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The Manner of His Coming

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 17, 1916

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 93, No. 9.

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The Manner of His Coming

By L. L. C.

The Second Advent — No. 2

The Manner of His Coming

ALL who believe the Bible must believe that Christ is coming again; and, as Dr. Chapman says in Home Life for January, “As a matter of fact, the evangelical denominations are agreed as to his coming back again, but in the manner of his coming and the time, and the attendant circumstances concerning these things we differ.”
Our only authority in the matter of the manner of Christ’s coming is the testimony of the Bible itself. Christ seems to have anticipated that questions might arise concerning the manner of his coming, and that some might be led into erroneous belief on this point, for when he answered the disciples’ question concerning his coming, he said:—
“Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.” “Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” Matt. 24: 4, 5, 23-27.
Christ will not come in the secret chambers of some Spiritualistic séance, but, “behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him,” even as the lightning which is seen by all.
Some have tried to see Christ’s coming in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, in the fall of Jerusalem, in the indwelling of the Spirit in the heart of the believer, or in the coming of the hour of death. But the second advent occurs in none of these ways. The witness of the angels given immediately after Christ’s ascension was:—
“Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” Acts 1: 11.
His departure was personal, and his return is likewise personal. This is well expressed by another:—
By personal is meant all that may be suggested by the words visible, bodily, local; and all that may be contrasted with that which is spiritual, providential, figurative. Of course, the spiritual presence of Christ is a blessed reality; one of the most comforting and inspiring of truths is the teaching that Christ does come to each believer, by his Holy Spirit, and dwells within, and empowers for service and suffering and growth in grace; but this is to be held in harmony with the other blessed truth that Christ will some day literally appear again in bodily form, and “we shall see him,” and shall then “be like him,” when we “see him as he is.”
Nor yet did that special manifestation of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost fulfil the promise of Christ’s return. Subsequent to Pentecost, Peter urged the Jews to repent in order that Jesus, whom for a time “the heavens had received,” might be “sent back again;” he wrote his epistles of comfort based upon the hope of a returning Lord, while Paul and other inspired apostles, long after Pentecost, emphasized the coming of Christ as the highest incentive for life and service.
According to the interpretation of others, Christ is said “to come” in various providential events of history, as notably in the destruction of Jerusalem. This tragedy of history is supposed by many to fulfil the prophecies spoken by Christ in his great discourse on the Mount of Olives, recorded in Matthew 24, and Mark 13, and Luke 21. When one combines these predictions, it becomes evident that the capture of the Holy City by Titus was a real but only partial fulfilment of the words of Christ. As in the case of so many Old Testament prophecies, the nearer event furnished the colors in which were depicted scenes and occurrences which belonged to a distant future, and in this case to “the end of the age.” When Jerusalem fell, the people of God were not delivered nor the enemies of God punished, nor did “the sign of the Son of man” appear in the heavens, as was predicted of the time when he comes again; and long after the fall of the city, John wrote in Gospel and Apocalypse of the coming of the King. . . .
More marvelous than the scenes at Pentecost, more startling than the fall of Jerusalem, more blessed than the indwelling of the Spirit, . . . will be the literal, visible, bodily return of Christ. No event may seem less probable to unaided human reason; no event is more certain in the light of the inspired Scripture. —Charles R. Erdman, D. D., in “The Fundamentals,” Testimony Publishing Company, Chicago, Ill., Vol. XI, pp. 87-93.
Again: his coming is to be glorious. Our Lord himself predicted that he would return “in his own glory, and in his Father’s, and of the holy angels.” Luke 9: 26. He will then be revealed in his divine majesty. He will be seen “sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” Matt. 26: 64.
As the Christian sees the sin and sorrow, sickness and death, all about him in this present world, he is constrained to pray in the words of the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come,” and to exclaim, as in the closing words of the last book of the Bible, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” Rev. 22: 20. L. L. C.