315. The time of Christ’s Second Coming and the end of the world
315. THE TIME OF CHRIST’S SECOND COMING AND THE END OF THE WORLD
Christ assured us that He would come again, but He did not tell us when. Are there any clues? Are there more than clues? Can we know the time of the End if we understand Scripture well enough?
Many signs will precede the advent of Christ when He shall come to judgment . . . but it is not easy to know what these signs may be, for the signs of which we read in the gospels, as Augustine says, refer not only to (1) Christ’s coming to judgment but also to (2) the time of the sack of Jerusalem (A.D. 70) and to (3) the coming of Christ in ceaselessly visiting His Church. . . . [T]hese signs that are mentioned in the gospels, such as wars, fears, and so forth, have been from the beginning of the human race, unless perhaps we say that at that time they will be more prevalent, although it is uncertain in what degree this increase will foretell the imminence of the advent. . . .
The day of the Lord is said to come as a thief because the exact time is not known, since it will not be possible to know it from those signs. . . (S73,1).
That which is unknown to the angels will be much more unknown to men. . . . Now the angels have no exact knowledge of that time, as appears from Matthew 24:36: Of that day and hour no one knoweth, no not the angels of heaven. Therefore that time is hidden from men. . . .
As Augustine says, He scatters the fingers of all calculators and bids them be still . . . wherefore all those who have been misled to reckon the aforesaid time have so far proved to be untruthful. . . . The falseness of these calculators is evident, as will likewise be the falseness of those who even now cease not to calculate (S77,2).
The time of the first coming of the Messiah was revealed more clearly, in the Old Testament prophets, than the time of His Second Coming. Many of the Jews around Jesus’ time were expecting the Messiah because of a strong (but not universal) consensus about that time, which had not existed at any other time in Jewish history. The nature and work of the Messiah, by contrast, was not revealed clearly, in order to test the hearts of His chosen people: those whose hearts were set on earthly goods like power and wealth and autonomy, rejected Christ because He did not seem to them fulfill the prophecy that the Messiah would rescue Israel from her “enemies” since they thought their “enemies” were the Romans, who deprived the Jews of these worldly goods. But those whose hearts were set on what God is, viz. righteousness, accepted Christ as their Savior because they recognized their true enemies as their own sins, and that was what Christ saved them from (Mt 1:21).
In contrast, God left the time of the Second Coming obscure but its nature and purpose clear.
Why did He leave the time obscure? So that we would be ready at all and any times to meet this “thief in the night” (Mt 24:43: what an unflattering and shocking image for Christ!)
If even Christ said that He did not know the time of His Second Coming (Mt 24:36), how incredibly arrogant for any human being to imply that he is wiser than his Lord by claiming that he has figured it out! All the batters who have ever stepped up to the plate on this issue have struck out, for 2,000 years. How much trust should we put in those who are now playing that game? This is a devastating critique of the few Protestant Fundamentalists who still specialize in this ridiculous distraction.
Christ left the nature and purpose of the Second Coming clear for the very same reason He left its time unclear: so that we would be ready at all times for the Last Judgment, for the full presence of the Light of Truth, when nothing more will be hidden.
For if we lived each moment of our lives in that presence; if we practiced the presence of the God Who is Truth every day, we would be well on our way to becoming saints. All evil seeks to hide from the light of truth. We must practice living in the light, for we will do it forever in Heaven.