THE COMING OF THE LORD JESUS
John 14:1-3; 1 Thess.4:13-18; 1 John 3:1-3
These scriptures are about the Lord’s coming, the second coming of Christ. The coming of the Lord is one thing; although it will be in two parts, what we call the rapture and then His appearing.
The church looks forward to Christ having His rightful place publicly at His appearing. The Father will see to it that it is so. The Lord Jesus, the One who suffered here in His pathway, will be seen then in His public glory. That was foretold in the previous dispensation, in Old Testament scriptures, but what was not foretold was that His church would be with Him in it. The assembly will be with Him in His glory. How wonderful that is, what joy that will be for Christ then! Every one who is redeemed and part of the assembly will be associated with Him in His public glory. Every believer who has suffered in some measure will share in that glory of Christ’s then. He will be publicly glorified; He will be seen – that is why we call it the appearing.
We could use that word, His appearing, for the rapture also, because He will be seen then by His church when He comes for His saints. We speak about the secret side of the rapture; but He will be seen at the rapture by those of His who are alive then, and by those who will be raised.
But at the Lord’s appearing with His own, He will be seen publicly and He will be glorified in His saints. God will be justified in placing Christ in that wonderful place of administration for one thousand years. God will be justified in giving things into His Son’s hand. God will be seen to be able to sustain men and women in flesh and blood conditions on the earth, Satan having been bound. What a time it will be, although we will not be on the earth. One thousand years is a long time, and God will see to it that Christ will be publicly owned for one thousand years. There will be a change, a complete change, on this earth. The first part of the coming of Christ, the rapture, will not make a change here save that the restraint of the Spirit will have been removed and things will get worse on the earth. But after Christ’s public appearing, everything will be in peace and righteousness will reign. What blessed conditions there will be! The Lord Jesus will reign over it all in glory and will be owned as such. Every person will own Him as Lord.
But there is a moral glory about owning Him as Lord now. We are to love His appearing, to look for His second coming. In these scriptures, the first one refers briefly to the rapture and the second gives us the detail of it. Believers on the Lord Jesus are longing for His return, longing to see Him. The apostle Paul says in Romans, “As regards hope, rejoicing”, Rom.12:12. If we rejoice, it brightens us as believers – to realise that we are soon going to be with the Lord for ever. What a prospect, dear friend! In Ephesians 4, the apostle Paul speaks of these unities4, and one of them is “one hope of your calling” (v.4). We all have the same hope – those to whom Paul wrote might have been Jew or Gentile, but all had the same hope, “one hope of your calling”. That means we will be in the fulness of sonship, with Christ and like Him. That “one hope of your calling” is presented there as bringing about unity – it would bind us together. We may not be able to have practical fellowship with every believer now, but our hope is a unifying thing, all having the same Man before us. We will enjoy sonship as associated with Him in its fulness. These are some of the effects of having before us the love and joy of the Lord’s second coming at the rapture.
We will see the Lord Jesus then for the first time. We have never actually heard His voice, although believers have spoken to Him every day, many times every day. Believers have proved His grace, “grace upon grace” (John 1:16), every day. But then every believer will hear His voice and will be with the One whose grace they have proved. That is wonderful. Every impression I have had of the Lord Jesus will be more fully confirmed when I am with Him, and there will be an added sweetness and blessedness that I have never yet experienced. This hope of the believer is based upon God’s promises and purpose. It is not a hope that something might happen. We know it will. We have faith, and that gives us hope. It is a wonderful thing for the believer to have hope in the second coming of Christ. What blessed rapture it will be when He comes. That is what it will be – rapture.
The Lord says, “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe on God, believe also on me”. Let Him be the settled object of your faith, and that you are going to be with Him. The Lord was raised from amongst the dead and He is now with His Father; He could say prophetically, “in thy presence is fulness of joy”, Ps.16:11 KJV. The Lord had joy and sorrow in His pathway here, but now in the presence of His Father it is “fulness of joy”. He said that if His disciples loved Him, they would rejoice that He was to go to be with His Father (John 14:28). What joy that was for the Lord Jesus, but think of the joy it will be for the Lord Jesus to have the whole of His assembly with Him. That is what He says here: “In my Father’s house there are many abodes; were it not so, I had told you: for I go to prepare you a place; and if I go and shall prepare you a place, I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be”. How much it will mean for Him to have every one whom He has died to secure with Him for ever. He has died, gone from this earth, and He wants us with Him for ever
Dear friend, if you do not appreciate His first coming, you will not be looking for His second coming. Do you appreciate the first coming of Christ? That was an immense thing – one of the Persons of the Godhead came into manhood. “But now once in the consummation of the ages he has been manifested for the putting away of sin by his sacrifice”, Heb.9:26. That was done at His first coming; He put sin away from before God by His work on the cross, and the shedding of His blood. What love! He was the only One who could do it; “thus the Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many …”, Heb.9:28. Are you included in “the many”, dear friend? If you are not, you will not be looking for His second coming. The One whom we are going to be with is the One who has suffered in our stead. It is very important to make sure that you know the Lord Jesus as your Saviour. We are waiting for Him “as Saviour, who shall transform our body of humiliation into conformity to his body of glory” (Phil.3:21), but we must have an appreciation of what He did at His first coming. Many persons do not have that; darkness lies on a certain nation, they are “blinded” (Rom.11:7). Most of that nation have no appreciation of the first coming of Christ. May you not be in that category.
Then He “shall appear to those that look for him the second time without sin”, Heb.9:28. He has already dealt with that question. The note5 is very helpful. The Lord Jesus came the first time to secure a company through His death, and it is worthwhile, from His point of view, to come back so as to have these persons with Him for ever. It is absolutely essential that we have this hope in our hearts. It has a tremendous moral effect, it changes persons who have this hope, this Person, livingly in their hearts, as the One who is about to come for His own.
He has gone in already; He is in the presence of the Father and He is our forerunner (Heb.6:20). Here in John 14, the Lord opens up to His disciples the precious things that were in His heart. The first thing He says is, “In my Father’s house there are many abodes; were it not so, I had told you”. He is inducing confidence in Himself; He is saying ‘I would have told you if this was not going to be the case’. How attractive that is. He is the only Person in whom we can trust completely. “Were it not so, I had told you”; the Lord Jesus knew they needed to know this, there and then, because He was leaving them and they would miss Him, but He was telling them that the future is absolutely certain. These words of the Lord were related to God’s purpose. It will actually happen.
The disciples’ hearts were troubled. Jesus knew what the waiting time would be like, and He was saying to them, ‘It will not always be like this’. God’s love was expressed in what He said to them. Divine love is so great, God loves us so much, and we are going to be with Christ for ever for the Father’s glory. So the Lord felt it necessary to tell them, before He told them of other things, that this is what will happen. That would be a comfort to them, an encouragement. We all know what the wilderness is like, what this world is like; there are trials and sorrows. But when the Lord comes, the pressures will all be gone; there will be only what is the result of the work of God, what is of Christ. The apostle John wrote about being like Christ; there will only be Christ seen in us.
But we are left here for a reason, for the Father has control over time. Some would mock; “Where is the promise of His coming?” (2 Pet.3:4) and say that things had never changed since their “fathers fell asleep”. The promise of His coming is in the hearts of His own. Is His coming in your heart? Are you longing for the Lord to come for you? I am, I trust in an increasing way. That is the first thing to be before the believer’s affections. Dear Mr John Welch said, ‘I would like to remember the Lord again, but I do not want even that to hamper the prospect of the Lord coming for me’. That prospect of the believer laid hold of him, that Christ loves us, and is coming for us. Ties to this earth would be loosened as the anticipation of the Lord’s coming forms me and has its moral effect on me. Believers need encouragement; they need joy in their heart, and this gives it, the hope that we will surely be with Him for ever. We have the Lord’s supper; the Lord provides it Himself, and if He does not come before then, we will celebrate that at the beginning of another week. But the first thing before us is His coming for us; that is to grow in our hearts every day.
The Lord says here, “In my Father’s house there are many abodes; were it not so, I had told you: for I go to prepare you a place” – a special place for those of the assembly. How wonderful that will be, to be there with Christ, enjoying Him. He says in His prayer in John 17, “I desire that where I am … they may behold my glory” (v.24). Our occupation will be Him – nothing to distract, nothing to mar, nothing to spoil. Having that hope in our hearts – “I am coming again” – brings about a change in us. The Lord is looking forward to this, I can say without any hesitation, more than any of us. He was anticipating it; He was speaking as though it was in His heart there and then. “I am coming” – not exactly ‘I will come’ but “I am coming … and shall receive you to myself”. Everyone who is received will be suitable to be there.
What a change comes about through the gospel! Dear friend, do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you ready to go to be with Him, to go into a secured place with that Person who has entered in before us? For the assembly, there is nothing else which needs to happen before the rapture. Other things will need to happen on the earth before the public glory of Christ at His appearing, but nothing else needs to happen before the Lord Jesus comes for all those of His assembly. Through faith in that One and in His precious work, we are ready for His presence, to be in the Father’s house. Everything will be suitable when we see Him. What a reception we will have! We will be with Him, in His company and with that blessed One for ever; “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself”. What it will be for the Lord Jesus, and what it will be for ourselves! We will be delivered from so much, and that is part of the reason why I am waiting for the Lord to come, but how much it will mean for Him. He was leaving the disciples in this scene where He had been rejected, but it will not always be thus – it will change. “That where I am ye also may be” – what a blessed prospect the believer has! Do you have that prospect, dear friend? If we do, there will be a moral result in us, a quickening of our affections. That One, our eternal Lover, is soon coming for us.
In Thessalonica, Paul faced terrible persecution (1 Thess.2:15). He was with the saints there for only a short time, then he had left them. Their persecution was the result of them receiving the gospel. Some of these young believers may have been martyred in that short time, while some may have died, as we say, naturally. How tenderly Paul speaks of it here; “fallen asleep through Jesus”. That would be a comfort, that they had “fallen asleep through Jesus” even though they may have suffered so terribly. But the Thessalonians were grieved, they did not have the light as to what would happen to those who had fallen asleep through Jesus, although they had been waiting for God’s “Son from the heavens”, 1 Thess.1:10. They did not have this light until they read Paul’s letter, although they knew Jesus was coming again. This affected me; “how ye turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to await his Son from the heavens, whom he raised from among the dead, Jesus, our deliverer from the coming wrath”. These persons had been converted, and one of the reasons was that they were to “await his Son from the heavens”. There were other reasons why they had been converted, but this was a specific reason, “to await his Son from the heavens”. I ask, is this really before me every day, because it may happen at any moment.
But the Thessalonians were grieved, and Paul was giving them light about those who had fallen asleep through Jesus, assuring them that they would not miss out. So there is this parenthesis in which he explains, and gives the detail of, what would happen at what we speak of as the rapture – the first part of the Lord’s second coming. Paul says, “For this we say to you in the word of the Lord …”. He is saying to them, ‘it is not only me that is saying this’, although they would believe him, but Paul is saying, ‘it is not only me, it is the Lord’s word’. He put it that way to impress them. Paul is saying, ‘This is true’. We can rely in faith on this word here – this is the truth.
We may doubt it; we may say, is it really going to happen? The enemy has sown these seeds in persons’ hearts, but this is the word of the Lord: “we, the living, who remain to the coming of the Lord, are in no way to anticipate those who have fallen asleep”. The first wave of power will affect every one who is asleep through Jesus, as well as the dead in Christ – all those other persons of faith. What myriads! What divine power that will be, displayed instantly. They will all hear His voice, taken out of the tombs – a wonderful resurrection, a display of the power of God who raised Christ from among the dead “by the glory of the Father”, Rom.6:4. God will have the last word. How many will be raised, we will never know, but God knows, the Lord knows (2 Tim.2:19). Think of it – the Lord Jesus coming for those who are His own.
We can never measure how much the Lord has served His own. The Spirit too has served them, and the result of all this will be seen. He has served His own for the whole dispensation, and He is going to come Himself for His own – what a Saviour! What a shout that will be: “the Lord himself, with an assembling shout” coming to claim His assembly for Himself. These are amazing things, and nothing can interfere with them. He has the right to every one who belongs to Him. He loves every one, and we will go up together in response to His “assembling shout”. What power there will be in that voice. That will be the first time the whole assembly will be with Christ, and He will have it for Himself. What joy for Him and what joy for ourselves.
Then, “with archangel’s voice” – what authority and supremacy. It refers to the character of the shout. It is not an angel who will come, it is the Lord Jesus personally; “the Lord himself” will come for us. If we were having an audience with the Queen, she would send someone of inferior rank to come for us, but He will not do that. The word here is “himself”; the Lord Himself is coming, the One who is “King of kings, and Lord of lords” (Rev.19:16), the One who is ‘The church’s glorious Head’ (Hymn 360). When we see Him, “we shall be like Him,” as the scripture in John’s epistle says. He is coming with “archangel’s voice” – nothing can interfere – and with “the trump of God”, the God who raises the dead.
So many persons through this dispensation have suffered and been martyred, but then God will raise them. It also speaks of the “last trumpet”, 1 Cor.15:52. The first trumpet in a Roman camp meant ‘pack up, get ready to leave’; they were going to leave the setting they were in. Then the second one meant, ‘get into rank’. These two things shall be in place at the Lord’s coming. We can apply it to the need to be right in our relations together, in rank. Then the last trumpet signalled that the soldiers were to move out; that is when we shall go. What power there will be. It impresses me, the power of it. Then “we, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we shall be always with the Lord. So encourage one another with these words”. They are certainly words of encouragement. May we all be encouraged by the encouragement of the scriptures.
I just close with 1 John 3. “Beloved, now are we children of God, and what we shall be has not yet been manifested; we know that if it is manifested we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”. And then there is the moral effect of that: “every one that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure”. What we shall be has not been manifested yet, but it soon will be. The believer is hidden at the present time, our “life is hid with the Christ in God”, Col.3:3. The Lord Jesus will soon be manifested, and we shall be like Him; what an immense thing that is. We will be changed in the “twinkling of an eye”– all those who love Him will be changed, and “we shall be like him”. What wondrous grace, and it will all be on the basis of what the Lord Jesus has done. We read of how He will “transform our body of humiliation into conformity to his body of glory” (Phil.3:21); our bodies, now in a condition of humiliation because of sin, will be changed into a condition that will never be touched by anything of that sort. What love! What great purpose of God, that we will be all be “like him” and with Him.
Then “every one that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure”. So as we have affection for Christ and His moral beauty is before us, that is what we are to be engaged with. “Every one that has this hope in him” – in that Person who is perfect in every way – “purifies himself, even as he is pure”. If you do not have this hope, this will not happen. The purifying is based on hope; that is the crux of the matter here. It is of all importance. As we are engaged with His moral perfection, it gives the Spirit opportunity to form us after Christ.
May we be encouraged, may our hearts be cheered; “As regards hope, rejoicing”. He is the believer’s hope, “Christ Jesus our hope” (1 Tim.1:1), our living hope. Dear friend, keep that blessed Person before you. May the Lord bless the word.
Kirkcaldy
2 November 2019
G Bruce Grant
Edited and published monthly by John Brown and Paul Martin
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