Life on the Highest Plane
The Christian is united to Christ by a golden cord of three strands, faith, love and hope (1 Corinthians 13:13; 1 Thess. 1:3). Faith and love look back to the Cross and up to the Throne and, claiming the fruits of salvation for the past and the present, use them to the glory of the Lord. But hope looks up into the heavens and waits for that future day when faith shall be merged into sight, when the labor of love shall be rewarded, when the salvation begun in grace shall be consummated in glory.
As the object of the believer's faith and love is the Lord Jesus Himself so is He the object of his hope. The glorious appearing of Christ Jesus, the Saviour, is the Christian's blessed hope.
Titus 2:13, "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ."
Hebrews 9:8, "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many: and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation."
Our Lord's Return - Announced
Through prophecies added to those already given though the Old Testament, Jesus Christ gave birth to this hope in the hearts of those first believers. According to His prophecy His second advent was to be of a totally different nature and for a totally different purpose than His first advent had been. In the first He had come in weakness and humiliation, in the second He would come in regal power and glorious splendor. In the first He had come as a Saviour, to be despised of men and to be crucified upon a Cross set up by wicked men for Him, but in the second He would come as a Sovereign to set up a Kingdom for Himself in which all nations and all men would bow down and serve Him.
Mark 13:26, " (Luke 21;27), "And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory."
Matthew 25:31, " When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory."
Upon the eve of His exodus He comforted the hearts of His disciples with two promises. One was the promise of another Comforter, the Holy Spirit, during His absence. This promise was fulfilled literally as we have seen. The other was that one day He Himself would return in person to receive them unto Himself to be with Him forever.
John 14:2-3, "In my Father's house are many mansions, If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. ... And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also."
As the disciples watched Him ascending into Heaven this promise was reiterated by two men who stood by in white apparel.
Acts 1:11, "Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."
In the words "this same Jesus," "shall so come," "in like manner," wonderful light was thrown upon the manner of Christ's return to earth. It was to be a personal, visible, bodily coming. Thus the Lord Jesus Himself instilled into the hearts of His first disciples the blessed hope of His literal return to earth.
Our Lord's Return - Anticipated
This promise of His personal return was ever before them. That little group lived and worked in confident assurance and eager anticipation of the speedy return of the Lord they loved. On the day of Pentecost only ten days after His ascension He fulfilled the promise to send another Comforter; why should they not expect just as truly and even as speedily that His other promises would likewise be fulfilled?
When fifteen and finally twenty years passed by and some of those who had this hope had died, the hearts of others were very disquieted. What would it mean to these loved ones that this blessed hope had not yet been realized? To still this fear Paul writes to them at Thessalonia counseling patient waiting and comforting them with fuller teaching on this precious truth.
1 Thess. 4:13-18, "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, they ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. ... For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even to 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 prevent 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 comfort one another with these words."
So the steadfast confidence of their faith and the intense longing of their love crystallized into an undimmed patience of hope which dominated the everyday life. How fully this blessed hope permeated and possessed the thought and the testimony of the apostles is revealed in a study of the New Testament. In the closing chapters of the Gospels, throughout the book of the Acts and in every Epistle except three Christ's second advent is taught and it is the major theme of Revelation. Three hundred and eighteen times it is mentioned; one verse out of every twenty-five is devoted to it. It was the hope of Paul, Peter, John, James, Jude and the writer of Hebrews.
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 2 - "Our Lord's Return - Actualized")
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