Finding Jesus in the Bible…So We Can Follow Him in Life
Bible Reading Plans
- Plan One: New Testament Only
- Plan Two: New Testament + Psalms
- Plan Three: New Testament + History
- Plan Four: The Entire Bible – Year 1 of 3, Year 2 of 3, Year 3 of 3
Don’t know which plan? Go to A Christ-Centered Bible Reading Plan: Quick Start.
Extras
Verse of the Day, Audio Capsule, and Video Minute
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(Today’s Reading)
The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact
(Book Installment 4)
Part One – The Second Coming of Jesus Christ
Chapter 1 – Sorting Out the Confusion
(continued)
How a Coming of the Lord Is “Missed”
In Matthew 17, after realizing that Jesus was the Messiah, but being urged to secrecy on the subject until after His resurrection, the disciples asked Him about Elijah. The scribes taught that Elijah would precede the Messiah based on the prophecy of Malachi. Since Jesus was the Messiah, the disciples asked, what were they to make of this teaching? Jesus’ answer was that John the Baptist, as the forerunner of Messiah, had been the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy. That is, it was not a literal, physical return of Elijah himself but someone in his spirit of boldness calling the authorities, as well as the common people, to repentance.
Indeed there was much about John the Baptist that would bring Elijah to mind, even to the evil wife of Herod who incited him against the prophet just as Jezebel had incited her husband King Ahab against Elijah so many years before. As the writer of Ecclesiastes told us, there is nothing new under the sun. Jesus went on to explain that just as the Israel’s leaders had not recognized John the Baptist as Elijah, neither would they recognize Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. These leaders were missing the fulfillment of prophecy.
Jesus the Messiah could be tried and crucified precisely because the Jewish authorities were sure He was not their Messiah. Even to this day, Jews who still hope for the Messiah reject Jesus on the basis that Messiah’s coming would produce effects (such as visible, universal peace) that could not be missed. Since they do not see these effects, Messiah could not possibly have
already come. Ipso facto, in their minds, Jesus is not the Messiah.
From a Christian’s point of view, these Jews have closed their minds to the possibility of seeing Jesus as He truly is because they have made the unwarranted assumption that their Messiah’s coming could not be missed. (Note that we are using the term “missed” in the sense of “unrecognized,” not in the sense of “unexperienced.”) Do not some Christians make the same
mind-closing assumption about the Second Coming that some of their Jewish brothers made about His first coming? And, in fact, isn’t our error as Christians worse, since we can see it in our brothers but do not notice when we are doing the same thing ourselves? Therefore, since we as Christians see how Christ’s first coming could be missed, shouldn’t we be very quick to
acknowledge that his second coming could also be missed? Yes, for only pride could keep us insisting that Christ’s Second Coming could not be missed.
Now back to the idea of “missed” meaning “unrecognized” and not “unexperienced.” We would not say that Israel did not experience her Messiah, for all Israel experienced Him though not all recognized Him. The same is true for the Second Coming. No one in the world could have failed to experience the Second Coming, for it was a worldwide event. But the world
could have failed to recognize it as such. By the way, have you ever wondered why throughout Bible times polytheism, including animal sacrifice, was the rule and yet today monotheism is the prevalent worldview, with most people getting nervous when someone wants to sacrifice animals? Is it possible that some cataclysmic event occurred in the unseen realm, having among its many results, that what the Greeks took seriously even school children today now know is mythology?
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