The Second Coming of Jesus (Part III) No Two-Phase Coming Paul adds to the information about the final fate of those who are not ready for Christ`s coming: “And to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the prescence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints” (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10). At the very same time that the righteous are glorified, the rejecters of His grace will be slain by the brightness of His presence. This interesting revelation brings us face to face with a massive deception that has misled millions of Christians. Obviously, there will be nothing secret about the rapture of the saints, and the so-called “secret rapture” is only a figment of the imagination. We have just read the clear Bible statement that the wicked are dealt with at the same time the righteous are given immortality. There is absolutely no scriptural indication that the return of Christ takes place in two phases. The popular concept that Jesus comes secretly seven years before the end of the world to snatch away the good people, has no Bible support whatsoever. The wicked do not continue living on the earth for seven years after the mythical rapture of the righteous. They are slain, Paul says, “When He (Jesus) shall come to be glorified in His saints.” Recently, there came to my desk a mockup of a newspaper that was supposed to represent the typical news flashes on the day after the rapture occurs. It was filled with horror stories and pictures beyond description. Terrible accidents were reported to have occurred simultaneously around the world, killing thousands of people. As millions of Christians suddenly vanished without a trace, driverless cars and pilotless planes careened out of control. The paper carried many articles about little children who had apparently disappeared into thin air while on their way to school. Only the spiritually careless and uncommitted were left behind to pick up the pieces of a shattered society. What a pervertion of truth! The wicked will also see Christ when He comes. Paul says He shall “appear the second time,” and Peter declared, “When the chief Shepherd shall appear” (Hebrews 9:28; 1 Peter 5:4). If His coming were secret or invisible, it should be written that He will not appear. When Paul and his companions suffered a storm at sea and the clouds were dark and lowering, he described it as “when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared” (Acts 27:20). To appear is to be seen. Will Jesus appear or not when He comes? Many verses say He will appear. Can we trust the Bible, or should we put some strange, twisted meaning to that word “appear” in order to support what we want to believe? Coming As a Thief I am convinced that the confusion has been largely the result of misinterpreting two phrases that Jesus used in describing His coming. And the interesting thing is that He gave such a clear explanation of the phrases that hardly an unprejudiced mind could be misled. Now let us take a close look, in context, at the two expressions of our Lord that have been used to support a secret rapture –“as a thief in the night,” and “one taken and the other left.” If we are willing to accept the Bible definition of terms, there can be no ambiguity about what Jesus said. What did He mean when He said His coming would be like a thief in the night? He carefully explained in Matthew 24: 42-44: “Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come , he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son on Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” There it is! So simple that a child can understand it. It will be unexpected. The advent will take the world by surprise. His coming will burst upon this earth when people least expect it. They will be just as unprepared for it as they would for a midnight thief. These words do not convey the least idea that our Lord will come sneaking around like some common criminal. He was just using a striking illustration of the unexpectedness of His return. Jesus reinforced the point He was making in verse 50, “The master of that servant will come on a day whe he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of.” Peter used exactly the same words in describing the Second Coming of Christ. He said, “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat” (2 Peter 3:10). This verse alone contains all the evidence we could ever desire about the meaning of the disputed term. When Jesus comes as a thief, Peter says, the heavens will pass away with a great noise. Could that be a secret? Does this portray the silent snatching away of millions of people while others are totally unaware of what is taking place? It is the very opposite of that. That great noise corresponds to the shout and trumpet of Paul`s epistle –a sound so intense that even the dead are awakened.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 23:06:11 +0000
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