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THE SECOND COMING OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, AND THE ENDS FOR WHICH HE WILL COME.

2 PET. iii. 3, 4.

"Knowing this first that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation."

HE subject on which I am about to treat is one of much importance, and of great difficulty in some respects. I would gladly

enter upon it with a sincere desire to determine, with God's assistance, what is truth, and to avoid everything which savours of dogmatism or presumption.

All Christians seem to be agreed on one point, namely, that Christ will come again; and though our creeds require us to believe that He will then come to judge the quick and the dead, yet our assent to that, which is, indeed, a generally admitted truth, does not preclude us from believing that His coming is also for other and scarcely less important ends. All Christians seem likewise to be agreed that Christ will come again a second time only. None, so far as I am aware, have ever spoken of a third coming: all seem to admit with the apostle, that "as it is appointed unto all men once to die, but after this the judgment; so

Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation."

There may be providential or spiritual comings referred to in the word of God in addition to these; but there is not, I conceive, any other corporal coming. The Saviour's declaration to Peter respecting John seems to refer to a providential coming: "If I will," said Jesus," that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" The brethren thought that this saying implied that John should not die, but continue on earth until the second corporal coming of Christ. It is probable, however, that it meant no more than that John should live until after the destruction of Jerusalem; for we know that he did survive that event. If this be a correct interpretation, then, as there was no corporal appearance of Christ at that time, the coming spoken of must be simply providential. The same apostle seems to refer to a spiritual coming in chap. xiv. 21, when he says, "He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him."

The coming of which the passage under consideration speaks is evidently neither a providential nor a spiritual coming: it is that promised coming to which the New Testament church ought as earnestly to look forward as the Old Testament saints did to the Saviour's first coming.

I purpose to consider-1. The promise of Christ's coming.

It will not be needful for me to multiply passages to prove to you that a second corporal coming is promised. The prophecy of Enoch, which has been preserved by St. Jude in his general epistle, is evidently a promise of that coming: "Behold," saith he, "the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." So likewise is that of Job, chap. xix. 25-27: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another;" for as Job was dead long before Christ's first advent, and consequently in his flesh has never yet seen the Lord, the latter day of which he speaks, when the Lord shall stand on the earth, and he in his flesh shall behold Him, must be the time of His second corporal coming. Zech. xiv. 4 is also a promise and prophecy of the same event. These are some of the predictions of the Second Advent which were given to the Old Testament saints; but their attention was more particularly directed to His first coming, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to make an end of sins, and to bring in everlasting righteousness.

In the New Testament the promises of Christ's second coming are very numerous. Christ himself gave a promise of His return when He said, "In My Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so,

I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." The angels who announced to His disciples His entrance into heaven gave a similar assurance: “This same Jesus," said they, "which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven." St. Paul (1 Thess. iv. 15-17) is equally explicit in his promise of a second and a corporal coming : "The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord." St. John, in Rev. i. 7, says, "Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him;" and this is an assurance of a second corporal coming. St. Peter, I whilst he shows in the words under consideration that there will be those who will scoff at and deny His coming, proves in the context that the promise of that event will be made good to the confusion and ruin of those who shall profanely and unbelievingly set it at nought. Enough has now been said to show that there are promises of Christ's second and corporal coming at a future day.

Let us consider-2. The ends for which He will

come.

The creeds of our Church, after affirming His session

at the right hand of God, add, "From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead." This would, at first sight, seem to limit the ends of His advent to that one event. But, as I observed before, our assent to this admitted truth does not preclude us from believing that there are also other and very important ends. It is undeniable that there will be a future judgment; and that in order to that judgment there must be a resurrection, both of the just and of the unjust. It by no means follows, however, that the just and the unjust will rise at the same time. St. Paul intimates that they will not; for in I Cor. xv. 22—26 he says, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming. Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power. For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." From this passage it appears that the resurrection of those that are Christ's is to take place at His coming; and this fully coincides with the declaration already quoted, “The Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first." In neither of these passages is any mention made of the rising of the wicked dead.

After the rising of the dead in Christ, and the the living saints-for, as St. Paul observes.