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Behold He Cometh

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 7, 1915

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 92, No. 28.

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Behold He Cometh

By A. J. GORDON

A. J. GORDON, D. D.
The second coming of Christ is the crowning event of redemption; and the belief of it constitutes the crowning article of an evangelical creed. For we hold that the excellence of faith is according to the proportion of the Lord's redemptive work which that faith embraces. Some accept merely the earthly life of Christ, knowing him only after the flesh; and the religion of such is rarely more than a cold, external morality. Others receive his vicarious death and resurrection, but seem not to have strength as yet to follow him into the heavens; such may be able to rejoice in their justification without knowing much of walking in the glorious life of Christ. Blessed are they who, believing all that has gone before,—life, death, and resurrection,—can joyfully add this confession also: “We have a great High Priest, that is passed into the heavens;” and thrice blessed they who can join to this confession still another: “From whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Looking Upward

Never did a Christian age so greatly need to have its attitude readjusted to the primitive standard as our own,—commerce, so debased with greed of gold; science, preaching its doctrine of “dust thou art;” and Christian dogmatics, often darkening hope with its eschatology of death! The face of present-day religion is to such degree prone downward that, if some Joseph appears, with his visions of the sun, moon, and stars, men exclaim: “Behold, this dreamer cometh.” But they that say such things plainly declare that they do not “seek a country.”
There is a tradition that Michelangelo, by his prolonged and unremitting toil upon the frescoed domes which he wrought, acquired such a habitual upturn of the countenance that, as he walked the streets, strangers would observe his bearing, and set him down as some visionary or eccentric. It were well if we who profess to be Christians of the Apostolic school had our conversation so truly in heaven, and our faces so steadily set thitherward, that sometimes the “man with the muckrake” should be led to wonder at us, and to look up with questioning surprise from his delving for earthly gold and glory.
Massillon declares that, “in the days of primitive Christianity, it would have been deemed a kind of apostasy not to sigh for the return of the Lord.” Then, certainly, it ought not now to be counted an eccentricity to “love his appearing” and to take up with new intensity of longing the prayer which he has taught us: “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
Amid all the disheartenment induced by the abounding iniquity of our times; amid the loss of faith and the waxing cold of love within the church; and amid the outbreaking of lawlessness which, causing men's hearts to fail them for fear, and for looking after these things that are coming on the earth,—this is our Lord's inspiring exhortation: “Look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.”

Eager Expectation

We remember sailing over a beautiful lake in Switzerland, journeying to the village that lay at its opposite end. Again and again, as the encircling hills shut in about us, the further shore seemed close at hand, and our destination nearly reached. But, rounding a projecting point, the aspect would change, the mountains would part once more, and another broad expanse of water would lie stretched out before us. Thus, by a singular peculiarity of the landscape, the journey's end seemed always imminent, and yet constantly receding. It was striking to observe how this feature of the journey affected the voyagers. Not a passenger was found at the ship's stern gazing backward. Every one was on the lookout. All eyes were bent forward in eager expectation, till at last the destined harbor was reached.
Now all the commands and promises of Christ put us on the outlook, and every great juncture of fulfilling history sets us watching to discern whether the day dawn is not approaching, whether the eternal hills are not closing in to bring the end of the age.
The impulse which inspires us to watch, to expect, to be ready to disembark, however vain it may seem to men, has both the authority of God's Word and the admonitions of all the history of the church for its support.
And, more than this, while none can know the day or the hour of the advent, we carry with us a chart of the church's history to tell us approximately where in our stormy and perilous voyage we are. Its weird, mysterious pages contain the whole map and delineation of the church's career from the ascension to the return of the Lord; but it was left for time to break the seals of this book and to discover its meaning. This it has been doing; and, as corresponding to this chart, headland after headland of the prophetic history has been described, these have been recognized by the students who have been searching diligently what and what manner of time the Spirit did signify in penning this prophecy.