The Coming of Christ by J. N. Cross

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 27, 1906

The Coming of Christ

By J. N. Cross

J. N. CROSS

As one looks upon a mountainous country from the plain, he may see many peaks rising to the clouds, and from his point of view they may seem to rise from a single range; but as he approaches nearer, he may find they belong to different ranges, perhaps separated by long distances, and it may be, by wide and fertile plains.

Thus it is with the prophecies concerning the coming of Christ. The words of the Old Testament prophets are like mountain peaks, and seem to mingle together; but as we examine them carefully, we find they belong to three distinct ranges, or classes, and are separated by long periods of time. Just here was the great trouble with the Jews; they blended the different ranges into one, and so were confused. They knew the Messiah was to be a “Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,” and yet a great deliverer. They seemed to think that he, like Moses, would be poor and humble in his birth, but in later years would become a great general to deliver them from the Roman yoke, as Moses did from Egyptian bondage. But when they would take him by force and make him king, he went away and left them to their great disappointment. And so he will do now to those who will try to make him king of this or any other nation. He is to be King indeed, but the kingdom is to be given him by the Father, not by men.

The first of the three classes of prophecy concerning Christ, refers to his first advent, his sufferings and death, while another class refers to his second, and finally to his third, advent to earth. As we are all familiar with the first class, we will only speak of it briefly in this paper; for that which is of vastly more importance to us in this age of the world, is his next, or second, coming. Many seem to think that the second coming of Christ is at the death of his people; but if that were the case, he would be here all the time, for they are constantly dying. But with this view, how strange the words of Jesus in John 21:22 sound, when Peter, pointing to John, asked, “And what shall this man do?” According to this idea, Jesus would have answered him, “If I will that he lives till he dies, what is that to thee?” O, no! His first advent was real, personal, visible; and his second must be the same. Again, the angels said (Acts 1:11), “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.” This does not sound much like the spiritual coming of Christ at every death. Then the second advent of Christ must be as real, as personal, as visible as was his first.

The question then is, Of what importance is the second coming of Christ to us, or to the world? It has been said that one verse in twenty-five in the New Testament refers to the second coming of Christ to earth; and if this is true, it must be a very important event to all the inhabitants of earth. Let us consider briefly the time, the manner, and the object of that great event; first, the time.

In Dan. 8:14 the angel said, “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Daniel did not understand the vision, but Gabriel was instructed to explain it to him. He told him the meaning of the ram, the goat, and the little horn; but Daniel fainted before Gabriel reached the question of time in the vision; but in answer to Daniel’s earnest prayer recorded in chapter 9, Gabriel returned to him, and in verse 24 he begins where he left off in chapter 8, by saying, “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people . . . to bring in everlasting righteousness, . . . and to anoint the Most Holy.” Critics tell us the word rendered “determined” means cut off, and it is a well-accepted rule of interpretation that a day in prophecy stands for a year of literal time. Hence we may read this passage thus: Seventy weeks, or four hundred and ninety years, are cut off from the two thousand three hundred years mentioned in the last vision, for the spiritual benefit of thy people. Then Gabriel goes on to say that this time begins with “the going forth of the commandment” to restore and rebuild the city and temple at Jerusalem. And the seventy weeks were divided into four parts,—seven weeks, or forty-nine years, for the building of the city “in troublous times;” another period of sixty-two weeks, or four hundred and thirty-four years, to Messiah the Prince, or the baptism of Christ and his anointing with the Holy Spirit; and in the midst of the seventieth week Messiah should be “cut off, but not for himself;” that is, Christ should be crucified, but not on account of his own sins. This decree went forth in 457 B. C., and this date is said to be fixed by more than twenty eclipses, hour strokes in the great timepiece of the Creator, and from this date we find each event mentioned by the angel occurring exactly at the time appointed, thus giving us another unanswerable proof that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. But the Messiah was to be cut off in the midst of the seventieth week, thus still leaving three and one-half years to the Jews; and we read that the apostles preached the gospel to them during that time, but after that turned to the Gentiles.

But the four hundred and ninety full years reach only to the year 34 A. D., leaving eighteen hundred and ten years of the twenty-three hundred years unaccounted for. Adding these numbers together, brings us to the autumn of 1844; and this is the time when Gabriel said the sanctuary should be cleansed. Thus, Wm. Miller and his associates reasoned, and believed that the cleansing of the sanctuary meant the destruction of the earth by fire, predicted in 2 Peter 3:10, and so, the coming of Christ at that time. But the time passed, and Christ did not appear. Their disappointment is thus described in Rev. 10:10: “It [the little book of Daniel’s prophecy] was in my mouth sweet as honey; and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.” Disappointed they were indeed, yet they could not doubt the word of the angel; and as his word had proved true in four points, it must be true in the fifth. So they said the mistake was theirs, and searched their Bibles to find what it was. The Lord soon showed them that the word rendered “sanctuary,” which occurs about one hundred and forty-four times in the Bible, never refers to the earth, but always to the tabernacle erected by Moses, the temple at Jerusalem, or what Paul in Heb. 8:2 calls the true tabernacle, of which the former was but the shadow; and this true, or heavenly, sanctuary was the only one in existence in 1844, and hence the one then to be cleansed. Thus they saw that the event to occur in 1844 was not the coming of Christ, but the

cleansing of the sanctuary in heaven.

The cleansing of the earthly sanctuary on the last day of the Jewish religious year (the tenth day of the seventh month) is described in Leviticus 16, as the atonement for the altar, and to the present time the Jews throughout the world observe it as the day of judgment for all mankind. The cleansing of the earthly sanctuary, then, is a type, or shadow, of the cleansing of the true sanctuary in heaven, or the work of judgment for the whole earth. There are many points of interest just here, especially in regard to the scapegoat, but the scope of this paper forbids their mention.

The twenty-three hundred days we have considered is the longest time-prophecy in the Bible, and the last to expire. Then does not the Bible give us a clue as to the time of the second coming of Christ?—Certainly it does; for we read in Amos 3:7: “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” And the end of the twenty-three hundred days marked the beginning of the judgment of the dead in the end of the world.

In Matthew 24 and Luke 21 Christ gave us many signs which should mark the near approach of his coming. In reply to the question of his disciples, he foretells the history of the world three times in Matthew 24, stating different particulars each time. Among other signs which show his coming near at hand, were the darkening of the sun and moon on May 19, 1780; the falling of the stars, Nov. 13, 1833; distress of nations, with perplexity; wars and rumors of war; earthquakes, famines, and pestilences, more numerous and destructive than ever before; increase of crime, and lukewarmness in the church. But for our encouragement he says the generation that sees these signs shall not entirely pass away till all be fulfilled, and even adds that “heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.” And so, as Christ is true, we know there are many men living to-day who will witness the pouring out of the seven last plagues of Revelation 16, followed by the coming of Christ to reap the harvest of the earth. Yet he says, “This gospel” (of his soon coming to set up his kingdom in the earth) “shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations; and then shall the end come,” and adds the well-known parable of the fig-tree. There are now only three or four nations where the Seventh-day Adventists have not preached this glorious gospel of the soon-coming King and his everlasting kingdom. True, in some but little has been done, but a beginning has been made, and the work is growing. Notice that he does not say the world will be converted; but they will have the gospel for a witness, a warning of the coming end.

In the fifth chapter of James we have a wonderful word-picture of the rich and poor at the present time. The rich are now heaping up treasure for the last days; and we hear the bitter cry of the poor whose wages the rich keep back by fraud. We read in 2 Peter 3:3 of scoffers in the last days who deride the idea of the second coming of Christ. Are there any such in the world to-day? But again, every steamboat that plows the ocean, every railroad train on land, every telegraph wire stretched from city to city, is but a fulfilment of prophecy in preparation for the soon coming of Christ, for it would be impossible to carry the gospel to every nation on earth in one generation without them. Why did we not have them a thousand years ago?—Simply because God did not need them then. But one may ask, Is not his coming to be like a thief?—Yes, to many, but not all, for “ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.” 1 Thess. 5:4. “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.” True; no man maketh known the “day nor the hour,” the month or the year, but we must know when his coming is near, “even at the door,” that we may be prepared to meet him with joy.

(To be concluded)

The Coming of Christ*

The Coming of Christ