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 67)
The Plan Behind the Second Coming
Chapter 4 – The Predetermined Plan
The Importance of His Second Coming (continued and concluded)
One of the things I like about the apostles’ claim about Jesus’ resurrection, especially the way Paul lays it out in 1 Corinthians 15, is that the claim is falsifiable. That is, it is capable of being proven false. If something cannot be proven false, it cannot be proven true either. The claim that Jesus rose from the dead is based entirely on history – specifically, eyewitness testimony. This doesn’t allow for “my truth” or “your truth.” It’s either true or it’s not.
Another thing I like about this claim of the resurrection is that it is corroborated by written prophecies that had been preserved for centuries before the event occurred. As to this point, Paul inserts “according to the Scriptures” twice in the resurrection claim he lays out. And just as there were multiple witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection, there were multiple prophets who predicted it would happen. How many other ancient events that we accept as historically reliable are supported by evidence of this quality and in this quantity – much less, ones that include predictive testimony as well as eyewitness testimony?
Jesus’ ascension into heaven was also witnessed by the apostles and others (Acts 1), but the two prophecies Jesus invoked at His trial, that I showed above, were, as I said, spiritual events – not physical ones. This means that while Jesus’ resurrection and His ascension could be seen, His seating at the right hand of God and His coming in the clouds could not. How can we believe in spiritual truths – that is, realities we cannot see? By finding a source that has been proven reliable through validation of physical truths. About this process, Jesus said:
John 3:11 “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony.
John 3:12 “If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
Jesus is thus laying out for us the process by which we may accept His seating in heaven and coming in the clouds (“heavenly things”) as factual; it is to first accept the credibility of His resurrection and ascension (“earthly things”). But the sad irony is that organized Christianity has, by and large, accepted by faith Jesus’ seating at the right hand of God, but not His coming in the clouds. Thus has the Second Coming been detached from the resurrection of Christ and made into a separate and optional doctrine of Christ.
By “separate,” I mean that the organized church has insisted on physical proof of Daniel 7:13-14 fulfillment when they haven’t for Psalm 110:1 fulfillment. Thus they’ve separated the two boundary markers that Jesus had presented as a set. By “optional,” I mean that all sorts of positions on the Second Coming are allowed …as long as it’s deemed future and not past!
It was Jesus Himself who said that man should not separate what God has joined together. Jesus designated that His resurrection and Second Coming were to occur in the same generation. He also said, in effect, that we were to accept both by faith. The organized church has not honored His wishes in this regard.
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