If you’ve spent most of your life thinking that the Second Coming is a future event, then accepting it as a past event requires some adjustments in your outlook. This process of adjustment is all the more necessary if you’ve been expecting the Second Coming to be the end of the world. So, let’s begin the adjusting.
If the Second Coming of Christ occurred in the 1st Century as Jesus said it would, what might the future hold for us? Well, for one thing, a lot more of what we’ve seen between the 1st Century and the 21st Century – which is nations rising and falling according to His judgments. What I’m saying is that we’ve already had almost two thousand years of experience with life on earth after the coming of the kingdom of God. Therefore, it’s not as though we have no idea what living under the kingdom of God is like.
Some people will say “There doesn’t seem to be that much difference between the way God judged BC and the way Jesus judges AD.” But we should not be surprised to see continuity. Like Father, like Son. That said, we have seen far more change in the last two thousand years than we saw in the previous four thousand. The comings of Jesus Christ – both His first and second – catapulted the world into a faster pace of change. The salvation He made available opened up all sorts of new vistas for humanity.
The increased pace of change was slower in the beginning. The first few centuries under the kingdom of God were like Israel’s first few centuries in the promised land. I’m speaking of the fact that after Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan River to some initial victories in the land of Canaan, the nation failed to fully drive the Canaanites from the land. As a result, Israel’s progress in realizing its potential was slow in the beginning, and did not really pick up steam until the time of the kings Saul and David. This slow-out-of-the-gate progress followed the same pattern as Noah who, instead of getting the greatly-reduced human race off to a rapid fresh start, stumbled badly by getting drunk shortly after departing from the ark.
By the time of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th Century, things were really picking up steam. Martin Luther and his fellow reformers rejected what had become the iron grip of the institutional church and paved the way for modern science and the industrial revolution and much more. But the Protestant Reformation petered out and still needs to be taken to its logical conclusion, which is celebration of the long hidden kingdom of God. Not only does the word of the kingdom need to spread into the known world, we’re coming on a time when it can be spread beyond the confines of earth.
Now that technology allows us to perceive the vastness of outer space, it’s become clear that when God told Adam and Eve to “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth,” He had a vision for humanity that extended far beyond the single sphere we call earth. God didn’t make all those planets merely to be seen through telescopes. Our descendants will settle those far-off places, just as we are descendants of those who came to America because it was the new world where worship of the one true God could be pursued without stifling persecution.
There were four thousand years between creation and Christ, but there have only been two thousand years since Christ. Did God spend four thousand years preparing for something that would only have a shelf life of two thousand years? Hardly. We are just at the beginning of the new creation. That is, we are just getting started with the kingdom of God.
The Duty of a Man 
Why do you think none of the apostles wrote about the second spiritual coming after it happened? Or other people who experienced/saw it?
1) The 27 texts that comprise the New Testament were written by only 8 men, and only 3 of those were part of the original 12. The apostles majored on preaching, not writing. Thus, their first thought would have been to preach it, not write about it.
2) Given Jesus’ prophecies of the coming kingdom, it’s likely that most of the apostles were dead by the time it arrived. John was the most likely candidate to have lived long enough, and his writings still project it as future.
3) As for other people writing about it, maybe they did. Not all 1st century literature has survived, nor have I had the means or opportunity to survey all that has survived.
4) Whether things were written or not, maybe there was as much disbelief about it then as there is now.
Four thousand years since creation? Mike, I’m on board with a lot of what you say, but I’m stumbling over this one. Doesn’t carbon dating show a much older earth? Curious as to your take. Thanks in respect.
Actually, it’s been six thousand years since creation – four thousand from Adam to Jesus, and then two thousand more since Jesus.
I’ve read pro and con on carbon dating, but I don’t have a strong enough knowledge of science to sort it all out. I just know that an earth much older than 6,000 years is incompatible with the Bible.
Do you not believe that God created the world in six days as the Bible describes?
(By the way, I’m glad you raised the question. Most people lack the intellectual curiosity to pursue it.)
What Does the Word of God Say about Evolution?