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

Overflow

***

(Today’s Reading)

The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact

(Book Installment 36)

Part Three – The Nature of the Second Coming

Chapter 7 – How the Bible Describes Truth

From Flesh to Spirit (continued from yesterday)

So far it’s only been amusing as we have seen the disciples become, just as we probably would have become, confused and disoriented by Jesus’ manner of speech. But by John 6, when Jesus tells people they must “eat” His flesh and “drink” His blood, it’s become a serious matter. Many of His disciples protested, saying, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” Jesus then tells them plainly that the spirit gives life while the flesh profits nothing: “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” Even so, there was an exodus of disciples who could not handle this focus on spiritual understanding. When Jesus asked the twelve if they want to leave, too, Peter spoke for them saying, “you have words of eternal life.” They may not have understood everything Jesus said…but they wanted to, believing He and His words were from God.

These are just a few of the misunderstandings over fleshly versus spiritual meanings that the apostle John passes on to us. Nor was he the only Gospel writer to do so. For all the gospels attest that it was part of the phenomenon of the Nazarene Jesus that He was at least partially misunderstood by everyone – friend and foe! Even so, we do see cases where some individuals
not only picked up on the way Jesus was looking at things – that is, spiritually – but actually adopted His perspective. This invariably pleased Him.

In Matthew 15, for example, when Jesus initially refuses the request of a non-Israelite woman to cast a demon from her daughter, He explains that He was “only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” and that “it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She retorts, “Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” He promptly exclaims that her faith is great, and grants her request.

The disciples themselves, being dedicated students of the Master, did eventually learn this outlook and language of the spiritual life. For by the time 1 Peter was written, we see the man who had stumbled as much as anyone we read about in the New Testament spouting off this stuff like the Master Himself. In that letter he called Jesus a “stone,” the devil a “lion,” and the believers a “flock” of sheep. But so far as we know, none of the apostles surpassed John, perhaps because he outlived so many of the others and had longer to get it deep in his thinking) who closes out the New Testament talking about such things as a “Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes standing as if slain.” Who but God could give a humble Galilean fisherman the ability to say things that great minds would chew on for ages. (Did I say “chew” on? Was I speaking of physical chewing?)

This is a good time to say that we are not talking about simply the literary niceties of metaphor, similes, and such. We are talking about truth – which cannot be fully appreciated through physical senses alone, if at all. Yet visual images of physical things abound because any teacher must work from what is known and relate it to what is unknown. By the association of something unknown to something known, ignorance is converted to knowledge – or, shall we say, especially in this context…darkness to light. Jesus had so much truth to communicate that images were flying fast and furious. If we become more concerned about not mixing metaphors than finding truth then we cannot keep up as the woman did when Jesus is one second talking about “lost sheep” and the next second talking about “dogs around the table,” never having changed His subject. We must focus on the truth Jesus is wanting to communicate. In this way, the images work together to establish a coherent message.

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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

Overflow

***

(Today’s Reading)

The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact

(Book Installment 35)

Part Three – The Nature of the Second Coming

As we have said, the New Testament’s scheduling of the Second Coming of Christ for sometime late in the 1st Century A.D. only presents a problem to those who insist that Jesus was promising to show up in a fleshly body similar to the one He left in. However, the prophetic descriptions of the Second Coming in the New Testament add up to a spiritual, not a physical, event. And this is consistent with the whole movement and direction of the New Testament which is to wean the people of God from a physical orientation to a completely spiritual one.

Fleshly people do not welcome spiritual explanations. Let us not be like those Paul had to chastise in Corinth.

And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? 1 Corinthians 3:1-3

Chapter 7 – How the Bible Describes Truth

From Flesh to Spirit

The apostle John candidly shows us in his Gospel how he and his contemporaries were constantly misunderstanding Jesus. The most common type of misunderstanding was that Jesus would be speaking of something spiritual when they thought He was speaking of something physical.

In John 2, for example, Jesus says to the Jews in Jerusalem who opposed Him, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” They thought He was speaking of the physical structure that was the pride of Jerusalem, but, as John tells us, “He was speaking of the temple of His body.”

In John 3, the teacher Nicodemus reacts to Jesus’ use of the term “born again” by protesting that a man “cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born.” Jesus then explains that there are things of the flesh and things of the spirit; and each produces after its own kind. We might understand this distinction better in our day by using the terms visible and
invisible. Most people recognize that there are these two dimensions of creation. Nicodemus couldn’t get his mind out of the visible dimension long enough to fully appreciate the invisible dimension.

In John 4, Jesus asks a woman at a well for some water and then proceeds to tell her that He Himself has some “water” for her. It is obvious to us now that His “water” was spiritual water meant to quench spiritual thirst. When His disciples returned and encouraged Him to have something to eat, He kept up the “nourishment” metaphor saying, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” The first thing to their minds was not spiritual but rather, they say, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?” Jesus then explains that the “food” He eats is “to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work.” Jesus then goes on talking about sowing and reaping and a harvest that is not four months off but rather ready now. John does not say if any of them thought He was contemplating that they should change their occupations from fishing to farming.

(To be continued tomorrow)

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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

Overflow

***

(Today’s Reading)

The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact

(Book Installment 34)

Part Two – The Timing of the Second Coming

Chapter 6 – Conclusion on the Timing (continued)

In our conclusion we should also make clear that nowhere in the New Testament does it say that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ has occurred. Therefore, it would be wrong for anyone to claim that it does say such a thing. What it does say – repeatedly and emphatically – is that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ was to occur in that generation. Therefore, it is up to
us who believe the New Testament, and who live after that generation, to say the Second Coming of Jesus Christ has occurred. That is, the New Testament does not explicitly say that the Second Coming is accomplished fact, but given what the New Testament does explicitly say about the Second Coming, we have to believe it is accomplished fact if we are to believe the New Testament.

Just as the Old Testament does not say that Jesus is the Messiah (because it was written before He was born), but is the very tool God gave to prove that He is the Messiah, even so the New Testament does not say that Jesus has come again (because it was written before He came again), but is the very tool God gave to prove that He has come again. If we do not believe the promises, then Jesus stills chides us, “O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” (Luke 24:25)

The Old Testament proves that Jesus is the Messiah in primarily one way: the promises about Messiah are seen fulfilled in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The New Testament, however, proves that Jesus has come again in primarily two ways.

First, since it says He is coming soon and its witnesses are unimpeachable, and since all the visible signs Jesus predicted are confirmed as having occurred, then we may assure ourselves that sometime in the 1st Century A.D. after the year 70 when Jerusalem’s temple was destroyed, that Jesus indeed came. By the multitude of consistent statements they made, it had to have occurred sometime in the latter part of the 1st Century A.D. Since that time period has long since passed we know that Jesus has already come again. Only if we are willing to say Jesus and His apostles were wrong about the timing, can we hold to the notion that the Second Coming is yet future. I hope you are as unwilling as I am to say that Jesus and the apostles were wrong about anything they taught.

The second way that the New Testament proves Jesus has already come again, as if we needed another one, is that its description of the Second Coming can be shown to have been fulfilled. It is to that task we now turn. Or to put it another way, having paid closer attention to when Jesus and His apostles said the Second Coming would occur, let us now pay closer
attention to what they said would occur.

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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

Overflow

***

(Today’s Reading)

The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact

(Book Installment 33)

Part Two – The Timing of the Second Coming

Chapter 6 – Conclusion on the Timing of the Second Coming

There is no getting around the fact that those who wrote the documents we call the New Testament considered themselves as living in the last days, to soon be climaxed by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you have read the New Testament very much you are probably aware that what has been said in this part of the book about timing is not all that could have been
said in support of this point. There’s hardly a page of the New Testament that does not pulsate with the expectation of the coming of the Lord. Even when the coming of the Lord is not explicitly stated, it is the driving force of urgency, the common understanding between the authors and recipients of every letter, and the underlying reason why, even though the apostles had a
lifetime to do their work, there was not a moment to spare.

It is also important to notice what the New Testament does not say. There are no contingency instructions for what people should do if the Lord didn’t come in that generation. No directions about the exact method of church government to be followed and how the leadership was to be passed from generation to generation. The apostles made no plans to be succeeded by anyone – except the Lord Himself. There is not a single instance where the
apostles give themselves a way to save face by saying that though the Lord’s coming would probably come soon it could possibly be delayed for nineteen centuries or more. Note that if some group today were to take the type of strong position that the apostles took, leaving themselves no out, they would be regarded as irresponsible and shunned by evangelicals as being unscriptural. Maybe then we should not be surprised that so many of today’s “Bible believers” don’t really give serious consideration to what the apostles taught.

By the way, we should also note and appreciate that Jesus and the apostles work out of a sense of general time periods and not specific calendar dates. This is much in keeping with the nature of God who, for example, when he gives us time to repent, does not assign a date and time when the period of grace expires but rather watches us from heaven and decides in His own
impartial goodness when we’ve had enough time. As for the end-time prophetic interpretations of man, there is something in all their stiff and overly literal schemes of date-setting and year-counting that some people have produced to state when the “future, physical” Second Coming would be that sounds more like a fortune-teller than the God of justice whose primary interest is that people live right – not how to decode some secret number or date. The apostles were definitely not saying that Jesus would return by some fixed day, month, and year. Rather, they just kept saying, “He is coming” and as the time drew closer they kept saying, “He is coming soon.”

(this conclusion to be continued tomorrow)

***

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

Overflow

***

(Today’s Reading)

The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact

(Book Installment 32)

Part Two – The Timing of the Second Coming

Chapter 5 – What Revelation Says (continued)

Speaking on behalf of Jesus Himself, the apostle John addresses the timing of the Second Coming in the very first sentence, saying that the letter is about…

…the things which must soon take place… Revelation 1:1

John also says also that the recipients of this letter should heed the things written in it…

…for the time is near. Revelation 1:3

At the close of the letter, after the full parade of awesome, shocking, and glorious images has passed, John writes again that they refer to…

…things which must soon take place. Revelation 22:6

Then he quotes Jesus Himself as saying,

And behold, I am coming quickly. Revelation 22:7

John goes on to write,

Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.
Revelation 22:10

Then he quotes Jesus again as saying,

Behold, I am coming quickly… Revelation 22:12

The letter then closes with Jesus saying yet again,

Yes, I am coming quickly. Revelation 22:20

How can we ignore all this emphasis on the imminence of the timing? Especially after it is so consistent with all that has come before it in the New Testament? It is not only obvious that the time of the Lord’s coming was now very near, but equally obvious that Jesus expected to be doubted on precisely that matter. And so the point is hammered home – incessantly – until the
alert-but-now-weary reader of Revelation begs for relief, “Okay, okay – I get it!”

The passing of centuries, however, and our refusal to believe what Jesus and His apostles were so utterly clear about, has proven that there was not a single repetition of the idea that was not necessary. We can thus now appreciate the repeated confirmations. Like a loving parent, God is willing to repeat Himself for the umpteenth time because sometimes it’s only then that a child really begins to listen.

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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

Overflow

***

(Today’s Reading)

The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact

(Book Installment 31)

Part Two – The Timing of the Second Coming

Chapter 5 – What Revelation Says

It is most fitting that the book of Revelation be the last in the New Testament, for at this point we see that all steps leading to the Second Coming have been taken except the very coming itself. The branch of the fig tree has become tender, and put forth its leaves; the disciples now know that summer is near (Matthew 24:32).

Revelation, this extended apocalyptic description of the coming of the Lord that is just about to occur, pierces the air like the trumpet of God announcing the King’s imminent entrance. No earthly king ever had a more glorious fanfare than the book of Revelation. This trumpet was blown by the apostle John.

Revelation deserves its own section in this focus on timing, although you will see that John’s thoughts about timing remain the same as what we saw in the gospel that bears his name and in his letters. We have already seen his own testimony that he was alive and well in “the last hour” before the Lord’s return. We know also that Paul and Peter were called upon to bow out gracefully before the final curtain came down. John’s “alive and well” status was in spite of the great tribulation going on around him. He wrote the book of Revelation from the island of Patmos where he had been imprisoned. This book was a circular letter commissioned by Jesus, who had sent the contents through His angel to be written down by John. It was one letter to be circulated among seven particular cities of what we today call Asia Minor. (The island of Patmos was situated just off the coast of this region.)

Of all the passages in the Bible that deal with the Second Coming, Revelation is unquestionably the longest and most extensive. And it is, of course, the only book in the Bible for which the Second Coming in the sole subject. Most people would agree that there are parts of this book that are hard to understand. They also are likely to agree that the salutation and closing of the letter are among the easier parts to understand of a hard-to-understand book. Fortunately, it is these very parts that speak most directly about the timing of the Second Coming. In the beginning of this letter “to the churches” of what we today call Asia Minor, John says he is writing on behalf of Jesus Himself – who having received the contents from God was forwarding them through His angel to John.

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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

Overflow

***

(Today’s Reading)

The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact

(Book Installment 30)

Part Two – The Timing of the Second Coming

Chapter 4 – What the Epistles Say

What Jude Says About the Timing

The whole point of Jude’s one-chapter letter is to bear witness that the false teachers they had been warned about for years were now fully present. In essence, Jude says that all Peter prophesied in 2 Peter has come to pass. In other words, the false teachers Peter speaks of in future tense, Jude speaks of in present tense. Though Jude doesn’t mention Peter by name, he does use language which no one who had read both letters would fail to notice. Furthermore, Jude directly quotes “the apostles” using a phrase straight out of 2 Peter 3 (compare Jude 1:18 with 2 Peter 3:3) indicating that Peter was not the only apostle who predicted what Jude was seeing.

Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” 2 Peter 3:3-4 emphasis added

But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, “In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.” Jude 1:17-18 emphasis added

Of course, all the apostles received their information from Jesus so we should never be surprised when we find them saying the same thing! Jude urges his readers to remain faithful through this final, most difficult period before the Lord’s return. (Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 24:21 – “For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will.”)

Need I say it? Jude does not say to his readers that the Lord could come in any generation. There is only one generation involved…and only one church that had that honor. Jude was writing to strengthen that generation and that church.

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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

Overflow

***

(Today’s Reading)

The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact

(Book Installment 29)

Part Two – The Timing of the Second Coming

Chapter 4 – What the Epistles Say

What John Said About the Timing (1 and 2 and 3 John)

Most Bible scholars and historians agree that the apostle John lived long and wrote late in life. Both Peter and Paul are deemed to have died in the 60′s A.D. and therefore before the destruction of the temple (70 A.D.) and the onset of the great tribulation. John, who also penned the book of Revelation, is probably writing his letters during that great tribulation. Of course, this is not a complete surprise given what the Lord said to Peter in John 21 about John when the three of them were together (that Peter would die before the Lord came but that John might make it until the Lord came). It also fits with what John says in 1 John:

Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour. 1 John 2:18

The last sign to appear before “the Son of Man comes on the clouds” (Matthew 24, 26; Mark 13, 14) has now been manifested – that is, the rise of lawlessness and the proliferation of false teachers. John uses the term antichrist(s). Other terms we have heard are “false Christs,” “false prophets,” “false teachers,” “man of lawlessness,” and “son of destruction.” There are other synonyms as well.

How strong an influence these false leaders came to have is seen when this great, and now aged, apostle said, “I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say” (3 John 1:9). Thus we have a leader dominating a church and refusing the words of a true apostle. This you’ll note is a clear sign from the Lord’s
timetable that His coming is near. (I should ask you parenthetically if you have noticed that prophecy experts and churches today who look for the coming of the Lord in the future, that is not within the Lord’s timetable, also “do not accept what” the apostles say?)

In 1 John 4:3, John calls antichrist a false spirit. This fits with what Paul said about “deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1). Just as the Holy Spirit had gotten into the true apostles, this was the time when the devil’s spirit got into the false apostles. Just as Jesus was betrayed at the last when Satan entered the erring Judas Iscariot, even so His larger body was being betrayed all over the world as Satan’s evil spirits were entering into erring teachers. But just as the Lord’s resurrection overcame Judas’ betrayal, so the Lord’s return would overcome these betrayals. (It is not hard to conclude that the Lord placed an ultimate traitor within His chosen twelve to foreshadow and prepare His followers for the betrayals they themselves would face.)

If the apostles saw themselves living in the end times before the Second Coming of Christ (and you have seen that they did), then John saw himself writing at the end of the end times. This point of view will be amplified when we get to another of his writings – the book of Revelation.

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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

Overflow

***

(Today’s Reading)

The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact

(Book Installment 28)

Part Two – The Timing of the Second Coming

Chapter 4 – What the Epistles Say

What Peter Says About Timing (1 and 2 Peter)

Along with the rest of the apostles, Peter considers he and his readers as living “in these last times” (1 Peter 1:20) and that “the end of all things is at hand” (1 Peter 4:7). He says that Jesus is “ready to judge the living and the dead” (1 Peter 4:5) and that “it is time for judgment to begin” (1 Peter 4:17). He then coaches the church leaders to be ready for the appearing of the Chief Leader (1 Peter 5:4) giving no instruction whatsoever about how to pass on church government just in case Jesus should change His mind and decide to come in some subsequent generation. The church would need no human government because the Lord Himself was on the verge of taking charge of His own flock.

2 Peter is for Peter what 2 Timothy was for Paul – a farewell letter. We know from John 21 that Peter was to die before the Lord’s coming. In the first part of 2 Peter he says the Lord has now made it clear to him that his fateful time had come. History tells us that Peter was crucified, head downward, in Rome – probably within a few years of Paul’s execution. No wonder there was to be such a rise of false teachers near the end – so many of the good ones were dying! And what do Peter’s parting words concern? The same things Paul’s parting words concerned. The same thing that concerned all the true apostles – protecting the flock from the flood of false teachers and false messiahs that were arising on the eve of the Lord’s coming.

Any social movement, especially as it encounters success and gathers momentum, will attract those whose motives are not as pure as its founder and earliest followers. The movement Jesus started was no different in this regard. Peter explains that false teachers will introduce their false teaching, some going so far as denying the Lord Himself. Peter says such false teachers will be immoral and sensual and will mislead many who are not seeking purity of life. Peter concludes his letter by exhorting his readers to keep looking for the day of the Lord, including new heavens and a new earth (we’ll say more about this in the next part of the book on the nature of the Second Coming).

Peter says that his fellow disciples should be ”looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God” (2 Peter 3:12). This was no time to set people up for a false hope; no time to encourage people to pin their hopes completely on a coming event that might be delayed for centuries. Obviously, it never occurred to Peter that the Lord might not come in the time frame He gave. And why should it? Peter knew in the most personal and unforgettable way that the Lord would not make a mistake in His prophesying, even when you thought He might (“…before a rooster crows, you shall deny Me…”). Therefore, Peter told people to pin their hopes completely on assurance of the Lord coming when He promised (1 Peter 1:13). To maintain that the Lord did not come in that time frame is to accuse Peter of false teaching.

***

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

Overflow

***

(Today’s Reading)

The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact

(Book Installment 27)

Part Two – The Timing of the Second Coming

Chapter 4 – What the Epistles Say

What Paul Says About Timing (continued)

Paul’s letter to the Hebrews begins, “God…in these last days has spoken to us in His Son.” In Hebrews 9:26, “these last days” are referred to as “the consummation of the ages.” Throughout the letter, reference is made to the approaching “end,” “the day” that is coming.

Consider this passage from chapter 10 which not only alludes the apostasy that was part of the Jesus-apostolic timetable, but also emphasizes that these very believers, if they don’t succumb to the apostasy, will experience that day personally.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Hebrews 10:23-25 [emphasis added]

The immediacy of the hope is spelled out further in chapter 10 where Habakkuk’s prophecy is invoked as being fulfilled:

For yet in a very little while,
He who is coming will come,
and will not delay. Hebrews 10:37 [emphasis added]

Whatever other impressions the original recipients of this letter may have received, they knew that Paul was persuaded that the Lord was on the verge of coming, and that this awareness intensified his sense of urgency.

How can we expect people to take seriously this letter’s claim of the superiority of Jesus if we do not take seriously its claim that it was written in the “last days” and that Jesus would come in “a very little while”?

What James Says About the Timing

Let’s just quote James directly as he closes his letter:

Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure! James 5:3

Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains. James 5:7

You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. James 5:8

Just like Paul, James is committing himself unequivocally to the position that the Lord’s coming is soon – not centuries away. Today, most people who say the Lord is coming soon at least hedge their bets. They leave themselves an out in case, “the Lord chooses to tarry” as they say. But you are seeing that the apostles left themselves not one inch to maneuver. The coming of the Lord was at hand and that was that. Wouldn’t the apostles know more about the Lord’s coming than any of us?

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