The Second Coming of Christ
By Stephen N. Haskell
Six thousand years ago sin entered this world. At that time the robe of light and glory which had enshrouded Adam departed from him, and he began to realize the truthfulness of the words of God, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” The death was of a twofold nature, being both spiritual and physical. The instant that he disobeyed God, he died to all righteousness, and as the result of being deprived of the tree of life he began to die physically. Gen. 2:17, margin. In the following there was hope, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” When Eve gave birth to her first-born, she exclaimed, “I have gotten the man, the Lord” (Spurrell). She thought the promised seed had come. When Cain rose up and slew his brother, then darkness and gloom settled over her hopes. The apostle to the Gentiles gives a short comment in saying, “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” Heb. 9:27, 28. It is, first, death; second, judgment; and third, the second coming of the Lord. The hope of the church is to look for this coming. The same apostle declared, “Now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” So, in looking for the second coming of Christ, the thought is grasped that in the shedding of his blood upon the cross a cleansing fountain is opened to prepare the one who looks for his second coming, to reign in the kingdom of glory. In this atoning work we notice four steps. Two have passed, and two are yet future. First, Christ’s death upon the cross because man had sinned, and he must die. “His own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” 1 Peter 2:24. An acceptance of these two steps, and the receiving of Christ’s righteousness, is a pledge of what follows—salvation, at his second coming, if our faith grasps it, and we look for it. And in this promise is more than we lost through Adam; for it not only destroys sin and the sinner, but restores the believer and saves him from the effects of sin. “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” 1 John 3:8. The restoration begins even in this life by restoring the image of God in the soul, and at the second coming of Christ the original image of God will be restored in the body. “As we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” 1 Cor. 15:48. When the first man came from the hand of his Maker, he bore both the spiritual and the physical image of God. “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Gen. 1:27. This restoration has ever been the hope of the church. Job, who lived in the days of Moses, wrote, “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.” Job 19:25-27. The sweet psalmist of Israel exclaimed, “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.” Ps. 17:15. The prophet Isaiah said, “He will swallow up death in victory, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth, for the Lord hath spoken it.” Again, “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.” Isa. 25:8, 9; 26:19. Hosea takes up the strain: “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.” Hosea 13:14. This has been the faith of God’s people from the earliest times; and will be till the end. The disciples were greatly disappointed when they saw their Lord helpless in death. But among the last words of Christ before his ascension were the following: “In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” John 14:2, 3. Thus from the first book in the Bible to the seer of Patmos is this hope echoed and re-echoed, that Christ will come again, and wipe from creation this blot of sin. And he that hath this hope will purify himself even as He is pure, and so will see him as he is and dwell with him forever, even forever and ever, on the earth made new.—S. N. Haskell, in Southern Watchman.