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 21)
Part Two – The Timing of the Second Coming
Chapter 2 – What the Gospels Say
Other Things Jesus Said About the Timing (continued)
This understanding ties together things that generations of erroneous Bible teaching have torn apart. Jesus – and even John the Baptist before Him – had been preaching all along that the kingdom of God was “at hand” (e.g. Matthew 3:2 and 4:17). Israel had been governed by the Law and the Prophets but, going forward, all things would be governed by the kingdom of God (to which the Law and the Prophets testified). That is why, at the beginning of Matthew 24, the disciples asked about “the end of the age,” because that end was connected with the coming of the kingdom of God. The consummation of the then current age (including the destruction of
Israel, both physical and spiritual, as God’s instrument of revelation) would mark the beginning of the new age. Therefore, in the Bible, whether the questions were about “the end of the age” or about “the coming of the kingdom,” it was always the same set of answers – because the end of
the one age meant the beginning of the other. That is, “the end of the age” would bring with it “the coming of the kingdom.”
As Jesus was approaching Jerusalem and His greatest confrontation with the authorities, some thought the kingdom of God was about to appear (Luke 19:11). To correct that impression, Jesus went on to tell a parable. Based on their messianic expectations, people were still visualizing any war involving Messiah as resulting in the devastation of all opposition to him. The crucifixion, resurrection, and call to repentance would change this perception for those who believed Jesus. So in the parable (very similar to one in Matthew 24-25) Jesus points out that there will be a lapse of time in which their use of His grace would be evaluated. This lapse of time we now know to be the time between the resurrection (to occur within days of this
interaction) and His coming in the kingdom (to occur much later in their lifetimes). We may rightly consider this the church age – the time in which the epistles of the New Testament were written, the time between Christ’s resurrection and His grand coming.
Our understanding that the coming of the kingdom is connected with the coming of the Lord and not with the resurrection (or even Pentecost) is affirmed by something we notice in the parallel accounts of Matthew 24-25, Mark 13, and Luke 21. In all three gospel accounts, Jesus tells a parable of the fig tree, saying that just as its tender branches putting forth leaves is the sign that summer is near, even so the completion of all the preliminary signs He has mentioned is indication that “He is near.” These signs (temple destroyed, rise of false teachers, etc.), of course, would not have time to have occurred by the resurrection or the day of Pentecost.
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