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“Making the Return of Christ Simple”
Making the Return of Christ Simple
David Sproule
The denominational world has surely complicated what the Bible teaches about the return of Christ. They have added much to the simple information that we have in the Bible. Let’s see just how simple it is.
(1) The timing of the return of Jesus is unknown and completely unpredictable (Matt. 24:36-44; 1 Thess. 5:2). There will be no signs to indicate the time is near.
(2) “All” of the “signs” in Matthew 24 before verse 34 were signs that would happen in that “generation” at the fall of the Jerusalem and destruction of “the temple” in A.D. 70. (24:1-34). None of them apply to Christ’s coming at the end of time.
(3) “Every eye will see” Jesus when He is “revealed from heaven” with “a shout” and “with the trumpet of God” (Rev. 1:7; Acts 1:9-11; 2 Thess. 1:7; 1 Thess. 4:16). There will be nothing secretive about His return.
(4) When the “last trumpet” (1 Cor. 15:52) sounds on “the last day” (John 6:40, 44, 54), “all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth” in the same “hour” (John 5:28-29). The Bible never places any amount of time between the resurrection “of the just and the unjust” (Acts 24:15).
(5) The only people under discussion in First Thessalonians 4:13-17 are the “dead in Christ” and the “alive” in Christ at the time of His coming. No one outside of Christ is in view. On the same day, the dead in Christ will be raised, and then the alive in Christ will be “caught up” to meet them.
(6) Once everyone on that “last day” is removed from the earth (the dead and the living), the earth will “pass away” (Matt. 24:35), “with a great noise,” “the elements will melt with fervent heat,” and everything “will be burned up” and “dissolved” (2 Pet. 3:10-12). Nothing will be left.
(7) Christ established His promised kingdom in the first century, just as He promised to do (Matt. 4:17; 16:18-19). The kingdom has been in existence since Acts 2 and Christians are part of it today (Col. 1:13; Rev. 1:9). Christ will not step foot on this earth again (1 Thess. 4:17; Acts 1:9-11) nor be coming to set up and reign over a literal kingdom for a literal 1,000 years. Revelation is written in symbolic language (Rev. 1:1), including the events and time in chapter 20.
(8) At the time of Jesus’ return, He will “sit on the throne” and “all nations will be gathered before Him” (Matt. 25:31-32). All will be judged on the same day (Acts 17:30-31).
(9) Christ will sentence the “righteous” to “eternal life” and the unrighteous to “everlasting punishment” (Matt. 25:46). The eternality of both realms is firmly established.
A lot is going to happen on that “last day.” But it is not as complex or drawn out as some try to teach.
