THE Lord’s coming is the hope of the Church and of each individual believer.
“I Jesus... am the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright and morning Star. And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come” (Rev. 22).
To David the promise of a son—the Christ— was given; of a son who should be also the Son of God, “I will be His Father, and He shall be My Son” (1 Chron. 17:11-14). David’s son is David’s offspring, but being also the Son of God, He is the one from whom David drew his being and his blessings: “The Root and the Offspring of David.” The One who should accomplish all the promises made to David, whether as regards the house or the kingdom.
The Lord announced to Peter (Matt. 16:18) His intention of building His Church—God’s house. In the Book of Revelation, the throne is seen in heaven (4, 5, &c.), and the kingdom is on the point of being established on earth (11:15, &c.).
But before the kingdom is set up in power over the earth, the Lord will take His own to be with Himself, to bear His image and to come with Him in His glory (John 14:2, 3; Col. 3:4; Jude 14, 15; Rev. 3:10-11).
The “day of the Lord,” the power of the kingdom, will be inaugurated by the rising of the Sun of Righteousness (Mal. 4:1, 2).
Before the day breaks in its glory, the bright and morning star is seen shining in its solitary brilliancy. Thus is the Lord the Hope of the Church, thus are suitable affections formed in the Bride by the Spirit. “And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come.”
When Jesus was on the eve of leaving the disciples to go to the Father, by the way of the cross, He told them of His earnest desire and intention to have them with Himself in the Father’s house (John 14:1-3). In His prayer to the Father, breathed in the hearing of those whom the Father had given to Him, He says, “Father, I will that those whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory that Thou hast given Me; for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). Think, beloved, of the place in the Lord’s heart, occupied by His disciples, that He should say to the Father, “I will,” respecting those whom the Father had given Him.
On that same evening, He said to His disciples, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me” (John 14). He presents Himself to them during the time of His absence, as an object of their faith like tie invisible God. Then He adds, “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; I go to prepare a place for you.”
The Father’s house, not the earth, will be the place of eternal blessing for believers. None but the Son could reveal the Father’s house, His own dwelling-place; none but the Son could prepare a place therein for any one. “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, ye may be also.”
“I will come,” says the Lord—not, I will send an angel to fetch you— “and receive you unto Myself.” “The Lord Himself will descend from heaven” (1 Thess. 4:16). “Thus shall we ever be with the Lord,” is the revelation on this subject “by the word of the Lord” to Paul (1 Thess. 4).
All this shows the place in the Lord’s affection occupied by His beloved, and thus are the hearts of believers formed to wait for their beloved Lord, and to say, “Amen, come, Lord Jesus.”
The Thessalonians (only converted a few weeks), when some of them died, feared that their dead companions would be deprived of the blessings to be introduced by the Lord at His coming to reign. The fourth chapter of the first epistle (vers. 13 to 18) is a special message to them “by the word of the Lord,” to set their hearts at rest respecting their departed brothers and sisters, and to reveal to them that which the Lord had made known to His disciples in John 14:1-7, and what the Lord had prayed the Father in John 17:24, “To be with Himself forever.”
These Thessalonians had been converted to God from idols “to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1:9, 10). They waited for their Lord, but they had yet to learn that at the Lord’s coming God would bring with Jesus those put to sleep in Jesus: “If we believe that Jesus died and rose again,” even so, with Him, God will bring “them which sleep in Jesus” (4:14). But if they too come with Jesus, is it not evident that they must first be raised from the dead and go to Him (vs. 16).
But, you may ask, do not the souls of those who die in the Lord go at once to be with Him? Did not Paul say, “To depart and to be with Christ is far better” than to remain here (Phil. 1:23); to be thus “absent from the body, present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8)?
The state of departed souls, however blessed, is not, dear brethren, the full and final blessing God has in store for His saints. Even as Jesus died and rose again, so must the bodies of believers know His power and bear His image. The body (as well as the soul) must share adoption and redemption (Rom. 8:23). “Our citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, who will change our vile (or mortal) body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself” (Phil. 3:20, 21). “When He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2). It is this hope which produces practical holiness in the waiting saint: “And every one that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure” (vs. 3). Read also Romans 8:11; 1 Corinthians 15.
“Fashioned like to His glorious body,” “like Him” in the body, as well as conformed to Him in the soul, to Him who is ever the only-begotten of the Father, alone in His divine glory and sonship, and yet the “First-born among many brethren.”
The whole Church, composed of sleeping and of living saints, will obey the Lord’s command, the trumpet sound, and meet the Lord in the air (1 Thess. 4:16, 17), being caught up together by His power, in the twinkling of an eye.
Christ will present the Church, the Bride, unto Himself, a glorious Church (Eph. 5:25-27, 32).
To be with Him, to behold the glory of the One whom the Father loves (John 17:24), is the recompense which appeals to the affections of those who love the Lord, and which shows at the same time how the Lord Jesus counts on the love of His own, knowing that our supreme joy, beloved, will be to be with Him, to behold His glory, the expression of the Father’s love.
What then is the effect produced on those who thus wait for Him? “Every one that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure” (1 John 3:3). According as this hope burns brightly in our hearts, beloved brethren, so are we exercised, so do we purify ourselves as He is pure. The hope produces this effect. How is it with us practically? Are we occupied with Him? Are we waiting for Him? Are our hearts filled with Him as we journey to meet Him; the ear, the heart ever listening to His voice by the Holy Spirit and expecting His coming?
May the hearts of all His redeemed be awakened to wait for Him, that none may be ashamed at His coming, but that His satisfaction respecting His own may be complete at His coming!
F. M. H.