The text-only issue.
The non-Christian seems to have little difficulty believing in the end of the world. Whether it will come by one of the means popular in recent decades (second ice-age, nuclear holocaust, global warming) or by the latest fashionable apocalypse (an asteroid strike) the end seems all but inevitable.
The Christian, of course, believes that the end will come in none of these ways, only God Himself will wrap up creation: “The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.”
(2 Peter 3:10). By the same word that God created the world He will in His own good time bring it to an end (verses 5&7).
I hope you noticed my ironic “of course” in the previous paragraph, for I doubt that I'm alone in finding this one of the hardest Christian doctrines to believe. On a rational level it just seems so unlikely. Every sense I have tells me that the world goes on as it always has—the alarm clock beeps day after day, car insurance needs paying year after year—so that the idea of an intervention, an abrupt discontinuity, in the world is simply unimaginable. It's hard to admit, but I find that I have some sympathy with those scoffers, “In the last days scoffers will come, scoffing... They will say, ‘Where is this “coming” he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.’”
. It has been a long time now.
Perhaps a related reason that we live in denial of the end is that we have lost the sense of our own mortality. Sudden death is such a rarity in the developed world that we are hardly ever provoked into considering the ends of our own lives, whether by death or Jesus' return. Moreover, we live in such relative comfort that we have lost the desire for something better to come that drove the Apostles. For to me, to live is Christ, to die is gain
, wrote Paul (Phil 1:21). Like drivers in our luxury Mercedes we speed along the motorway oblivious to the pile-up just around the bend.
A third reason for my own difficulty in believing the truth of the second-coming of Jesus is that some of Christianity's strangest teachings cluster round it, such as the millenium, the rapture, and that strangest book of all, Revelation. This makes it fertile material for the sects and cults. A wacky view of the End Times is almost a defining characteristic of a cult. Certainly, as soon as I meet anyone who claims to understand the book of Revelation sirens go off in my head, “Cult Alert! Cult Alert!”. We are rightly suspicious of those for whom predicting the details of the end is an industry. But the other extreme is just as damaging, secretly believing that the end will never come at all.
Like the bodily resurrection, so much fails to make sense if we try to edit Jesus' return out of our theology. Just as so much in the Old Testament points forward to Jesus' first coming, so much in the New Testament points forward to his second. How are we to cope with our sufferings now unless we can long for a world where there is no more death or mourning or crying or pain
(Rev 21:4)? How can we pretend that God is sovereign over the wickedness of this world unless one day there will be a new world, the home of righteousness
(2 Peter 3:13)? How can we truly state that Jesus has undone the effects of the Fall until we are back in the Garden again? None of these are satisfactorily dealt with by believing that we will end up in some “spiritual” heaven
when we die, sitting on the clouds. The Bible is clear that the only answer to these questions is the destruction of the old earth and the construction of a new, just as in the days of Noah.
So, the first battle is to get the truth into our heads. Perhaps this is why the New Testament writers used so much ink on the matter of the end of the world: they knew it was pretty hard to swallow. In addition to a bunch of parables Jesus devotes a whole chapter to his Coming in Matthew 24. Paul's (arguably) second most famous chapter, Romans 8, revolves around it. Peter talks about it in 2 Peter chapter 3, and of course it occupies much of the book of Revelation.
In the end, then, I believe in the Second Coming of Jesus because the Bible tells me that it will happen. Thank God for revelation! I talk to people about it, I lead Bible studies on it, I've even preached about it more than once, and I'm going to keep doing these things until my mind is completely soaked in the truth. But the real problem is not primarily theological. It's not the belief or unbelief of our heads that matters so much as the unbelief of our hearts. It's precisely in my heart that I find that I do not yet truly believe in Jesus' second coming. If I did, could I really go on living my life as I do?
It's striking as we read the New Testament, scoffers notwithstanding, how imminent the writers seemed to believe Jesus' coming would be. James writes, the Lord's coming is near... The Judge is standing at the door!
(James 5:8f). Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 is explicit, What I mean,
brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.
And the Thessalonian Christians were shocked that some of their number had apparently died before Jesus' return (1 Thess
4:12). They had clearly expected him to come back in their own lifetimes.
For the New Testament church Jesus' coming was a truth to live their lives by. The sheer urgency of the Apostles' activity in the book of Acts demonstrates the depth of their certainty over Jesus' return.
Where is the evidence that our lives are touched in every way by the expectation of Jesus' coming? Practical unbelief that Jesus is coming soon is shamefully exposed in the moral laxity and spiritual indolence of the church. It wasn't for their skepticism that the scoffers were condemned, it was for following their evil desires
. If we want to recapture some of that glorious
early-church energy, then we somehow need to work the truth of Jesus' sudden return deep into our hearts. We need to start living in the light of it. This is how we can turn our doctrinal belief into living faith, first meditating upon it, then doing something about it.
Sometimes, to remind myself of the inevitability of Jesus' return and provoke some urgency of action, I try to recall the few days last year before my wife gave birth to our daughter. We had no doubt the time would come soon, but no clue as to when. We made our preparations as best we could, packed and ready to go at any moment. The beginning of the labour pains was evidence that something
wonderful was imminent. In the same way, as I look at the world around us and see wars and rumours of wars
, and nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom
, famines and earthquakes in various places
, I try to remind myself that these are the
beginning of birth pains
(Matt 24:6-8). Something wonderful is imminent.
As for exercising my faith in Jesus' coming—moving that belief from my head to my heart—I'm just a beginner. I'm trying not to get attached to the things I own, and trying not to acquire too much, always remembering that those things are in bondage to decay
(Rom 8:21). I'm trying not to postpone my good works for too long. I'm trying to practise keeping a short account with God, confessing my sin as I become aware of it, never leaving it too long between coming to Him. I am trying to remember as I sit in the canteen with my colleagues talking about sport and the weather that soon it will be too late for trivia; we need to talk about something
more serious. I try to remember that two men will be sitting at workstations; one will be taken and the other left
(after Matthew 24:40).
I hope that in these ways the truth will eventually succeed in working its way from the pages of the Bible, deep into my mind, and even deeper into my heart. Then I will be able to say with genuine longing and belief, Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!.
Ben Edgington serendipitously surfed here all the way from the UK. Liking what he found he felt challenged to make his writing debut. Ben lives at www.edginet.org.
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