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
***
(Today’s Reading)
The Implications of the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact
(Book Installment 50)
The Scope of the Second Coming
Chapter 3 – Themes of the Second Coming
Victory over Evil
The victory of good over evil is, like eternal life, a central aspect of the great and final judgment pronounced by God in the Second Coming of Christ – that is, the coming of the kingdom of God. And this climactic victory over evil is one of the most well-known themes of the Second Coming. In fact, even people who think the Second Coming still awaits us in the future will tell you in one way or another that victory over evil is at the heart of the Second Coming. But there is problem with their view of it.
Futurists, if we may call them that, believe that evil will be overcome by eliminating its presence from the earth. But that is not the kind of victory over evil that the Bible promises. This conception would not actually be victory in the war between good and evil. Rather, it would be a permanent interruption of that war. It would be as if God was going to step in and end the hostilities by supernaturally separating the parties. According to this view, evil would be consigned to a separate place while heaven and earth go on without it – that is, without temptation, sin, and death. But this would be God admitting defeat – not winning a victory. It would be like a father breaking up a fight between his son and the town bully because the son couldn’t defeat the bully on his own.
God’s victory over evil is giving us the weapons to overcome evil as He Himself overcame it when He lived a human life on earth. The Second Coming as accomplished fact shows heaven to be entirely cleansed of temptation, sin, and death while those things continue on earth – but with humanity equipped to overcome them through the eternal gospel.
Revelation 14:6 And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people;
Revelation 14:7 and he said with a loud voice, “Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters.”
What is the eternal gospel? It’s the gospel we find in the New Testament but with its prophecies of the Second Coming regarded as not only prophesied, but as historically fulfilled. This makes those prophecies a matter not just of hope, but of faith as well.
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
People who think the Second Coming is still future have hope for it, but not faith. Granted, believers in the New Testament had a hope without faith in the Second Coming. In fact, it was called “the blessed hope.”
Titus 2:11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,
Titus 2:12 instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age,
Titus 2:13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,
Titus 2:14 who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.
But once the Second Coming happened, it was time for faith. And it is to this faith we are still being called today. I will be explaining all this in “Implication: His Kingdom Has Come.”
***
A Bible Reader's Website 