The Second Coming of Christ.
By Uriah Smith
IS IT A SPIRITUAL COMING?
In our last article on this subject, in the REVIEW of Dec. 8, 1874, we referred to the testimony of the angels to the disciples who witnessed the ascent of their Lord, when he was taken up from the Mount of Olives. These angels testified that the very same Jesus would return again in like manner as they had seen him go into heaven. There was to be identity as to the individual that ascended. Christ did not ascend as an influence, or a calamity, but as a real, literal, tangible being, the same that had lived, moved, taught, healed the sick, died and rose again, here upon the earth. The second coming of Christ is to be accomplished in the same person; and there is to be identity of manner between his going away and his coming again. This testimony would seem to be sufficiently explicit. It matters not that no others, so far as we are informed, except the disciples saw him ascend. They saw him; and there is no intimation that they were in any other than their normal condition. But in relation to his second coming we have the positive assurance that every eye shall see him, not only the saints, but they “also that pierced him;” and tribes and nations will behold him, who will be so unprepared to meet him that they will wail because of him, and endeavor to hide from his holy presence. It is not therefore owing to any special spiritual condition of the disciples, either first or last, that they beheld him when he ascended, or will behold him when he returns. But to men of the world this is not a pleasing picture; nor is it, we are surprised and grieved to say, to very many who profess to be the followers of the Lord, ministers, no less than laymen. They seem to be far too ready to try to console themselves with the idea that the second coming of Christ is not an event to burst upon the outward world with a splendor tenfold that of the noon-day sun, to startle mankind from their dreams of peace and safety, to reveal to them that the insulted Lamb’s great day of wrath is come, and to excite, too late for them, the sad inquiry, “Who shall be able to stand?” They prefer to look upon that coming as some sudden manifestation of judgment, some silent, and perhaps hidden, operation of divine power, or the cutting short of some earthly career by death. He comes to them in the secret chamber, or has erected his ensign in the far distant desert. But which of these theories is attested by divine authority? We can anchor our faith upon nothing less than this. To the law and the testimony. Whatever is not in accordance with this, is darkness and not light. Doctors of divinity may therefore tell us as often as they please, when some sudden calamity has put an end to the life of a fellow-being, that “we are hereby taught that in such an hour as we think not the Son of man cometh;” they may tell us when a dying man expires in the silent chamber, that to him the Son of man has come; or that a soul in the joys of regeneration has met the second coming of Christ—we pass these declarations61by for just what they are worth; which is nothing at all, and inquire, “What saith the Scripture?” Christ once intimated to his disciples that one of their number might remain till his coming. “If I will,” said he, “that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?” John 21:22. Did the disciples understand him to mean, “If I will that he tarry, or live, till he dies?” So far from that, the saying went immediately abroad among them that that disciple should not die at all. And would not they be as likely to have a correct view of the matter as could be gathered from the warped and molded and twisted and mystified theology of the present day? Another representative text upon this subject is found in 1 Thess. 4:15–17: “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep. 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.” The task of harmonizing this Scripture with the figurative view of the second coming of Christ, is not one which we would like to undertake to perform. Some of the difficulties which would beset the attempt will appear if we read the text substituting a figurative coming for the real one expressed in the text. For instance if death is the second coming of Christ, we can legitimately read the text with this idea thus: “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain until we die, shall not prevent them which are asleep; for death shall take place 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 to die in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” Can any rational man for a moment entertain a view which transforms the word of God into such jargon? The sober reader will pardon us for thus carrying out this theory to its legitimate results. The intense absurdity of the view we would refute, is our apology. The coming of the Lord is the Christian’s blessed hope. That day, is to him a day of triumph, redemption, and joy. He is to desire it, and fervently pray for its approach. Titus 2:13; Matt. 6:9, 10; Rev. 22:20. But death is an evil, the penalty of sin, an enemy. 1 Cor. 15:26. How would it sound to read Rom. 6:23, thus: “For the wages of sin is the coming of the Lord: but the gift of God, is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord?” or 1 Cor. 15:26, thus: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is the coming of the Lord”? And spiritism, that vilest and most brazen-faced development of Satanic delusion, may teach by its peeping and muttering that he is in the secret chamber; that he has come in the manifestation of spirits; and that every good man is himself Christ. But what saith the Scripture? It says this: “Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the secret chamber, believe it not.” Matt. 24:26. The human heart is prone to unbelief. Men seem very ready to adopt almost any negative form of belief. Will they not be ready then to go with the Bible in this respect, and not believe what it expressly tells them they should not believe? Alas! how the perversity of fallen human nature here comes forth! Willingly influenced by him who is the father and promulgator of all lies, multitudes are ready to believe just what the Bible expressly tells them they should not believe, and to disbelieve that which it just as expressly tells them they should believe. So they are seeking for the second coming of Christ in the secret chambers, in the filthy and blasphemous work of the spirits, or in the distant desert. A few, we rejoice to know, will follow the unerring chart and believe not these false cries of error. Is any further reason needed why we should not accept the doctrine of a spiritual and invisible coming of Christ? why we should not believe that he is in the secret chamber, or go forth to meet him in the desert? If so, we have it in the language of the Son of God himself: Matt. 24:27: “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.” Yes, as visible as is the vivid lightning to all eyes, so visible, open, and apparent, will be the coming of the Son of man. No man will need to apprise his neighbor that the Lord has come; for all will know it, many far too well for their own peace of mind or hope of Heaven. We know of but two passages in which Christ is spoken of as coming in a figurative manner. These are verses 5 and 16 of Rev. 2. But in these messages to the churches Christ himself is represented in a figure; hence the coming spoken of in connection must be of the same nature, and be understood in a figurative sense. There is surely no excuse for confounding these with that coming which is to be in the clouds of heaven, Matt. 26:64, when every eye shall see him, Rev. 1:7, when all the tribes of the earth shall wail because of him, Matt. 24:30, when kings, and the great men, and the rich men, of the earth shall call to the rocks and to the mountains to hide them from his presence, Rev. 6:15, 16, when the Man of Sin shall be consumed by the Spirit of his mouth, and destroyed by the brightness with which his coming is attended, 2 Thess. 2:8, and when all those who know not God, and obey not the gospel, shall be punished with everlasting destruction from his presence and the glory of his power. 2 Thess. 1:8. With such declarations in his hand, the man who can err on this momentous question must be one of those whom Peter calls willingly ignorant. Be sure, reader, that such a coming of Christ as is set forth in the foregoing scriptures is before the world; and for such a coming as this, we now do well to prepare; for we shall show before we conclude these articles that it is even now at the door. U. S.