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 34)
The Scope of the Second Coming
Chapter 2 – Contrasts of the Second Coming
Conclusion
Before making a concluding remark about the various contrasts in Second Coming references that I’ve described, let me briefly mention a couple of special cases.
The first is the Second Coming itself. By this, I’m referring to the fact that Jews had been expecting a Messiah to come – but not to come twice. Consider the following descriptions of their expectations.
John 4:25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.”
John 7:27 “However, we know where this man is from; but whenever the Christ may come, no one knows where He is from.”
John 7:31 But many of the crowd believed in Him; and they were saying, “When the Christ comes, He will not perform more signs than those which this man has, will He?”
What these people would come to learn was that Christ’s coming was, in effect, dichotomized – that is, split…into two comings. He came the first time to suffer, and the second time to be glorified. As Jesus Himself said to his disciples the day He was raised from the dead…
Luke 24:25 And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
Luke 24:26 “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?”
One of the points of confusion Jews had about their Messiah was that some of the prophecies spoke of his suffering but others of his glorification. The solution to this prophetic riddle turned out to be that Messiah would suffer as a human being but then be raised from the dead to unprecedented glory. We see His sufferings in the four gospels and we see his glories in the 22 New Testament texts that follow…and then, most especially in the Second Coming.
Thus is the Second Coming itself the consequence of a division in comings. These separate comings were intended by God but unexpected by man – even though Jesus’ statement above implies that they could have seen it coming.
The other special-case dichotomy – one that was also largely unexpected – was the dichotomy of God Himself. I am speaking, of course, of the difference that is obvious to any adult who reads the Bible for the first time without any prior coaching: that the Old Testament speaks of “God” and “Lord” as one being while the New Testament speaks of “God” and “Lord” as two beings. This dichotomy shows up in hundreds of verses from both testaments. Here is probably the most prominent example of the contrast between the Old Testament’s portrayal of God’s oneness and the New Testament’s portrayal of it.
Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!
1 Corinthians 8:6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.
Obviously, neither Paul nor any of the other apostles thought they were contradicting the Old Testament. On the contrary, they saw themselves completely in line with it. It’s just that the apostles – based on the instruction they received from Jesus, were putting a finer point on things. The resolution to this tension can be found in the Second Coming. And, as you know, there’s a whole section of this book devoted to explaining how: “Implication: God Is One.”
The purpose of this chapter has been to deepen our appreciation of the great scope of the Second Coming – and therefore its implications – by acknowledging its complexities, and particularly its contrasts. Being sensitized to these various dichotomies will help us better analyze and understand what all happened when the Second Coming occurred.
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