tian dies, Christ does not descend from heaven with a shout. No dead person arises. Nobody is caught up in the clouds. Nobody meets the Lord in the air. No such events take place until Christ returns. No such events occur at death. Therefore, the second coming can not mean death. Some mistakenly declare that regeneration is the second coming of Christ. But the Bible says: “ The Lord himself!” The regeneration of a sinner is as the wind. “ The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3 :8 ). But this is the first event in a sinner becoming a Christian. Glorious it is when a sinner is saved—when drunkards become sober, when infidels become believers, when liars become truthful, when people born once are born again. But the salvation of a sinner is not the second coming. Pentecost is not the substitute for the coming of Christ, even though there are those who say that the predictions regarding Christ’s return were fulfilled on that day. Many of the promises regarding the second coming were made after the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came. And none of the events of I Thes- salonians 4 :16, 17 occurred on the Day of Pentecost. On that momentous day, there was no resurrection of the dead, no believers caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. The Lord Himself is' coming bodily, visibly, really, actually, corporeally, gloriously, person ally. More startling than the scenes of Pentecost, more momentous than the fall o f Jerusalem, more significant than the indwelling of the Spirit, more beautiful than the conversion of a sinner, more to be desired than our departure to be with the Lord, will be the literal, visi ble, bodily return of Christ. Great disturbances in nature are not to be called Christ’s second coming. God’s power may be revealed, the hand o f God may be seen, and the voice of God heard in each disturbance. “ Earthquakes may be the tread of His feet, the lightning flashes the light of His eyes, the thunder the sound of His voice, the clouds the dust of His traveling chariots.” But this is not what the Bible means by the coming of Christ to manifest Him self to the world. Christ’s second coming is not His conquest in the world with the gospel. His conquests have been glorious, His victories marvelous, the winning power of the gospel manifested everywhere. Christ has made con quests. He is still making conquests. Christians, believ ing the gospel—that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was dead, was buried, and rose again
—by heroic endurance, by stainless innocence, by burn ing zeal, by inviolate truthfulness, by boundless love, fought against the indignant world and won. But that is not what the Bible means by Christ’s second coming again to this world. Mystery Dr. Scpfield says that a “mystery” in Scripture is a previously hidden truth now divinely revealed, but in which a supernatural element still remains despite the revelation. The dictionary says of this word: “ Some thing unexplainable or incomprehensible.” Of a number of mysteries mentioned in the Bible one of the most momentous is the second coming of the Lord. Paul writes: “ Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed” (I Corinthians 15:51). Not all Christians will die. The “ catching up” of the living saints at Christ’s coming will be, as Snyder says, something that will be unexplainable and incompre hensible, by the most brilliant of earth’s scientists. “ Every living Christian, including every baby, will suddenly disappear. They will go up from hospital beds, automobiles, airplanes, ships, workshops, streets, fields, houses, everywhere and from every nation.” “Where are they?” will be the question asked all around the earth. Nobody will be able to explain it. Mystery beyond the human mind to explain. “And the dead shall be raised incorruptible.” Both the saved dead and the living believer will be translated together, and will meet the descending Lord in the air. Some Christians will never die. One genera tion of believers will be living when Christ returns, and they will be given bodies “ fashioned like unto Christ’s own glorious body” and taken up without the experience of death. In this marvelous change, they will be “ clothed upon with the glory of immortality”— “ in a moment, in the twinkling o f an eye at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible” (I Corinthians 15:51, 52 and II Corinthians 5 :4 ). He went up bodily. He will return bodily. He went up visibly. He will return visibly. He went up in a cloud. He will return in a cloud. He went up from Mount Olivet. He will return to Mount Olivet (Zechariah 14:4). Yes, together the saved dead and living Christians will rise to meet Christ in the air, be greeted by Him, and dwell with Him—being “ ever with the Lord” (I Thessalonians 4:17). All these glorious events, not through ages of evolu tion, but “ in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at (continued on next page)
AUGUST, 1964
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