Sermon Tone Analysis

The Second Coming - Parousia!

When we speak of the second coming of Jesus what do we mean?

A word often used to describe this is “parousia”.

In the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, parousia is described as follows:

“PAROUSIA.

The Greek word parousia used in the NT to speak of the arrival (; ) or presence of someone ().

It is also used as a technical term to speak of the arrival or presence of Christ in glory at a particular point in the eschatological process (e.g., ).

“1

The Bible describes the second coming in :

30 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Paul tells us in ,

23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.2 Paul further describes the second coming of Christ in :

15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.

And the dead in Christ will rise first.

17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

Many Christians look forward to the second coming of Christ.

For Christians, the second coming of Christ will usher in a new era of Heaven on Earth.

Grand and glorious things will begin to happen and we become glorified in the presence of God.

We will be freed from the “flesh” and our sinful nature.

We will live and reign with God throughout eternity.

An elderly Christian described her hope in the second coming in the following illustration:

“I am ninety-four!

Twenty-four years beyond our appointed seventy years, and I trust I have not wasted any of my years and look forward to that glorious second coming of Him in all His majesty, when every eye shall see Him.

Oh, what a precious thought for us all.”

SOURCE: Letter to JRWS from Nessie Grace Harris (July 8, 1962).

Queen Victoria is said to have remarked: “Oh!

How I wish that the Lord would come during my lifetime.…

I should so love to lay my crown at His feet.”

In the Baker Encyclopedia, the importance of the second coming of Jesus Christ for Christians can be summarized as follows:4

He is destined to return to the earth at the end of the age to set up God's final state of things.

In Old Testament times the idea that in due course God would send his Messiah (= "Anointed One") made its appearance and this thought continued in the intertestamental period.

The term could be applied to Gentiles, such as Cyrus ( ), but its characteristic use was for a great king whom God would send at the end of the world, a deliverer who would set God's people free from their oppressors.

The Christians accepted this idea and built on it.

They gave it a new twist when they spoke of Jesus as "the Christ, " "the Anointed One, " and saw him not only as having lived a life on earth here in time but as destined to return to the earth at the end of the age to set up God's final state of things.

There was a difference from previous messianic expectations in that Jesus had lived out a life on earth so that the coming to which Christians looked forward was a second coming.

And it was important that the one for whose second coming believers looked had already lived on earth and wrought redemption for all who believed in him.

Jesus looked forward to a future "coming" when this world order would be done away and a completely new state of affairs would be inaugurated.

The Teaching of Jesus.

The greater part of Jesus' teaching concerned life here and now and the way people should live in the service of God.

He drew attention to the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies (e.g., ; cf. ), and clearly saw himself as sent by the Father to inaugurate the kingdom of God.

Some have seen this as "realized eschatology, " the view that the present kingdom of God, established in the life and the teaching of Jesus, is the whole story (C.

H. Dodd argued for this view).

But this perspective overlooks the fact that Jesus certainly looked forward to a future "coming" when this world order would be done away and a completely new state of affairs would be inaugurated.

All three Synoptists record significant teaching about Jesus' coming again in the Olivet discourse.

Thus he warned his hearers that anyone ashamed of him and his teaching would find the Son of Man ashamed of him "when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels" ( ).

This teaching is given as something already accepted and it thus appears to be part of Jesus' teaching from earlier days.

There is no point at which he ceases to teach other things and begins to enunciate teaching on his second coming.

Right at the beginning Jesus taught that "the kingdom of God is near" ( ) and this may be held to imply the second coming for it was when that took place that the kingdom would be set up in its fullness.

That he spoke more about his second coming than is recorded seems clear from the question the disciples asked him toward the end of his life: "What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" ( ).

Not much teaching about his return is recorded before this time, but these words show that Jesus had previously taught the disciples that he would come back.

All three Synoptists record significant teaching about Jesus' coming again in the Olivet discourse.

The coming will be sudden and unexpected ( ; ), but when it happens it will be like lightning, obvious to all ( ; ).

Jesus makes it clear that his coming will take place at a time when people will not be expecting it ( ).

His call for watchfulness is important ( ), for it indicates that the coming of the Son of Man has decisive importance.

Earlier there had been a request that the places of honor in the kingdom should be given to the sons of Zebedee.

Jesus did not deny that there would be such places, but said they were for those for whom the Father had prepared them ( ).

The call for watchfulness is surely related to the coming of the kingdom.

When Jesus comes it will be too late to make preparations, so he exhorts his followers to be watchful, ready for his coming, whenever it should be.

We should also bear in mind the teaching of the parable of the talents.

When the Master returns there will be an accounting of what his people have done with the talents he has given them.

An important part of Jesus' teaching about his second coming is the truth that it will form a strong contrast with his first coming.

But when he comes back he will be "coming in clouds with great power and glory" ( ).

The coming will be sudden and unexpected ( ; ), but when it happens it will be like lightning, obvious to all ( ; ).

Jesus makes it clear that his coming will take place at a time when people will not be expecting it ( ).

His call for watchfulness is important ( ), for it indicates that the coming of the Son of Man has decisive importance.

Earlier there had been a request that the places of honor in the kingdom should be given to the sons of Zebedee.

Jesus did not deny that there would be such places, but said they were for those for whom the Father had prepared them ( ).

The call for watchfulness is surely related to the coming of the kingdom.

When Jesus comes it will be too late to make preparations, so he exhorts his followers to be watchful, ready for his coming, whenever it should be.

We should also bear in mind the teaching of the parable of the talents.

When the Master returns there will be an accounting of what his people have done with the talents he has given them.

An important part of Jesus' teaching about his second coming is the truth that it will form a strong contrast with his first coming.

Then he had been a poor man, despised by religious and secular authorities and indeed probably quite unknown to many people.

But when he comes back he will be "coming in clouds with great power and glory" ( ).

Something of his eminence is to be discerned from the fact that he will "gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens" (v.

27); he will be seen "sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven" ( 14:62 ).

Luke records Jesus' words just prior to his ascension: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority" and the words of the angels, "This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven" ( ).

Right to the end of his life Jesus firmly enunciated the idea that he would come again, for at his examination before Caiaphas he said, "you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven" ( ).

And Luke records Jesus' words just prior to his ascension: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority" and the words of the angels, "This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven" ( ).

Acts also has a reference to God's having set a day "when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.

He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead" ( ).

This book does not often refer to the second coming, but the subject is not absent from Luke's second volume.

There is a strong emphasis on judgment at the time of Jesus' return.

There is a strong emphasis on judgment at the time of Jesus' return.

This is seen first in the separation of the saved from the lost.

Thus of two men working in a field and of two women grinding at a hand mill at that time in each case "one will be taken and the other left" ( ).

This will be seen also in the mourning of "all the nations of the earth" when they "see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory" ( ; in Luke Jesus speaks on "the day the Son of Man is revealed, " ).

What is stressed is that worldly people will be carrying on their usual manner of life without regard to their responsibility to God and without realizing their accountability right up to the time of Jesus' second coming.

We discern the thought of final judgment also in such teachings of Jesus as the parable of the talents.

Always there are the thoughts of human accountability and of final judgment which is to take place following the return of Jesus in triumph at the end of the age.

This is seen first in the separation of the saved from the lost.

Thus of two men working in a field and of two women grinding at a hand mill at that time in each case "one will be taken and the other left" ( ).

What is stressed is that worldly people will be carrying on their usual manner of life without regard to their responsibility to God and without realizing their accountability right up to the time of Jesus' second coming.

There is not a great deal about the second coming in the Fourth Gospel, but there is a persistent reference to Jesus' care for his own who will have eternal life and whom he will raise up at the last day ( ).

This is seen also in his coming back to take the disciples to be with him ( John 14:3 ) and in the words about the disciples seeing him which puzzled them so much ( ).

In the concluding verses of this Gospel there is another reference to Jesus' return ( 21:22-23 ).

But some Christians have seen in the words a secret rapture ("rapture" is from the Latin raptus, "seized, " "carried off"), wherein believers are caught up secretly out of this life and taken to be with the Lord while earthly life goes on without them for the rest of the human race.

" ( 4:16 ).

Clearly Paul is describing a majestic coming, a coming to rule and not as at Christ's first coming, a coming to serve.

He goes on to speak of living believers as caught up to meet the coming Lord in the air.