I F the B ible , Book above and beyond all books as a river is beyond a rill in reach, as God’s sun is above man’s cluster of candles in brightness, speaks with more emphasis about any one thing than any other, it is the certainty of Christ’s coming to earth again. Christ’s second coming is one of the cornerstones upon which the temple of God’s plan for the world is erected. The new birth, so strongly emphasized by Jesus, is spoken of nine times. Baptism is mentioned twenty times. Repentance is spoken of seventy times.. In the Old Testament there are at least three hundred prophecies concerning the coming of Christ the first time. As beacon lights on the hills of God’s landscape, the proph ecies shone—and still shine. And about three hundred and eighty verses in the New Testament refer to Christ’s coming the second time. Towering pre-eminence the Scriptures everywhere assign to Christ’s second coming. Of all the thousands of verses in the New Testament, one out of every twenty-five verses points forward with eager gestures to the appearing again of the Lord Jesus. Presently it is set forth as the great hope of the church, as the consummation of all promises, as the coronation of all evangelical and evangelistic and missionary hopes, as the sum of all prophecy and prayer. Frequently, we are told that Jesus is coming back to reign in righteousness. Then the present apostasy of the church, the increasing sinfulness of mankind, the problems o f our sinful world—war, class, race, national hatred, and prejudices, industrial injustice, drunken ness, cruelty, ignorance, lust, greed—shall be eradicated and not by human effort. There are those who preach and teach that “ the re demption of mankind rests with science, philosophy, education, and so far as religion shall effect it, it will be by preaching against war, capitalism and national ism, and so thereby creating a new social order and changing the world over to become the kingdom of God.” All of this is against the entire plan for world redemp tion—as set forth in the Bible. Many Mistakes There are some who, with inexcusable error, mis takenly declare that Christ’s spiritual presence is Christ’s second coming. To many Christ is a real Presence today, but that is distinct from His visible second coming. If His second coming is spiritual, t!hen the same law of interpretation will make the first coming spiritual. “ Every eye (not every mind) shall see him.” Some believe that death is the second coming. Not so! The Bible says: “ The Lord himself.” When a Chris-
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