Second Wednesday after Pentecost
"From thence He shall come," is the line from the Apostles' Creed that can be, but doesn't have to be, understood as a reference to the second coming of Christ. The Nicene Creed is more specific, "He will come again in glory," definitely a reference to the "coming again" or "second coming" of Christ. Another place where we reference belief in the second coming is in the Communion Liturgy. We all say, "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again."
Although the phrase "second coming" is not in the Bible, the idea is certainly there. Since the phrase has come into common parlance, I will use it here. Let's take a look at the NT texts on the second coming. I won't look at every reference (there are many), but at the most fully descriptive. The Greek word that the NT writers normally use for the second coming is parousia, which simply means "coming." I'll use it where it occurs in these texts.
1 Thessalonians is loaded. "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus Christ at his parousia? (1 Thess. 2:19). And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the parousia of our Lord Jesus with all his saints." (1 Thess. 3:18) "For the Lord Himself, with a cry of command, with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven" (1 Thess. 4:16). What follows is a description of the resurrection of the dead, which will be our subject next Wednesday. 1 Thessalonians has our earliest references to the parousia and is the first book of the NT to have been written--50 A.D,
Paul also mentions the second coming in his discussion of the end time in 1 Corinthians 15. He writes "For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being. So as all die in Adam; all shall be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his parousia, those who belong to Christ.
In Matthew 24:3 Jesus disciples ask him, "What will be sign of you parousia and of the end of the age?" Jesus' answer takes the rest of the chapter, but here are a couple of verses, "For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the parousia of the Son of Man" (Matt. 24:27). In Matthew 24:30 Jesus says, "And they will see 'the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven' with power and great glory (the internal quotation marks reference Jesus' quoting from Daniel 7:13).
2 Peter 3:4 deals with the problem of the delay of the parousia. "In the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging in their own lusts and saying, 'Where is the promise of his parousia?'"The author of 2 Peter goes on to explain that God has delayed the second coming so that more people will have time to repent.
Although Revelation does not use the word parousia, John clearly has it in mind in chapter 20, when he speaks of a 1,000 year messianic kingdom, when the saints shall rule with Christ on earth.
In 1 John 2:28 we read, "Abide in him, so that when he is revealed we may have confidence and not be put to shame at his parousia."
There are numerous other references, but enough for now. As to when the second coming will occur, there are several references that make clear that we will cannot know when it will come. Paul, 2 Peter, and Revelation all say "he will come like a thief in the night." You don't and can't know when.
How are we to understand the second coming. Three options: (1) We can simply not believe in it. (2) We can understand it in a spiritual and individual sense--that Jesus can come again into our hearts and lives. (3) We can understand it in a more literal sense, that Jesus will come again to earth in glory at a particular time (the end time) and in a particular place. Take your choice. At this point, I'm going with #3, although I tend to dislike literal interpretations of a lot of Biblical stuff. I am open to being convinced otherwise.
"Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again."
Faithfully,
Christian
2 comments:
I hope I am not going too far into politics, but I wonder if a sort of second coming of Christ can be seen in every major world even that brings about great change. World Wars, pandemics, revolutions... we see Christ when business is not as usual. A lot of people are seeing this as the Armageddon... is it also the Second (or fourteenth - I've lost count!) coming?
Christian, it is fascinating to think about how the concept of a "long time" must have changed as people began to accept that the planet was much older than thought, and thus, civilizations. The current >4.5 billion year age measurements are hard to envision, even now with a good understanding of the dating methods (by the way, a piece of the planet that old has not yet been found; the 4.5 BY age is from meteorites thought to have formed at the same time as the earth). I'm assuming that people used to think that five, six or even ten generations of people was a really long time whereas now we go back thousands of years, sometimes even on Ancestry.
In NT Bible passages where the topic of a Second Coming is mentioned, are there any notable differences among writers that suggest different understandings about the longevities of civilizations such as those in ancient Egypt?
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