CHRIST’S COMING—WHAT IT IS.
In an editorial on the “Two Advents,” a popular eastern religious paper has the following:— But there is another advent, for which the church is hoping, praying, watching. Will it come in the night or yet in the morning? Will it startle us in our sinning or surprise us in our worship, in our repentance, contrition, or yet come to us as a blessed relief from an environment of sin—come to us as freedom comes to the prisoner in his cell? We know not. If we ask—What is the sign of His coming? or, When shall it be?—we get no answer. But if we pass from that contemplation and consider that the real fact of Christ’s coming lies in the time when God shall call us away from the scenes of earth, we shall find that for every one of us that second advent may be nearer than we think, near enough, surely, that none of us may ask, Why tarries His chariot so long? Therefore it is that the second advent may well concern us at this season; not that we should be as they who have all their life long been subject to bondage, but that we should see to it that our lives are so ordered that not only shall death have no terrors for us, but that we shall welcome the call,—that we shall rejoice to meet our Lord at His coming,—for that will be His coming to us. To whom did the writer seek in his questions? Of old the disciples asked the question of our Lord Himself, “What shall be the sign of Thy coming?” And Jesus did not answer by silence, neither did He say, You can not know. But He did say, “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things that are coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.” Luke 21: 25, 26. God has hung out His signs everywhere in heaven and earth, in sea and sky, in the material, social, political, religious worlds, that all may know and see. As to the time, the Master continues: “And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with power and great glory. Matthew in recording the same conversation, after giving some of the signs, declares: ‘Now learn a parable of the fig tree: when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh; so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it [‘He,’ margin] is near, even at the doors.’ Matt. 24: 32, 33. That the day or hour is not revealed we know, but the same Word tells that we should know when it is near; and our Lord gives us this assurance concerning His nearness: ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.’ Verse 35. Certainly if the writer had inquired of the Lord, he would have found an answer. Or has ‘the vision of all’ become ‘as the words of a book that is sealed’? Isa. 29: 11, 12. Another point: Death is not the second advent of Christ to any. True, it closes the probation of all who pass its portals, but it is not Christ’s coming. He comes not to take life, but He comes to give life. Truly the weeping sister said, “Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” But He was absent, and Lazarus died. Christ’s coming meant life to Lazarus. When Jesus told His disciples that John might tarry till He came again, His disciples at once concluded that that disciple would not die. Why?—Because they knew that death was not Christ’s coming, and if John lived till Christ came, he would never die. Christ counts death an enemy, and came to destroy it and its author. 1 Cor. 15: 26; Heb.72:14. O, that men would seek to God and His Word for information, and not to a wrong and perverted theology!