Wednesday: In The Clouds of Heaven
However central and crucial the Second Coming is, according to the Bible not all Christians see the event as a literal, personal return of Jesus Himself. Some argue, for instance, that the second coming of Jesus occurs, not when Christ Himself returns to earth but when His Spirit is made manifest in His church on earth.
GoodSalt.com-rhpas1858
In other words, Christ’s second coming is accomplished when the moral principles of Christianity are revealed in His people.
How thankful we can be, however, that this teaching is false. If it were true, what long term hope would we really have?
Read the following New Testament texts about the Second Coming. What do they reveal about the nature of Christ’s return?
Matt. 24:30; 1 Thess. 4:16; Matt. 26:64; Rev. 1:7; 2 Thess. 1:7-10
“The firmament appears to open and shut. The glory from the throne of God seems flashing through. The mountains shake like a reed in the wind, and ragged rocks are scattered on every side. There is a roar as of a coming tempest. The sea is lashed into fury. There is heard the shriek of a hurricane like the voice of demons upon a mission of destruction. The whole earth heaves and swells like the waves of the sea. Its surface is breaking up. Its very foundations seem to be giving way. Mountain chains are sinking. Inhabited islands disappear. The seaports that have become like Sodom for wickedness are swallowed up by the angry waters. Babylon the great has come in remembrance before God, ‘to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath.’” — Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy , p. 637.
The return of Jesus is such a massive event that it literally brings the world as we know it to an end. When it happens, everyone will know it, too. What Jesus accomplished for us at the first coming will be made fully manifest at the second.
| How should living with the reality of the Second Coming impact how we live now? How should it help us remember what the really important things in life are? |
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Second coming of Jesus
Living - Wicked - slain at the second coming of Jesus
15 Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16 They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us[f] from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of their[g] wrath has come, and who can withstand it?”
notice: Those not found in Christ, king to the slave of sin, will hide from him
Living - In Christ - Transformed at the second coming of Christ
Dead - In Christ - Resurrected at the second coming of Jesus
All the wicked dead will be resurrected and judged at the third coming of Jesus according to their deeds. (Revelation 20)
At the second coming we will meet the Lord in the air.
Jon Paulien has a book that explains how God's people's view of the future changed as it was progressively revealed to them from coming within history and to there first being a break in history and then His comming. One was His first coming and the other His second coming. This is why I believe some people are picking up on the prophecy of His first coming within history and applying to our time instead of the prophecies of His second coming.
Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly." John 10:10. In God's Word, THE BIBLE, there is all that we can have to live now in HIS ABUNDANT LIFE until HE comes in the clouds of heaven.