The Second Coming of Christ - The Only Christian Hope, continued

Now, were not these the hopes communicated in the Gospel to all who embraced it? Resurrection to eternal life, and inheritance in the kingdom of God, is the salvation offered to every son of. Adam without distinction of age or station. If a man receive that promised salvation in the sense of believing it, he "rests in hope." Of what? Of its fulfilment. He may labour in the work of self-preparation with great devotedness--working out his own salvation with fear and trembling; he may follow righteousness with ardour, nursing moral life with enthusiasm; he may busy himself in the prosecution of every benevolent work, and take delight in pressing the gospel upon the attention of his fellow men; not only may do, but must do, if he would be an accepted servant when his Lord comes to take account of his stewardship; but what is the inmost feeling of his nature, if he be a true man? Hope--nay, constant longing desire--for the salvation he preaches to others. That is, tired of his own imperfections and faults as a perishable human being, he yearns for the immortality promised, and grieved with prevailing perversion and injustice, as politically and socially exemplified around him, he longs to be a witness of and partaker in, the perfection of the kingdom of God.

Now as these "things hoped for" cannot be attained till the coming of the Lord to bring them to pass, is it not plain that that coming will be the uppermost anticipation in his mind? It matters not that it is unlikely to occur in his lifetime; because, whether he live or die, it will be the time of his deliverance, and equally important as a matter of prospective contemplation a thousand years before the event, as to a Christian contemporaneous with it.

It is only the popular dogma of immortal-soulism, as involving the belief in a conscious death-state in which spiritual destinies are sealed, that deranges the harmony of New Testament teaching on this point. If Christians at their death are really transported to heaven, to enjoy reward in the presence of the Saviour, the doctrine of his return to the earth cannot have any practical interest for them, because their salvation is altogether independent of it. They die, and are SAVED, according to the common teaching; they go to heaven and see Christ; therefore, their attention is naturally concentrated on death, as the great revealing event, and diverted from the coming of Christ, which they come to look upon as a sort of profitless and even questionable doctrine. In fact, the great majority of religious people go the length of rejecting it altogether, as a carnal conceit, and interpret all references to it in the New Testament as meaning the occurrence of death.

What a mighty perversion! What fatal unbelief !--Yet the natural fruit of the corrupt tree on which it grows. If popular belief as to the death-state be correct, then the other is the logical result, and "orthodox" people who go to that extreme, are only consistent. But take away the doctrine of the immortality of the soul--the root of all evil in a theological sense--and harmony is restored. We see the righteous dead asleep in corruption, and perceive the necessity of the Redeemer's advent to wake them to incorruptibility and life, and the essential importance of that event as the object of hope during their lifetime.

We are endeavouring to show that the second coming of Christ was the hope of Christians converted by the preaching of the apostles. We shall now follow up the arguments advanced by quoting a number of passages from the epistles addressed to them in which the doctrine is set forth with a plainness which must carry conviction to every ingenious mind:--

"For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present world, looking for that blessed hope and THE GLORIOUS APPEARING OF THE GREAT GOD AND OUR SAVIOUR, JESUS CHRIST" (Titus 2v 11, 12).

"For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body" (Phil. 3v 20, 21).

"Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him SHALL HE APPEAR THE SECOND TIME, without sin unto salvation" (Heb. 9v 28).

"When Christ, who is our life, SHALL APPEAR, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory" (Col. 3v 4).

"It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that WHEN HE SHALL APPEAR, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3v 2).

"Ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son FROM HEAVEN, whom He raised from the dead" (I Thess. 1v 9, 10).

"Ye come behind in no gift, waiting for THE COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST" (I Cor. 1v 7).

"Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord . . . stablish your hearts, for THE COMING OF THE LORD draweth nigh" (James 5v 7, 8).

"That the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise, and honour, and glory, AT THE APPEARING OF JESUS CHRIST . . . Wherefore, gird up the loins of your mind; be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is brought unto you AT THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST" (I Pet. 1v 7-13).

"The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ" (II Thess. 3v 5).

"And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love, one toward another, and toward all men; even as we do toward you; to the end he may stablish your hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even our Father, AT THE COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, with all his saints" (I Thess. 3v 12, 13).

"Keep this commandment without spot unrebukable, until the APPEARING of our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Tim. 6v 14).

"And now, little children, abide in him, that when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his COMING" (I John 2v 28).

"It is a righteous thing with God, to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled, rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels" (2 Thess. 1v 6, 7).

"The Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead, at HIS APPEARING and his kingdom Henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me AT THAT DAY; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his APPEARING" (II Tim. 4v 1-8).

It is superfluous to comment upon these eloquent testimonies. Their scrupulous explicitness leaves no room for argument. They show that the hope of the early Christians was different from that of modern professors; that it laid hold of the coming of the Lord as an object of personal solicitude. Jesus himself had exhorted them to be watchful:--" Behold, I come as a thief; blessed is he that watcheth" (Rev. 16v 15). He had also said:--

"Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares .... Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things, and to stand before the Son of Man" (Luke 21v 34-36).

Now, in the professing Christian world of the present day, we see none of this anxiety about the second coming of Christ. There is a universal indifference to it. One is reminded of the statement in the parable, "While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept." Very few care about the approach of the bridegroom; very few believe in it. When spoken to about it, their language is practically that of the scoffers of whom Peter wrote, "Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." Ah, but the day comes when this apathy shall be rudely dispelled. "As a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth," said Jesus (Luke 21v 35).

How is it that men are so blinded to the most obvious doctrine of the New Testament? Because, under the guidance of a false theory, they look upon death as the eternal settlement of every man for weal and woe, whereas death settles nothing. It consigns us to darkness and silence, to await the coming of Christ. That is the great settling time "when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ" (Rom, 2v 16). Blessed are all they who are prepared for its arrival. Happy are they who "look for his appearing"; thrice happy they who "love it"; for it is only to such that he is to "appear the second time unto salvation."

Oh reader! repent thee of thy worldly follies! Give heed to the good message that speaks to thee out of thy Bible! Learn the truth from its neglected pages, and casting thine errors and thy thoughtlessness behind thee, give obedience to the heavenly requirements; and then wait with hope for the coming of the Son of Man, that thou mayest be His in the day when he maketh up His jewels.