The Coming of Christ by S. S. Griswold

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 25, 1872

The Coming of Christ.

By S. S. Griswold

BY S. S. GRISWOLD.

Do THE Scriptures teach the doctrine of the personal advent of Christ, or his bodily return to our earth? and if so, that such advent is near at hand?

The doctrine of the second coming of Christ is one which has agitated the world much during quite a portion of the Christian era. Like some other great questions, it has had its ebbings and flowings, its periods of agitation, and its times of rest. During the last thirty or more years, it has assumed large proportions, and laid claim to an importance second only to that of the final salvation of a greater or less number of mankind. Its behests, and those of its corresponding beliefs, have demanded the most implicit faith in its doctrines, so that many of its disciples have been paralyzed with respect to all efforts of a worldly character, and also to those of religion, except to be in readiness to meet the Lord in the air. Men have stood gazing up into heaven (the atmosphere surrounding our earth; for according to the theory, there is no other heaven on our earth), momentarily expecting to see the Lord coming in the clouds of heaven—literally in the condensed vapors of the atmosphere—while the most common phenomena of nature have been converted into signs of the divine epiphany. The Christian mind has been distracted, the church of Christ divided and rent asunder, and in the reaction, skepticism, infidelity, and atheism, have been increased. That such a doctrine demands thoughtful consideration, few will deny.

That the Scriptures abundantly speak of a “coming of the Son of man,” and a “coming of the Lord,” will not be questioned. Such a belief has ever been the faith of the church in all ages. Christ himself foretold his coming, and his apostles taught the same. The early Christians universally believed it, and modern Christians all firmly adhere to that belief.

On this fact all agree. But it is the manner of Christ's coming in which we disagree. By one class of Christians, it is maintained that Christ will return to this earth bodily, literally in the clouds of heaven—the atmosphere, that his advent will be announced by the sounding of a trumpet, literally, accompanied by the voice of an archangel, the resuscitation of the

actual bodies of the dead, the vaulting of a white throne, the sitting thereon of the Judge, the assembling of all that have lived on the earth, their final Judgment, the universal conflagration of this world, and the burning up of the wicked. All this is to transpire literally; and those events are near at hand. Such is a general outline of those doctrines which are now proposed to be considered, the first of which, viz., the second coming of Christ, is first in order to be considered.

The phrase, “the second coming of Christ,” is probably founded on a text in Hebrews 9: 28, the only place where a numeral is used in connection with Christ's coming, if we except John 21: 14, where a third appearance, or coming, of Christ is mentioned, which would go to show that his second coming, or appearance, had previously taken place. This fact seems to be overlooked by those who hold to what they call the second coming of Christ; for how could there have been the third appearance without a previous second appearance? The second coming of Christ, then, has already taken place, that event having transpired soon after his resurrection, during the forty days he was at times seen by chosen witnesses; for Christ was not seen by the people generally, but by such as were chosen of God before, to whom was vouchsafed the privilege, and whose spiritual eyes were couched expressly for that purpose. See Acts 10: 41.

Whatever, therefore, may be the manner or nature of any future advent of Christ, it cannot be the second in numerical order, nor the third, however it may be the fourth, or any following number.

Admitting, therefore (as we probably shall not), that the appearances of Christ after his resurrection were bona fide bodily appearances of real flesh, blood, and bones, it will follow that Christ's bodily return to our earth has already taken place, as his third is definitely mentioned in John 21: 14, and consequently his second must have preceded it. And it follows, further, that the appearing mentioned in Hebrews 9: 28, cannot therefore be his second coming in person, but the passage refers to another kind of appearing, or coming, a spiritual appearing, or coming, which is evidently the true meaning, as any one can see by reading the whole of the chapter, where it speaks of a holy place not made with hands, &c., spiritual places, and hence the appearing of Christ the second time, as mentioned there, was a spiritual appearing, which is the obvious sense of the passage.

If the above be true, then the second coming of Christ, numerically considered, as referring to his personal coming, is not taught in the Scriptures, and the parading of the numeral for the purpose of contrasting it with his first coming, viz., the incarnation, as indicating the manner of any future coming, is calculated to mislead, and hence should be dropped.

Before entering upon the direct examination of the proposition, it may be well to notice some expressions in the Old Testament which may aid us somewhat in our pursuit.

Reference is frequently made in the Old Testament to a coming of the Lord, where no personal appearance was meant; but an unfolding of some providential event more or less special. The phrases, “the day of the Lord,” “the coming of the Lord,” and like expressions, are never, I think, used in the Old Testament as indicating any personal appearance of Jehovah, but usually refer to some special judgments or mercies to be sent upon nations or individuals by the divine Providence. The burden of Babylon, described in the thirteenth chapter of Isaiah, is portrayed in language as equally graphic as any used in the New Testament, describing the coming of Christ, and yet there was no personal coming of the Lord. “Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and he shall destroy the sinners out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.” “And I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall be removed out of her place.”

In the fulfillment of the above prophecy concerning Babylon, the Lord did not come in person, neither were the sun, moon, and stars, darkened, nor the earth removed out of her place. And yet who doubts the complete fulfillment of that prophecy on Babylon?

In the 34th chapter of Isaiah, there is still, if possible, a more terrible description of a judgment on Idumea. “Mountains shall be melted with their blood, . . . the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll; and all their hosts shall fall down. . . . The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness.” It was to be bathed in heaven; for it was the day of the Lord's vengeance; the streams of the country were to be turned into pitch, and the dust into brimstone, and the land to become burning pitch—not to be quenched night nor day; the smoke was to go up forever. Such was the language used describing the destruction of Idumea, language as equally terrible as that used by Peter when foretelling the supposed conflagration of our earth.

In Joel 2: 28–32, we read: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit. And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come.”

Now we are assured by an inspired apostle, Peter, that the above prophecy had its fulfillment on the day of Pentecost. And yet the sun was not darkened, nor the moon turned into blood. No more terrible or alarming description of the supposed burning of the world is found in the New Testament.

I have selected the above from the Old Testament to show how the sacred writers used language when portraying the judgments of God upon nations, all of which found their fulfillment in the administration of the divine government on the earth. There was no personal appearance of God, no falling of stars, nor blotting out of the sun, nor was the earth removed out of her place. Many more similar expressions might be mentioned, but the above will suffice for the present. In my next, I shall come directly to the examination of the New Testament, respecting the supposed personal coming of Christ to our earth.

(To be continued.)