The Reality of Christ's Second Coming

  Those who know me well are aware of my interest in eschatology. Indeed, I believe it is an essential part of Christian teaching that deserves time in our study programmes along with other more traditional topics like prayer or living by faith. In today's post I'd like to think about the Second Coming as history.

  That's a strange way to describe something still future, isn't it? The reason I use the term 'history' is because I want to emphasize the reality of this event. Sometimes I think we conceive of the Second Coming more as a mythological event than a real one. This is understandable: we do not know when exactly Christ will come, so we might think of His Coming as something that will happen after we die, in which case our perspective will be different anyway. Furthermore, His Coming will be glorious and He will 'restore all things' after the world has been through a terrible time of war, persecution, chaos, and judgement. Life as we know it will be indescribably different after Christ has returned and to some degree just prior to His arrival. Nevertheless, some people will be alive on earth to witness His arrival, and when He does come, far from being removed and ethereal, He will set up a perfect government and will commission His saints to rule on the earth with His authority.

  We think of great events of the past as real, despite the fact that we were not alive to witness them. Few people my age would question the reality of Queen Victoria's Coronation or the Battle of Trafalgar, but we aren't even close to those events time-wise. Of course it's difficult to be sure about things still future to us, but Christ has promised that He will come again, and we know He is a man of His word. The historical record affirms that God keeps His promises - you only have to look at the miraculous preservation of the Jews and the Church throughout history to the present day.

  In the meantime, how can we strengthen our hope and faith in His Second Coming? We can study His other promises to see how they have been faithfully kept by our Lord and God. We can study the prophetic parts of Scripture that speak of the Second Coming and the time just before it. We can pray. We can watch for the signs that Christ said would precede His arrival - I refer the reader to Matthew 24, otherwise known as the 'Olivet Discourse', as a good starting point.

God bless.