Loving Christ’s Appearing

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.—2 Timothy 4:8

Carl Hagensick

Without doubt, the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth in Judea some 2000 years ago had a great impact on his followers. They left their fishing nets and other instruments of trade to spend all their time with him. They beheld miracles to an extent never witnessed before. They heard lessons from a master teacher. After his death and a short period of confusion they became totally engrossed in preaching the message they had been taught. Their lives were changed forever.

At first during his ministry his disciples could not bring themselves to believe that he would die and leave them. Gradually, as that fact began to sink in, they became intensely interested in the subject of his return. On one occasion they asked, "What shall be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?" (Matthew 24:3). His detailed answer was essentially one word: "Watch!" (Mark 13:33–37).

They needed to watch because the day of the Lord would come "as a thief in the night" (1Thessalonians 5:2-4). They would need to watch because some would deny his return saying "all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation" (2 Peter 3:4). They would need to watch because there would be a tendency for some to become drowsy (Romans 13:11).

They knew that his presence would be invisible since some at Thessalonica believed, without physical sight, that he had already returned (2 Thessalonians 2:2).

Although the metaphors differed, their anticipation of that return was variously described as waiting for a groom to "return from a wedding" (Luke 12:36) and welcoming him to a wedding (Matthew 25:1–13). In either event the anticipation is an emotional high.

There is no question that Jesus’ followers when he walked the earth were eagerly anticipating his return. They "loved his appearing." They hoped, when he appeared to them after his resurrection, that he would then "restore again the kingdom to Israel" (Acts 1:6). The Bible itself ends with the fervent prayer, "Even so, come Lord Jesus" (Revelation 22:20).

What does his return mean to us today? How should it affect our lives? What should we do differently, knowing the fact of his return, that we would not do otherwise?

Separation from Babylon

In the question asked Jesus about his return in Matthew 24:3, the disciples linked his coming (Greek: parousia) with the "end of the age." This same expression is used in the parable of the wheat and the tares. In that parable both the wheat and the tares were to "grow together until the harvest" (Matthew 13:30) which, we are further informed, is "the end of the age" (Matthew 13:39). In a parallel picture in Revelation 14:14 the Lord Jesus is shown as being present during this harvest.

Thus a belief in the Lord’s return would lead one to separate himself from the surrounding "tares." This is substantiated further with the declaration in Revelation 14:8 that "Babylon is fallen" (see also Revelation 18:2). It is in connection with this latter statement that we hear a voice from heaven saying, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."

The harvest is a time for separation—of wheat from tares, not of wheat from wheat. Thus to live in harmony with the Lord’s return is to avoid being joined with the false Christianity called "Babylon" by the Revelator. A belief that the second advent is a reality should lead a Christian to seek a place of worship and study that brings forth truths that can be fully supported by harmonizing all the Bible has to say on this subject.

Rejoicing in Truth

Those who are watching successfully for the Lord’s return are to be given special spiritual food: "Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them" (Luke 12:37).

Fresh insights into the Lord’s word should occur when the Lord returns. This should lead to greater zeal in searching out the deep truths of the word of God. The New International Version furnishes an interesting corroborative reading of Daniel 12:4, "But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge."

What rejoicing the child of God enjoys at this time when things both "new and old" are brought forth from God’s great "storehouse" of truth (Matthew 13:52).

Another practical effect of the Lord’s return is the perspective it brings to world events. We are living in an age of uncertainty. In his account of the Lord’s great prophecy about his return, Luke writes: "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring" (Luke 21:25).

Professor Vine has this to say about the Greek word aporia, translated "perplexity": "Literally, ‘at a loss for a way,’ a, negative, poros, ‘a way, resource,’ of the distress of nations, finding no solution to their embarrassments; papyri illustrations are in the sense of being at one’s wit’s end, at a loss how to proceed, without resources."

While media pundits and the world’s best diplomats flounder in their search for a way out of current world problems, accepting the fact of the Lord’s return places all these crises into the context of a transition from the present world order to that of Christ’s kingdom.

Israel

Numerous prophecies link the return of Christ to a regathering of the Jews to their promised land and a reestablishment of God’s ancient people as a modern nation. Current conflicts in the Middle East between this newly established nation and Arab claimants for the land pose great questions before the world community. Even the present Israeli government is constantly seeking solutions that will produce peace while maintaining secure and definable borders for their homeland.

Students of the Bible see prophesied solutions for these concerns. The Jews not only would be gathered "from all coasts of the earth" (Jeremiah 31:8), but their regathering would be permanent: God would not "pluck them up" nor permit man to do so (Jeremiah 24:6). Although their enemies would surround them and seek to "cut them off from being a nation" (Psalm 83:3), such attacks would be fruitless.

Based upon so many prophecies, this return of Israel at the time of the second advent of Christ gives students of the Bible great confidence in seeking to "comfort" Israel in her current trials (Isaiah 40:1,2).

Note that the audience to whom Peter preaches his sermon in Acts 3 is located in the temple at Jerusalem. He is speaking to a Jewish religious people. It is to those who "denied the Holy One and the Just" and "killed the Prince of life" (though it is attributed to "ignorance") that he promises God would "send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began" (Acts 3:13–21). Considering this context, certainly the "restitution of all things" must include restoring the Jewish people to their ancient homeland.

Instantaneous Resurrection

When the apostle Paul was concerned with the feelings of the Thessalonian brethren about those of their number who had died, he wrote: "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope."

He then proceeded to connect their hopes for their beloved dead with the return of Christ: "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words" (1Thessalonians 4:14–18).

The same apostle assures us that this resurrection would be instantaneous in 1 Corinthians 15:51,52, "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

What a comfort it is for a believer at the blessed time of the second advent to have the assurance of an instantaneous resurrection following death of those he has come to love so much!

The Anticipation of Centuries

When the return of Christ would be a reality, it was to be greeted with great jubilation. To the generation that witnesses the actual return of Christ belongs this joy of the centuries—centuries of waiting, of anticipation.

One Christian writer has illustrated this joy of Christ’s return, the love for his appearing, in the following words:

"Fiction has painted the picture of a maiden whose lover left her for a voyage to the Holy Land, promising on his return to make her his beloved bride. Many told her that she would never see him again. But she believed his word, and evening by evening she went down to the lonely shore and kindled there a beacon-light in sight of the roaring waves, to hail and welcome the returning ship which was to bring again her betrothed. And by that watchfire she took her stand each night, praying to the winds to hasten on the sluggish sails, that he who was everything to her might come. Even so that blessed Lord, who has loved us unto death, has gone away to the mysterious Holy Land of Heaven, promising on his return to make us his happy and eternal Bride. Some say that he is gone forever, and that here we shall never see him more. But his last word was, ‘Yea, I come quickly.’ And on the dark and misty beach, sloping out into the eternal sea, each true believer stands by the love-lit fire, looking, and waiting, and praying, and hoping for the fulfillment of his word, in nothing gladder than in his pledge and promise, and calling even from the soul of sacred love, ‘Amen! Come! Lord Jesus.’

"We would call attention to the sequel to which this beautiful picture points: The long-predicted, dark, stormy morning, that was to witness the return of him who gave the promise, is at last dawning; but before the blessed sunshine of his revealing, before the full dawn of the light, comes the darkest of the night. While a stricken world has been reeling to and fro with the shocks of war, revolution, and strife; and while the sea and waves of anarchy have been roaring and lashing the doomed ship of state of present institutions, and the pilots have been endeavoring vainly to weather the terrible storm; some of the Lord’s saints who have preserved the true spirit of betrothal ("Come, LordJesus, come quickly") and have been watching andlonging for the glorious Apocalypse of the Divine One, who said that his coming would be like a thief, have by the eye of faith through the sure word of prophecy, seen a form rising up through the stormy mists, growing more and more distinct, as once it was seen from Galilee’s shore, and have recognized it to be the One for whom they have been longing. Though these still find themselves in the midst of life’s tempestuous sea, they have the assurance that soon they will once more hear their Divine Lord command the sea and the waves, saying, ‘Peace, be still!’ In obedience to that voice, the storms and tempests of earth will cease and again there will be a great calm. Yea, verily, his presence will yet, soon we trust, bring in the Day long promised when all the mists, shadows and darkness of the night time will pass away and give place to the morning of light—the morning of the resurrection; the day of the prisoner’s release; the day for which the whole creation for six thousand years has waited and travailed in pain; indeed, the day of the great consummation, the day that shouts the Harvest Home—the day that never dies!"—R. E. Streeter, The Revelation of Jesus Christ

A Message to Proclaim

Finally, a belief that the Lord has returned leaves believers with no other option than to proclaim it. What thrills their hearts becomes a joy to tell to others. Not only is it a joy to their hearts, but the perception it gives to all that happens in their lives and in all the world around them gives new meaning to the song, "We’ve a story to tell to the nations."

To them is the privilege of proclaiming the return of their Lord as prophesied in Isaiah 52:7,8: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the LORD shall bring again Zion."