HE WILL COME AGAIN by Matthew Larson

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 30, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 26.

HE WILL COME AGAIN.

By Matthew Larson

BY ELDER MATTHEW LARSON.

"Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:1-3.

These were the words of Christ, addressed as a message of comfort and consolation to his sorrowing disciples, just shortly before his crucifixion. He had been telling them that soon he must be taken from them, and their hearts had been filled with sadness by the announcement; therefore Christ sought thus to encourage them. Not only was this promise intended to comfort the disciples, but it was designed to cheer and comfort the people of God to the end of time.

The fact of there being so much said upon this theme in the Holy Scriptures sufficiently attests the importance attached to it. It is a theme at once both interesting, practical, and important. Around this event cluster all the hopes and joyful expectations of the child of God. It is the event of all events, the event for which all other events have been made, and in which they all culminate. It is the "blessed hope" of the church. Says the apostle in speaking of the grace of God:—

"Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." Titus 2:12, 13.

To the saint it is appealed to as an incentive to patience (James 5:7, 8; Heb. 10:35-37), watchfulness, prayer, and sobriety (1 Peter 4:7), and to the sinner as an incentive to repentance and conversion (Acts 3:19-21).

"I will come again," is the express promise of the Saviour. But there seems to be some difference of opinion as to just how, or in what manner, he will come. We will, therefore, now enter upon a consideration of this phase of the question.

THE MANNER OF HIS COMING.

That Christ will come again must be admitted by all who accept the Bible. It cannot be denied. But there seems to be a sort of a vague or undefined idea in the minds of many as to just how he will come, or what will constitute that coming. It is sometimes urged that death is Christ's second coming. But to this we must object. Death is an enemy, but Christ's second coming is set forth in the Scriptures of truth as the "blessed hope" of the church, the grand and glorious consummation of all things, the ushering in of the glad and eternal day when the saints are to receive their final reward and enter their glorious eternal home, the end of sorrow, sin, and of pains. Rev. 21:1-7; 22:12. But the saints do not receive or enter upon their reward at death. Upon this point inspiration is both plain and positive. The reward is not obtained until at the resurrection—the resurrection of the just:—

"But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind; and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee; for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." Luke 14:13, 14.

But when does the resurrection take place? Not at death; for in the resurrection they are to be called forth from the grave:—

"Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in their graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." John 5:28, 29.

"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 [at that time—at "the coming of the Lord"] we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them [the dead, who have just been resurrected] in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so [in that way or manner] shall we ever be with the Lord." 1 Thess. 4:16, 17; 1 Cor. 15:52.

We are to be caught up "together." But who does not see that if the dead go right to heaven at death, then this could not be so. "Wherefore," adds the apostle, "comfort one another with these words." 1 Thess. 4:18.

That the resurrection takes place at the second coming of Christ is also evident from the following:—

"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. Then cometh the end." 1 Cor. 15:22-24.

DEATH IS AN ENEMY.

We are aware that the poet has sought to personify death as being a welcome friend; and we have been taught to sing thus:—

"Come, welcome death, I'll gladly go with thee."

But no one who has a just appreciation and proper conception of what death really is, could ever sing such a hymn. It would seem more befitting one whose mind had been driven to distraction, and who, despairing of life, would seek relief in suicide, rather than one whose mind had been enlightened and vivified by the glad contemplation of a Saviour's love. Death came by Satan. Heb. 2:14. It was the fruit of his works. It is the wages of sin. Rom 6:23. It is an enemy, not a friend. "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." 1 Cor. 15:26. And since death, the wages of sin, is an enemy,—the work of Satan,—how can we for a moment conceive the propriety of hymning to it a welcome?

But we object still further to the idea of death being Christ's coming, from the fact that he is to come but "the second time" (Heb. 9:28); and there can be but one "second" coming; whereas, if death constitutes his coming again, there would of necessity be just as many comings as there are deaths in the world. Moreover, neither Christ nor his disciples so understood, nor taught in regard to death, that it would be his coming again. When Peter asked of the Saviour what John should do, he answered him, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" Then went the saying abroad among the disciples that that disciple "should not die." If they had understood his coming to be death, then the saying ought to have gone abroad that he should die. And we might read the text thus: "If I will that he tarry till he die, what is that to thee?" "Yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" John 21:21-23.

"But," says another, "I believe his coming to be a spiritual coming, and that it is fulfilled in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, at one's conversion." To this, however, we must likewise object. For, as has already been stated, there can be but one second coming, whereas, if it takes place whenever a person is converted, there would of necessity be just as many second comings as there are conversions, which would be an impossibility, an absurdity. Besides, the Scriptures say that "every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him" (Rev. 1:7), which could not be true of conversion. However, Christ has set this question of his Holy Spirit forever at rest. He says, "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever." John 14:16. The manifestation of the Holy Spirit, then, is not Christ's second coming, but "another" Comforter. Christ's coming is to be

A PERSONAL, VISIBLE COMING.

"And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, 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 1:9-11.

They saw him ascend, a real, personal, visible Saviour, until a cloud received him out of their sight, and then came the positive declaration by the angels that he shall return, the "same" Jesus, in "like manner" as they had seen him ascend. Hence, it will be a real personal coming. "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him." Rev. 1:7. His coming will be with clouds of angels, in all the glory and grandeur of heaven. Matt. 25:31.

"Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. . . . Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert [if the Mormons say his coming is to take place at Salt Lake, in the desert of Utah, or the Latter-day Saints that it will be at Independence, Mo.]; go not forth [although a great many have gone]; behold, he is in the secret chambers [the secret chambers of death; or in the manifestations of Spiritualism]; believe it not. [And why?] 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. . . . And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." Matt 24:23-31.

When he comes at his second advent, he does not come to the earth, but, suspended above us, we are to be caught up to meet him "in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord." 1 Thess. 4:17. The glad day of deliverance draws on apace. The day of happy reunion to all who love the Lord, and who have here been long separated by the cold, chilling, withering blasts of death. There they shall no more be called upon to hear from the lips of mortals the distressing words, "I am sick" (Isa. 33:24), or the parting mournful farewell, "I will see you no more." But there they will meet to part no more. Their sufferings will all be over, their infirmities will be healed, their sorrows, heartaches, and desolations be removed, and their bitter tears be wiped away. Rev. 21:1-5. There, in that happy home, in that blessed day, shall be no more funeral trains to mar our peace or mar our joys. But "the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Isa. 35:10. There those loved ones that were ruthlessly torn from our presence by the grim fiend, the cruel hand of death, and laid away to rest beneath the cold, silent clods of the valley, will be restored in that day, and "He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." Rev. 22:20.