"Unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation."- Heb, ix. 28.
The coming again of the Lord Jesus is spoken of in Scripture as one event, but with varying aspects according to the bearing and moral connections in which it is presented. It is my purpose, if the Lord will, to notice it in these different aspects for the stirring up of our souls to a more earnest desire for the accomplishment of this end of all our hopes.
The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for His saints is very distinct in its aspect from His coming to the world. The grand distinction however which Scripture teaches us to make is between the coming of the Lord and the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord is always invested with terrors and never presented as the attractive object of hope. Whether spoken of in the Old Testament or in the New, it is always in connection with judgment. In Mal. 4, 5 it is called " the great and dreadful day of the Lord;" and in Zeph. 1:1515That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, (Zephaniah 1:15) it is said, " that day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress." And in the New Testament the Apostle Peter says, " the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." (2 Peter 3:1010But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. (2 Peter 3:10).) But if there be one thing in Scripture more distinctive than another it is this, that as surely as faith in the object of our Lord's first coming delivers from the moral judgment of God on account of our sins, so His second coming delivers from all material judgment, which will be the world's portion on account of His rejection. If my heart has received Christ in His coining in grace, it gives me a personal, and distinctive, and essential connection with Him in His coining in glory. " When Christ who is our life shall appear [mark the term] then shall ye also appear with him in glory."
Let it be said then that the primary aspect of the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Christian is that of simple, unconditional, unembarrassed hope. Our Lord has said, and He will surely not mock our expectations, " I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." Here it is plain His coming again and our being with Him, in all the happiness of the Father's house, the happiness, and light, and eternal joy He rose to when He had accomplished redemption for us, is presented as the direct and immediate fruit of His own love and grace, and as dependent upon nothing else. Thus simply is the coming of the Lord presented in the divine word as our animating hope. But it has also another bearing to the Christian. It is connected with his responsibility to Christ. Hence the apostle's solemn charge to Timothy, " I give thee charge in the sight of God who quickeneth all things, and before Jesus Christ, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, that thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ." The appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ marks the limit of christian responsibility; and it is then, we are taught, that there will be the awards for service. For we must never forget, however bright may be our hope, that our Lord and Master has said, " Occupy till I come."
As to the general subject, it is of immense importance that we should ascertain for ourselves from Scripture, apart from any theories about it, whether or not it is presented there as an immediate hope; that is, however it may be delayed in God's long-suffering to the world, whether it is a hope whose accomplishment may be looked for at any time, or which must of necessity await the fulfillment of certain intervening prophetic events. With the hopes of Israel the events of prophecy have an intimate connection. But the church is not the subject, in any proper sense, of prophecy at all. Prophecy has its range in the events and circumstances of this world. The Apocalypse itself is no exception to this principle, since it takes up as its subject the general external profession of Christianity, as responsible to God, and traces its course onward to its issue in judgment. In this respect it is like " the olive-tree" of Rom. 11 It is true that the church, as composed of the members of Christ, while it is continued in the world, must necessarily be found within the scope of this profession; but its peculiar relationship to Christ at the same time takes it out of the stream of earthly events and circumstances as to its position and hope. It is expressly declared that when Christ is manifested in glory, whether for the deliverance and establishment of His ancient people or for the judgment of the nations that have falsely professed His name, His saints, whom He acknowledges as members of His body, will be with Him. And in Rev. 19, where He is presented as coming forth to judge the array of man's evil and rebellion, who-Cher as portrayed in" Babylon the great the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth," or, " the beast and the false prophet," it is said that " the armies in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen white and clean." It is not difficult to determine whom these armies in heaven comprise. Nor is it difficult to conclude that those who are to be with Christ when He is manifested' in glory must have been taken to be with Him before He is thus manifested.
Morally, it is personal attachment to Christ, springing from our knowledge of Him and our intercourse with Him that makes His corning again a living and an animating hope. It is well to remove, if it may be done, the difficulties that beset the subject (though these are comparatively few when Scripture is allowed to speak for itself), and also to show the grounds of this hope from the divine word; but nothing can give it power in the soul except a true and real attachment to Christ as One known to the heart in the love He has manifested in dying for us, and especially in the revelation He has given us of the pre sent and eternal intimacy of our association with Himself. Let any one read John 17, not merely as a portion of the abstract truth of the gospel, but as the outflow of the holy desires of that heart that beats in affection towards Himself as never heart beside could beat; and, above and beyond all the wondrous change of circumstances which His coming will introduce us to, let him ask if there is another desire that can rival that one of being with Him and seeing Him as He is?
I do not speak of the times in which we live, though I do not question that our subject, without overstepping the limits of revelation, might receive an enhancement from such a consideration. For what thoughtful mind is there that can fail to discern in the condition of society at large, especially in professedly christian countries, the moral signs and foreshadows of the last days? But leaving this, I pursue the subject as presented in the Scriptures of truth.
In doing this I propose to take up the divine testimonies of the word in the order in which they are there given to us. And if I do so in a series of papers, which I propose, it will obviate the necessity of so pressing on with the isolated point of proof, as to pass over unnoticed that which is of equal importance, the connections in which the general truth is presented.
Formerly, it might have been necessary by argument and induction to endeavor to establish as a preliminary the certainty of the pre-millennial coming of the Lord Jesus; but I apprehend that this is no longer the case with those who seriously look to the Scriptures as their guide. The danger now to be feared is lest it should quietly take its place as an admitted truth with other admitted truths, and become, like them, uninfluential on the soul.
I assume, then, on the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, that this was to be the moral attitude of His disciples from the time He left them to His coming again: " Let your loins be girded about and your lights burning: and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding." Now, however many generations of His servants may have fallen asleep since these words of our common Master were uttered, it is to me demonstrable that no length of time of His tarriance can give any of us a warrant to set aside this practical direction and to substitute something else in its place. It is equally demonstrable from Scripture, that however death, in the good pleasure of God, may supervene, Christians are never set to look for death as their hope, but for the coming of the Lord. Nor can the different moral effect of the one and of the other be estimated by those whose minds are not formed in this respect on the specialty of the revelation of the divine word. I may affirm that death is so abolished by Christ, and " life and immortality are [so] brought to light through the gospel," that death is not, in the New Testament, urged as a necessity to the Christian, much less is it ever held forth as an object of hope. I may, if the will of God be so, through death be carried a stage forward toward my hope; but neither is it my hope nor do I by death reach my hope. " To depart and be with Christ is far better." Who would let this go, as giving its true character to a Christian's death? But it is not the attainment of the object of his hope. It is but waiting still. In happier circumstances it is true; but still it is waiting. If " the earnest expectation of the creation waits"-waits as with outstretched neck-it is " for the manifestation of the sons of God." But what do we, and all saints wait for, if our hope is that of Scripture? Let the apostle answer: " Ourselves also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." It is not until the redemption of his body from the grave that the believer enters into glory. If absent from the body, he is present with the Lord; but he is not glorified, nor in glory. This only results from Christ's own presence in glory. " Our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior the Lord Jesus: who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like to his glorious body." This testimony of the word is decisive on this point (there are many others equally so) that whether we are in this world or in that world to which death transfers us it is to the coming of the Lord alone we must look as the time in which His power will wrest from death that trophy which he has yet in his keeping and make our vile bodies, even, partakers of His glory. As to the resurrection of the bodies of His saints it is said distinctly that this will be at Christ's coming [" Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his corning"]; and it is also said, " the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we [i.e., those who are alive at Christ's coining] shall be changed."
It is not enough dwelt upon that the ultimate purpose of God toward us in redemption is that we should be " conformed to the image of his Son." Now while the argumentative importance of this passage may have been seized as establishing the apostle's doctrine concerning the foreknowledge and purpose of God, it seems to me that its force as a positive statement concerning the final destiny of the children of God has been much overlooked. The full statement of the passage is, " whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son." In a word, redemption, in its final results to those who are the subjects of it, is declared to be this, that they will be conformed to the image of God's Son. This is definite. And how wonderful a subject is it of contemplation and of sure expectancy! But this is redemption. " As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." And that upon the principle that, " as is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly such are they also that are heavenly." This is a result now. Identity of nature is affirmed of the one and of the other; and it is declared that this will issue, in infinite grace, in identity of likeness and condition ere long. Who can help saying, while this divine purpose of love is before the soul, " Come, Lord Jesus?"
If it is not given to us to lift the vail from death that we may see the final condition, and experience, and employments of those who have passed its portals in the faith of the Lord Jesus, still it is wonderful to note the definiteness of Scripture as to the immediate result of the transition from the seen to the unseen world, and to trace the various steps in the divine actings by which the full and final issue will be brought about. What more wonderful and definite than the order and application of the divine power in the resurrection, as presented in 1 Cor. 15? What more wonderful and definite than the details it gives con corning the resurrection of the body, and of the positive characteristics of that body, so far as it is possible that they should in our present state be intelligibly given and apprehended? How unlike is all this to the dreams of poetry, or the conclusions of philosophy! We have not here the reasonings of a Plato-" It must be so;" but the positive assertions and details concerning the application of the divine power in the refashioning of our bodies, that go to dust, that philosophy never dreamed of. I do not speak now of the infinitely superior brightness of the Christian's hope in death; but of the definiteness with which things that lie beyond death are brought out to view. But what could possibly have advanced the apprehensions of ordinance-bound Jews, so immeasurably beyond the utmost limits of the speculations of the discursive philosophy of Greece? It is answered in the single sentence of the apostle," This we say unto you by the word of the Lord." And to Christians it may be well said, given the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and everything else, as the apostle argues, most naturally follows. His resurrection is indeed the demonstrative proof of the truth of Christianity; but it is a great deal more. It is that which alone gives coherence and consistency to every conviction of faith and every aspiration of hope that ever through the gospel found its lodgment in a christian heart. Take the resurrection of Christ from that chapter to which I have referred, and all the apostle's reasoning rushes to confusion. It is nothing but the consciousness that we are in the arms of Christ that makes the difference between the triumphant exit of the soul with the expression, " thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ," and its shuddering departure to an unknown, dark, and fathomless abyss!
But beyond this, in Heb. 12:22-24,22But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, 23To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22‑24) we have what I believe to be, not the presentation of an array of theological truths in figurative language, but the showing of the company we shall meet in heaven, and the order which is kept in the heavenly Jerusalem. And when the apostle says," Ye are come," &c., he teaches us with what scenes and associations our faith allies us, and which only await the removal of the curtain of time and sense to he revealed and enjoyed in all their attractiveness and in all their grandeur. And in another scene less prosaic than the last, and though presented in highest, symbol, I learn the joyousness of that company which the Lamb will gather around Himself, and the divine harmony which his blessed presence will create. " I heard a voice from heaven as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps; and they sung as it were a new song before the throne." And surely if the soul lists, it may catch the vibrations of this multitudinous joy and hear the pealing of this wondrous anthem. And oh 1 is there nothing in the thought of Him we shall meet there, and whose voice shall lead these heavenly chants in which with our harps of gold we shall so soon be joining that makes us feel-I long to be there? Is there nothing definite as to the character of heaven's happiness to be learned in the declaration, " And the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb, is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved, shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it. And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life?" (Rev. 21:21-2721And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. 22And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. 23And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. 24And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it. 25And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. 26And they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it. 27And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life. (Revelation 21:21‑27).)
But I turn now from these general remarks, and observe in the prosecution of our subject that it is very important to notice when the coming again of the Lord Jesus is presented to believers as their animating hope, it is altogether apart from any question of their responsibility and unembarrassed by any conditions. It is the direct and simple fruit, in glory, of that grace which was brought to them by Christ's first appearing. " The Lord will give grace and glory." The two are in God's purpose indissolubly conjoined. If believers are looked at as members of Christ's body, it is but a natural consequence that they should be brought to share in the glory of their Head. And this is the force of that passage in Col. 1:27,27To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: (Colossians 1:27) " which is Christ in you the hope of glory."
The natural order of the testimony of Scripture, which I hope to take up, is that of the gospels first, and then how this hope is sustained and combined with the fuller exposition of doctrine in the epistles and subsequent books of the New Testament, The witness of the Old Testament cannot be directly adduced in relation to the coming of Christ as the hope of the Church. It may, indeed, with regard to its effects on the earth and its inhabitants under the millennial reign of Christ, as the Apostle Peter shows when speaking in the Acts, of " the times of restitution of all things" at the coming of Christ. He says, as to these " times of restitution," that " God hath spoken of them by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." The testimony of the Psalms also fills up a striking place as to this. Still the bearing is not direct and immediate on the position of those who are gathered to Christ during the time of Israel's rejection. The further prosecution of the subject I leave to the next number.