p. 7 | The Coming of Our Lord by George W. Rine

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 9, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 26.

The Coming of Our Lord

By George W. Rine

The Promise and Assurance

No fact is better authenticated than that Jesus the Christ once came into our world and for a time lived among men. That He once came is a divine pledge that He will come again. During His earthly ministry Christ repeatedly and explicitly taught His followers to expect His return. During His last journey to Jerusalem, He foreshadowed His own history in the parable of the nobleman going into a far country to receive a kingdom and return, who left his servants behind with the command, "Occupy till I come." Luke 19:12, 13.

One evening, during the week immediately preceding His crucifixion, He sat on the Mount of Olives, doubtless looking down upon the massive buildings of the temple, the utter destruction of which He had just foretold. The disciples came to Him with the request: "Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?" Matt. 24:3. It is certain from the nature of this question that His second coming was to them no new thought, and that it was occupying their minds. Knowing that He would come again, they wished to know how to recognize the approach of that momentous event. In answering the question, the Lord projected a panorama of intervening history, and dwelt upon the need of watchfulness on the part of His church, because the precise time of His coming no man could know. By two graphic illustrations, the parable of the ten virgins and that of the ten talents, He set forth the twofold kind of preparation needed on the part of believers; namely, the inward preparation of the spiritual life and the outward preparation of diligent service. He closed the discourse with the unqualified declaration that when He came the second time He would come as the Son of Man sitting upon the throne of His glory, and surrounded by all the holy angels.

The Promise

Through the dark, sorrowful hours of the very last night, when the little band of disciples were grouped about Him in that upper room, His thoughts were occupied with His return. The disciples were in deep sorrow because of the parting which all vaguely felt was near. In His love and pity, the Master began His farewell words to them with the consoling assurance: "Let not your heart be troubled. . . . I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again." John 14:1-3. A few hours later He was in the midst of the shameful scenes of His trial.

Mark His answer to the demand of the high priest, that He state plainly whether He held Himself to be the Christ, the Son of God: "Nevertheless I say unto you, Henceforth ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven." Matt. 26:64. As He stood there with fettered hands before His accusers, His appearance no doubt seemed to belie His words. Yet He did not shrink from declaring that the time would come when the conditions would be reversed, and when they would see that His claim was true. Through all the ignominy of these terrible hours, the vision of His return in glory sustained and inspired His tortured soul; and "for the joy that was set before Him," He "endured the cross, despising the shame."

At His ascension, the same truth was again burned into the minds of the disciples, by the two angels who stood by them as they gazed in wistful wonder toward the point in the heavens where their Lord had disappeared from view. "This same Jesus," declare those shining messengers, "which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven." It was this Heaven-sent assurance that sent the disciples back to Jerusalem "with great joy," as Luke tells us in the closing words of his Gospel. We see, then, that when Jesus returned to His Father, after completing the mission of His first coming, He left His followers radiant with the joyful certainty that He would come again.

Insistently Declared to Be the Hope of the Church

The conversion of the Thessalonians to the Christian faith is described as turning "to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for His Son from heaven." 1 Thess. 1:9, 10. Of the Corinthian believers it is declared that they "come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Cor. 1:7. To the Philippian church Paul writes: "Our citizenship is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ." Phil. 3:20. In the Epistle to the Hebrews the same thought is enforced. There we read, "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation." Chapter 9:28. Nothing can be more certain than that the primitive Christians not only looked back to a Saviour who had come, and who had died and risen, but forward to a Saviour who would come again. "There were two poles in their conversion. Their faith was enclosed in the past in the facts of the death and resurrection of the Lord,

and also in the future in the assured hope of His return." Is it not evident, therefore, that the second coming of Christ occupied a vital and central place in the gospel, as preached by the apostles, and as believed and received by the primitive churches?

Let us remind ourselves that the one all-embracing hope of the New Testament church rests upon the coming of our Saviour. That hope was to the early Christians the one beacon light that cast its sacred glow over all their lives. Paul depicts the true Christian attitude as one of eager expectancy in respect to the second advent, in these words: "The grace of God . . . hath appeared to all men, 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 2:11-13. Again and again the word "hope" is upon the lips of the apostles; and in the epistles they use it more than a score of times in direct connection with "that blessed hope," the glorious appearing of the Lord.

In the words of a distinguished student and teacher of the Bible, "The whole life and work of the New Testament church has the coming of the Lord in view." Paul teaches unmistakably that the sanctification of believers is a preparation for the coming of the Master. To the Thessalonians he writes: "The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Mark the grace and tenderness with which John expresses the same thought: "And now, little children, abide in Him; that, when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming." 1 John 2:28. It is by an appeal to the same glorious event that Paul exhorts Timothy to fidelity, charging him to "keep the commandment, without spot, without reproach, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Tim. 6:14. In precisely the same spirit Peter exhorts his fellow elders: "Feed the flock of God which is among you. . . . And when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." 1 Peter 5:2-4. To the remnant or last-day church the divine Spirit addresses the following admonition to patience and stability, basing His appeal upon the imminence of the Lord's return: "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; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." James 5:7, 8. Our acts of worship, as for example, the observance of the Lord's Supper, must have the same blessed end in view. For says the apostle, "As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come." 1 Cor. 11:26.

Thus, we find that all the holy apostles held forth the hope of the glorious appearing of our Lord as the most potent and inspiring motive for Christian life and service. It was this hope that filled the whole horizon of the early church. In the following inimitably graceful passage, John points out the supremely practical value of the Christian grace of hope in its essential relation to

the coming of Jesus: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure." 1 John 3:2, 3.

Mark the verve with which Peter protests: "We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." As certainly as the words of Jesus are true, as surely as the oracles of the everlasting God are steadfast, Jesus Himself, in glorified humanity, will return again to this very world that once rejected and crucified Him. All the prophets, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, have predicted it. All devout believers, from the beginning of the world, have prayed and yearned for it. Both before His death and after His resurrection, Jesus repeatedly promised to return. Again, the very last words in the blood-sealed Testament which He sent us from heaven are, "He which testifieth these things saith, SURELY I COME QUICKLY. AMEN."

After visions of supernal glory had passed before the "beloved disciple;" after he had seen the new heaven and the new earth clothed in the beauty of peace and holiness; after his soul had dwelt with rapture upon the New Jerusalem, the holy city, whose light was like a stone most precious, his supreme passion is not centered in these glories, but in Jesus, the fountain of all beauty and glory. Just as we should expect, therefore, the prayer which rises instinctively from his heart, as he is about to lay down his pen, is simply, "Come, Lord Jesus." Assuredly, then, we are driven by the whole trend and tenor of the Holy Scriptures to expect our Lord's return to receive His blood-bought church to Himself, that where He is, there they may be also.