THE RETURN OF JESUS CHRIST Systematic Theology March 20, 2014 Dr. Danny Forshee

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1 1 THE RETURN OF JESUS CHRIST Systematic Theology March 20, 2014 Dr. Danny Forshee Lesson 18 See Systematic Theology, p and Christian Beliefs, p Studying eschatology is a joy to me. Like many believers I have always it seems been interested in how things began in creation and how they will close in consummation when Jesus comes to earth again. We are currently studying the Book of Revelation and what a privilege and responsibility to engage in such a study and teach this wonderful Book. - Grudem does a good and thorough job in presenting the various theories on end times. But like in his treatment of creation and election I do differ with him in this study of last days. He like me is a premillennialist but he is what you call a historic premill whereas I am a more dispensationalist premill. The primary difference is Grudem does not believe in a rapture of the church but that Jesus only comes once not in two phases, and as a result the last generation of believers on earth will go through the Great Tribulation. - The word eschatology, which means a study of the last things, is from the Greek word eschatos, which means last. As we would expect just as God has told us in Scripture how things began and how we should live in the present, He also tells us in His Word what the future holds. There are major climactic events yet to come and Scripture addresses these events the second coming of Jesus, the millennium, the final judgment, eternal punishment for unbelievers and eternal reward for believers, and life with God in the new heaven and new earth (Grudem, p. 1091). - I. JESUS RETURN - Grudem list many areas of agreement among evangelicals regarding the return of Christ. - A. A LITERAL RETURN OF JESUS TO THE EARTH - The Bible speaks about the Lord s return in both Old and New Testaments and we find very clear teachings in the New regarding the Lord s second advent. Read Matthew 24:44, John 14:3 (Jesus speaking), Acts 1:11, Hebrews 9:28, 1 John 3:2, Revelation 22:20. - Jesus second coming is the dominant hope of followers of Christ, and Paul spoke of the Lord s return in 1 Thessalonians 4 and said in verse 18, Therefore comfort one another with these words. - B. WE SHOULD LONG FOR HIS RETURN. - In Titus 2:12-13 Paul speaks about the follower of Christ living soberly and upright awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Believers who are enjoying a life of ease

2 are less likely to eagerly long for Jesus return. However, those who are sick, facing death, or being persecuted for their faith are more prone to anticipate and look forward to Him coming again. Grudem, p. says to the degree we long for His return is a measure of the spiritual condition of our lives at the moment. - No one would argue that we live in very perilous days and the days are getting darker spiritually by the moment. We have seen radical shifts in our country in this generation in a palpable movement away from God and the Scriptures to a more hedonistic, even anti-christian stance among many. This world is under the power of the evil one as 1 John 5:19 asserts, but we do not lose hope for the Bible tells us these things will happen before the end. - We eagerly await His coming but we should also live our lives with planning for the future. When He comes again we should be actively engaged in serving Him. - C. NO ONE KNOWS WHEN HE WILL RETURN. - Read Matthew 25:13 and Mark 13: Since we do not know the time of His return we should live each moment in anticipation, and when He comes may He find us faithfully serving Him. The return of Christ gives motivation for the believer to be faithful and not compromise. - There have been many erroneous attempts to speculate when Jesus would come again. The Jehovah Witnesses have made many predictions and each one was wrong. William Miller a Baptist farmer in the 19 th century predicted when Jesus would come again and many believed him. When the day came and went he revised it and then the same result. He responded that the reason He did not come was the church was improperly observing he Sabbath day and this was the beginning of the Seventh Day Adventist denomination. I remember reading about a group in California who believed a man who said he knew the day and time. And they sold their possessions put on white garments and went to a mountain and nothing happened. In 1988, Edgar Whisenant said Jesus would come again on September 12, The day came and went and he revised his prediction to numerous dates but all those days came and went with no return of Christ. It is hard to see how people could believe such false prophets when the Bible clearly says no one knows the time. - D. THE FINAL RESULTS - Believers agree on the final outcome of the return of Christ unbelievers judged, believers rewarded, we will live with Christ in a new heaven and new earth, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit will be worshipped forever with no more suffering, sin, or pain. - E. DISAGREEMENT OVER THE DETAILS OF CHRIST S RETURN - Some of the points of disagreement involve the rapture, millennium, the great tribulation, and the place of the Jews or Israel. It is not a salvation issue; however, the disagreements are at times intense among believers. - F. COULD JESUS COME AT ANY TIME? 2

3 - Many verses in the Bible point to a sudden return that could happen at any time. In Matthew 24 Jesus speaks of His return like a thief in the night therefore we must be ready for He is coming at a time we do not expect (24:42-44). Christ s return is imminent; He could come at any time. The early church believed in the imminence of Christ s return as seen in verses like James 5:7-9, 1 Peter 4:7, Revelation 1:3; 22:7. The writers of Scripture were not mistaken because God does not view time as we do. One day is like a thousand years and a thousand years as one day (2 Peter 3:8). The time between Jesus first advent and His second is the last days. Commenting on Revelation 1:1 and 3 ( shortly and the time is near ) Paige Patterson comments, Because those times will embrace both cataclysmic judgment and costly witness, the message revealed is vital. Both phrases, must soon take place, and the time is near, underscore the urgency motif and suggest that the servants of Christ assess this prophecy immediately. (Patterson, The New American Commentary Revelation, p. 55) What a wonderful word of comfort to believers in every generation, but particularly for those first century Christians who suffered for their faith in Jesus Christ. - Grudem, p. 1097, quotes George Ladd when he writes, It is true that the early church lived in expectancy of the return of the Lord, and it is the nature of biblical prophecy to make it possible for every generation to live in expectancy of the end. - There are however many verses in the Bible that state signs that must take place before Jesus will come again like the Great Tribulation (Mark 13:19-20), the cataclysmic signs in the heavens like the sun being darkened and the moon not giving its light (Mark 13:24-25), and the appearance of the antichrist. Do these signs mean that we should not live in expectancy? Not at all. Grudem answers the question with some ambiguity and he says most likely these events have not happened in history but they may have so yes we can look with expectancy. A better answer to me is we should as believers live in expectancy for Christ s rapture of the church where He takes us out of here. Between the rapture and the second coming of Jesus, I believe, these miraculous signs will be fulfilled, for they have not happened yet all the nations have not heard the gospel, the mass salvation of Israel has not yet happened, the antichrist has not appeared, and the sun has not been darkened, and the other phenomenon in the Book of Revelation have not transpired. Those who become believers during the GT will be able to see these signs being fulfilled and they will know their redemption draws nigh. - Speaking of the antichrist who is to come, true there have been many antichrists in the world as John says in 1 John 2:18. However there is coming one who is the embodiment of evil and he will be a powerful world leader and will oppose Israel and lead a massive onslaught against Christ and His people. There have been types of antichrists if you will men like Adolf Hitler is an example. Other examples include Sun Myung Moon from Korea who died in 2012 and Sai Baba from India who said he was 3

4 4 Jesus and Gandhi. He also said he would die when he was 96 and died when he was 84 on Easter 2011 and he did not rise from the dead! We were in the city he lived on our last trip to India and they still have his face on everything; it is really sad. People would come from all over the world to listen to him and he was ungodly. The real antichrist has not appeared yet because Jesus has not come to destroy him yet, but He will as 2 Thessalonians 2:8 and Revelation 19:20 teach us He will. - Grudem closes this chapter by stressing the imminence of Christ s return that He could come back at any moment. He does not believe in a rapture of the church as a historic premill but he still holds to the teaching that Jesus could come back at any time and we need to always be looking and be ready. II. THE MILLENNIUM - Grudem has an entire chapter (55) dedicated to this one subject of the millennium. The word is from the Latin meaning one thousand years. The place in the Bible where this millennial reign of Christ is mentioned is Revelation 20:4-5. In the preceding verses, 2-3, John describes how Satan was bound for the same time frame, a thousand years. He does a good and thorough job of explaining the various interpretations and shares his own viewpoint. A. EXPLANATION OF THE THREE VIEWS - 1. Amillennialism - This position asserts that there is no literal thousand-year reign of Christ. In Revelation 20:1-10 it is referring to the current church age. Christ s reign is not one where He reigns on earth but one in which He reigns in heaven as He is doing now during this church age. The one thousand years is more a figure of speech and not to be taken literally. When Christ returns this is when both believers and unbelievers will rise and the bodies of believers will be united with their souls or spirits and reign with Christ in heaven in the eternal state. Unbelievers will face judgment and condemnation. Believers will not stand with unbelievers but will have a separate judgment referred to in 2 Corinthians 5:10 to determine rewards in heaven. It is the simpler and less complex viewpoint regarding the millennium Postmillennialism - The prefix post means after and therefore this theory is that Jesus will come again after His thousand-year reign. Over time the gospel will make more and more strides until an age of peace and righteousness will encompass the earth; this period of time will last a long time and then Jesus will return to earth. This view is very optimistic and believes things will get much better and then Jesus will come again. With two global wars and constant fighting between nations and increase in immorality there are not as many postmillennialists as there used to be.

5 5-3. Premillennialism - There are two types the classic or historical and the dispensational. The historic approach is Jesus will come before His thousand-year reign and establish His kingdom on earth after the Great Tribulation. Christians will go through this horrific time and there will be no rapture of the church and second coming of Jesus in this way. Grudem, p. 1112, explains in more detail and this is by the way his viewpoint or theory During this time Christ will be physically present on the earth in His resurrected body, and will reign as King over the entire earth. The believers who have been raised from the dead, and those who were on the earth when Christ returns, will receive glorified resurrection bodies they will live on the earth and reign with Christ. After the thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth, Satan will be loosed and those who have only outwardly followed Jesus but not truly followed Him will join forces with Satan and other unbelievers for one last battle against Christ and His saints. Christ will soundly defeat them and then all unbelievers will be raised from the dead and Jesus will judge them at the Great White Throne Judgment. - Dispensational premill believes that Christ will come for His church in the rapture and then return again after the seven years of Great Tribulation. The primary biblical text they appeal to is 1 Thessalonians 4: Then Christ sets up His thousand-year reign, then Satan is loosed, there is one more battle and then judgment for unbelievers at the Great White Throne and then the eternal state. There is a mid-tribulation view that states Jesus will come again midway through the Great Tribulation and rapture His church. - Grudem, p goes into detail into each one of these millennial views and gives strengths and weaknesses and does a through critique of each and again he comes out as a historical premill, like Millard Erickson who wrote the systematic theology book, Christian Theology, my textbook in seminary. B. THE GREAT TRIBULATION - The Bible speaks of a period of great tribulation that is to come on the earth. Read Jesus words in Matthew 24:21, Grudem lists arguments in favor of the pretrib premill view: believers are not going to experience the wrath of God poured out on the earth; in Revelation 3:10 Jesus promises, I will keep you from the hour of trial which is coming on the whole world; and this view gives much viability to the belief that Christ could come for His church at any moment in the rapture with the many signs being fulfilled prior to Jesus return during the GT. He gives arguments for the post-tribulation premill position with the following statements: nowhere in the Bible does it say that the church will be taken out of world before the Great Tribulation; the tribulation is linked with the Lord s return as in Matthew 24:31. The trumpet mentioned in this text is the same one in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, not to be followed by a

6 louder trumpet seven years later after the tribulation period. He says the New Testament does not support two second returns of Jesus, and then writes, p. 1135, It seems best to conclude, with the great majority of the church throughout history, that the church will go through the time of tribulation predicted by Jesus. - One of my professors in seminary, Dr. Malcolm McDow said he hopes the pretribulational view is correct! - We will spend the next couple of years walking through the great Apocalypse, the wonderful Book of Revelation. 6