Will Jesus come again?

What the Bible says

After the risen Jesus was taken up and a cloud hid him from sight, his disciples stood staring at the sky. Two men in white appeared beside them and said:

Why do you stand here looking into the sky? 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 1:11

Notice "in the same way." The one who went up is the same Jesus, and his return will be as real and as visible as his departure. The promise was not new at the ascension. On the night before the cross Jesus had given it to disciples who feared he was leaving them:

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that you also may be where I am.

John 14:3

On the Mount of Olives Jesus said that "they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (Matt 24:30). He also said that "when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His glorious throne" (Matt 25:31), with all the nations gathered before him. On that judgment, see What is the last judgment?.

The apostles carried the same hope. Paul writes to the Thessalonians:

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise. After that, we who are alive and remain 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.

1 Thess 4:16-17

Then Paul adds: "Therefore encourage one another with these words" (1 Thess 4:18). The return is first of all a word of comfort. Hebrews says that Christ "will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await Him" (Heb 9:28). The Bible's last chapter ends with this promise: "Yes, I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Rev 22:20).

One limit stands beside the promise. "No one knows about that day or hour" (Matt 24:36). Everyone who has set a date for his return has been wrong. That is taken up separately in When will the end come?.

The church's witness

The church built this hope into its creeds. The Apostles' Creed confesses that Christ ascended, sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come from there to judge the living and the dead The Apostles' Creed. The Nicene Creed says he will come again in glory and that his kingdom will have no end The Nicene Creed. East and West, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant, confess this together. The early church's Lord's Supper held the same expectation. Paul says that whenever we eat the bread and drink the cup, "you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes" (1 Cor 11:26).

The Heidelberg Catechism answers what comfort Christ's return to judge gives: the Judge is the one who already stood in my place before God, so the believer can look up and wait for him Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 52.

Commenting on Acts 1:11, Matthew Henry says what the thought of the return should do in our lives: "When we stand gazing and trifling, the thoughts of our Master's second coming should quicken and awaken us: when we stand gazing and trembling, they should comfort and encourage us" Matthew Henry.

The order of events around the return, tribulation, millennium and rapture, is disputed among faithful Christians; What are the rapture and the millennium? sets out the views fairly. All hold this in common: Christ will come again bodily, visibly and in glory.

In the original languages

The New Testament has more than one word for the return. The commonest is parousia (παρουσία). Literally it means "being alongside," that is, arrival or presence. In the ancient world it could also name the official visit of a king or emperor to a city. When the New Testament uses it of Christ (Matt 24:27), the sense of a king's public arrival comes with it.

Another is epiphaneia (ἐπιφάνεια), "appearing." Paul says the grace of God teaches us to live well "as we await the blessed hope and glorious appearance of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13). A related word, apokalypsis (ἀποκάλυψις), means "unveiling" and points to the same event (1 Pet 1:7). Together the words say: he arrives, he appears, he is unveiled.

Common objections

"Two thousand years have passed. Jesus said he was coming soon, and he was wrong." This objection is serious. The New Testament has many sayings about nearness. Jesus says, "Behold, I am coming soon" (Rev 22:12), and "this generation will not pass away until all these things have happened" (Matt 24:34). Some scholars hold that Jesus and the first Christians expected the end within a generation, and were mistaken. Christians have answered in several ways. Jesus himself said no one knows the day, and he told a parable in which the bridegroom is delayed (Matt 25:5), which suggests he foresaw a delay. "Soon" can be read less as a date on a calendar than as "without delay once it begins," or as "at any time, so be ready." "This generation" is read as the generation that saw Jerusalem fall, as the generation that sees the signs, or as "this people," and faithful interpreters differ. Peter already answered the same scoffing: "The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise as some understand slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance" (2 Pet 3:9). Matthew Henry says, "What men count slackness, is long-suffering, and that to us-ward" Matthew Henry. None of this removes every difficulty; we do not fully know why God grants this time.

"The doctrine is used to frighten people or to excuse ignoring the world." It has happened: the return has been turned into a threat, or into a reason to abandon the world. But the apostles gave the teaching for the opposite purpose. Paul teaches it so that Christians will "encourage one another," and Jesus calls the servant who keeps at his work until the master returns "blessed" (Matt 24:46). Those who believe in the return do not give up on the world; they believe it will be made new, so they do not neglect the work given to them today.

"Christ has already come in the Spirit. The return is a symbol." This view, common in modern times, reads the return as the church's growth, a meeting with Christ at death, or human progress. It is true that the Spirit has come, as Jesus promised (John 14:18). But the angels said "in the same way," and Paul speaks of a command, a trumpet and the rising of the dead. The Spirit's presence does not replace the return; it is the guarantee given while we wait. The wiping away of every tear (Rev 21:4) has not yet happened.

Going further

The promise that Jesus will come again is not a puzzle about someone's timetable. It is news about how the world's story ends: evil does not have the last word, the dead are raised, tears are wiped away, and the one who comes is the one who died for us.

You might ask yourself: when I think of the Lord coming, do I feel fear, comfort, or little at all, and why? What has been entrusted to me until he comes?

To read further, see When will the end come?, What are the rapture and the millennium? and What is hope?. Reading Revelation 21-22 and 1 Thessalonians 4-5 slowly is a good start.