WHAT IS COMING
W. McKillop
1 Thessalonians 1: 9, 10; Romans 8: 18; Luke 21: 27, 28; 1 Thessalonians 3: 12, 13
These passages refer to what is coming. There is the coming wrath, the coming glory that is to be revealed to us, the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory, and finally the coming of the Lord Jesus with all His saints. The glad tidings, of course, are intended to bear on us currently, but a feature of them is that they bring to our attention what is coming. What is current is the need of repentance and the need to believe in the glad tidings, so that there may be the remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. At the same time, the glad tidings take a long look ahead. They foresee things coming that are intended to help persons come to repentance, to a sober judgment of what is current in their lives, and to a clear judgment of the world.
These Thessalonians turned to God from idols. The glad tidings are intended to turn persons from one line of things to another: as the apostle says, the Lord told him he was “to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God”, Acts 26: 18. So clearly he, and Silvanus and Timotheus were effective in their preaching to the Thessalonians. These persons turned to God from idols. The glad tidings are intended to turn men from what Satan has engaged them with, idols, and turn them to the One who has come to light in the Lord Jesus, the true God. So they turned to God from idols “to serve a living and true God”. That would be a current matter. These Thessalonians were an evidence of the power of the glad tidings in that they turned to serve a living and true God. The word means that they turned to serve as bondmen. One of the effects of the glad tidings is to lead persons to become bondmen of God; to deliver them from the slavery of Satan and enable them to serve the living and true God.
Then it also had the effect of changing their outlook; they were looking for the advent of the Lord Jesus, as it says, “and to await his Son from the heavens”. The Thessalonians understood that is where He is, so their outlook was in that direction. We have often spoken about persons who have come to know Christ as their Saviour and then they continue living as though the Lord was never coming. But these believers were awaiting “his Son”. Their affections were evidently touched as they understood the affection of God for Christ—“to await his Son from the heavens, whom he raised from among the dead”. They understood the wondrous intervention of God in raising Christ from among the dead, and in their experience they identified Him as “Jesus, our deliverer from the coming wrath”.
It is important to understand that there is such a thing as the coming wrath. The word “coming” would mean that it is on the way but it has not yet arrived. It is a very solemn matter to think of, what this world is awaiting—although it knows it not—is the coming wrath. That is not the judgment of the great white throne, it is the Lord Jesus coming to take vengeance on all who know not God and who have not obeyed the glad tidings of our Lord Jesus Christ. You can understand why the apostle said, “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we persuade men”, 2 Corinthians 5: 11. He knew what was coming. We should have great exercise of soul as to men because the terror of the Lord is something that no one would want to contemplate who is still in his sins. It is very solemn indeed to think about being still in one’s sins when the Lord Jesus comes from heaven with flaming fire and the angels of His power. As I remarked, that is not the final judgment, it is not the great white throne, but it is the Lord Jesus coming to break up the whole system that Satan has evolved in the world, and to execute vengeance on those who have rejected the glad tidings. We have spoken a good deal in the last day or two about the operations of God in the western world. Soon they will come to an end. What will take the place of the operations of God in grace will be the judicial operations of the Lord Jesus. Believers can say thankfully that we know Him as our Deliverer from the coming wrath.
What should encourage us in the meantime, because it is a time of suffering, is what I read in Romans 8, where the apostle says, “the sufferings of this present time”. The sufferings of the saints will not go on for ever. We can thank God for that. Believers will not always become ill and die; they will not always become old and infirm; they will not always be injured in accidents. We shall not always be the subject of reproach and persecution, not only physical persecution, but persecution in a moral sense, the sufferings of this present time. We can understand what they are. The sufferings of this present time include the heart wrenchings that affect us when our relatives are not in the truth, and when they leave it. That is part of the sufferings of this present time. The apostle says, “For I reckon that the sufferings” he is reckoning spiritually. In Romans 6 he teaches us how to reckon. As we contemplate the force of baptism and our identification with Christ in figure in His death, we reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God in Christ Jesus. It is a great thing when we are able to reckon in that regard. The Thessalonians reckoned in that sense because they turned to God from idols. Reckoning ourselves dead indeed unto sin means that we reckon ourselves not responsible to respond to the system of lawlessness about us, indeed that we reckon ourselves as incapable of participating in it, because we have been baptised unto Christ Jesus in His death. Chapter 6 of Romans helps us to reckon as to what is about us.
The apostle carries this thought over in regard of the sufferings of this present time. He says, “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory to be revealed to us”. The apostle suffered more than any, next to Christ. The list of his sufferings would move our hearts, and yet he says, “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time”. As I remarked, this present time indicates that they will not go on for ever. The present time will cease, and the sufferings associated with it will stop, but in the meantime we need to reckon that they “are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory”. We want that viewpoint, that there is coming glory. The coming wrath refers to the world as the sin system. The coming glory is what is before us as believers. Whatever we are tested by, whatever we suffer, we need to come to this sober reckoning that it is not worthy to be compared with the coming glory. The coming glory, which is eternal, will far exceed the sufferings of the present time! It is not just looking back on them from the judgment-seat. We sing that hymn sometimes,
‘Before Christ’s judgment seat to stand,
With Him look back on all the way’. (Hymn 299)
That is a retrospective view, a review of what we have come through, and how we have proved divine mercy and grace and love. But here the apostle is speaking about persons enlightened by the glad tidings, who have faith, who have the Spirit, and are able to reckon spiritually, to say that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory to be revealed to us. That is the prospect, beloved brethren, that is before us, the coming glory. It is said that when Mr. H. D’A. Champney, a young man with a family, was moved to leave his clerical position he said to Mr. Darby, ‘But what will the end be?’, and Mr. Darby said, ‘The end will be glory’. So Mr. Champney moved and God sustained him, and he lived a long life, nearly ninety years before the Lord took him, and had a substantial part in the testimony. I cite him as an illustration of a man who reckoned about the sufferings of this present time. It is “coming glory”, it is assured. You remember
the word of one of the prophets, “his going forth is assured as the morning dawn”, Hosea 6: 3. We should be in full assurance and faith as to the coming glory. It will be revealed to us not to the world, but to us who have faith. The world will know nothing about that, it is something that God has set before us as a hope. The glad tidings involve hope, not only faith but hope, and the coming glory is to be the hope that encourages us and enables us to reckon aright so that we get the gain of what God puts us through in His wisdom and love.
The passage in Luke 21 refers to the Son of man, “And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory”. The Son of man, who was here on man’s behalf, who took up all the liabilities that lay on the race and met them righteously before God, and set God free to deliver men from all that held them in bondage, is going to come again. It says, “And then shall they see”, that is the world, “the Son of man coming in a cloud”. This is not the secret coming of the Lord at the rapture for His own, it is His public appearing. In His own words He says, “then shall they see the Son of man”—the One that they took and mocked and scourged and crucified—“coming in a cloud with power and great glory”. Our souls exult as we think of that, the coming of the Son of man! So He says, referring to what He said earlier about the distress among the nations and other things that will happen, “But when these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws nigh”.
The Lord was thinking about the Jewish remnant in what He had to say, but He would speak this word to us. If we look about, what we see is what He says, “signs in sun and moon and stars” (Luke 21: 25), referring to how civil authorities are affected, “and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the roar of the sea and rolling waves”, all this unrest among the nations, “men ready to die through fear and expectation of what is coming on the habitable earth” (Luke 21: 26). It is a solemn matter to
think of. He says, “for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken”. All that man has been accustomed to in the way of established government, in the way of civil order, what we speak of as law and order, all that is to be shaken. Indeed God says, “Yet once will I shake not only the earth, but also the heaven”, Hebrews 12: 26. But over against all that is the time of our redemption. I am thinking now of the coming of the Lord for us. I know that the Lord is speaking here about the redemption of the godly remnant of Israel, but I want to apply this to ourselves. It says, “when these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws nigh”. That would be the redemption of our bodies. The full thought of redemption is that our bodies will be redeemed as well as our souls; we shall be conformed to the image of God’s Son. That is what our redemption involves. But the Lord will come with power and great glory; He will deal with all that is against Him. How His glory will shine out! Not only will He break up the present world system, but He will introduce, what is called in another place, the righteousness of the ages, and He will establish His kingdom on this earth. What a time it will be for men for a thousand years; they will be in conditions of peace, safety and security. Indeed some nations shall go away into life eternal.
The Lord will have power to do that, and His glory will shine in that connection. We know His power already to heal us in our souls, and to deal with conditions that arise among us. He has shown His glory, the great glory of the Son of man.
All this is to cause us to look up, and lift up our heads. It is no time for despondency, there are the sufferings of this present time, but we are not to be bowed down under them, we are to be able to lift up our heads because our redemption draws nigh. What a word of cheer that is for us as we finish the Lord’s day, as we think about the responsible week before us, and the exercises we must take up again as we return to work, or whatever it is. All these things are not to cause us to be despondent or discouraged but what is coming is to enable us to lift up our heads and to rejoice.
So it says, “look up”. You remember at a time when the faith of Abraham was tested by what God was promising him. Jehovah led him out and said, “Look now toward the heavens”, Genesis 15: 5. God would say that to us, Look toward the heavens. Our redemption is coming from that point. We are awaiting His Son from the heavens, not from Jerusalem, not from mount Zion but from the heavens. Our view should be toward the heavenly realm. He said, “Look now toward the heavens, and number the stars, if thou be able to number them”. Think of the vast expanse, the heavenly expanse; our God is operating to place persons there because that is what the stars mean. God takes us up in His grace, calling us by the glad tidings, and pursues His gracious work in us to fit us for a place in the celestial sphere. If you look up you can see the stars; the stars are figurative of the saints, there is your place, there is mine. No cause for despondency! There is cause for exercise surely, but what joy there is in a look toward the heavenly realm to see what God has established according to His purpose.
Let us keep in our souls the precious truth that “he who has begun in you a good work will complete it unto Jesus Christ’s day”, Philippians 1: 6. God is going to display His work; it is so precious to Him that He is going to display it to the universe. All these stars that we see physically but point to what God will display in the heavenly sphere when the time of display comes. But in the meantime He would encourage us to look up and see all that by faith—the whole celestial sphere filled with persons who in various ways express the precious features of Christ. God delights in that, it means so much to Him that He will display it in all its beauty and all its worth.
So in 1 Thessalonians 3, we have this reference to “the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints”. The apostle says, “But you, may the Lord make to exceed and abound in love toward one another, and toward all”. It is the intensification of love as we think about the coming of the Lord; the saints become more and more precious to us, our affections go out to them more and more strongly because of how precious they are to Christ.
And he says, “even as we also towards you”, meaning Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus.
How their affections were going out intensely toward the Thessalonians! Then he says, “in order to the confirming of your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints”.
What I would like to suggest, beloved brethren, is that at the time the Lord comes we shall be unblamable in holiness before our God and Father. At the present time, through faith, we are unblamable in righteousness because we have been judicially cleansed by the blood of Christ, and we are accounted righteous by God, indeed God Himself has justified us; but we could not say exactly, as long as we are still here in flesh and blood, that we are unblamable in holiness. There is the constant exercise to deal with what comes up in us because the flesh is still there. Through grace, and in the Spirit’s power, we are enabled to keep the flesh inactive, to keep it in death, so to speak, through circumcision. But there will come a time when we shall be unblamable in holiness. Not only unblamable in righteousness, not only such that no one can bring a charge against God’s elect, but we shall be conscious ourselves of being unblamable in holiness before our God and Father. You will notice the word “holiness” here means ‘the quality itself’. Holiness now is a question of how we are set apart for God, and how holy affections are developed in us through the Father’s discipline. But “unblamable in holiness”, based on the work of Christ, and involving the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, is a state that will come to pass at the coming of the Lord, as he says, “at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints”. What a position that will be! You can understand why John speaks of “the holy city”. The substantial work of God throughout this long dispensation will be marked by substantial holiness, because there will be no feature of sin, no taint of evil, no trace of the first man to be found. It will be Christ, and Christ only.
Our whole state will be characterised by the presence and power of the Spirit of holiness, so he says, “before our God and Father”. Think of how the Father will view that whole wonderful work, “at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints”. Not one will be left out, not one will be lacking, but all will be unblamable in holiness.
I often think about what will follow the rapture, that we shall not only be free of the flesh and blood condition with its infirmities and weaknesses, but also we shall be free of the old man, we shall be free of the flesh. The Holy Spirit Himself will be the life of the body of glory, it will not be blood. Currently in our flesh and blood condition, the blood is the life, but the Holy Spirit Himself will be the life in the body of glory, and we shall be unblamable in holiness. We shall be as Christ Himself is presently before God, we shall be like Him, and substantial in holiness. All this is coming, it is “at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints”. What an immense thought it is that the whole work of God in all the saints of this long dispensation will be brought out and displayed as the holy city; but before the display it will be unblamable in holiness—“unblamable in holiness before our God and Father”. So let this confirm our hearts as it says, “to the confirming of your hearts”. This prospect is to have this effect in our hearts at the present time, confirming our hearts, not our consciences, not our minds exactly, but our hearts. So that our hearts are absolutely settled and restful as we think of the final state into which we shall be brought, and how we shall be before our God and Father “at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints”.
May these truths encourage us and cause us to look up and look off into the distance to see the coming glory, to have our hearts confirmed in the prospect before us that we shall be unblamable in holiness before our God and Father. It is a wonderful thought, that what the Father is working toward now, as He disciplines us, is that we might be partakers of His holiness. The whole immense work of the Spirit of God throughout the dispensation will be unblamable in holiness before our God and Father. May these things stir our souls and encourage our spirits, and cause us to lift up our heads and rejoice and exult because our redemption draws nigh.
May God bless the word.
Preaching at Denton
1 October 1995