The Coming of Christ: The Apostolic Teaching on Parousia
By S. S. Griswold
The Coming of Christ.—No. 10.
Having examined all the prominent passages in the gospels and the Acts referring to the coming of Christ as the Son of man, and found that they have no reference (if our view be correct) to his personal return to this earth. I shall now proceed to examine the writings of the apostles, and see whether they taught the personal return of Christ to this world, as has been mentioned. It is quite significant that while in the gospels the coming of Christ is spoken of as the coming of the Son of man, in the epistles it is never spoken of by that phrase, but as the coming of the Lord, parousia sua tou kuriou, literally, the being present of the Lord; not so much a coming as the being present. The appearing of Jesus Christ, 1 Tim. 6:14; the revelation of Jesus Christ, 1 Pet. 1:13; the day of the Lord Jesus, Phil. 1:6; the great day, Jude 6; the last day, John 12:48; 6:30; 11:24; 2 Tim. 3:1; Heb. 1:2; James 5:3; 2 Pet. 3:3; the last time, 1 Pet. 1:5, 20; 1 John 2:18; Jude 18; that day, 2 Tim. 1:12; the day, 1 Cor. 3:13. The above are phrases referring to a group of facts which are doubtless all included in the coming of the Lord. If there was any one thing taught most certainly by the apostles concerning the coming of the Lord, it was the time when that coming would take place. They all taught and affirmed with entire unanimity that the coming of the Lord was an event then near at hand. The tenor of all is like the following, James 5:7, 8: “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; establish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” It would scarcely be possible for language to declare an event as near more than the above does the coming of the Lord. Paul prayed that the Thessalonians might be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thess. 5:23. How could they then be preserved unless they were to be alive at his coming? Consequently the coming must have been near. Paul charged Timothy to keep a commandment without spot until the appearing of their Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Tim. 6:14. Timothy must live, then, until that appearing. “For our conversation [politeuma citizenship] is in Heaven; from whence we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.” Phil. 3:20, 21. The pronouns we and our must have meant those to whom Paul wrote, viz., the Philippians, and the event referred to was their death, when this earthly body would be exchanged for a spiritual, glorious body, like Christ’s glorious body.195 And yet that event of death is spoken of as their looking for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. The event here spoken of was their death and immediate resurrection. “Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” Rev. 22:12. The event here mentioned was near; probably it was death. “For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” Heb. 10:37. Only a little while, then, before he (Christ) would come. “The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.” 2 Thess. 3:5. They, the Thessalonians, were to wait patiently for Christ. “Yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.” 1 Thess. 5:2, 4. “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.” 1 Thess. 5:4. The day was a time near; it was about to overtake those Thessalonians. The day was doubtless death, or some sudden calamity. From the above, it is certain that when the apostles spoke of the coming of the Lord, they referred to some event near at hand then. This fact cannot be ignored or set aside. Whatever, then, may have been their meaning, as respects the nature of the Lord’s coming, they all agree as to the time, viz., that it was near, just at the door. The Judge then stood at the door. James 5:9. The great central thought was that of an ever present Being—Christ as the Lord, the Judge—One who would take cognizance of all their actions, thoughts, and words, and would reward every man at death according to his works. Death, then, was the great event referred to by the coming of the Lord. Death included the involving of the eternal state and its awards. It might come suddenly, and, if not watching, take them by surprise as a thief in the night; and as the retribution of the other world followed immediately, or after death, including the resurrection and Judgment, all were so momentous as to be expressed by the phrases, The coming of the Lord, The coming of the great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. Such were the group of events represented by those forms of expression. But it may be said that while the above passages may refer to the events of death, resurrection, and Judgment, as events near, there are others which require some event of greater display. 2 Thess. 1:6-10: “It is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; 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.” The event here spoken of is doubtless death, and its consequent attendings. The difficulty of the objector is to reconcile the imagery of the language with the event of death. But the imagery does not exceed that of the Old Testament, wherein facts perhaps less astounding are described in as graphic manner—facts of a common providence. For example, Deut. 33:2: “The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them: he shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law.” Deut. 4:25: “The Lord thy God is a consuming fire.” Ps. 50:3: “Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence; a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.” Ps. 97:1-5: “The Lord reigneth. . . . Clouds and darkness are round about him. . . . A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about. His lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled. The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord.” Ps. 29:3-10: “The voice of the Lord is upon the face of the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the Lord is upon the waters. . . . The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. . . . He maketh them to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn. The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness. . . . The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, and discovereth the forests. . . . The Lord sitteth on the floods.” The above is a description of a thunder storm, a tornado, the billows of the ocean, and the birth of young animals—all the common operations of nature. And yet the imagery is equal to that in Thessalonians. Ps. 114:5: “The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs.” See also Dan. 7:9, 10, &c. Fire is the symbol of God’s vindicating justice. So in the passage under consideration. It is a graphic description in the imagery of the Old Testament, of that divine recompense which would overtake those that persecuted the Christians. It doubtless primarily refers to those deliverances of Christians, and the overthrow of their enemies, which would take place at death, when the Christian would enter upon the rest of Heaven. 2 Thess. 2:1-9, is of the same import, and to be understood in a similar manner. Although misapprehending the time when, yet it was not far distant when the apostate or apostasy there mentioned would be consumed with the Spirit of God’s mouth, viz., truth, and destroyed by the brightness of his coming, or presence. For Paul wrote Timothy that the Lord Jesus Christ was about to judge the living and the dead. See 2 Tim. 4:1. The common translation conveys a most incorrect view of that passage as to the time when the quick and the dead were to be judged. The original has the idea that the judgment was then about to begin, or about being commenced. So the Latin, about to be, thus, “about to judge the quick and the dead,” an event then about to transpire, or beginning to transpire. It was the revelation of Christ in his administering the divine government, as the now resurrected and exalted Son of God. Paul at Athens enunciated both the fact and the scriptural idea of the Judgment. See Acts 17:30, 31. The day there referred to is the gospel day, during which mankind are to be judged, or to have the divine government administered over by Jesus Christ, ordained for that purpose, the assurance of which is the fact that God raised him from the dead, or out from among the dead ones, which I apprehend is the true idea. The scriptural idea of judgment is not primarily that of pronouncing sentence (although that is included consecutively), but of administration. Samuel judged Israel forty years. The Lord shall judge his people—judge the fatherless and oppressed, judge among the nations—shall judge the world, judge the secrets of men by the gospel, judge the quick and the dead. Thus Christ came into the world for judgment, to administer the divine government. The coming of Christ to judgment, is his coming to execute the divine government, according to his gospel, by which principles all mankind are to be judged, and condemned or acquitted. And as his kingdom includes both the visible and the invisible world—the living and the dead—those who have passed from this earth life to the spirit world, Christ has the authority thus to judge all men. But time and space will not admit me to examine selected passages of scripture on this point. From what has been shown, it seems conclusive that the Scriptures do not teach the personal return of Christ to our earth. But as the Scriptures do teach a coming of the Son of man, and a coming of the Lord, and as those comings are positively affirmed both by Christ and the apostles, to have been near at hand, just at the door during that age, we are forced to give such an interpretation of the Scripture as will conform to that fact. For not only did Christ and his apostles teach his coming to be then near, the fact was nearly the universal belief of all Christians in that age. The fact that no such personal coming has as yet transpired, although Adventists have ever been prophesying the time was near, ought at least to awaken the inquiry as to the fact itself. Adventists, Millerites, Irvingites, ancient Chiliasts, or Millenarians, have thus far found themselves in error, especially as regards the time of Christ’s advent, and I doubt not they will equally find themselves in error as regards the manner of the advent. Before closing this proposition, I will just notice that the remarks of the reviewer to No. 8 of my article, seem as if intended for caricaturing than otherwise, where he paraphrases Matt. 24:30, 31, and 25:31, 34. In John 14:23, Jesus says that both himself and Father will come and abide with such as keep God’s commandments. Was this a coming of the Father or Son bodily? That the coming of the Son of man is fulfilled in the growth of the kingdom of Heaven, and the coming of the Lord is fulfilled in the administration of the divine government, the death, resurrection, and final award, of all mankind, and all events therewith connected, is true. But that it includes the personal return of Christ to our earth, I am unable to see. In short, the advent of the Lord will be found in a higher and deeper unfolding of the Sacred Word, whereby its more interior, spiritual sense will be revealed, the more perfect development of the divine principles of the kingdom of God, the great increase of true knowledge, and final triumph of the Redeemer’s kingdom. As the Jews made the great mistake respecting the first advent of the Lord, so I most truly believe the Adventists are making a similar mistake respecting his second advent. Thus believing, I cannot but feel the importance of endeavoring to aid somewhat in a true exegesis of the scripture teaching. May we all “receive the truth in the love of it.”