Christology ST302 LESSON 22 of 24 C. Fred Dickason, Th.D. Experience: Chairman of the Theology Department, Moody Bible Institute. We come now to lesson 22 in our series in Christology, and this brings us to our seventh major division in our study, Christ s return and reign on earth. We re following the study of Christ chronologically as well as logically through His life. We ve come from Christ in the preincarnate state through His earthly life and ministry, His death, resurrection, ascension and present session. And at this time we re going to consider His return and reign on the earth. In our last lesson we noticed that according to Hebrews 10:13 and other passages, that Christ is presently expecting till all His enemies be made His footstool. In fact, Psalm 110:1 says, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, till I make all thine enemies thy footstool. In Psalm 110:4, He s pictured as a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. So today He s carrying on His high priesthood. But one day He s coming again to reign as a priest who takes the throne. Now, in the return of Christ and His reign on the earth there are several things that we have to consider first. So, by way of introduction, let s consider first the centrality of the doctrine of Christ s second coming. The doctrine of the second coming is one of the cardinal doctrines of the Bible and of historic Christianity. There are many mentions in the Old and New Testament referring to the second coming of Christ. Historically the church, from the beginning, has held to the second coming of Christ. Another word concerning its centrality is that the second coming of Christ is one of the major themes of prophecy both of the Old and New Testament. In the New Testament alone there is something like 318 mentions. The second coming is one of the major themes of Christ s teaching. Consider such discourses as the Olivet discourse. And even the parables of Matthew 13 bring out the fact that Christ will come again and judge at the end of the age. It is one of the encouragements and challenges for godly living. As 2 Peter tells us seeing that these things shall shortly come to pass, we ought to be diligent 1 of 9
to be found of Him in peace without spot and blameless. Now, it s obvious that this is a central doctrine in the New Testament and in the Old Testament. We want to say a word of introduction about the certainty of the second coming. The promises of God in the Old Testament to Israel, the Messiah s coming to deliver and reign with great spiritual material blessing are pretty extensive. They re seen in the basic covenants of the Old Testament, such as the Abrahamic covenant found in Genesis 12, Genesis 13, 15, 17, and 22. One who is the Son of David will come and be a blessing to the whole earth. The Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel 7 and in Psalm 89 requires that Christ come again to sit upon the throne of David to fulfill, literally, the promises made to David, that there should not fail a man of his to sit upon the throne and one of his seeds should sit upon that throne forever. The new covenant found in Jeremiah 31:31 and following, and in Ezekiel 34 and Ezekiel 36:24 and following also demands the return of Jesus Christ. For the new covenant not only promises the forgiveness of sins, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the new birth, which are spiritual blessings, but it also promises material blessings connected with the restoration of Jerusalem and its temple so that Israel has some benefits yet coming at the second coming of Jesus Christ. There are predictions of Christ s return and reign. This is another reason why we believe in the certainty of the second coming, not only the promises of the Old Testament but the predictions of Christ Himself. Such predictions are quite obvious in Matthew 24:30 and Matthew 26:63-64 where He not only confesses that He is the Son of God but that people will see that He is indeed the Son of God with power when He comes again and the glory of His Father and with His holy angels. The prediction of the apostles is quite certain also. They hold that Jesus Christ shall certainly come again. In 1 Thessalonians 5 Paul says, But of the times and seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For ye yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. He s talking about the second coming of Christ. And in 2 Thessalonians 1:8, he says, Christ shall come in flaming fire taking vengeance upon them that know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power; when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in 2 of 9
all them that believe. Here are references in the apostle Paul to the second coming. The apostle Peter holds that the second coming is a certain fact. He says the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. He says the Lord Himself will come, but he also says that there will be coming scoffers who scoffing at the promises of God and the Lord Jesus say, Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were since the beginning of creation. This is 2 Peter 3:4. This is what we might today call the uniformitarian point of view, that all things continue and exist by processes now going on and God is not interrupting. But Peter says they are willingly ignorant of the fact that God created, and that interrupted, and God flooded, and that interrupted. And he says the same heavens and earth which are now are the same word of God, are kept in store, reserved under fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. He says it makes very little difference whether the promise was given by the Lord Jesus one day ago or 1,000 years ago. As he says, Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. And the Lord is not slack or loose concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering toward us, that is He s holding off, not willing that any should perish at the second coming, but that all should have opportunity for repentance. The fact that the Lord Jesus promised nearly 2,000 years ago to come again does not in the least detract from the fact that He shall come. Two thousand years is nothing to God, it s just as two days. And so, actually, this is the meaning of the phrase one day is with the Lord as a thousand years. So He is coming back again. It s certain, and we look forward to His coming according to the predictions of the Old Testament, the predictions of the Lord Jesus Himself, and the prediction of the apostles. The book of Hebrews says in Hebrews 10:37, Yet a little while and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry. So we look forward to the coming of the Lord Jesus. We ve talked in this word of introduction about the centrality of this doctrine and the certainty of this doctrine, and we d like to say something at this point about the chronology involved in this doctrine. I have to explain here the various views on eschatology. Basically they may be divided into three views of those who hold to the biblical doctrine. There is the post-millennial view regarding the second coming. The post-millennial second coming view holds that Christ s second coming is after the millennium. That 3 of 9
is either through the agency of men or through the agency of the gospel, there shall come upon the earth a time of great blessing, a time of great prosperity which shall be called the millennium. And following this Christ will return. There is another view called the amillennial view which says there is no literal reign of Christ upon the earth. In fact, this is the millennium in this present day. The millennium according to these people is between the first and second comings of Christ. And they do not hold that Christ returns to establish a kingdom but rather returns to introduce the eternal state. A third view among biblical scholars is the pre-millennial view of the second coming. This holds that Christ returns again before His earthly kingdom in order to establish it. Indeed His coming is necessary to accomplish the things that are predicted concerning His earthly reign. This is the view that I would hold and that our textbook that we refer to holds, Dr. John F. Walvoord s, Jesus Christ Our Lord. We ll adopt the pre-millennial point of view. The significance of these points of view is that it affects the interpretation of the Old Testament and New Testament regarding the second coming. It affects the purpose of Christ s coming. It affects the future of Christ s work and of our work, and it gives us perspective as to where we are. Now, all these things are important, and so we must understand them and cover them. Now at this point I am not going to go into why I believe the pre-millennial point of view except to say at this point that the literal interpretation of the Old and New Testaments, that is literal in the sense of normal, actually says that Christ must come back again to establish such a kingdom. Now this is clearer in the Scripture than most people want to believe. In fact, even those who are amilliennial or postmillennial say that literal interpretation of the Scripture requires such a kingdom as the Old Testament covenant s picture and the pre-millennialist s picture. However, they believe it s impossible for these covenants to be fulfilled. Indeed God has changed these covenants. However, the pre-millennial point of view, according to the normal interpretation of Scripture, is that the Abrahamic, the Davidic, and the new covenants have unconditional elements, that is elements that depend upon God alone and His promise which He has sworn by Himself to fulfill and these elements are such that it requires the second coming of Christ to fulfill. The amillennialist says the church is the kingdom. The pre-millennialist says that the church age is a parenthesis between God s two dealings with Israel in His kingdom program. The first dealing with Israel was up into the first coming when Christ presented Himself as king and was rejected as king, crucified as king, and predicted that He 4 of 9
would go away and come again as king. The second dealing of God with Israel is the tribulation period, sometimes called the 70th week or the 77 year period of Daniel, outlined in Daniel 9, that immediately precedes the second coming of Christ. Christ has spoken about this period in Matthew 24-25 as a time of great tribulation. And immediately after this tribulation, He said He would come again to establish His kingdom. And so, we hold that the church is a parenthesis between God s two dealings with Israel and that the church is not the kingdom but is preliminary to the kingdom, and when Christ comes again He sets up a kingdom upon the earth that, according to Revelation 20, is at least 1,000 years in length. And then, after the great white throne and the installation of the new heavens and new earth, there is an eternal kingdom upon the new earth over which Christ reigns forever. This is the pre-millennial point of view. And we hold that literal interpretation of the Old Testament requires just such a point of view. In fact, the opponents of the system as we mentioned also say that literal interpretation leads to this. Now we want to move on to certain aspects of Christ s return. These have all been words of introduction and for further information, I would suggest that you see Dr. Walvoord s book as he discusses the whole subject of the future work of Christ in chapter 12 starting on page 258. Another good book along this line is one by Hoyt called The End Times published by Moody Press in Chicago. Now, let s take a look at one of the aspects of Christ s return. And that aspect of Christ s return is what we call the rapture. Now, this rapture has a central passage as we d like to point out in 1 Thessalonians 4. First Thessalonians 4 is a word of comfort to those who have lost loved ones who have believed in Christ. And Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that is who have died, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 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 precede 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 encourage or comfort one another with these 5 of 9
words. These words are written by the apostle Paul of an event which was to be an encouragement to the Thessalonians. Their departed loved ones would be seen again. They would be seen in person at the coming of the Lord Jesus when Christ returns in the air personally and bodily according to 1 Thessalonians 4:16. The next thing that happens is the dead in Christ are raised, verse 16. Then the living, those who have not died but are present at Christ s rapture are transformed, verse 17. This is also mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:51 and in Philippians 3:20 where it says our bodies shall be changed to be like Him. The two groups, the dead in Christ and the living, are caught up together to be with the Lord forever according to 1 Thessalonians 4:17. I believe this is what the Lord Jesus meant when He said I will come again in John 14, and take you to where I am that where I am there ye may be also. According to 1 Corinthians 15:51, this transformation is accomplished in a moment. Let s take a look there at 1 Corinthians 15. Paul says in verse 50, Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherent incorruption. In other words, we cannot stand in the presence of God, we cannot be part of the eternal kingdom of God in our present bodies; therefore, there must be a change. And in 1 Corinthians 15:51 he says, Behold, I show you a mystery. You notice the word mystery here means it has not been revealed as part of God s program for His people in the Old Testament. The consistent meaning of the word mystery in the New Testament is a fresh revelation. Something hitherto undisclosed but now plainly revealed. What s new here? We shall not all sleep, that is we shall not all die. But we shall 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, that is the living, shall be changed. The point here is this: that there is a new revelation. There is transformation or a change of living believers from a body which is accommodated to this earth to a body that s accommodated to the eternal kingdom. In fact, we inherit a resurrection body just like Jesus Christ s resurrection body. We get a resurrection body without going through death, and this is the point. Now this was not revealed in the Old Testament. You may search in vain for transformation of saints in the Old Testament. Of course there was Elijah and his transformation or translation we should say, and there was Enoch and his translation. But there s no indication that they received glorified bodies. This is a fresh revelation not indicated in the Old Testament. And that s why I think it s part of a new program for God s church. For the rapture distinctly has to 6 of 9
do with the church. Now remember the church is the body of Christ, the members of which have been placed in that body by the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit according to 1 Corinthians 12:13. And remember as we discussed the matter of Christ sending the Holy Spirit, we mentioned Acts 1:5 as predicting the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit, Acts 2 as the actualization of that baptizing work, Acts 10 as the repetition of that baptizing work, and Acts 11:15 and following as the interpretation of that baptizing work. In other words, Jew and Gentile, Jew in Acts 2 and Gentile in Acts 10, are baptized into one body by the Holy Spirit sent by Christ and this is called the beginning of Christ s church. So, this new work, this church age is itself called a mystery according to Ephesians 3:5-6, that Jew and Gentile should be on equal footing in the church and the church is distinctly called a mystery in the book of Ephesians. Now this mystery church which exists during this mystery age or parenthesis (between God s two dealings with Israel) is culminated or terminated in a mystery event called the rapture where the living are transformed and the dead are raised along with the living. Now the resurrection was not a mystery. The resurrection was promised in Old Testament times for believers. But the resurrection that s spoken about there is associated with the second coming of Jesus Christ and, according to Daniel 12, immediately follows a time of great tribulation which comes upon Israel. So I hold that the resurrection prophesied in the Old Testament has to do with the resurrection of the saints at the second coming. However, the resurrection and transformation of the saints in the church age was a mystery here declared by the apostle Paul and explained in the New Testament. Now we may define the rapture then as that event by which Christ returns to catch up His true church in the air so that they may always be with Him. Now there are certain distinctions between the rapture and the second coming. We have defined the rapture. We ve described it according to 1 Thessalonians 4, the central passage. And we want to indicate that there are some distinctions between the rapture and the second coming. The rapture is not the second coming. I believe there is a time separation and the events are certainly different in their description. For instance, the second coming is preceded by predicted signs of general indication. According to Matthew 24, the Lord Jesus predicted certain things would definitely come to 7 of 9
pass. And if you look at the passage you ll find as a culmination in Matthew 24:33, He says, When you see these things come to pass, know that the time is nigh, so that there are definite signs in the heavens and on earth concerning the second coming. However, it seems that the rapture is an any moment expectation of the apostles, according to 1 John 2:28 and 1 John 3:2. In other words, we are told that we are to abide in Him, that we should not be ashamed whenever He shall appear and that we are to be holy, that whenever He should appear we should not be ashamed at His coming. Evidently the apostles had an at any moment expectation of the rapture, but they knew certain things must happen before the second coming. Concerning the second coming, Christ defeats Israel s enemies and establishes His kingdom on earth, note here Zechariah 14:1-3 where He comes and delivers Jerusalem from her surrounding enemies and, in Revelation 19:15-16, He defeats all the enemies and reigns as King of Kings and Lord of Lords on the earth. In the rapture however, Christ catches up those in Christ. Notice the dead in Christ is mentioned in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 and He returns to heaven just as He said in John 14:3, I am going to be with my Father and I m coming again to receive you unto myself that where I am, that is heaven with My Father, there ye may be also. I take it that He s coming to catch up His true bride, the church, and to take them to heaven with Him back to the Father. Concerning the second coming there is another distinction. His feet touch the Mount of Olives according to Zechariah 14:4 and He rules as a king on the earth, Zechariah 14:9, and He rules in Jerusalem, note Zechariah 14:11 also. Well, at His second coming He comes to the earth. But there s no mention of His coming to the earth in the occasion of the rapture. In 1 Thessalonians 4:17 and in John 14:3, it is implied if not specifically stated that He meets the saints in the air and then returns to heaven. Concerning the second coming, Christ comes with His saints to be glorified in them. Revelation 19:8 and 19:14 says there are saints that come with Him from heaven. Whereas in the rapture Christ comes to gather His saints according to 1 Thessalonians 4 that we just read. At the second coming, living saints are ushered into the kingdom without transformation. They are rewarded or judged, according to Matthew 25:34 and Matthew 25:46 and they are not glorified but they go living into the kingdom age over which Christ rules. But in the rapture, living saints are all transformed where it says in 1 Corinthians 15:51, In a moment we shall all be changed. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, that is, all 8 of 9
transformed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. I take it then that there are real distinctions between the second coming and the rapture. Now in our next lesson we ll look at the rapture and the problem of the timing, and we ll give some reasons why we hold to such a thing as a pre-tribulation rapture. Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 9 of 9