Daily Help Plus

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

Overflow

***

(Today’s Reading)

(audio version)

The Implications of the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact

(Book Installment 3)

Introduction

In a 1902 children’s storybook, Rudyard Kipling began a short poem with these helpful and memorable words:

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

My previous book on the Second Coming of Jesus Christ – The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact – answered the questions Who, When, and Where. In a nutshell, the answers were:

• Who? Jesus Christ.
• When? The late 1st Century AD.
• Where? The spiritual realm.

The book you are reading now – The Implications of the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact – answers the remaining questions: What, Why, and How. Again, in a nutshell:

• What? The completion of God’s predetermined plan.
• Why? Sin and death had to be neutralized.
• How? The foresight, integrity, and power of God.

There was a lot more to the Second Coming than just Jesus returning – as big an event as that was. It was also the coming of the long-awaited kingdom of God. It involved new heavens and a new earth. It included the resurrection of the dead. It expelled Satan from heaven. And much more. And…it was all planned before God ever said “Let there be light.”

The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact was a simpler book than this one because it dwelt exclusively on the “Fact” of the Second Coming. This book – The Implications of the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact – is more complex because it deals with the great things that were “Accomplished” in it…and, even more so, the “Implications” of those great accomplishments. To keep the book from being too complex, we need to address these things in a proper order.

The Order of This Book

The Scope of the Second Coming – We’ll first survey the Bible’s many and varied references to, dichotomies in, and themes of the Second Coming. This will bring into view the massive scope of this event.

The Plan Behind the Second Coming – The vast scope of the Second Coming helps us to recognize that it was the conclusion of a plan God had been executing for four millennia. In other words, God had formulated this plan even before Genesis 1 – a plan that would inoculate a free-will world against the possibility of evil ever winning eternal control over a single human being. Yes, it was some plan. And we’re going to unpack it – one implication at a time.

The Implications –

• Victory Is Won – When the Second Coming occurred, the war between good and evil was decisively won. The outcome of that war is settled…forever. Why then do we still see temptation, sin, and death in the earth? That’s what this section of the book explains.
• God Is One – The Old Testament presents one God who’s called the Lord God – which amounts to one. But the New Testament talks about one God and one Lord – which amounts to two. What gives? Only people who understand the Second Coming and God’s plan can understand how God can truly be one – that is, without having three heads.
• His Church Is Done – Jesus said the gates of Hades would not overpower His church – and they didn’t! The church of Jesus Christ – just like His apostles – was a one-generation phenomenon. And, oh, what a generation it was! The greatest ever!
• His Kingdom Has Come – The kingdom of God was the central theme of Jesus’ teaching. It’s here and now, and has been since late in the 1st century. It’s way past time we learned how to live in it 24/7.
• Life Is One-on-One – God wants a relationship with you as intimate as the one He could have had with Adam and Eve had it not been for sin and death. We have something neither ancient Israel nor even the 1st century church ever had: a completed Bible!
• We’ve Just Begun – With the Second Coming behind us, we’ve got nothing but eternity ahead of us. Let us live like it. Adam and Eve had an earth to populate; we have a universe to populate…and sanctify.

That’s the order. Let’s begin.

***