The Coming of Our Lord by George W. Rine

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, Cal. · Jul 16, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 27.

The Coming of Our Lord

By George W. Rine

The Manner of His Coming

AS the first advent of Jesus accomplished mystically, insensibly? Did He come in only a purely spiritual or esoteric sense? No. "The Word [the eternal Logos] was made FLESH, and dwelt among us, and we BEHELD His glory." John 1:14. Was it not prophesied of Him that He should be the seed of the woman? Gen. 3:15. And was He not actually "made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law"? Gal. 4:4, 5. Isaiah was led by the Holy Spirit to predict, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel." We all know that these remarkable Messianic forecasts were literally realized in the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem. All who are acquainted with the gospel narratives know that nineteen centuries ago Jesus appeared and dwelt among men personally, corporeally.

His Second Coming Will Therefore Be Personal and Sensible

The very fact that the first advent of our Lord was visible and personal is the earnest that His second advent will be equally so. He Himself declared, "I will come AGAIN." John 14:3. The word "again" is an implied reference to His first coming, and is, therefore, a tacit assurance that His second appearing would be literal and personal, as was His first. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, under divine inspiration, wrote in retrospect and prospect: "So Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for Him, unto salvation." Chapter 9:28, A.R.V. The two advents are here placed in balanced juxtaposition. Are we not, therefore, logically driven to conclude that as the first coming was personal and corporeal, so likewise will be the second coming?

Anticipating the sad fact that false theories in respect to His second advent would abound in the latter days, our Lord graciously addresses the following warning to His church: "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; go not forth: behold, He is in the secret chambers; believe it not. 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." Matt. 24:23-27. Could Jesus have been mistaken when, by this picturesque verisimilitude, He enunciated the manner of His second coming? Impossible! If that coming will not be palpable to human senses, then this illustration, given by the Master Himself, is not only misleading but strikingly inept.

Hundreds of years before the Christian era began, the same glorious event was predictively depicted by the Spirit-filled psalmist, in terms similar to those of our Lord. Thus: "Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: A FIRE SHALL DEVOUR BEFORE HIM, and it shall be VERY TEMPESTUOUS ROUND ABOUT HIM. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people." Ps. 50:3, 4. If the psalmist's prognostic picture of the Messiah's final appearing means anything, it means that that appearing will be open, obtrusive, literal.

We Shall See Him

In his own tender way, the beloved disciple assures us that when Jesus appears we shall see Him as He is. Here are his simple, lucid words: "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." 1 John 3:2. The very fact that we shall see Jesus when He comes, utterly contravenes the widely held theory that His coming is mystical and hidden.

John's testimony is made doubly sure by angelic attestation. When Christ ascended to His Father, the eyes of His sorrow-stricken disciples were fastened wistfully upon His disappearing form. Here is the story: "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.

So obvious is the meaning of this language that a child could not mistake it. The disciples had "SEEN Him go into heaven," the cloud had received Him out of their sight. The angels' words, "shall so come in like manner," show unmistakably that the next or second coming will be visible and therefore personal. Jesus went up corporeally, visibly, and "this SAME JESUS . . . SHALL SO COME IN LIKE MANNER as ye have seen Him go into heaven." Such language could convey to the disciples no other thought than that the Jesus whom they had so often heard, seen, and touched, would again come in His own palpable person.

That grand old patriarch Job cherished and testified to the same hope. He trusted in a personal Redeemer and in the personal manifestation of that same Redeemer "at the latter day," and he declared that he himself, not as a discarnate spirit, but in his "flesh," his glorified body, would see the Redeemer. Mark Job's protestation: "For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and tho after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall SEE for myself, and mine eyes shall behold." Job 19:25-27. The inspired Job certainly gives us no room for believing in an occult and surreptitious coming of the Lord.

Of precisely the same import is the great apostle's perfervid profession of faith, as set forth in 1 Thess. 4:16. We cite: "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." Note that it is not in the person of His Spirit or of His angels, or through the medium of His providences, that the Lord shall finally "descend," or come; but He HIMSELF, with the voice of the Archangel, and the trump of God, shall descend from heaven. The same solemn truth is divinely attested through the prophet John. Referring to Jesus as the source of his revelation, John exclaims, "Behold, He cometh with clouds; and EVERY EYE SHALL SEE HIM." Rev. 1:7.

As certainly as the words of Jesus, and those of all His holy prophets since the world began, are true, Christ Himself, in glorified humanity, will return to this very world of ours—to this world that once set Him at naught, condemned and crucified Him. Aye, He will come sitting upon the throne of His glory, with all the holy angels with Him.

If, dear reader, you are a Christian believer, you cherish the supreme hope of dwelling sometime in the visible, personal presence of your divine Lord. The object of your hope will somehow, somewhere be realized. When and How? At death? Not if the Scriptures are true. If the Redeemer's children went into His presence at death, there could be no need of His coming again, in order to receive them to Himself. Surely His first coming did not mean death to His people, and the "holy men of God" did not so understand it. Death is an enemy, declares Inspiration. 1 Cor. 15:26. But, on the contrary, the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ is distinctly set forth in the Word as essentially "that BLESSED HOPE." Titus 2:11-13. Nothing is promised us at death except rest from our labors; but we are promised all things in the resurrection, when Jesus comes. Nowhere in the Bible are we commanded to prepare for death, but we are insistently admonished to watch and prepare for the coming of the great God in the person of the Christ.

Accordingly, we glory in the hope that we shall see Him come "glorious in His apparel, and triumphing in the greatness of His strength."