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 Implications of the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact
(Book Installment 32)
The Scope of the Second Coming
Chapter 2 – Contrasts of the Second Coming
The Contrast of Language
The distinction I’m addressing here has to do with the descriptions of the Second Coming we find in the Bible. Some of those descriptions come in plain literal speech, but much of it is figurative, symbolic, and seemingly hyperbolic. I will not have to say much about this contrast here because I dealt with it at length in The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact (BCSCAF). Chapters 7 (“How the Bible Describes Truth”) and 8 (“How the Old Testament Prophets Set the Stage”) describe the use of figurative language in the Bible to explain spiritual realities – including the necessity of doing so. All I need to do here is to add some finer points about apocalyptic writing.
Figurative language is, of course, present in the Bible from one end to the other. However, the exaggerated figurative language associated with the Second Coming is particularly noteworthy. And it is not unique to the Bible. It is found in many religions and cultures around the world. It is called apocalyptic language and refers to a style of speech or writing that uses vivid, dramatic, or symbolic imagery to describe catastrophic events, the end of the world, or major transformations of society or history. It can be found in religious or political rhetoric as well as in academic or popular literature.
Although apocalyptic language is found outside the Bible, its literary form – which usually includes a vision, given to a human, with symbolic images (including beasts and angels) of cosmic events (including disasters), interpreted by an angel, with a timeline that is climaxed by God’s ultimate victory – originated with the Old Testament prophets. Although apocalyptic passages appear in most of the prophets, the most extended and developed examples of this kind of writing are found in the book of the prophet Daniel.
Although the form of apocalyptic writing I just described came down to us from the Jews, the word “apocalyptic” itself comes to us primarily because of the book of Revelation. This is because the word “apocalyptic” comes from the Greek word “apokalypsis,” which literally means “revelation,” “unveiling,” or “disclosure of something hidden.” And, yes, it is ironic that a form of writing that many people consider inscrutable is labeled with a word that means “to make scrutable.”
More than just ironic, though, it becomes confusing because common modern usage of the word “apocalypse” or “apocalyptic” (such as in movies and literature) usually refers to disasters and catastrophes. Academic usage, however, continues to recognize that while apocalyptic writing includes portrayals of calamity, there is much more to the subject than that.
Apocalyptic writing comes to us in the Bible not only in bulk (as in the books of Daniel and Revelation), but also interspersed with plain speech (as in Jesus’ Olivet Discourse about the Second Coming in Matthew 24-25). With regard to the latter, recall from BCSCAF that Jesus uses apocalyptic phrases from the prophets about “the sun and moon” failing (indicating human governance failing) and “coming in the clouds” (indicating divine presence and judgment) interspersed with more literal warnings about wars, false teachers, and other literal perils.
We could wish that describing the Second Coming didn’t require learning a specialized vocabulary. But if figurative expressions are required to convey spiritual truths, then let us not be surprised that cataclysmic figurative expressions are required to convey cataclysmic spiritual realities. The contrast of language found in the Bible’s descriptions of the Second Coming is just another hurdle we have to take in stride when attempting to understand the full import of this cosmic event.
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