Doctrine of the Last Things (Part 13): Final Thoughts on the Time of the Second Coming

Final Thoughts on the Time of the Second Coming

We’ve been dealing with the question of the delay of the parousia. I suggested a solution to this question that I called contextual ambiguity; that is to say, the sayings of Jesus concerning his coming apparently within the generation of his contemporaries may reflect a quite different original context than the context in which we find them in the Gospels. So they did not, in fact, originally claim that Christ would return as the triumphant Son of Man within the lifetime of his hearers. We had a good example of this in Matthew 10:23 where you will remember Matthew, by inserting certain passages into the context of the mission charge to the Twelve, made it sound as though Christ was going to come again before the Twelve had returned from their mission trip to the towns and cities of Israel. Moreover, we saw several parables of Jesus teaching that the parousia would in fact be delayed.

Today I want to offer some final thoughts on the time of the second coming.

1. Jesus emphasized that his Second Coming is something that will be unexpected and could be delayed. That implies that we always need to be ready for it, since it is coming at a time when we are not expecting it to come. Therefore, we should not use any unfulfilled signs of the Second Coming as an excuse for not living as disciples of Christ. In Matthew 24:45-51, Jesus says,

Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master when he comes will find so doing. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, “My master is delayed,” and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eats and drinks with the drunken, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will punish him, and put him with the hypocrites; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.

So even if there are unfulfilled signs suggesting that the coming of Christ is not near, we must not use that as an excuse for laxity in the Christian life. Rather, we should always be ready for Christ to return unexpectedly, even within our own lifetimes.

2. Keep in mind that God’s timetable is different than ours. God, who is eternal, isn’t bound by our human timescales. So in 2 Peter 3:8-10 Peter says,

But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.

Here Peter says that the Lord is going to come unexpectedly. This universe will be consumed and destroyed. But, he says, just because this may seem a long way off to you, to God it is like the day before yesterday. It has now been two thousand years since Christ died and rose and ascended into heaven, but a thousand years is like a day with the Lord. So for him it is like the day before yesterday that Christ died and rose and ascended to heaven. God’s timescale is different than ours, and he is not in any hurry to bring these things to pass. Rather he is forbearing, wanting as many people as possible to be saved.

3. Christians have always believed that theirs was the last generation. So we should not get overly worked up about thinking that Christ is going to return within our lifetimes. We should be ready because he is going to surprise us. But every generation, including ours, has thought that it is the last. One of the most notorious of endtimes prophecies was by Edgar Whisenant, who wrote a book called 88 Reasons Why the Rapture will be in 1988. Well, Whisenant was wrong; the Lord didn’t return in 1988. Whisenant then said, I made a miscalculation. So he recalculated the date, but that then didn’t come to pass either. So we need to be very, very cautious about reading the signs of the times and thinking that the Lord is going to return in our generation. Christians have always believed that, and they’ve always been wrong. So while we should be prepared, we should be ready, the Second Coming is going to catch us by surprise. I don’t think we should get overly worked up thinking that the end is near and that we are living in the end times.

4. Finally, I want to say something about the credibility of the Second Coming. If we are honest, I think we have to admit that it is difficult to believe in the literal Second Coming of Christ because it is just so other-worldly. It is so strange to think that, say, maybe next Tuesday Christ is going to come again and the universe and the Earth are going to be destroyed and we will be ushered into the presence of Christ. It’s just so wholly other than what we normally experience! Everything seems to be going along very well – doesn’t it? – operating according to natural law. It’s hard to believe that next Tuesday all this might be over.

But if you think that, then you’re not really saying anything different than what the early New Testament Christians confronted. Look at 2 Peter 3:3-4, talking about the Second Coming of Christ:

First of all you must understand this, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own passions and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation.”

You can well imagine early Christians being confronted with scoffers like this saying, Look, everything is going along just fine since the origin of the universe; where is the promise of his coming again?

What these scoffers did not and could not have realized is that even on a purely physical, scientific approach to cosmology, there is the imminent possibility of an apocalyptic scenario that would involve worldwide destruction. Amazing as it may be, eschatology is no longer simply a field of theology. Eschatology is today a field of physics, particularly of astrophysics. It is a subdivision of the field of cosmology. Cosmology is the study of the large-scale structure of the universe. Cosmology is divided into two sub-disciplines: cosmogony, which is the study of the universe’s past and the beginning of the universe, where you have the familiar Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe. Less familiar to us laymen is the other field of cosmology which is called (ready for this?) eschatology! Yes, that is the name that physicists give to the study of the universe’s future and the end of the universe – the study of the last things.

In physical eschatology there is the real possibility of an imminent, unexpected worldwide destruction of the universe. If the universe is not in the lowest energy state of the vacuum but is hung up in a so-called false vacuum, which is not the lowest energy state that it could possibly have, then given enough time it will inevitably make a quantum physical transition to the lower energy state. When it does so, it will bring about a complete metamorphosis of nature. In such a transition, what will happen is that throughout the universe there will be bubbles of this lower-energy true vacuum that will begin to form and then they will begin to expand at near light speed to bring about a transition of the entire universe to this lower-energy state. Because this is an indeterminate quantum process, it is unpredictable. It could happen at any time. It could happen next Tuesday. It could even happen this afternoon, for all we know.

In their book The Five Ages of the Universe, two cosmologists (Fred Adams and Gregory Laughlin) describe this physical apocalypse that may be coming. They write,

Silently, and without warning of any kind, it came. . . .

The shock wave began at a particular but rather undistinguished point of space-time and then traveled outward at blinding speed, rapidly approaching the speed of light. The expanding bubble then enveloped an ever larger portion of the universe. Because of its phenomenal velocity, the shock wave impinged upon regions of space with no advance warning. No light signals, radio waves, or causal communication of any kind could outrun the advancing front and forewarn of the impending doom. Preparation was as impossible as it was futile.

Inside the bubble, the laws of physics and hence the very character of the universe were completely changed. The values of the physical constants, the strengths of the fundamental forces, and the masses of the elementary particles were all different. New physical laws ruled in this Alice-in-Wonderland setting. The old universe, with its old version of the laws of physics, simply ceased to exist.

One could view this death and destruction of the old universe as a cause for concern. Alternatively . . . as a reason for celebration. Inside the bubble, with its new physical laws and the accompanying new possibilities for complexity and structure, the universe has achieved a new beginning.^[1]

The parallels between this scenario and the apocalypse that is described in 2 Peter 3:8-10 where the heavens will pass away, the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the works of the Earth and everything that is upon it will be burned up are amazing. The parallels between them are unmistakable. They bring about a complete metamorphosis of nature, suddenly, without warning, like a thief in the night, unavoidably, issuing in a new heavens and a new Earth, a renovated universe!

Now, please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I am not saying that 2 Peter 3:8-10 is a poetic description of a quantum phase transition in the history of the universe. I’m making a much more modest point. I am simply saying that if physical eschatology involves apocalyptic doomsday predictions that, for all we know, could be realized tomorrow, then we should not balk at similar forecasts on the part of theological eschatology about the impending destruction of the universe. It seems to me that they are quite on a par. The difference between the two is, of course, for Christians we look forward to this event as the Second Coming of Christ and the deliverance of this world from its shortcomings and the ushering in of the new heavens and new Earth that God has prepared for us.

I think that physical eschatology provides a very interesting analogy that can help us with respect to believing in the reality of the Second Coming of Christ.

Next week we’ll wrap up this section by talking a little bit about some of the practical application of the doctrine of Christ’s Second Coming. See you then.^[2]