“What shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world [or, age]?”— Matthew 24:3.
IN order to get the true viewpoint it should be remembered that the great mystery of the one Body had not yet been revealed—so our Lord addressed His disciples as the believing remnant in Israel. A similar group will be found in the world (many in Palestine itself) in the time of the end (Dan. 12:4), during the dark days of the Great Tribulation (Dan. 12:1; Matt. 24:21,22), after the present parenthetical age has come to a close. We should not read this prophecy, therefore, as though addressed to the Church as such, but rather to the faithful in Israel waiting for the coming again of Messiah to bring in the promised Kingdom, when heaven’s authority will be acknowledged over all the earth. There are general principles that are applicable to all believers so long as Christ is absent. But the distinctive truth of the Church as the Body of Christ is not found here, nor is there any definite teaching as to the rapture of the saints when our Lord descends to the air at the close of this present dispensation (1 Thess. 4:13-18).
“There’s a whisper from the glory
of the coming of the Lord!
Oh, the joy my heart is tasting
as I rest upon His Word,
And what peace amid earth’s tumult
doth this precious truth afford,
The Lord is coming soon!
In the glory of His promise
I am living day by day,
And the light of Heav’n is dawning
on earth’s dreary, desert way,
While I wait that sweetest whisper.
‘Up, my child, and come away,’
The Lord is coming soon!”
—Margaret E. Barber.