Introduction

The promise He made

On the last night before His death, in an upstairs room in Jerusalem, Jesus made a promise to eleven frightened men. It is the promise on which every Christian funeral, every Christian hope and every Christian prayer for a better world finally rests.

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.

“I will come again.” Not “I will send for you one at a time.” Not “you will find your way to Me.” He will come. The New Testament refers to that coming more than three hundred times; it is mentioned in every book but four. The early church greeted one another with a single Aramaic word, Maranatha, “Our Lord, come” (1 Corinthians 16:22), and the Bible closes with the same prayer: “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).

The question this book asks

Christians across almost every tradition agree that Jesus will return. Where they differ, and where a great deal of confusion has grown up in the last two centuries, is on the manner of His return. Will it be seen? Will it be heard? Will the whole world know, or will believers quietly vanish while life goes on for everyone else? Will there be one coming or two? Will it happen before a time of trouble, so that the church escapes it, or after?

This is not a quarrel about details. What you believe about the manner of Christ’s coming shapes what you expect, what you will recognise, and what you can be deceived by. Jesus Himself made that point. Of all the warnings He gave about the end, the one He repeated most was this: “Take heed that no one deceives you” (Matthew 24:4). And the specific deception He described was about the manner of His coming: “If anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it” (Matthew 24:23). He then told His disciples exactly how to tell His real coming from every counterfeit. That is the heart of this book.

What this book is not

It is not a timetable. Jesus said that of the day and hour “no one knows” (Matthew 24:36), and anyone who tells you otherwise has already left the Bible behind. It is not a quarrel with any church or any Christian. Millions of sincere believers hold the view of the second coming that this book will question, and they hold it because it was taught to them by people they trust. I was taught it too. This book simply puts the texts on the table, in their contexts, and asks what they say.

And it is not a frightening book. The second coming is called “the blessed hope” (Titus 2:13). It is the day when the dead in Christ rise, when the living are changed, when every wrong is righted and every tear wiped away. If anything in these pages leaves you afraid rather than eager, I have written it badly. The One who is coming is the One who said, “Let not your heart be troubled.”

How this book works

Part One examines the manner of His coming: what the Bible says about how Jesus will return, and what it means that He comes “like a thief” and that “one will be taken and the other left”. It also looks, with as much fairness as I can manage, at where the idea of a secret, silent return came from and why it does not fit the texts. Part Two turns to the signs Jesus gave and to the deceptions He warned about. Part Three is about readiness: what His coming will actually do, and how people who expect Him live now.

Each chapter opens with a reading line so that you can read the passages before you read me. Each ends with a summary, questions for reflection or group discussion, and one thing to practise. Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version. Please check everything.