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The Manner of His Return

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 24, 1913

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 90, No. 17.

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The Manner of His Return

By F. M. W.

The Lord’s Return—No. 2

“Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” Heb. 10: 35-39.
How will the hope of the church in the return of its Lord be realized? How will Christ come the second time? Regarding this the Scriptures of Truth give plain and unequivocal testimony. They tell us the manner in which Christ will return, and warn us against accepting the erroneous theories which will be advocated regarding this great event.
To those who were associated with our Lord nineteen hundred years ago; who with their own eyes looked upon him in form and feature, clasped his hand, and heard his voice; who enjoyed his daily association as a beloved friend, the promise that “this same Jesus” shall come again could have meant nothing else than the personal, literal return of the Lord Jesus Christ to this earth. Anything else than this would prove to them a hollow mockery. And this will be true also with the great multitude of believers, whom no man can number, who in their relationship with heaven have come to regard the Lord Jesus as a real presence, as a personal Saviour, as a true friend. This faith and hope will not be disappointed. The return of the Master will meet every expectation of Christian faith.

The Manner of His Return

Among the many statements regarding the second coming of Christ, three conditions are positively affirmed in the Scriptures:—
1. The return of the Lord will be a personal coming. How clearly and emphatically did the Saviour state this on that eventful night of his betrayal when giving to his disciples his parting words of comfort. He had told them that he was going away. Sorrow filled their hearts. He gave them then this assurance:—
“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. 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: 1-3.
“If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again.” It is no one in my stead; it is not my representative; but I myself who am with you now. I will return to take you to the mansions which I go to prepare.
2. The return of the Lord will be a literal coming. Says the apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Thessalonica:—
“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 which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thess. 4: 16-18.
3. The return of the Lord will be a visible coming. He did not disappear from among men in a secret manner. At the time of his ascension a number of the disciples were gathered together. They walked and talked with Christ as of yore. He expounded anew to them the mysteries of his kingdom. Again he commissioned them to go forth as witnesses of his gospel.
“And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.” Luke 24: 50, 51.
Long and wonderingly, filled with awe and eagerness, the disciples gazed after the ascending figure of their Lord. A cloud enveloped him. He passed out of the range of their vision.
“And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, 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: 10, 11.
If Christ is to return “in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven,” it is sufficient for us to determine how he went away in order to know how he will return. He went away with the clouds of heaven, evidently myriads of angels who surrounded their beloved Master and escorted him to the courts of glory. “A cloud received him out of their sight.” He will return in the same open, visible manner in which he went away. To this the apostle John bears testimony in Rev. 1: 7:—
“Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.”
In view of these plain, positive declarations of Scripture, how weak and futile the claim put forward by some to-day that the second coming of Christ to this earth is at conversion. The Lord by his blessed Spirit does come near to his disciples at this time in their experience. As they open their hearts to receive the Spirit’s infilling, it enters into the life with gentle, comforting, transforming assurance, but this is not the return of the Lord. This is the coming of the Comforter, whom Christ declared when he went away that he would send as his representative to fill the aching void left in the hearts of his orphan children here on earth. John 16: 7-14; 14: 16-18.
In the light of the testimony of Scripture, how groundless also is the claim often advocated, and that, too, by many excellent Christian people, that the return of the Lord is at death when he comes to take his children home. Throughout the Bible death is represented as an enemy,—the last great enemy which Christ will destroy. Christ comes at the close of this world’s history to unloose his children from death’s relentless embrace. It is then that he will open the prison-house and set the captives free and take his loved ones home unto himself.
“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.” Matt. 24: 26.
In a spiritual and personal sense the Lord draws near to his dying children. In the experiences of many of his faithful ones, as they were about to enter the dark valley, like Moses who from the heights of Nebo viewed the promised land, they have been privileged to obtain a vision of the heavenly Canaan. Angel hands have swept back the curtain and these dying ones have been given visions of celestial glory, even as was given to the martyr Stephen when he was about to seal his testimony with his blood. That some have seen angel forms about their bedsides we do not doubt. But however blessed this experience, this was not the second coming of Christ.
He comes to take his children home, not one by one, in the quietness of night; but “when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory.” And in that day “the dead in Christ shall rise first: then wewhich are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” In this hope may the church of God to-day find comfort and assurance, as has the church in every age. F. M. W.