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 39)
The Scope of the Second Coming
Chapter 3 – Themes of the Second Coming
Revelation (continued and concluded)
But what was left to be revealed about Jesus Christ? In the New Testament texts, He had already been shown to be the Son of God and the Messiah. They also revealed that He had preexisted all creation. He was proclaimed at the beginning of almost every one of the New Testament’s 22 epistles to be second only to God in glory, power, and authority over all creation due to His triumph over sin through His death, resurrection, and ascension. Surely, there were no more feathers to put in His cap than that, right? Yet you’ve seen in the multiple verses I’ve shown you that a great revelation about him was to be a centerpiece of the Second Coming.
This great revelation most certainly was not going to be fleshly, for that had already been accomplished in the Lord’s first coming. Listen as Paul confesses what the New Testament church confessed:
1 Timothy 3:16 By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness:
He who was revealed in the flesh,
Was vindicated in the Spirit,
Seen by angels,
Proclaimed among the nations,
Believed on in the world,
Taken up in glory.
This confession of the early church was that Jesus had been “revealed in the flesh,” but “vindicated in the spirit.” He had been “seen by angels,” but “believed on in the world.” Angels saw Jesus vindicated by His resurrection and being “taken up in glory” to heaven; believers saw that vindication through the eyes of faith. Therefore, the Second Coming wasn’t needed to vindicate Jesus – it was needed to fully glorify Him.
Back to Jesus’ appearance in the flesh, it was, from His infancy all the way through to His crucifixion and death, the evidence of His humanity and His righteousness. The apostle John, late in the run-up to the Second Coming emphasized this point, applying the term “antichrist” to anyone who denied the historicity of Jesus’ life on earth.
1 John 4:2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;
1 John 4:3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.
And Paul emphasized that this historical, physically-visible Jesus was the Jesus of the past – not the Jesus they were to expect in the future.
2 Corinthians 5:16 Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer.
What was left to be revealed about Jesus in the Second Coming was spiritual – not physical. It was the revelation of Him as God and Father of all. And, as I’ve promised, that’s what I’ll show you in “Implication: God Is One.” However, the revelation in the Second Coming was about even more than that.
Although the greatest revelation in the Second Coming was about Jesus, it was about us, too. It had to be. For if Jesus is God, surely that has implications for us because we were created for the very purpose of reflecting His glory.
Colossians 3:4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
Romans 8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
Romans 8:19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
I will explain these derivative revelations in “Implication: “His Church Is Done” and “Implication: His Kingdom Has Come.”
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