Word of Salvation – May 2019
B.C.37 – The Return of Christ
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp
Scripture Readings: 1Thess.4:13 – 5:11 & Revelation 20:11 – 21:8
Introd: The Christian faith has two very important focal points.
One of them is in the past… the other in the future.
One is the FIRST coming of Christ… the other is His return.
Someone suggested that living the Christian life is a little like driving a car.
In some respects that a helpful angle on the Christian life.
A good driver watches the road ahead but also keeps a careful eye on the rear view mirror.
A good driver looks both forward and backwards.
If that’s a valid comparison then many Christians spend all their time looking in the rear view mirror.
They hardly… if ever look forward to the coming of Christ.
Their focus is limited to His first coming… and His return hardly features in their thinking at all.
OTOH there are also those who are in danger of forgetting to look back.
There are some – and here I think here particularly of the sects –
some of which have become so preoccupied with Christ’s second coming
that the events of His life, death & resurrection are overshadowed by it.
The Scriptures have a lot to say about both focal points of the Christian faith.
And both are to be a motive for us to live the Christian life.
Not only do we live out of the gospel that Jesus died for us and rose again….!
We also live out of the good news that this Jesus is coming again.
A] THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
- Scripture leaves us in no doubt that history is moving on to a climax.
History is not one endless cycle of events… going around in circles… as some would have us believe.
Rather it is moving on purposefully to that great plan God has for His creation.
IOW things are not just going to keep on going indefinitely as they have always done.
As though life as we live it here and now is all there is to it.
There is going to come a great moment in history such as has never been before.
And Scripture tells us that this great climax of history begins with the return of Jesus Christ.
He will come again – bodily and visibly…
the beginning of that great event at the end of the ages.
The wrapping up of history as we know it.
Scripture also tells us that the second coming of Jesus will be DIFFERENT.
In a great many respects it will be a real contrast to His first coming.
At Bethlehem He came in poverty, at His return it will be with great glory.
His first coming was in obscurity, only a select few were told of it.
At His second coming every eye will see Him and every knee will bow.
It is important for us to do justice to that teaching of Scripture.
There have always been those who teach a secret coming of Jesus.
A coming in which He will quietly “rapture”, or snatch away, His own people.
Particularly when I was in the USA some years ago “rapture theology was all the rage.
Many bookshops sold stickers to put on your car:
Warning: in case of the rapture this care will be driverless.
Others for the house that read: When we are raptured please feed our pets.
When we were there the ‘Left Behind” series of books were selling like hot-cakes.
Several of them have now been made into movies.
They have that common view that Christians will be secretly taken away into heaven.
And only the unbelievers will be left behind to face the Great Tribulation.
I have always had difficulties with that view.
Scripture teaches that His coming will be as when the lightening flashes.
It lights up the sky from the east to the west. IOW: It will be universally visible.
When the disciples witnessed the ascension then the angels told them:
“This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven,
will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven.”
IOW: Jesus will come visibly and bodily… as he went.
But then with this difference… every eye will see Him.
- Scripture also teaches that the timing of this great event is unknown.
On one occasion Jesus said: “But of this day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven
nor the Son, but only the Father.”
That is not an easy saying of Jesus.
What did He mean that even He himself did not know the day or the hour?
Obviously Jesus means that the actual timing of this wrapping up of history
takes place at a time appointed by His Father.
I take it that Jesus meant that even He… at least – in His earthly ministry…
in His Servant role… did not know when that would be.
Regrettably there are many who haven’t been content with that.
Again and again people have set to work and tried to find some hidden clues.
They have made their calculations for the time of His return.
Often on the basis of some obscure numbers in the Bible they have set their dates.
Date-setting has plagued the Jehovah’s Witnesses and early Adventists.
But it has been at the expense of disappointment and much embarrassment.
Some years ago a Reformed Pastor who took radio Bible lessons calculated a date for the end.
When his church disciplined him for that teaching he argued:
Yes, Jesus said: No one knows the day or the hour but He didn’t say anything about the year.
Our Belg. Conf. honours the secret timing of God’s great plan.
But it does give us one important time indication.
And that is that it will happen when the number of God’s elect is complete.
IOW The Lord God waits with the wrapping up of history…
until the very last of His chosen ones has come to faith in Jesus.
Then Jesus Christ will return on the clouds in glory.
- All this highlights an important keynote of Scripture… and that is… READINESS. (1Thess. 5:1,2)
Paul said in I Thess. that Jesus comes like a thief in the night.
No one knows when that thief will break into the house.
So too the night in which Jesus comes could be this very night. No one knows!
So instead of allowing us to make calculations… Scripture calls us to constant watchfulness.
Are you ready for that day of the coming of Jesus Christ?
If you knew that He was coming today… would you be ready to meet Him?
Are you living your life in the context of His return?
Paul says too that that day doesn’t need to take us by surprise as a thief. (1Thess 5:4)
Believers are children of the light and don’t need to fear that day.
As they walk in the light of Christ they are always ready for His return.
IOW you can be ready for that day.
The thought of His coming need not fill you with fear if you belong to Him.
B] THE PURPOSE (1) – JUDGMENT.
- I want to look at two reasons given in Scripture why Jesus is coming again.
FIRST of all Jesus is coming again to judge the living and the dead.
The Christian church confesses that every time it repeats the Apostles’ Creed.
So when Jesus comes again it will be to exercise judgment.
Jesus the Judge is coming.
It is essential for that to happen.
We live in a moral universe.
A universe in which there are absolutes of right and wrong, truth and error.
But so often it seems that error is applauded and truth suppressed.
Wrong often triumphs… and right is crucified… and often we experience that ourselves.
But now we as Christians know there will be a final accounting.
A public righting of all the wrongs that trouble this world.
Justice will be done… and it will be seen to be done.
God will one day declare His perfect justice thru the judgment of His Son.
It boggles the imagination to think how this will happen.
Imagine: all people who ever lived will appear before that great white throne.
There they will give an account for every idle word spoken.
Every thought and every motive will be laid bare…! It’s an amazing concept.
- The Word of God even tells us how this judgment will be carried out.
In Revelations 21 we read of the books being opened.
And that judgment is according to what is found in those books.
Our Confession of faith tells us in article 37 that these books are men’s consciences.
It bases this on something Paul says in Romans 2.
Each man’s conscience will be opened so that he can judge for himself.
The late Dr Francis Schaeffer compared this to a tape recorder.
All that the Lord will have to do for any person… Christian or non-Christian…
is to play back to him all the evaluations and judgments
he ever made in his life… all the high expectations he had of others.
Then there won’t be a single person who has lived up to the standard of his own conscience.
Let alone the perfect standards of God.
There will be a great end-time moral judgment.
And we will be judged in what we have said and done… by the standard of our own conscience.
The result of that judgment will be the great separation of the human race.
Or what C.S. Lewis called The Great Divorce.
It will be a separation of the sheep and the goats.
Some will go away into everlasting glory.
Others to that other place that has been reserved for the devil and his evil angels.
- At this point some people object and say: Surely this does not apply to Christians…?
Isn’t it so that Christians do NOT have to face this end-time judgment?
Isn’t this judgment only for those who are wicked and godless?
It would seem at first glance as though there is Biblical evidence for that.
In some translations of the John’s gospel we read of Christians not being judged.
But if that’s true how do we reconcile that with Scripture verses that state clearly:
That we must ALL appear before the judgment seat of God?
Also in Revelations the emphasis is on ALL being judged, small and great.
The problem is that the word for “judgment” in the N.T. can mean two things.
It can mean judgment – in the sense of things being weighed up in a court.
But it can also mean being condemned before that court.
Now when the Bible speaks of Christians not being judged…
then it means judged in the sense of being condemned.
So the Christian too has to appear before that great throne in heaven.
But he will not be condemned before that court.
In the Book of Revelation we also find the key to that.
And that is that there is also another book that is opened at the judgment.
That Book is the Lamb’s Book of Life.
In that book are the names of all those for whom Jesus shed His blood on Calvary.
Often people have said to me that thoughts of the coming judgment make them scared.
In a way I can agree – thinking about having to give an account of ourselves IS scary.
I have some skeletons in my closet and so do you.
And yet… Christians should also have the confidence
that their names are written down in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
So for the Christian that judgment will really mean a glorious acquittal.
The Lord will publicly pronounce us “not guilty”.
He will identify with His people before all the nations of the world.
And this is not something that should scare us but rather encourage us.
C] THE PURPOSE (2) – RESTORATION.
- I mentioned that there are two purpose of Christ’s return.
There is an even more glorious purpose behind the return of Jesus.
And that is the concept of restoration: Jesus comes to make all things new.
At His coming there will be a renewal.
When we say that then we are talking first of all about ourselves.
We are going to be sharing in a wonderful and miraculous transformation.
Our confession speaks of: “our souls being joined and united with our proper bodies…”
The Lord will miraculously reverse the process of death and decay.
IOW We will share in a resurrection like that of Jesus.
The same body in which we lived here on earth… the same real you.
But then at the same time it will be in a glorious state of perfection… like Jesus Christ.
No more will there be the pains and limitations… the handicaps of this life wil be gone.
Paul also tells us that those still alive when Jesus comes will not die but be transformed instantly.
In a moment… in the twinkling of an eye they will be changed.
Instantly renewed …as the Lord begins His wonderful work of renewal and transformation.
So we as human beings will be caught up in a wonderful process of renewal.
- However this renewal will not be limited to personal restoration.
We know that since Eden we live in a fallen and broken world.
A world that is groaning in its bondage to corruption.
We know from sad experience about the environment that creation is waiting for its liberation.
So Scripture also teaches us that the whole of creation will be transformed.
That is taught in both the Old and the New Testament.
When Jesus comes to renew all things that will have a cosmic side to it.
He will renew all of heaven and earth.
John in his vision on the isle of Patmos said:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and earth had passed away.
Our confession quotes the apostle Peter.
It tells us that Jesus will burn this old world with fire and flame.
All the brokenness and imperfection will be done away with forever.
Instead there will be a perfect creation.
A comos in which perfect peace and harmony will reign forever.
The prophet Isaiah (Chap.11) spoke of that in beautiful and symbolic imagery:
The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.
- The joyful things is that we don’t need to talk about this as something abstract.
It is not something airey fairey. Not at all!
Rather this is something that Christians will share in forever.
All this will be ours… it is God’s gracious reward to those who acknowledge and confess His Son.
The amazing thing is that the Lord Jesus will do all these things…
not only for the glory of God the Father
but also for the perfect joy and happiness of His people.
In fact the most wonderful thing in those verses about the renewed creation is surely this.
“Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them.
They will be His people… and God Himself will be with them and be their God.”
The most wonderful thing about it is a full and perfect relationship between God and His people.
No longer spoiled by sin.
No wonder that our confession speaks of us possessing such great glory…
as has never even entered into the heart of man to conceive.
Tonight I have focused your attention on the coming of Jesus:
Are you afraid of that day? Does it scare you whenever you think of it?
Or is it something you look forward to with great longing ?
If your name is in the Lamb’s book of life…
then don’t just look back in your rear-view mirror, to what Jesus did for you on Calvary…
but also look forward to that great day…
when you will fully enjoy all God’s promises in Christ Jesus.
Let’s delight ourselves in the certainty of God’s glory in His renewed creation
when we will be in the presence of our Saviour for ever and ever.
Amen.
BC stands for Basic Christianity. What are the fundamentals of the faith?
BC also stands for Belgic Confession – a document in which the Christian church (in a time of great persecution) spelled out the basics of what she believes.
When Christianity is a mile wide and an inch deep it needs to grasp again the basics of the faith and confess them in a world where the faith is increasingly under attack.
Those who drew up the BC declared that they were ready to obey the government in all lawful things, but that they would “offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags and their whole bodies to the fire” rather than deny the truth expressed in this confession.