THE SECOND ADVENT

At the time of the second advent, and the establishment of the eternal kingdom, the people will doubtless be under as great deception relative to the nature of the coming and kingdom of Christ, as the Jews were relative to his mission at his first advent. Then he came as the humble teacher of the people, closing his mission with giving himself a sacrifice for sinners. The Jews rejected Jesus because he did not meet their vain expectations. Satan led them to look for the coming of Messiah with outward show, and grandeur, when he was to come in humility. And now that he is soon to appear the second time, in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, to raise the righteous dead, and reign in his tangible kingdom forever, Satan has the delusion prepared for the people, that Christ’s coming is spiritual, at death, at conversion, or in the outpouring of the Spirit of God. Jesus anticipates the heresies of our time, and says: “The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it. And they shall say to you, See here! or, see there! go not after them nor follow them. For as the lightning that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day.” Luke 17:22-24.TTKGG 24.2

In close connection with the establishment of the future immortal kingdom will be the second coming of Christ with power and great glory. This prophetic event does not have its fulfillment in a plurality of ways each differing from all the rest, as in the popular applications to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman army, to conversion and to death. These mystical applications are expressed by the words of our Lord, “See here, or, see there,” while the one grand event of the second advent is illustrated by the lightning that flashes across the entire heavens.TTKGG 25.1

Christ, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, in his own glory, and in the glory of the Father, attended by all the holy angels, will descend. The earth will tremble, and the heavens will blaze with glory. The voice of the Son of God will call the righteous dead from their graves, and the living righteous will be changed. These will be gathered from all parts of the earth, up to meet their descending Lord. “And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” Matthew 24:31. The saints of all ages and from all countries and nations, will be in that vast gathering. “Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of Heaven.” Matthew 8:11. These will be the immortal subjects of the eternal kingdom. But if this kingdom is already set up in any one church, or in all the Christian churches of our time, where are these patriarchs? Search as closely as you please among the followers of Luther, Calvin, Wesley, or Alex, Campbell, and you positively cannot find Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But when the righteous dead shall all be raised and gathered home to their everlasting rest, the prophets and saints of all ages will meet in the grand assemblage of the redeemed, and together sit down in the kingdom of God, with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in their midst.TTKGG 25.2