The Second Coming of Christ.
By Uriah Smith
We have spoken of the importance of the subject of the second personal advent of the Saviour to our world. In developing a brief argument upon the question, we notice first, the absolute necessity that such an event should take place. Christ has undertaken the redemption of his people. God’s revealed will makes known to us the occasion for this work, and the means by which it is to be accomplished. Inasmuch as death has passed upon all men through Adam’s transgression, a restoration from that condition becomes a prime necessity. And inasmuch as, through sin, the curse has fallen upon the earth, the proposed redemption must remove its effects that it shall leave no trace behind. God has declared his purpose that the earth shall be inhabited, certainly by a race of holy beings, Isa. 45:18; that the meek shall inherit it, Matt. 5:5; that the righteous shall dwell in it, 2 Pet. 3:13. But he never would abandon his people to the eternal occupancy of a sin-polluted abode. The place will be made holy for a holy people. It was promised Abraham that he should be the heir of the world. Rom. 4:13. He died without having received the promise. Heb. 11:8, 13. How is it to be fulfilled to him? In the same way that he accounted that God was able to fulfill the promise concerning Isaac, when called to offer him up; namely, by a resurrection from the dead. Abraham is in his grave, and the earth is still under the defilement of sin. The earth is not now in a condition for the fulfillment of the promise, nor Abraham in a condition to receive it. But the promise will be fulfilled. Abraham will be raised from the dead; and the earth as the eternal abode of himself and his seed, will be purified from sin. That the resurrection is to be a literal coming up from the grave and a restoration to life is shown by the impressive vision recorded in Ezekiel 37. Sinews are laid upon the dry bones. Flesh comes up upon them. Skin covers them. From the four winds the breath of life is breathed into them; and they live, and stand up an exceeding great army. By what means is the resurrection of the dead to be accomplished? We inquire not now how it might have been accomplished. God is not limited in resources, and might have accomplished his purposes in any one of an infinite number of ways. But in what way has he seen fit that this event shall be accomplished, as revealed in his word? We answer, It is by the personal return of the Lord to this earth in power and glory. The resurrection, in reference to the means by which it is accomplished, is everywhere connected with this event, and everywhere made to depend upon it. The dead rise “at the last day,” John 11:24, “at the last trump,” 1 Cor. 15:52, when “the Lord himself descends from heaven,” 1 Thess. 4:16, at the literal voice of the Son of God, John 5:28, 29, when the righteous are rewarded, Luke 14:14, which is at the second coming of Christ, Rev. 22:12, when the quick and dead are judged, at his appearing and kingdom, 2 Tim. 4:1, and when such men as Paul, who have finished their course, receive their crown of life, in the day of his appearing. Verse 8. The resurrection of the dead is therefore necessary to the promised redemption. Without a future life the promises to Abraham and his seed cannot be fulfilled; and there is no other avenue to the future life except through the resurrection; for Paul in the most explicit language testifies that if there be no resurrection, then those that have fallen asleep, yes, even those that have fallen asleep in Christ, who certainly have a hope of eternal life if any one has, even they have perished. 1 Cor. 15:16–18. And unless Christ returns from Heaven with the archangel’s trump, and with his own divine voice wakes the slumberers in the silent tomb, they never will come forth from their dusty beds. Without the coming of Christ there is to be no resurrection. We know that men generally believe in a different method of obtaining eternal life. They tell us of a mysterious principle dwelling in every member of the human family, denominated the immaterial spirit, the immortal soul, which lives on unaffected by the death of the body, in more than earthly consciousness and activity, capable in its own nature of existing forever, and consequently passing right on at death into the realms of eternal life. Thus they have it that all are in possession of eternal life, though Christ should never return, and the dead should never be raised. But this is a way of their own devising. These are sparks of their own kindling. These are cisterns of their own hewing. They hold no water. They do not contain the gospel hope. The Bible knows nothing of that product of heathen mythology, the immaterial deathless spirit, which has peopled the pagan heavens with deified dead men, and robs the gospel of Christ of its foundation and its glory. Not by a spirit shooting off into space when the body dies, do we gain the other world, and the life to come, but by the personal return of the Lord to perform the crowning acts in his great scheme of redemption: to gather his people from the land of the enemy, Jer. 31:15, 16, clothe them with immortality, 1 Cor. 15:52–54, gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity, Matt. 13:41, take his own long-promised throne, Luke 1:32, 33, and put into actual operation that kingdom the coming of which the disciples of Christ are taught to remember in constant prayer. Matt. 6:10; Luke 22:29; Rev. 3:21. The idea of the personal return of our Lord to complete his redeeming work, is in harmony with his whole course of action in regard to it thus far. He has manifested a personal interest in his work and often been personally present to carry it forward. In Eden man held personal converse with the deity. A divine being whom we have reason to believe was the Son of God, appeared personally to Abraham. Gen. 18:1. With the Israelites in the wilderness Paul assures us that Christ was personally present. 1 Cor. 10:1–4. And no Bible believer doubts his personal presence here on earth, when at his first advent he came to perform that act which lies at the foundation of the whole scheme by giving himself an offering for the world. Will he now remain away and leave the work to be finished in some other manner? Having shown himself here in his humility, will he not also appear here in his glory? Yes; for he is coming in glory with all the holy angels with him, Matt. 25:31, and they who beheld his sufferings and agony, they who were the instruments of his cruel death upon the cross, will behold his triumph. Rev. 1:7. We have seen how the resurrection is necessary to the future life, and how the resurrection itself is dependent on the coming of Christ. If now we drop out this doctrine that the Lord is to return, we drop out the link that connects this life with the future; the chain is broken, and the whole plan of salvation is nullified and destroyed. We thus see the necessity of the second coming of Christ. It is an event absolutely essential to the fulfillment of the promises of God. And having shown its necessity we have shown its certainty; for no promise of God will go unfulfilled. In the language of the pious Alleine we may well say:— “This is the day I look for and wait for, and have laid up all my hopes in. If the Lord return not, I profess myself undone—my preaching is vain, and my suffering is vain, and the bottom in which I have intrusted all my hopes is forever miscarried. But I know whom I have trusted; we are built upon the foundation of his sure word, and how fully doth that word assure us that this same Jesus who is gone up into heaven, shall so return. Oh! how sure is the thing! How near is the time! How glorious will his appearing be! What generous cordials hath he left us in his parting sermons and his last prayer; and yet of all the rest, these words are the sweetest: ‘I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also.’”