What His coming will do

The day everything changes

We have spent most of this book on the manner of Christ’s coming, because that is where the confusion lies. But the manner matters only because of what the coming will do. Here is the New Testament’s own list.

The dead in Christ will rise

Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

The first thing the trumpet does is open graves. Every believer who has died, from Abel onward, rises incorruptible. Paul told the grieving Thessalonians that “the dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4:16), before the living are caught up, so that nobody who died in faith misses the moment. This is why the second coming is the believer’s answer to death. We do not go to Him one at a time; He comes for all of us at once.

The living will be changed

“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” Those alive when He comes will not die at all. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, mortality is exchanged for immortality. Paul describes it to the Philippians as the work of a Saviour who comes from heaven:

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

John adds the deepest part of the transformation:

Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

“We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” The sight of Jesus completes the work He began in us. And notice the consequence John draws: everyone who has this hope purifies himself now. The expectation of His coming is not an escape from holiness; it is the strongest motive for it.

The whole church will be gathered

“Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Together. The raised dead and the changed living, gathered by angels “from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matthew 24:31). Every believer of every century, every language and every nation, in one company, meeting the Lord. This is the fulfilment of John 14:3: “I will come again and receive you to Myself.”

The world will be judged

The same coming that gathers the church ends the rebellion. Jesus described it as a shepherd dividing sheep from goats:

“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.

Paul says that the Lord “will consume [the lawless one] with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8) and that those who do not know God “shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (2 Thessalonians 1:9). John sees the kings of the earth and their armies gathered against the Rider on the white horse and overthrown (Revelation 19:19-21), and then the dragon himself bound for a thousand years, “so that he should deceive the nations no more” (Revelation 20:3). The deceiver’s long work is over the day the sky opens.

The thousand years and the end of evil

John describes what follows the coming in Revelation 20: the saints reign with Christ a thousand years; “the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished” (Revelation 20:5); then Satan is loosed for a final rebellion, fire comes down from God and devours the wicked, and death and the grave are themselves cast into the lake of fire, “the second death” (Revelation 20:14). The second coming is the beginning of the end of evil. It is not yet the end itself, but after it nothing stands between God’s people and the new earth except the final judgment that settles every question for ever.

All things new

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

This is where the road ends. Peter called it “the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21). Everything sin broke is mended. The Garden is restored, and this time the tree of life is open. “He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son” (Revelation 21:7).

Why the manner and the meaning belong together

Now we can see why it matters that His coming is visible, audible and once. An event that raises every dead believer, changes every living one, gathers them all together, ends the deceiver’s rule and begins the restoration of all things cannot be quiet. It is the climax of history. Nobody will miss it, and nobody will need to be told. And an event like this is worth waiting for, worth watching for, and worth being ready for, which is the subject of the final chapter.