Chapters
ACCORDING to the creeds, our Lord is to return visibly to the natural eyes of men, riding upon a literal cloud, blowing a literal trumpet, shining with a dazzling light and blasting the literal universe into atoms. This view, however, contradicts the Scriptural principle of interpretation; for it interprets figurative passages, such as parables, symbols, and dark sayings literally. Furthermore, it defies logical analysis; for example, in view of the roundness of the earth, how could everyone see Him coming at the same time? A literal trumpet, blowing loud enough to be heard all over the earth, would burst the eardrums of all within 12,000 miles of it. And if the light from the glorified body of Christ should appear to the natural eyes of men, they would be instantly blinded, as was Saul on the way to Tarsus.
A candid, reverent and careful study of the Scriptures reveals the fact that our Lord’s Return is to be invisible to men’s natural sight, but visible to their mental sight, their eyes of understanding. We will now present nine additional lines of Biblical evidence proving this point.
Direct Statements of the Bible
(2.) The Bible directly teaches that Jesus will no more be seen by human beings. “Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more” (John 14: 19). The Lord’s Church will see Him, but only when they are changed and made like Him (1 John 3: 2). St. Paul also wrote about our glorified Lord: “Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom [in His glorified condition] no man hath seen, nor can see” (1 Timothy 6: 16).
“As a Thief in the Night”
(3.) The Scriptures teach that His Return would be thief-like in its manner (1 Thessalonians 5: 1-6) (2 Peter 3: 10) (Revelation 16: 15). When a thief comes to break into a house, he does so quietly. Our Lord comes in a similar manner, unknown to the world. But as a thief’s presence may be known by his accomplices by certain signs, so the Lord promised to make His presence known, after His Return, to His faithful watching people, by certain signs and proofs (Matthew 24: 3, 30-33).
“The Kingdom of God is in your Midst”
(4.) The invisibility of the heavenly phase (Jesus and the Church) of God’s Millennial Kingdom, implies that our Lord’s Return would be invisible; because He is the chief member of that Kingdom. Luke 17: 20, 21 reads, “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation [men will not be able to see Christ and His Saints when They come to rule]: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God [which you will be unable to point out] is [shall be] within you [in your midst, invisible].”
“As the Days of Noah were”
(5.) In Matthew 24: 37-39 Jesus proves that mankind would not see Him in His Second Advent: “As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming [presence] of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. . . . And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming [presence] of the Son of man be.” Jesus here shows that the activities of the people and their ignorance of the impending trouble just before the flood correspond to the activities and ignorance of the people during His Second Presence just before the Great Tribulation.
“As the Lightning cometh out of the East”
(6.) Jesus declares that as the natural sun manifests its presence by the natural light which it gives out, so He would manifest His Second Presence by the symbolic light, Truth, that He would give out at that time. This is shown in Matthew 24: 27: “For as the lightning [bright shining – sun] cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming [presence] of the Son of man be.”
“Every Eye shall see Him”
(7.) The invisibility of our Lord at His Return to men’s natural eyes is implied by the passages which show that all mankind, including Israel, will see the Lord in His Second Advent, when we harmonize such passages with those which teach that in His present condition no man hath seen nor can see Him (1 Timothy 6: 16), and that after His glorification the world would no more see Him (John 14: 19). One example is Revelation 1: 7: “Behold, he cometh with clouds [of trouble in the Great Tribulation]; and every eye shall see him [with their eyes of understanding], and they also which pierced him.”
“In like Manner as ye have seen Him go”
(8.) Acts 1: 11: “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” This passage is usually interpreted as though the comparison were His being seen going and His being seen coming again, whereas the passage says nothing whatever about His being seen coming again. The point of comparison in this passage is between the manner of His going and the manner of His coming again. And from the manner in which He went away we learn certain things respecting the manner of His Return: (1) He went away secretly so far as the world was concerned, none but His disciples knowing of it at the time; so He comes again secretly so far as the world is concerned, none but His Faithful knowing of it in its first stages; (2) He went away quietly and unostentatiously; hence He returns quietly and unostentatiously; (3) He went away blessing those whom He left; hence He returns, blessing first His waiting Church and later the world of mankind; and (4) concerning His Divine body, He was invisible to the natural eyes of human beings in His going away, though manifest to His disciples as going by suitable accompanying works; hence on returning He is invisible to the natural eyes of mankind, though He is manifested as present by suitable accompanying works.
St. Paul’s Logical Argument
(9.) St. Paul’s logical argument to the Thessalonians that Christ’s Return had not yet set in; an argument that would have been quite clumsy were His Return visible to the natural eyes of men (2 Thessalonians 2: 1-9). The Thessalonians had mistakenly inferred from St. Paul’s first epistle to them, that the Lord’s Second Advent had set in; therefore, the Apostle wrote the second epistle to them, among other things, to correct this mistaken impression. If St. Paul had taught the Thessalonians that our Lord’s Return is to be visible to the natural eye, accompanied by other outward demonstrations, undoubtedly, he would have used that argument to refute the error of the Thessalonians. But the fact that he did not use that argument is strong evidence that St. Paul had never taught them to believe that our Lord’s Return would be visible, nor did they themselves believe that. On the contrary, St. Paul’s argument was that certain predicted but unfulfilled signs must precede the Second Advent.
Jesus now a Spirit Being
(10.) Our tenth line of Scriptural evidence proving that our Lord’s Return is invisible to men’s natural sight, though visible to their mental eyes, is that our Lord since His resurrection is no more a human, but is a spirit being, with a body that is invisible to our natural sight. Hence the manner of his Coming must be invisible. Let us now prove this fact from the Bible.
Direct Bible Statements
(1.) God directly tells us that Jesus is now a spirit being. 1 Corinthians 15: 45 reads, “The first man Adam [Genesis 2: 7] was made a living soul [a human being with a human body]; the last [Jesus, the Second (v. 47)] Adam was made a quickening [life-giving] spirit.” Hence as the Adam of the garden of Eden was made a human being, so the Adam from heaven (Jesus in His resurrection) was made a spirit being. In v. 46 St. Paul tells us that the Adam of the garden of Eden was not a spirit, but a human being. St. Paul proves this by showing in v. 47 that the first Adam had a body made “of the earth,” of material substances, while the Second Adam, our Lord, has a body “from heaven,” of spiritual substances. Other passages also teach that our Lord since His resurrection is a spirit being (2 Corinthians 3: 17) (2 Corinthians 5: 16) (1 Peter 3: 18).
Jesus’ Joint-Heirs to be Spirit Beings
(2.) The Scriptures infer that our Lord is now a spirit being by declaring that the saints in their resurrection receive spirit bodies, and that they thereby receive bodies like His body. Hence His body must be a spirit body. That the saints were promised spirit bodies we see from 1 Corinthians 15: 42, 44: “So also is the resurrection of the dead [the first resurrection (Revelation 20: 4, 6)]. It is sown in corruption [material beings are corruptible]; it is raised in incorruption [spirit beings are incorruptible]. It is sown a natural [material, earthly] body; it is raised a spiritual [immaterial, heavenly] body.” This passage proves that the saints receive spirit bodies, and thus are spirit beings in the resurrection, as during their earthly lifetime they have had human bodies, and hence have been human beings. Other passages also prove that the saints are changed from human to spirit beings in the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15: 51-54) (1 John 3: 2) (1 Corinthians 15: 48, 49) (Philippians 3: 21).
Jesus’ Inheriting Kingdom Proves He is a Spirit
(3.) Jesus has inherited the kingdom of heaven, which a human being cannot inherit, unless he gives up his humanity and becomes a spirit being. St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15: 50 that “flesh and blood [a human being as such (Hebrews 2: 14)] cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption [material bodies are not made spiritual bodies].” To gain the heavenly resurrection, the members of the Church had to be changed from human nature to a spiritual nature without their bodies being converted into that of another nature (1Corinthians 15: 50-54). Jesus taught this same truth to Nicodemus (John 3: 5-8).
Jesus Higher than the Angels
(4.) The fact that Jesus is now higher than the angels proves that our Lord, since His resurrection, is a spirit being. While He was in the flesh He was lower than the angles, as St. Paul declares in Hebrews 2: 9: “We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death.” When Jesus was in the flesh, a human being, He was a little lower than the angles, but the Bible teaches that since His resurrection He is higher than the angles – even a Divine being (Hebrews 1: 3-5) (Ephesians 1: 20-22) (Philippians 2: 9-11).
Jesus became Human to be the Ransom
(5.) Jesus became human so that He might die as the Ransom-sacrifice for the world. “We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death . . . that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man” (Hebrews 2: 9). His death fulfilled the purpose for which He became a human being, therefore having no more need of human nature for Himself after His death, we may be sure that He no longer has it, for He has nothing in His person that He does not need.
Jesus not Eternally Degraded in Nature
(6.) Our Lord would be eternally degraded in nature had He taken back His humanity when He arose from the dead. Had He taken back His humanity in His resurrection, and retained it to all eternity, He would be everlastingly lower than the angels in nature and thereby eternally degraded in nature. But the Scriptures teach that He is highly exalted above them (Revelation 5: 11-13).
Jesus did not take back the Ransom Price
(7.) The Scriptures teach that Jesus gave up His humanity as the Ransom price for the world (Matthew 20: 28) (1 Timothy 2: 5, 6) (John 6: 51). But had He taken back His humanity when He arose from the dead, He would have taken back the Ransom price and thus nullified His entire redemptive work, and made the entire Plan of God a failure! To even state these inevitable results of taking back the Ransom price demonstrates the falsity of the doctrine that our Lord arose from the dead a human being.
Perfection of God’s Character a Proof
(8.) If God had resurrected Jesus in human nature, He would have violated His oath to Jesus (Genesis 22: 16, 17) (Galatians 3: 16) (Hebrews 6: 17-20), since He promised with an oath to make Him heavenly, spiritual, “as the stars of heaven.” God is neither a perjurer nor a liar, so the perfection of His character forbade His resurrecting Jesus to human nature.
Jesus a Fully Developed New Creature
(9.) Jesus passed through the various stages of character development as a New Creature from the begettal to the birth of the spirit. His character as a New Creature, a spiritual character, reached perfection (Hebrews 2: 10) (Hebrews 5: 8, 9). Hence His affections were completely detached from earthly and attached to heavenly things (Colossians 3: 1-4). One of the characteristics He had developed and crystallized as a New Creature was sacrificing the earthly for the heavenly. Had He been raised from the dead as a human being, He would have proceeded to sacrifice His humanity again unto death, for all His aspirations were crystallized in heavenly-mindedness. But the Bible teaches that “Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him” (Romans 6: 9).
Jesus’ Office as Savior
(10.) If Jesus had been resurrected from the dead as a human being, He would have been unable to exercise His office as Savior of the Elect in this Age and of the obedient of the world in the next Age. Nothing short of a Divine being could minister to all the needs of the Elect scattered throughout the earth, and to protect them against Satan, the demons and fallen men. Much less could a human being bind Satan and his fallen angels, destroy Satan’s and establish God’s Kingdom, awaken all the dead, offer them effective help for their restoration to human perfection through a mediatorial reign and turn this earth into a Paradise. Hence His possession of the capacities to fulfill His ministry to the Elect and to the world proves that He was raised from the dead a spirit being.
Jesus’ Office as Vicegerent
(11.) The Bible teaches that God does all things by Jesus (1 Corinthians 8: 6), meaning that He is God’s Vicegerent throughout the Universe. It is self-evident that the duties of such an office cannot be performed by a human being. For example, how could a human being direct all of the orders of angels? Hence, He must be a spirit being.
Facts of Jesus’ Appearances to the Disciples
(12.) A twelfth and final point in proof that since Jesus’ resurrection He is a spirit being and not a human being are the facts of His various appearances with different bodies to His disciples after His resurrection. Jesus appeared to His disciples in different bodies because: (1) His resurrection body was a spiritual body, and therefore invisible to the natural sight of His disciples; and (2) to prove to them first, that He was alive from the dead and that, second, none of the bodies that He caused to appear and disappear before them was His resurrection body.
Our Lord appeared to His disciples in the same general way that angels in the past had made their appearances to human beings, such as Abraham, Jacob, Mary, etc., by creating or materializing human bodies for the purpose. Thus, when Jesus appeared to the disciples He created the bodies that He showed them, and when He desired to disappear He simply dissolved these bodies. We know this is true because He did not appear twice in the same body, at least in the first stages of the various appearances after His resurrection. Evidently Jesus also created the clothes that He wore at these various manifestations, appearing to Mary as a gardener, to the two on the way to Emmaus in the garments of a traveler, etc.
Jesus’ Appearance to Saul of Tarsus
Jesus appeared to Saul of Tarsus on the way to Damascus. While St. Paul did not see our Lord’s glorified body itself, which sight would have killed him (1 Timothy 6: 16), he did see a representation of that body – the glory light that shone out of that body; but the light was so powerful that before his eyes could penetrate through it to the body from which it shone, he was struck blind by its brightness (Acts 9: 1-18).
Some might ask how we can harmonize the teaching that the manner of our Lord’s Return is invisible with passages that speak of His descending from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel and with the trump of God, and of His being revealed from Heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire taking vengeance? (1 Thessalonians 4: 16) (2 Thessalonians 1: 7, 8).
The Shout, the Voice and the Trump of God
The shout, the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, with their accompanying events (1 Thessalonians 4: 16, 17) mean the same things as the sound of the seventh trumpet and the great voices, with their accompanying events (Revelation 11: 15-19). Other passages also describe the same general events (Daniel 12: 1, 2) (1 Corinthians 15: 52-57). They show us that these events are associated with the time and fact of Christ’s Return. The trumpet of Revelation 11: 15 is the seventh in a series of seven trumpets. All credible interpreters of Revelation recognize that the first six trumpets and their trumpet-blasts are not literal, but figurative of certain messages and their events from shortly after Christ’s First Presence on earth onward. If this is true, then the seventh trumpet must be symbolic, and represents the messages and events of Christ’s Second Presence on earth, which will last a thousand years.
The shout and voice of the Archangel mean the same as the great voices of Revelation 11: 15. We understand the shout to refer to certain human agitations, discussions, etc., at the Second Advent, and we are hearing this shout in the agitations and discussions along the lines of the rights of man as these are connected with the principles of justice between man and man.
The voice of the Archangel refers to certain proclamations, commands, teachings, etc., that Christ gives through the agencies of His own choosing at the time of His Return, and they imply His taking charge of Earth’s affairs. These proclamations, commands and messages arouse world-movements for the overthrow of Satan’s Empire through the Great Tribulation, and for the establishment of God’s Kingdom (Daniel 12: 1) (Revelation 11: 15-18) (Isaiah 2: 19, 21) (Psalm 46: 6).
“In Flaming Fire Taking Vengeance”
The “mighty angels” of 2 Thessalonians 1: 7 in the Greek reads angels or messengers of His power. We understand these messengers of His power to represent the agencies that His power uses for the overthrow of Satan’s Empire in the Great Tribulation, such as the World-War (in its two phases), the coming World-Revolution, World-Anarchy and their accompanying World-Famines and World-Pestilences, together with the instrumentalities by which they are effected.
The “flaming fire” of 2 Thessalonians 1: 8 represents the fierce destructiveness that accompanies these five forms of the Great Tribulation, which will be in punishment of mankind’s sin (see also Revelation 11: 15-18). Thus 2 Thessalonians 1: 7, 8 shows that the revelation of Jesus at His Return, will be made, not to men’s natural, but to their mental eyes, in or through the destructive effects of the Great Tribulation.