Acts 1:1-11
Within a few hours Jesus would be dead. The Romans, conspiring with the Jewish
leadership, would have done their brutal work.
Jesus’ body would be sealed away in a tomb where the inevitable work of
decay would do its work—in fact, we now know that the decay would have begun
the moment he breathed his last. Even
though Jesus had told them again and again that the cross wouldn’t mean it was
over, in the minds of his disciples it would be over. So, Jesus tried one more time to comfort his
followers.
He said,
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
In my Father’s house are many rooms.
In my Father’s house are many rooms.
If it were not so, would I have told you that I go
to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come again
The teaching that Jesus would come again brings us
to another answer to the question, Who is Jesus? The answer is—Jesus is the Returning Lord.
Before I say more, join me in a little
exercise. Imagine you are looking at one
of the key landmarks of downtown Columbus, the LeVeque Tower. When the building was completed in 1927 it stood
555.5 feet tall and was, at the time, the tallest building between New York
City and Chicago. Until 1974, it was the
tallest building in Columbus. On a clear
day, you can see the building when you are still miles from downtown. On a clear night, you can see the building
illuminated, sometimes with white lights, sometimes with colored lights to
commemorate some special event. From a
distance, the tower is an impressive building that speaks of another age. When you get closer, you see the details of
its Art Deco design. Some of those
details can be appreciated only if you should be able to enter areas that are
usually closed to the public. Yet, on a
foggy night, you may only be able to see the blur of those lights. There’s no doubt the building is there but a
vision of the details is denied.
Like the LeVeque Tower, the doctrine of Christ’s
Second Coming stands out against the backdrop of the New Testament. We are all aware it’s there. Yet, in some ways, it is like the LeVeque
Tower on a foggy day; there is no doubt the doctrine is there but the fog
prevents us from seeing all its details.
There are hidden aspects of this doctrine that are closed to us—closed
by divine providence. No one is
permitted to see them so be especially cautious when you encounter those who
claim to know more about the Second Coming than they could possibly know.
With that in mind, I’m going to try to focus on
what we do know about the Return of Jesus.
The Return of Jesus will be personal.
This is a common emphasis when the New Testament
speaks of the Second Coming. The focus
is on Who is coming. Jesus’ told his
troubled disciples, “I will come again.”
The angels told the disciples who had just witnessed the Ascension, “This
Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you
saw him go into heaven.” Paul wrote the
Thessalonians, “The Lord himself will descend.”
The idea seems clear that Jesus Return is not an
abstract promise, but the promise of a known Person who will return.
Some Christian writers of the liberal tradition
have tried to argue that the Second Coming was accomplished with the coming of
the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. That
cannot explain why the earliest Christian preachers, including some who were
there at Pentecost, continued to speak of the Jesus’ Coming as a future event.
The Return of Jesus will be powerful and public.
A well known sectarian group claims Jesus returned
on October 1, 1914, and began his reign in Jerusalem. This is far from the Biblical picture of
Christ’s Return.
According to the Bible, his Return will be
glorious, powerful, and triumphant.
Again, Paul told the Thessalonians:
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of
command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of
God.” (I Thess. 4:16)
His victory will be complete and unquestioned. The early Christians sang a hymn declaring
that at his return “every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord.”
This picture of Christ’s Return which will be so visibly
victorious seems to run contrary to the popular theory that his coming will
involve some sort of “secret rapture.” I
just don’t think the Scriptures support this idea. There will be nothing “secret” about his
Return.
Those who have denied his very existence will give a collective, “Oops.”
The Return of Jesus will be purposeful.
The Returning
Lord will complete the process of salvation.
To begin with there will be the Resurrection of the dead. The Return of Jesus will bring about the
fulfillment of the promised that we will share Jesus’ victory over death.
While Christians differ on the details of the resurrection, they
agree that believers will be given transformed bodies. In First Corinthians, Paul offers an
explanation of this transformation. Here
is Peterson’s paraphrase:
Some skeptic is
sure to ask, “Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; draw me a
picture. What does this ‘resurrection body’ look like?”
If you look at this question closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of thing.
We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a “dead” seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don’t look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.
If you look at this question closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of thing.
We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a “dead” seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don’t look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.
In this new body believers will maintain their identity but will
no longer be subject to pain, suffering, or death. The blind will see, the lame will leap, the
deaf will hear—all will be changed. This
affirmation reminds us that Christianity prizes the body. We don’t treat the body with disdain. A body is a part of our identity. The body, as one writer says, is the form a
self is in.
Jesus, who was the first-fruit of this great resurrection, led the
way. The One who was victorious over
death will share his victory.
Following our resurrection, the Returning Lord, moves us toward
the experiencing of glorification. Through
glorification, we become truly Christlike.
One definition puts it this way,
In glorification believers attain complete conformity to
the image and likeness of the glorified Christ and are freed from both physical
and spiritual defect. Glorification ensures that believers will never again
experience bodily decay, death or illness, and will never again struggle with
sin.[1]
Visit a great art museum and you will see portraits
of Christ by masters from every age. No
matter how different the artists’ technique and style, you recognize the
subject. Whether the painting is by DaVinci or Korean artist Juchul Kim you look
and see Jesus. In the same way, in our glorified condition we
retain our distinctive identity yet we bear the unmistakable image of
Christ. This will be the work of the
Returning Lord.
The
Returning Lord will complete the work of judgment.
I’ve spent a long time studying the faith of
America’s founders. I’ve come to the
conclusion that any attempt to portray men like Jefferson as evangelicals or
orthodox Christians is just wishful thinking.
True, some of the founders, like Dr. Benjamin Rush and John Carroll,
seem to have been orthodox believers.
Patrick Henry might be in that number as well. But that can’t be said of Jefferson, Madison,
or Adams, among others. Jefferson could
not believe in the deity of Christ or his resurrection. He believed the simple ethical teachings of
Jesus had been corrupted by subsequent writers.
Yet, almost all of these men—believers or
not—thought there would be a final reckoning, a final judgment of their deeds
and works.
Most of humanity has seen the world as a place of
injustice. Too often the innocent die
under the lash while their tormentors die peacefully in their beds. Something in us cries out for that to be
remedied. When the Returning Lord
presides over the final judgment, all will be made right.
But it will not just be the Hitler’s, the Stalin’s;
the Capone’s who stand before this Judge.
It will be every one of us. Those
who have trusted Christ’s sacrifice may be assured that the charge against them
has been erased because their sins have already been judged. Others will face the Judge without that
confidence.
His judgment and his alone will determine their
final fate, whether heaven or hell. Some
will enter eternity with the assurance of God’s presence. Others will know only the darkness of God’s
absence, the culmination of a lifetime of denying God his rightful place in
their lives, wishing God would just leave them alone.
This is not an easy truth but an honest reading of the Scripture and the
weight of Christian thought through the ages seems to demand it.
Since the fate of those facing the Judge is linked
to their relationship to him, it’s common for critics of Christianity to raise
the question of the fate of those who haven’t heard the gospel. For all the ink spilled in debating the
question, there is a simple fact that needs to be kept in mind. It is namely this; the Bible doesn’t tell us
their fate. Jesus doesn’t address the
issue, neither does Paul nor any other writer.
The Bible does remind us that the Judge of all the earth will do what is
just.
Instead of wondering what the Judge will say to
those who have never heard, perhaps we should ponder what that Judge might say
to those who have never told.
This is a rapid sketch of what seems clear about
the work of the Returning Lord. The rest
is not so clear. With that in mind let
me offer some observations.
1. When we speak of Jesus fulfilling his role
as Returning Lord we should remember we are speaking of a legitimate facet of
the Christian tradition.
The great creeds of the Christian Church all concur
that God will bring history to its end through the Return of Christ. The Apostles' Creed says: "He [Christ]
ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God, from thence he
shall come to judge the quick and the dead"
These
creedal statements are rooted in Scripture.
Jesus predicted his return. Read the Gospels and you’ll be surprised how
often He mentions his return—even in the Sermon on the Mount. Every New Testament writer mentions the
Second Coming. In fact, some scholars have
said that his Return is mentioned ever four pages of the New Testament.
2. When we speak of Jesus fulfilling his role
as the Returning Lord we should recall that honest Christians differ in their
understanding of what the Bible teaches about his Return.
One topic on which Christians differ is the role of
Israel. The Christian consensus seems to
be that through the Returning Lord, God will make clear he has kept his
promises to Israel. But what does that
mean? Certainly, I think the answer
must lie somewhere between those who say God finished with the Jews in the
first century and those who say we Christians must support modern Israel in
everything the nation does, lest we find ourselves enemies of God.
Good Christians disagree about what the Bible has
to say regarding the future. They
disagree about what will happen immediately before and immediately after
Christ’s Return. They disagree about
details but agree that Christ’s Return will change everything.
3. When we speak of Jesus fulfilling his role
as the Returning Lord we should wrap our conclusions in sincere humility.
None of us knows as much about the future as we
would like to know. We shouldn’t think
we are the enlightened ones and those who disagree are benighted. We may be right. They may be wrong. We may be wrong. They may be right. We may both be wrong. Studying what the Bible says about the future
is supposed to fill us with hope, not arrogance.
As we wait for Jesus to fulfill his role as
Returning Lord, what should we be doing?
As we wait for Jesus to return we should continue
his work.
Luke says that in his first volume, “I wrote about
all that Jesus began to do and to teach…”
If his first volume focused on what Jesus began to do, the second
volume focuses on what Jesus continued to do. The perspective Luke wants to
give us can be expressed this way: The
ministry of the Spirit-filled church is a continuation of the ministry of
Jesus.
Christ’s
People are those who carry on the work of Christ.
Continuing His work means maintaining the priorities he set.
There was nothing wrong with the disciples being
interested in the future, especially in how God might act to bring about his
purposes in the world but their question seemed to indicate an inappropriate
preoccupation with that future.
Jesus had a better idea. That better idea is summed up in a few
words: “You will be my witnesses….”
Instead of
being prognosticators they were to be preachers. Instead of watching the skies they were to be
witnesses. Instead of being princes of
the Kingdom they were to be proclaimers of the Kingdom.
Specifically, they were to tell the world—the whole
world—about Jesus. That immediately that
challenges the provincialism implied in their question to Jesus. The Messiah hadn’t come merely to be a
blessing to “Israel” but to everyone, even those at “...the ends of the earth.”
In the Book of Acts we will see Christ’s People
finally catch the vision which motivated Jesus Christ from the beginning. The church will become a missionary
church. One of its leaders, Paul, would
write the Romans that his great dream was “…to evangelize where Christ has not
been named.” (Romans 15:20 HCSB)
For some, today, that vision dream is terribly
wrong. In their minds it is the height
of arrogance to even attempt to win men and women to Christ, to disturb the
order of some non-Western culture by attempting to impose our world-view upon
it. But time and again those who have carried
the gospel to other cultures have discovered that many who accept Christ did so
because they saw in him the fulfillment to the secret yearnings of their
hearts.
At the same time, as Christ’s People attempted to
carry out Christ’s purpose, they changed the world for the better. Because they saw every man, woman, and child
as individuals for whom Christ died they built hospitals to care for the sick,
they eventually were victorious in the war against slavery, and brought about
many other changes too numerous to mention.
This is the work accomplished by those who stayed
busy while waiting for the Lord who promised to return.
Conclusion: I haven’t said anything about the peril of
date-setting. I’ve talked about it
before and we all should remember Jesus’ warning. Still, there will always be those who,
ignoring the warnings of Scripture and history, will set a date for the Second
Coming. And there will always be those
who, ignoring the warnings of Scripture and history, will believe those
predictions.
How much better to honor the One who will come by
helping others find the answer to the question “Who is Jesus?”
[1] Grenz, S., Guretzki, D., & Nordling,
C. F. (1999). Pocket dictionary of
theological terms (55). Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.
