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 56)
Part Three – The Nature of the Second Coming
Chapter 9 – How the Apostles Explained the Prophets
New Heavens and New Earth (continued)
Jesus was constantly fulfilling the types and shadows of the Old Testament. Moses led the people of God from slavery. Joshua led them into the promised land. Joseph fed his own jealous brothers in time of famine. Jesus fulfilled all these patterns, but He did so spiritually. This was in direct contradiction to what many people expected. And for His Second Coming to take place in a different way than these false teachers were expecting was thus true to His form. For all the physical deliverances accomplished in the Old Testament foreshadowed spiritual things that Jesus accomplished in the New Testament. In His spiritual accomplishments, Jesus never merely duplicated an Old Testament episode as so many expected Him to do. That is, He did not lead a charge against the Romans driving them out of the land as Joshua might have done, nor did He lead His followers out of Israel to a new physical territory as Moses might have done, nor did He subdue the nations as David might have done. To be consistent with all these fulfillments, Jesus’ fulfillment of the Noah scenario could not be a mere duplication with fire in the place of water – it had to be a spiritual accomplishment of much greater proportions.
Peter concluded his second letter exhorting his readers to look for the new heavens and the new earth, but obviously not in the way that the false teachers were. Being dead to spiritual things they could have no appreciation for anything other than a new physical environment. These false teachers did not “hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matthew 5:6) and so were not looking for a “new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13).
Let me remind you and emphasize that just because a fulfillment is spiritual rather than physical doesn’t mean it is without ultimate physical effect. A person who sets his mind on the spirit and lives for spiritual things will effect change in the physical dimension. That Jesus fought spiritual battles instead of physical ones does not mean that He was less a hero than Moses, Joshua, or David. On the contrary, Jesus’ victories were greater…and therefore His
glory is greater. He who overcomes sin (which is conceived in unseen places) has overcome the source of anything and everything that is wrong with the physical world.
As you have seen throughout this book, most of what is wrongly taught about the Second Coming is based on verses taken out of context. Let us return, therefore, to Matthew 24- 25 and read in context the line “Heaven and earth will pass away.” Out of context it seems to speak of a new physical heaven and earth. But let’s now read it in its immediate context:
“Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” Matthew 24:34-36
Isn’t is obvious by now that Jesus was promising something spiritual? And aren’t His words infinitely more durable than anything you can access by your physical senses?
(This is the conclusion of this section of the chapter)
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