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 22)
Part Two – The Timing of the Second Coming
Chapter 2 – What the Gospels Say
Other Things Jesus Said About the Timing (continued)
By the way, where Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts say “He is near,” Luke’s account says “the kingdom of God is near,” indicating that the coming of the kingdom and the coming of the King are one and the same event. It might seem unnecessary to make so obvious a point to you except that some divide the two statements saying that Jesus indeed came in His kingdom in the 1st Century A.D. as we have said, but that He is also yet to come in the flesh in the Second Coming. However, you cannot divide the Lord’s coming into two anymore than Solomon could divide that baby into two. Well, maybe he could have divided it but he would have ended up with zero babies and not two. The same dilemma occurs here for that would make the parallel accounts giving different and conflicting answers to the same question. Scripture cannot contradict itself! Therefore, the coming of the Son of Man was the coming in His kingdom, a single glorious event. He was telling them it would be fulfilled not in a few days (lest they confuse it with the resurrection)…but it would come before their generation passed away.
Speaking of the generation passing away, we recall how Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God belonging to children (Matthew 19, Mark 10, Luke 18). This is a principle, forever true. But it also had particular meaning for those little faces Jesus of Nazareth encountered, because when their generation became adults and their parents’ generation was passing away, the kingdom would be coming. They would receive it just as the children of the disobedient Israelites under Moses were the generation that would inherit the promised land of which their parents had proved unworthy. Looking ahead, the children of the children Jesus saw would have to grow up somewhere other than Judea (for He knew enemies would overrun it), but the kingdom of God could protect them wherever they went. In other words, that little generation He spoke to would be the first Jewish one for whom physical descent from Abraham and attachment to the land of Canaan was not to be prized. Something greater had come…and His name was Immanuel.
For this reason Jesus had said in John 4, “an hour is coming when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem shall you worship the Father,” The Law of Moses and the reign of David made Jerusalem the only proper place for Jewish worship, but with the coming of the kingdom of God and the reign of Messiah, Jerusalem would be fulfilled in people’s hearts. Being a Jew would not be a matter of the flesh, but rather a matter of the spirit (Romans 2:28-29; Galatians 6:16). The earthly temple of earthly Jerusalem was necessary for the fulfilling of the Law of Moses (animal sacrifices, etc.) but not for the kingdom of God. That’s why its destruction was a sign that the kingdom was close.
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