The Meaning of the Second Advent

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 21, 1909

The Meaning of the Second Advent

Two or three letters have appeared recently in the Sabbath Recorder (Seventh-day Baptist), drawing some comparisons between the prosperity which has attended the work of the Seventh-day Adventists and the apparent stagnation among the Seventh-day Baptists. As a probable cause of this difference, they have suggested the belief in the near second advent, and two of them have strongly urged that the Seventh-day Baptists ought to make a careful study of the advent doctrine, as found in the Scriptures, with a view of proclaiming it, if thorough investigation should show it to be well founded.

Another correspondent urged the editor of the Recorder “to proclaim the second coming of Christ as being near at hand,” declaring that God was withholding his blessings because of the neglect of this duty. An editorial reply to this exhortation, which reiterates some of the well-worn arguments against the reliability of

prophetic interpretation, contains one statement which we have rarely seen surpassed for its brutal frankness:—

It was indeed better for them [the disciples] that he [Christ] go away; and we insist that it must still be better for the world that he stay away.

The reading of the Scriptures ought to convince any unprejudiced mind that the second personal advent of Christ to this world marks the climax of all his work in behalf of humanity, and that apart from this crowning event his mediatorship would fail of accomplishing the promised results. Thus to his disciples just before his crucifixion he said: “Let not your heart be troubled. . . . I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” In his prayer immediately following this promise, Jesus expressed the idea of reunion with his disciples in these words: “Father, I desire that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me.” Setting forth more clearly the time and manner of this reunion, and teaching that those who were alive at the time of the second advent would have no advantage over those who had fallen asleep, the apostle Paul stated the case thus: “We that are alive, that are left until the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” The same apostle at the close of his earthly experience again emphasized the fact that at the coming of the Lord the hope of the Christian would find full fruition: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give to me at that day; and not to me only, but also to all them that have loved his appearing.” In the same strain writes the beloved John at the close of his record of that remarkable series of prophecies constituting the book of Revelation: “He who testifieth these things saith, Yea: I come quickly. Amen: come, Lord Jesus.”

Thus the promise of the coming Seed, which was given to our first parents before they were expelled from the garden of Eden, is developed with greater fulness and clearness in the succeeding ages, during which the main theme of prophets and apostles was the final overthrow of sin, and the triumph of righteousness, when the Son of man should come in his glory, until in the most literal language Christ’s second coming to receive his redeemed people to himself and to reign victoriously, is declared as the consummation of the plan of salvation. And yet in the face of all this plain teaching, the Recorder declares, “We insist that it must still be better for the world that he stay away.”

This unscriptural and antiscriptural statement is a good illustration of the way in which one error may vitiate the plainest teaching of the gospel. The belief in the natural immortality of man, and that heaven is entered at death, robs the second advent of its real meaning, and naturally leads to its neglect. When the central truth of the gospel is clearly apprehended; namely, that eternal life is the gift of God, and that immortality is bestowed upon believers at the second coming of Christ, the importance of the advent doctrine is clearly seen, and the blessed hope of the resurrection and of the glorious appearing of our Saviour becomes the comfort and the stay of the Christian through all his worldly pilgrimage. No; it can not be “better for the world that he stay away.” The delay has been a long one; the world is rapidly growing worse; the limit will soon be reached, the only hope of a better order of things rests upon the promised return of our Lord. Every lover of truth and righteousness ought to do all in his power to hasten his appearing.