Jesus - Is He Really Coming Back? (Acts 1:1-11)
Billy Milton - July 30, 2006
I was talking to someone recently about the possibility of Jesus returning at any moment and they asked me, in an almost embarrassed voice, “Are you really looking forward to that happening?” Well as it happened I had just finished preaching on the subject of heaven and the new earth at the beginning of July and so I was quite enthused by the prospect of Jesus returning to take us there, and I was able to say yes, I am really hoping it will be soon. They confessed that they weren’t because they’d like to see their kids grow up; visit the Grand Canyon; play golf at St Andrews; swim in the Caribbean etc etc. I can understand what they were saying. Can you? I’ve been there. I can remember thinking, “Dear Jesus, please don’t come until I get married; until I have a baby…” and so on. But that is faulty thinking. It shows a lack of understanding of what eternity is going to be like and even the most pleasurable events in this world will be as nothing compared to Christ’s return. I can’t wait for Christ to return and I hope it’s soon – even if I don’t get to Turkey tomorrow!
The return of Jesus is a truth upon which the modern church is all but silent. Why should this be considering the emphasis that the NT gives it? Well it smacks too much of an airy-fairy faith, of the supernatural, and if we want to be relevant to our culture we need to drop all this supernatural stuff. Science would laugh at us for believing that a man will appear in the sky, unannounced and whisk all the Christians away and leave the world to guess where we’ve all gone. As a boy I remember going to see a movie about Jesus coming again and it scared the pants off me! Cars and buses were crashing as their Christian drivers were whisked away and planes crashed out of the sky killing thousands. Jesus coming again seemed like a disaster to my young mind. It seemed like so much science fiction and still does to many people.
But what if the world’s agenda is wrong? What if the church, in its desire to appeal to the world, is selling its good evangelical doctrines for a mess of spiritual potage? If so, how can it ever speak with authority? Perhaps its time that the second coming of Christ was brought back to the top of the church’s agenda. I can well remember my Gran and Grandpa talking with great conviction about the possibility of Christ returning that very night. My dad says that Grandpa often stayed up all night dressed and waiting and my Gran never went to bed without washing and drying the dishes because, as she would say, “What would the neighbours think if the Lord came and took us away and we left dirty dishes?” Yes, we smile at that but that whole generation seemed to live their lives much more in the expectation of Christ’s coming than we do today. Maybe life is just too easy and pleasant? I can assure you that thousands of believers in prisons all over the world are longing for Jesus to come again and proclaim freedom to the oppressed. “Swing low sweet chariot coming for to carry me home.”
I’d like to look at our subject under 4 headings.
The Grounds for Believing it.
As with the other great doctrines of the Bible, the main reason for believing in Christ’s return is the emphatic teaching of the NT, beginning with the teaching of Christ himself. His great prophetic discourse in Matthew 24 [Mark 13 & Luke 21], in particular, foretells the destruction of Jerusalem and his own return. Now notice the timing of the delivery of that particular discourse. It was on the eve of his suffering in Jerusalem. Jesus knew that his days were numbered and that soon he would be killed and he wanted to give his timid disciples something to hang onto after he was gone. That something was his second coming. As I said a minute ago, persecuted Christians today still love this doctrine.
It’s not only Jesus who spoke about his second coming but the teaching of Christ is also eagerly endorsed by Paul right through his writings
- the future ‘coming’ of Christ (1 Cor 1:7, 4:5, 15:23; I & 2 Thess),
- the future ‘day’ of Christ (1 Cor 1:8, 5:5; Phil 1:6,10; 1 & 2 Thess)
- Christ’s future ‘appearing’ (1 Tim 6:14; 2 Tim 4:1,8; Titus 2).
and it’s interesting that the letters to Timothy and Titus are reckoned to be the last of Paul’s letters to be written but their teaching on the return of Christ is as plain as in his earliest letters. His belief in the return of Christ never wavered.
And then of course we have the teaching of passages like the one we read in Acts 1 which was written by Luke and both of Peter’s letters which quite clearly talk about the return of Christ. So, what are the grounds for believing it? Quite simply the Bible clearly teaches it.
The Objections to Believing it.
Objection 1
Some would allege that the second coming is a primitive belief, and that modern man has outgrown that type of teaching. Nothing new here then because the same objectors would also reckon we’d ‘outgrown’ the resurrection; the virgin birth; the miracles and so on. Listen to the words of Jesus; John 14:1-6. Folks that’s good enough for me!
Objection 2
A second objection is that the NT seemed to speak on a number of occasions about Christ’s return within the disciples lifetime, and since that did not take place, we shouldn’t expect it at all. This type of objection is cited in 2 Peter 3:3f where the scoffers ask, “Where is the ‘coming’ he promised?” And of course many would ask the same question again today.
It’s true that in his great prophetic discourse of Matt 24 that I mentioned earlier, Jesus speaks of the destruction of Jerusalem and his own return in the same breath, as if it were virtually the same event. We know that Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70, so shouldn’t Jesus have returned by then if he was going to? In reality though, it is likely that the judgment of Jerusalem was a picture of the final judgment that will take place when Christ does eventually return. Prophecies are rarely concerned with timescales but more with creating the certainty in the mind of the hearers that what is prophesied will take place. I think what Jesus was saying in this passage, and others like it, is that just as certain as was the judgment of Jerusalem so is the final judgment that will come on the whole earth.
We must also remember that, as 2 Peter 3:8 says, “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
The Alternative to Believing it.
Those in the church who deny that Christ is coming again need to consider what alternative expectation they can offer as being more probable. Do they consider that the world will go on for ever? Even the scientist will not support that belief! If they don’t think that the world will go on for ever do they think that it will just gradually wind down and that the human race will just die out, without any indication of God’s purpose for the world? That would really be a creed without hope.
If they hold out no hope for the world, do they hold out any hope for the individual? What do they believe about the life of the individual after death? Does it continue, and if so, how and where? Do they believe in heaven or a new earth? If so, why should Christ not be coming again from heaven? If they do not believe in heaven then their creed is doubly devoid of hope and they have nothing left to preach except living a good life.
The Christian faith is not without hope - emphatically not! And central to that hope is the promise of Christ’s return. So let those in the church who deny his return cease pretending that their message is Christian.
The Importance of Believing it.
The purpose of Christ’s return according to the NT is twofold, to judge and to save. The repeated teaching of the NT about the coming day of judgment, when the loving and merciful Jesus will be the dreadful judge (Rom 2;16; 2 Cor 5:10) is an abhorrent prospect to the self-righteous or impenitent. But if you just consider for one minute the wickedness, cruelty, lawlessness and grief that there is in the world, isn’t it a cause for rejoicing that Christ is coming again to set right all the evils wrought by demons and humans.
But he is not just coming to judge and set right he is also coming to save (Rom 13:11; Heb 7:25), to complete the salvation he won on the Cross. He is coming to acquit at his tribunal those who have repented and believed, to transform their character into the image of his own, to redeem them in body as well as in spirit and to bid them enter into the joy of their Lord.
I believe that Christ is coming again. But that is not the real question here this morning. I believe that the question we really need to answer is when he does come will you be ready?