration of the temple, which happened only when the city was already breached, takes place before he comes.
I have sympathy for your position, I believe in one second coming, however, it is what happens afterwards that is difficult to piece together, Zech 12-14 sees the salvation of Israel after or at his return and it then sees some form of salvation for the survivors of the nations. The language is sufficiently prosaic to rule out simply dismissing it as imagery (though imagery is undoubtedly present). There are to my mind questions not readily answered,