Many profess to believe
in the return of Christ, who make what the word of God says on the subject of
none effect by holding popular traditions. THE TRUTH is such a perfect system
that it will not admit of the introduction of one error without making
confusion. The return of Christ is a burning and shining light throughout the
Scriptures, and upon it depends the resurrection of the dead, the reward of the
righteous, the fulfillment of the covenants of promise--in short the world’s
redemption. This important truth is nullified by the belief that all good men
go to heaven when they die, and that heaven, not the earth, is the everlasting
abode of the righteous, and that all the good have gone there and are saved.
Why should Christ return to the earth, if, "at the end of the world,"
all the good of Adam’s race are to be taken to heaven, and all the wicked are
to be plunged into a hell of torment and the earth burned up? Where is there
room left for a belief in the personal return and reign of Christ on the earth?
Belief in the second coming of Christ by those who are wedded to the theory of
heaven-going at death is very inconsistent. The false theory will not harmonize
with the truth. It is more consistent to hold the radical "orthodox"
theory of heaven-going and deny entirely the personal coming of Christ. But the
only safe way is to accept the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth. What has every reader of Scripture a right to expect from the prophecies
and promises we find, in the Old Testament especially? The very first promise
we have, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head, would
surely give us to understand that Christ, who is the seed of the woman referred
to, will accomplish what is implied by bruising the serpent’s head. What evil
had the serpent introduced into the world? It had really been the cause of all
evil, in whatever form it might appear and to bruise the serpent’s head could
mean nothing else than to remove all the evils of which the serpent’s lie was
the first cause. We come along down the ages until the time when the seed of
the woman appears. Does He bruise the serpent’s head to the extent that the
promise would imply? Does He remove the evils, with which the world had then
become full? The only sense in which it can be said that he bruised the
serpent’s head is, so far as it applied to Himself, He gained the victory over death
and the grave, in Himself and for Himself, but death still held in the tomb all
those who had died in the faith and it was declared by the apostle it was
heresy to teach that the resurrection was past already. Hence so long as death
held in its grasp those who had died in the Abrahamic faith, the serpent’s head
had not been bruised. Look at the world at the time Christ was here and trace
its history to the present; view it as it is today and who can say that the
serpent’s head has been bruised? Who can say that sin with all its resultant
evils has been eliminated from the earth? Here is a work that Christ as the
seed of the woman was to do. He came; he went, but he did not do it. Shall we
say that He has failed to do the work allotted to Him? Nay, verily.
PART OF HIS
Again we go back and
read that the whole earth was to be filled with the glory of the Lord. From
numerous testimonies we may be sure that this wonderful work was to be
performed in and through Christ, for whom and on account of whom all things are
created. Did he, when he was here eighteen hundred years ago, fill the earth
with the glory of the Lord? Nay verily. We have seen from the covenants of
promise that the world was to be given into His hands and that He would bless
all nations of the earth. He came, but all nations of the earth are not
blessed. The covenant with David was that God would give to Christ his throne,
and that He would reign over the house of Jacob for ever. The house of Jacob is
still scattered among the nations of the earth; the throne of David is in
ruins; Christ has been here, and has gone. The covenant is not fulfilled. Will
it never be fulfilled? Who would dare say that God’s promises will fail? We go
back again to Moses, and hear him declare, "A prophet shall the Lord your
God raise up unto you like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things." The
prophet came, and appeared unto
It is not necessary to
quote further from the numerous testimonies of the Old Testament Scriptures to
prove the second coming of Christ. The fact that the larger part of the Old
Testament prophecies remain unfulfilled, and their fulfillment depends on His
second coming, is sufficient of itself to show that, since the word of God
cannot fail, Christ must return again to accomplish all that the law and the
prophets require in and through Him. As to the New Testament it really ought
not to be necessary to cite the numerous testimonies in proof of such clearly
revealed truth. The truth upon this and upon all other subjects would be very
easily understood were it not for the speculations and perverseness of the
religious world, which cloud and obstruct the way to a clear understanding. The
following are some of the passages which declare in unmistakable language
Christ’s return to the earth; and when we say Christ’s return, we mean His
return in a real, tangible, personal sense, with no mystic or so-called
spiritual meaning attached. We mean His coming as real as His going was, and
let the reader keep this in view in examining these passages, and it will be
seen no other conclusion can be reached.
Matt. 25: 31--When the
Son of man shall come in his glory, and all his holy angels with him,
then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory.
Luke
John
John 14: 3--And if I go
and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you, (here,
not there) unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also.
Acts 1: 9--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
I. Cor. 1: 7--So that
ye come behind in no gift, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
shall confirm you (at his coming; not at their going) unto the end, that ye may
be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I. Cor.
Phil. 3: 20--For our
conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Col. 3: 4--When Christ
who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in
glory.
I. Thess. 1: 9, 10--Ye
turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for
his Son from heaven.
II. Thess. 2: 1--Now we
beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our
gathering together unto him.
Verse 8--And then shall
that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his
mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.
II. Tim. 6: 1--I charge
thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick
and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word.
Verses 7, 8--I have
fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.
Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the
Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that (not this) day; and not
to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.
Tit. 2: 12,
13--Teaching us that denying all 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.
Heb. 9: 28--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
I. Peter 1: 7--That the
trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth,
though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory,
at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
1. John 3: 2--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.
Rev. 1: 7--Behold he
cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also that pierced
him; and all kindreds of the earth shalt wail because of him
Rev. 16: 15--Behold, I
come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth.
Rev. 22: 7--Behold, I
come quickly; blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of this book.
Verse 12--And behold, I
come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to every man
according as his work shall be.
Verse 20--He that
testifieth these things saith, Surely, I come quickly. Amen. Even so,
Come, Lord Jesus.
Yes, many will say, no
doubt the Scriptures teach the second coming of Christ, and everybody believes
in it. But how is it believed in, in what sense? Some will say that He comes in
a sort of an unexplained, inexplicable spiritual sense at the death of every
believer to take the soul to heaven; others will say that He is coming at what
is called the "end of the world," simply to raise the dead and take
all the residue of the redeemed to heaven, when the earth is to be burnt up;
but neither of these speculations is in harmony with the testimony cited. When
the angels declared His coming again, they did so in words which cannot be
misconstrued or perverted to make them suit human speculations. "This same
Jesus whom ye have seen go into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have
seen him go" is what the angels say. He went bodily, literally, and they
saw Him go. He will come in like manner, and "every eye shall see him, and
they that pierced him shall behold him." There can, therefore, be no
question about the literality of His coming.
Not only so, but what I
wish to impress upon the reader’s mind here is that salvation depends upon His
coming. It is in "the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit in the
throne of his glory" that the twelve apostles are to receive their reward.
For Peter’s question was, "What shall we have for following thee?"
What shall be our reward? And the Savior’s answer is that they shall be
rewarded "in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit in the throne
of his glory," that it is then that they shall "sit upon twelve
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of
In the parable of the
nobleman He shows them that before the establishment of His kingdom can take
place, and therefore before we can enter the kingdom, He must go to heaven and
return. During His absence there is a command for faithful followers to obey, a
commandment which unfaithful men have perverted and disobeyed. What is that
command? It might be as well here to emphasize what it is not. He does not command
them to occupy till they shall go to him in heaven, the very thing that popular
religious teachers tell the people they must do. Were we to ask them what our
duty is, and what our hope is, the answer would be, Occupy, to use the word the
Saviour used, as long as you live in this life, until you die, and then you
will go to heaven. But what is the command of the Saviour in the case? Here it
is in words unmistakable, "Occupy till I come." (Luke 19: 12-27.) It
is further said that "when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then
he commanded these servants to be called unto him." Now let us
suppose him calling his servants when he was here on earth, and just upon the
eve of his departure telling them, "Occupy till I come." I am going
away to heaven and I am coming back. I want you and all your successors, or
whoever would faithfully follow me, to occupy, that is, believe me, and obey me
during my absence; be faithful to me till I return, for I will return, and when
I do, I will call you into my presence to give an account of how you have
conducted yourselves during my absence, and your reward and punishment shall be
accordingly. Can anything be plainer than this? Can anything be more directly
opposed to popular theories than this? If the servants to whom he addressed
himself went to heaven to him as soon as they died, they have been with him
ever since. How then shall we understand him saying that when he would return
he would call them together. If they have been called together to him in heaven
two thousand years before, how can He call them together here when he returns
to this earth? And let it be observed that the calling together is to judge
them before they are rewarded, whereas, if they had been in heaven and had been
rewarded for two thousand years, and then called back here to earth, we should
have a reversal of the order of things, in such a manner that if an ordinary
judge were guilty of such an absurdity, he would be declared unfit for his
office.
John 14: 1-3, is quoted
by some to prove that Christ intended that his disciples should go to heaven to
him. We shall give special attention to this passage of Scripture further on,
but will simply say here that there is not a word in the text about their going
to heaven. What the text teaches is that Christ was going there, and that
Christ was coming back. For he declares, "If I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come again." Come again for what? Mark the next words, "and
receive you unto myself." After Christ should have received them in heaven
two thousand years before, how could he come again to receive them? The
receiving here is when he comes again, and not when they go to him. This
receiving when he comes again is that, "where I am," that is, where I
am when I come again, or, if you like, where I am now when I am uttering these
words, "there ye may be also." That he did not mean
that they were to go to heaven to him is clear from the fact that He told them,
"Whither I go ye cannot come," and the apostle Paul declares of God
in heaven, that "no man hath seen Him, nor can see Him, whom no man can
approach unto." The Saviour also declares that "no man hath seen God
at any time." In the declaration of the angels upon the occasion of
Christ’s ascension to heaven, when they assure us that his coming will be in
like manner to his going, let it be observed that this was given as a
consolation to our Lord’s anxious disciples. If ever a little company of people
were anxious they were at that time, and they had reasons to be so. When we
take into consideration the state of things in the world at that time, the
trials and hardships through which the disciples had passed in company with
their Lord and Master; the cruelty which he had suffered at the hands of the
Jews and Gentiles, when his faithful followers were terror-stricken and amazed,
so much so that Peter was dazed and so staggered that he hardly knew what he
was saying when he denied his Master in that trying hour when Jews and Gentiles
sought his destruction. I say, when we consider what they had passed through,
and the threatenings which seemed to confront them on every hand, and then to
think that their only hope, the one in whom they had placed their implicit
trust and confidence, the Shepherd of the sheep, was about to be snatched away
and leave them in a dark and cruel world, as sheep without a shepherd, we can
get a faint idea of the anxiety of the little company in that trying hour. If
ever men needed consolation, real consolation, not flattery, not mere poetic
words, but a consolation full of reality, they needed it at that time. Not only
so, but they needed such consolation as would bring them as nearly as possible
to its realization. Whatever promise the angels had for those men it should be
such as would be nearest to them, the first blessing they would realize as a
deliverance from the troubles and trials through which they were passing.
According to the popular world, that which was nearest to them in the way of
deliverance was death, and the consolation which would have been given to them
by the leaders of religious theories of our times would have been, Why stand ye
gazing up into heaven? Why are you so anxious? It will only be a few short
years till you die, and then you shall be wafted away on angel’s wings to
heaven, to Christ, to bask in bliss eternal. I ask you, dear reader, would this
not have been the consolation given by popular pulpiteers? Is not this the
consolation they give now to men and women who are distressed? But how
different the consolation given by angelic messengers who came with heavenly
authority; who came with consolation which had its foundation, not in
flattering, foolish poetic flights, more noted for their poetry than their
truth; but in words of living truth they declare the deliverance which awaited
those anxious people was not to be at death. It was not to be until Christ,
whom they had seen going into heaven, would so come in like manner as they had
seen him go. This was their consolation. Hence upon the second coming of Christ
depended the salvation of those who had faithfully followed him.
We can understand now
why the apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians says, "So that ye come
behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Why
it was that he said, "Christ the first-fruits; afterwards they that are
Christ’s at his coming;" why he declared to the Philippians,
"Our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the
Saviour;" why he said to the Colossians, "When Christ who is our life
shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory;" why he
said to the Thessalonians, "Ye turned to God from idols to serve the
living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven;" why he
declared to the same church, "Now we beseech you, brethren, by the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto
him," showing that it is when the Lord comes that we are to be
gathered together unto him, and it is not that we are gathered together in
heaven before he comes. And in harmony with all this he declares, in writing to
Timothy, "I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ,
who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his
kingdom." Whom is he to judge? The quick and the dead. When is he to judge
them? At his appearing and His Kingdom. When will he reward them?--before he
judges them? No. Therefore not before he appears. Whom is he to judge, again I
ask? The quick. Who are they? Those who are alive when Christ comes; and those
who are dead, not alive,--two classes--He will raise the dead, and they with
the quick, the living, will be gathered together unto him, and he will judge
them, and this will be at his appearing and his kingdom. It cannot be made
plainer. Is it not a wonder that the world has gone astray from such clear
teaching? The apostle, himself, when he came to face death, declared that he
had fought the good fight, and kept the faith, and that henceforth there was
laid up for him a crown of righteousness. Henceforth, that is from the time I
die forward until a certain time, there is laid up, or reserved for me a crown
of righteousness. If popular theories are true, Paul was mistaken, for that was
not the time when the crown of righteousness would be laid up, that was the
time when he would receive it. The moment he died he would mount triumphant to
heaven, and there would be crowned with his crown of righteousness. But Paul
did not understand it so. His faith, the good fight for which he had fought,
was a faith that believed that from the time he died forward his crown of
righteousness would be laid up for him. And now let us ask him when he expects
to receive that crown of righteousness. And he answers, "which the Lord,
the righteous judge shall give me;" here we have really the answer, for he
had just said to Timothy that the righteous judge would judge the quick and the
dead at His appearing, and it was as a righteous judge that he would give Paul
his crown of righteousness. Inasmuch as His appearing as a righteous judge
would not take place until His second coming, how could Paul receive his
laid-up crown of righteousness at the hands of the righteous judge until the
righteous judge had come to judge the quick and the dead, among whom the
apostle Paul was numbered? But he does not stop there, he proceeds further,
"which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day"--not
this day. Mark you, not now, the day of my death, but at that day, the day
at the end of the time during which my crown of righteousness shall be laid up,
then the righteous judge shall give it to me at that day. What day,
Paul? "And not to me only, but unto all them also that love his
appearing." No wonder then, that Paul said "that we, denying
ungodliness and worldly lusts, should live soberly, and righteously, and godly
in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of
the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ."
In writing to the
Hebrews the apostle shows us that this coming, of which he is speaking, and in
which centers his hope and the hope of every follower of Christ, is the second
coming. It is not a spiritual coming that is taking place all the time, at the
time of every believers death; in fact, that would not be a coming at all, that
would be a staying here, for every moment of time, according to popular
theories, believers are dying, and it is not imaginable that Christ would be
going and coming as rapidly as every individual believer dies. It would be
Christ here all the time to receive the soul of every one as it leaves the
body, and Christ in heaven all the time receiving them there, and that would be
no coming in any sense. But the apostle says, "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." Note the words. They are full
of meaning. They not only tell us that He will appear, but that this appearing
of which he is speaking is Christ’s second appearing. Our relation to
that appearing is also set forth, for it is said, to them that look for Him,
that is to them that look for His second coming, He shall appear to their
salvation, which surely would imply that He will not appear to the
salvation of those who do not look for His second coming, who do not
"occupy" till the nobleman returns. Yet they change and pervert His
word and persist in going to Him, instead of His coming to them.
These words of the
apostle find a type in the High Priest under Moses. In this same chapter he has
given a detailed account of the Holy places of the tabernacle, and of the High
Priest going into the Most Holy place on the day of atonement, which he shows
was typical of Christ going into heaven. As the High Priest appeared in the
Most Holy in behalf of Israel in order that atonement might be effected between
the nation and their God, so Christ has gone into heaven as the high priest of
the Israel of God there and now to appear on their behalf, where "He ever
liveth to make intercession for us." He is now within the veil. And here
we might ask, What were the children of
Dear reader, we beseech
you to hear the voice which speaks from heaven, "Surely I come
quickly," for we are in the days when "quickly" means more
than it ever did before. It is for you to place yourself in such relation to
God as to be able to respond, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." If you are
an alien from the