The Lord's coming affects all the truths of Christianity. Christ is not now on His own throne at all. He is sitting now, according to the word in Heb. 10 (and often from Psalm 110.), at God's right hand, sitting on the Father's throne, as He says Himself in the promise to Laodicea. He has settled the question of sin for them at His first coming; and they have no more conscience of sins, they are perfected forever; and to them that look for Him shall He appear a second time without sin unto salvation. He is expecting in the heavens till His enemies be made His footstool. Why does He say “His enemies”? Because He is sitting down after He has finished all for His friends (that is, those that believe in Him). Have all your sins been put away out of God's sight? If not, when will it be done? That you grow in hatred of them all—all right! But if they are not borne and put away on the cross, when will it be done? Can you get Christ to die again? Can you get anyone else to do it? If it is not done, it will never be done at all. Beloved friends, if the work is not finished, it will never be done at all: but it is done, and therefore He says, the worshippers once purged “have no more conscience of sins;” “for by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.”
If you look now at Col. 3, you will find the same thing in its full result held out as our hope. “When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.” The first promise He gave the disciples when going away was His coming again. Do not be troubled (as they naturally would be on losing the Friend for whom they had given up all); I am not going to be all alone in My Father's house. There, there are many mansions, and I am going to prepare a place for you: do not be uneasy. I cannot stay with you, so I must have you up there with Me, and the first thing is, “I will come again and receive you to Myself.” It is not one by one by death, but by resurrection for the dead, and change for the living, His actual coming to receive them, raised or changed, to be with Himself where He was gone, and like Himself, that we may be in glory with Him.
Again, at His departing from His disciples left down here, what was the last they saw of Him? They saw Him go up before their eyes, and the angels said to them, Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus shall so come in like manner.” His coming is wrought into the whole texture of the Christian.
What is scripture’s last word? “Surely I come quickly, Amen. Even so, COME Lord Jesus.” In the same way you get it at the beginning, with warning and threatening, Jesus Christ, Faithful Witness, the First-begotten, etc., etc. “Behold, He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him” (ver 7). Then at the end (prophetic instructions are over, we do not enter into them), “I, Jesus have sent Mine angel,” etc.; “I am the bright, the morning star.” Now learn what these saints who were watching, and those only, see: there is no stare to be seen when the sun is risen. They see the morning star, while it is yet early dawning; for the night is far spent, the day is at hand. Here He calls Himself “the, root and offspring of David; the bright, the morning, star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.” If the bride has got the sense of being the bride of Christ, she must desire to be with the Bridegroom; there is not proper love to Christ unless she wants to be with Him. Abram said of his wife, “She is my sister;” then the Egyptians, the world, took her into their house.
I just add that you get here the whole circle of the church's affections. “The Spirit and the bride say, Come (this is to the Bridegroom); and let him that heareth say, Come!” That is, the Christian, who has heard the word of His salvation, joins in the cry. Then those who thirst for some living water are called to come. The saints of the church can say, though they have not yet the Bridegroom in glory, that they have the living water, and so call, “Let him that is athirst, come,” and then address the call universally, “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” This they have, though not the Bridegroom. What we find then is, that, in the word of God, the thoughts, and feelings, and conduct, and doings, and affections of Christians are identified with the coming of Christ. Take all these things, and you will find that they are all identified with the coming of the Lord.
Take the First Epistle of John, chap. 3, “Behold what manner of love,” etc. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God” (that is settled), “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.” Beloved friends, we are “predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son.” This is what God has purposed for us. When are we to be like Christ in the glory? When He comes. It is not when a person dies, and the spirit goes to be with Christ; for then he is like Christ when Christ was in the grave; and if I die, I shall be like Christ as to that. But this is not what I want, though blessed in itself; I want to be like Him in the glory. When will that be? When He comes, He will change our vile bodies and fashion them like to His glorious body; so here it does not yet appear what we shall be, but when He shall appear, we shall be like Him. Now mark the practical consequences upon the man that has been in his faith brought up to God's purposes. “He that hath this hope on Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure.” I know I am going to be perfectly like Christ in the glory; therefore I want to, be as like Him as possible down here. You find here again, what the holy scriptures are explicit in teaching, that holiness also is always referred to conformity to Christ in glory. I shall have that likeness to Christ in glory, and nothing else is my standard. You will find one passage already quoted, “That He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.” The perfection of the Christian is to be like Him when He comes. What again we find, as to Christians, in the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians is “It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.” We have the blessed assurance that accompanies true assured hope of the first resurrection and its results.
We shall be perfectly like Christ when we are raised from the dead. We give an account of ourselves but it is when we are like the person to whom we are to give an account. The fall efficacy of His first coming has been lost, and therefore people are not comfortable when thinking of His second coming. But for the saint “Christ is the firstfruits, then they that are Christ's at His coming.” Is Christ the firstfruits of the wicked? Surely not. Just as Christ's resurrection was the public testimony of God's approval of Himself and His work, the resurrection of the saints will be a testimony of God's approval of them as in Him. As we find in Luke 20:35, 36, “They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor, are given in marriage. Neither can they die any more, but are equal to the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.”
Could anybody show me a single passage about a general resurrection? There is no such thought in scripture. You get the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew quoted for it, that the goats and sheep represent the two classes. But He has come in His glory down here. He is not sitting on the great white throne: before, this, heaven and earth flee away. Here He is come and sits on His throne. When He does come and sits there, He gathers all the Gentiles, the nations, to judge them. It is the judgment of the quick or the living. You have three sets of people, not two; and you have nothing of resurrection. You have sheep, goats, and brethren (Matt. 25:40). So far from its being a general resurrection, there is no reference to resurrection at all; it is quite a different subject. Further, the only question is, How have they treated His brethren? The ground of judgment does not apply to ninety-nine out of a hundred of those who are to be judged, if it were a general judgment. Those that have had the testimony of the kingdom, before He comes to judge the quick, will be treated according as they have received God's messengers; but such only are in judgment.
And now the point we return to is, that the coming of the Lord influences and forms the whole life of the Christian. You cannot separate anything in the whole course and ways of the Christian from the coming of the Lord Jesus; and there is but the first coming and the second coming. He has appeared once in the end of the world, and to them that look for Him shall He appear a second time unto salvation. It is true that He comes and dwells in us, but we speak, with scripture, of actual coming. If you take holiness, or service, or conversion, or ministry, or a person who has died, they are all connected with Christ's coming. He warns them to be found watching.
I might quote other passages, but I have quoted enough to show that the Lord's coming is connected with everything in the Christian life. When we see Him as Here, then, and then only shall we be like Him according to God's purpose. And now I only ask, Are you waiting for God’s Son from heaven?
His bearing the sins of many is the only ground of hope for any sinner; that is, the finished work which enables us, through faith, to look for Him when sealed by the Holy Ghost. Then, I say, what am I waiting for? I am waiting for God's Son from heaven. Can you say, I am watching for Christ? I do not know when He will come. Blessed are those servants whom their Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching. I do not ask you, Do you understand about the coming of the Lord? To wait for Him was the thing they were converted to. The thing that woke the virgins up was, “Behold, the Bridegroom!” Are you actually waiting for God's Son from heaven? Would you like Him to come to-night? Peter explains the delay. He says His longsuffering is salvation, not willing that any should perish. What would you think if He were to come to-night? Would it just be what your soul was looking for.? I am going to sit down to table, and He is going to gird Himself and come forth and serve me. People think that it would stop the gospel to be waiting for God's Son from heaven. Did the acceptance of God's testimony about the deluge stop the preaching of Noah? Far from hindering, it was what gave edge to all. May the Lord give us to be ready when He comes; found watching for Him! J. N. D.
(Concluded from p. 298.)
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