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The Promise of His Coming

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 10, 1916

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 93, No. 8.

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The Promise of His Coming

By L. L. C.

The Second Advent — No. 1

The Promise of His Coming

God’s people in all ages have been believers in the final establishment of God’s kingdom on earth. The doctrine of the second advent is a Biblical doctrine. As one writer well says,—
You cannot unthread this doctrine out of the Sacred Book, and have a living Word left. As well unthread the nerves out of the body, and have a living organism left. And you cannot unthread it out of the faith of the church without driving the knife to the heart of thousands of its godliest confessors. Say what men may, one thing stands well attested through the ages, that wherever this belief in the Lord’s literal return has gotten possession of men’s hearts, it has invariably exalted the authority of the Word of God, emphasized all the doctrines of grace, lifted high the cross of Christ, exalted the person and work of the Spirit, intensified prayer, enlarged beneficence, separated believers from the world, and set them zealously at work for the salvation of men.
At his first advent when about to “leave the world, and go to the Father,” Christ promised his disciples, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” John 14: 2, 3. When he was brought before the high priest and adjured to declare whether he were the Christ, the Son of God, he said: “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” Matt. 26: 64. Thus witness was borne even to the unbelieving Jews of the certainty of Christ’s return.
Later, after the ascension, the angels that appeared to the disconsolate disciples again bore witness to the second advent in these words: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” Acts 1: 11.
Paul, the agent used by God in writing a large share of the New Testament, links together the redemption wrought at Christ’s first advent and the restoration at his second advent.
“So 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. 9: 28.
Also in the Old Testament times we find the belief in the doctrine of the coming of Christ in glory. The promise to our first parents was that their seed should crush the serpent’s head. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, speaking prophetically, said:—
“Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” Jude 14, 15.
Abraham, while sojourning in the land of Canaan, “looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” Heb. 11: 10.
When Job expected to die, his hope rested on a resurrection to take place at Christ’s coming:—
“If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.” “For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.” Job 14: 14, 15; 19: 25-27.
Daniel and all the prophets foretold the establishment by the God of heaven of a kingdom that shall never be destroyed. No phrase is more frequent in the prophetic writing than that used to describe the time of this great event—“the day of the Lord.”
“Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.” Isa. 13: 9.
“All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water. They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; and shame shall be upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads. They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.” Eze. 7: 17-19.
“Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.” Joel 3: 13-16.
“The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly.” Zeph. 1: 14.
“Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, O nation not desired; before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you, before the day of the Lord’s anger come upon you. Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger.” Zeph. 2: 1-3.
“For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts.” Mal. 4: 1-3.
The testimony of both Old and New Testaments is so conclusive that Calvin could say truly, “The Scripture uniformly commands us to look forward with eager expectation to the coming of Christ, and defers the crown of glory that awaits until that period.”— Calvin’s “Institutes,” book 3, chap. 25.
Dr. D. L. Moody, while expressing his own belief in the “blessed doctrine,” tells of the comparative neglect it suffers in many churches:—
To my mind this precious doctrine—for such I must call it—of the return of the Lord to this earth is taught in the New Testament as clearly as any other doctrine in it; yet I was in church fifteen or sixteen years before I ever heard a sermon on it. There is hardly any church that does not make a great deal of baptism, but in all of Paul’s epistles I believe baptism is spoken of only thirteen times, while it speaks about the return of our Lord fifty times; and yet the church has had very little to say about it. Now, I can see a reason for this: the devil does not want us to see this truth, for nothing would wake the church so much. The moment a man takes hold of the truth that Jesus Christ is coming back again to receive his followers to himself, this world loses its hold on him. Gas stocks and water stocks and stocks in banks and railroads are of very much less consequence to him then. His heart is free, and he looks for the blessed appearing of his Lord, who at his coming will take him into his blessed kingdom.— “The Second Coming of Christ,” by D. L. Moody, Chicago, F. H. Revell, 1877, pages 6, 7.
This freedom from worldly interests will be the experience of the sincere believer in the Biblical promises of Christ’s second coming.
The subject of the manner of his coming must be reserved for a following article.
L. L. C.