Today, I read two Bible scriptures, which arouses my interest. It is written in John 14:3, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” And it says Acts 1:11, “this same Jesus … shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven.” Many people are impatient for Jesus's return in the last times.But, when it comes to the great event of Jesus's return, will He really come on a cloud as we imagine? will the prophecies be fulfilled in the same way as we think? Then, in what manner will the Lord Jesus come? How do you think about these two scriptures? Do you have any different views? Welcome to contribute.
The historic Christian position is simply that He will come when He comes, and further there won't be any question about it. If someone has to ask, "Is that Jesus?" then, well, it's not Jesus. Nobody will have to tell you, in fact Jesus states explicitly that if someone says, "He's over there!" or "He's over here!"
not to believe them. He also said that no one knows the day or hour except God the Father. So if anyone tells you when He's going to come, well then they're almost certainly wrong, Jesus says His coming will be like a thief in the night, that He comes at an hour we don't expect, and that it will be as in the days of Noah--life will be going on like normal and then suddenly the flood came, without warning.
There will be no signs (despite what the "prophecy experts" on television and who sell books like to say) surrounding His coming, which is why nobody can predict it. The signs mentioned in the Olivet Discourse involve the destruction of Jerusalem which occurred in 70 AD, when Jesus talks about His return He is rather clear that it will be without warning. And when people try and use "wars and rumors of wars" as examples of signs, Jesus tells us pretty clearly that these are not signs, these things happen, have always happened, and will always happen right up until the end. Wars, rumors of wars, natural disasters, these are not signs of the end, that's just how things have always been.
So Jesus' coming: It'll happen when it happens, and when it happens there won't be any guessing about it. What it looks like, exactly, nobody can actually know; one thing we can say is that there won't be any need to try and figure it out--when it happens, we'll all know, everyone, without question.
Until then, Christians are supposed to be about the Master's work: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the widow and the orphan, and being the Church in and for the world.
-CryptoLutheran
