HAS CHRIST COME THE SECOND TIME?
So some persons who profess to believe the Scriptures aver. In a letter before us from Florida, written evidently by a minister, the writer declares that Christ always spoke of His coming, of the end of the age, “as an event that would affect the people whom He addressed;” that by “this generation” He meant that generation living when He spoke the words, while by “this generation” the SIGNS OF THE TIMES means the present. The writer says further:— You see He never mentioned it but He impressed upon them the fact that this event should happen to them. They certainly understood it in this way, for they did not fail to impress on hearers the imminence of this great and glorious consummation. Their writings are full of this thought, the certainty and nearness of this great day. Space would fail me to quote all the passages bearing on this point, a few must suffice. “The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” “Now is your salvation nearer than when ye believed.” “Yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” “The Lord is at hand.” “Brethren, the end of all things is at hand.” “We which are alive and remain.” They confidently expected to be alive and remain, for “we” includes the speaker. You quote Joel, but Peter declares his prophecy was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost; “the last days,” says Peter; so in Heb. 1:1—“hath in these last days.” So “the last days” were in the time of the apostles; but John declares the last hour had come. This epistle is probably the last of inspiration written. “Little children, it is the last hour; and as ye have heard that Antichrist should come, even now [1900 years ago] are there many antichrists, whereby ye know that it is the last hour.” You will observe that Christ and His apostles exhausted language—used every word, term, and mode of expression—to impress on their hearers that that great day would come upon them in their day and generation, so that they have no language left to express its nearness now but that they used to express its nearness then—see! The people addressed must have understood it in that way. They could not understand it in any other way, and if He did not come at that time, then they were grossly deceived. I do not believe that they were deceived. Before noticing, directly the above, let the reader consider these two questions: (1) What is the manner and effect of Christ’s second coming? (2) For how many, and for how long, are the Scriptures given and is Jesus Christ Saviour and Teacher? 1. What is the manner and effect of Christ’s second coming? (a) His coming is not death; for Jesus comes to give life, not death. Truly said the weeping sisters, “Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” John 11:21, 32. His coming meant life, not death, to Lazarus. He does not send the cruel “enemy,” the last to be destroyed, as His representative. 1 Cor. 15:26. (b) His coming is not in a secret manner, or by His Spirit, as at conversion. “Nevertheless I tell you the truth,” He affirms; “it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.” John 16:7. “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 chamber, believe it not.” Matt. 24:25, 26. Then how will He come? What are its manner and results? “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.” Verse 27. Said the shining messengers from God to those who saw Him ascend:— “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. “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.” Rev. 1:7. And our Lord Himself, after giving a series of signs which should precede, and some of which should herald, His coming, declares:— “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” Matt. 24:30. “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.” 1 Thess. 4:16, 17. “And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power; when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.” 2 Thess. 1:7-10. But that great event has not taken place. Christ has not been seen “coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory;” the wicked have not been destroyed; the righteous living have not been made immortal; the righteous dead have not been raised; every eye has not seen Him; all the tribes of the earth have not mourned because of Him. And therefore Jesus Christ and His apostles spoke of the imminence of His coming for later times. 2. For how many, and for how long, are the Scriptures given and is Jesus Christ Saviour and Teacher? The writer of the above letter declares that with the close of the apostolic age “the last word of inspiration had been written.” Then if Christ and His apostles wrote only for their own time, of what worth is the Bible to us? Was He not as truly the Saviour of Adam, and Abel, and Abraham, and Moses, as of James, and John, and Paul, and Silas? And is He not just as truly our Saviour and Teacher to-day as He was the Saviour and Teacher of Peter, and Andrew, and Thomas, and Philip? We know that He is. The Scriptures are for every age which came after they were written. The Son of God is the Teacher to-day, speaking through His Word as truly as He spoke through the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth. There are many evidences of the great truth that the Gospel was spoken to those who lived anciently, but written for those who live later. Seven centuries before Christ, Isaiah the prophet uttered the glorious prophecy, recorded in chapter 40:3, “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Surely the Jews of that time would understand that ye meant them, and that our included the prophet himself. But seven centuries dragged their slow length along before it sprang into life in the person and work of John the Baptist. Matt. 3:3. A little later Isaiah uttered the sublime words found in chapter 61:1-3. Surely it looks as tho the word me referred to Isaiah himself. But again seven hundred years pass, and Jesus Christ stands up in the synagogue of Nazareth, and speaks again in living power the prophecy of seven centuries before, stopping in the middle of verse 2, and declaring, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” Luke 4:17-21. Why did He pause at the first clause of Isa. 61:2, “to preach the acceptable year of the Lord”? Why did He not repeat the next clause, “and the day of vengeance of our God”?—The only reasonable, adequate reply is, That the first clause met its fulfilment in Him and His work, seven centuries later, but the next clause would not be fulfilled till just prior to His second advent. Then men will proclaim “the day of vengeance of our God.” And this clearly shows how all the passages written above concerning Christ’s second coming will apply, and will be applied, when His servants preach the message of His second coming. The passages quoted (not always correctly) by our Florida correspondent are from the following: Rom. 13:12, 11; Heb. 10:37; James 4:8; Phil. 4:5; 1 Peter 4:7; 1 Thess. 4:17; Acts 2:16, 17; 1 John 2:18. But the warnings given by Paul, and John, and Peter, and James, and the writer of Hebrews were not alone for their time, but for ours, for the church of God in these days according to her need as truly as for the church then. Furthermore, some of the Old Testament prophecies, like that of Joel 2, have a double application, a partial fulfilment at some great crisis, a plenary fulfilment in the great crisis of the world. “In the last days” includes also the very last day. Neither did Jesus believe that His second coming was to be 1800 years ago. In Matthew 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13, our Lord gives the signs of His coming and the end of the age. Among these were to be wars and rumors of wars, nation rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom, a thing not manifest or possible then in the Roman Government. But these were not to be immediate signs of His coming; for of these events He says, “All these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet;” “all these are the beginning of sorrows.” Matt. 24:6, 8. The destruction of Jerusalem must come; the great tribulation must run its course; false christs and false prophets must do their work; Mormonism and Spiritualism must deceive many; definite and specific signs must be manifest in the sun, the moon, the stars; trouble and perplexity would spread over the world, “men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” Matt. 24:15-30; Luke 21:25-27. And the generation which should see the culmination of these things—“this generation”—should not pass away till all be fulfilled, till Christ should come. So “this generation” of Ps. 95:10 referred to a generation of five centuries before; and “this night” of Ex. 12:12 referred to a night two weeks away from the time it was spoken; and “this day” of Ps. 2:7 met its application a thousand years later. Paul did not believe that Christ was coming in his day. Some persons in the church obtained that idea, and the apostle thus corrected it:— “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as from us, that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means; for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.” 2 Thess. 2:1-3. Surely this is emphatic. The true church of God in all ages is one; this the apostle knew, and he classed himself with them in the we and our. Yet he knew that he would die. 2 Tim. 4:6-8. Our blessed Lord knew of the evils and dangers of these last days; and He gave the messages needed. And now that they are needed, He has clothed them with life, even as He has all present truth of the past. The warnings and assurances of His coming are living, present truth of to-day. Happy is he who knows it.