18 Questions Regarding the Second Coming of Christ.

From the Message Vault

#TruthTuesdays #BibleStudy #JesusisComing #Bewareoffakenews

Editor’s Note: Eva B. Dykes, Ph.D. was the first black woman to complete the requirements for a Ph.D. in the United States. She accomplished that feat at Harvard’s Radcliffe. She later taught English at Howard University and Oakwood College. At Oakwood she founded the now world renown Aeolian choir. Dykes was also a regular columnist for Message where she wrote Bible studies and for the printed daily devotional calendar. This article appeared in the May/June 1968 issue of Message.

Your Bible Speaks | New Dimensions and Fresh Adventures in Bible Study

By Eva B. Dykes

With what promise did Christ comfort His disciples, troubled about His predicted betrayal and departure?

“Let not your heart be troubled: ye 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 preparea place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know” John 14:1-4.

Where did Christ go to prepare a place for His disciples?

“Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven” Acts 1:11.

What was the “manner” of His ascending into heaven?

“And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight” Acts 1:9.

How will Christ return to this earth?

“And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” Luke 21:27.

Note: Christ ascended in a cloud; He will return in a cloud (or clouds).

In what threefold “great glory” will Christ return?

“For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father’s, and of the holy angels” Luke 9:26.

What is the nature of the Father’s glory?

“And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel” Exodus 24:17.

What is the nature of the Son’s glory?

“And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: and he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” Acts 9:3, 4.

Note: The glory of Christ was so dazzling that Paul fell to the earth. Note the same effect of God’s glory upon Ezekiel, who also fell upon his face at the sight (Ezekiel 1:28).

How great is the glory of one angel?

“His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men” Matthew 28:3, 4.

Is it possible to give the exact number of angels that
will accompany Christ at His second coming?

“And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands” Revelation 5:11.

Note: The imagination is dazzled as we think of the combined glory of the Father, the Son, and the countless angels at the second coming of the King of glory.

Will the second coming be visible or invisible?

“Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.”

“Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” Matthew 24:23, 26, 27.

How many people will see Christ when He comes the second time?

“Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him” Revelation 1:7.

Does this coming preclude the fact of a coming to each individual?

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” Revelation 3:20.

When Christ comes in to “sup” with [us], what change takes place in the heart?

“The kingdom of God never comes by watching for it. Men cannot say, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ for the kingdom of God is inside you” Luke 17: 20, 21, Phillips.*

What is one difference between this invisible individual coming and the public visible coming?

Answer: The coming into the hearts of men is not a forced entrance. Rather, it is an entrance depending upon the choice of the one at whose heart Christ knocks. (“If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him.”)

What two classes of people will be on the earth when Christ comes?

“But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness” 1 Thessalonians 5:1-5.

What question doubting Christ’s coming will [scoffers] ask?

“Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” 2 Peter 3:3, 4.

What will be the attitude of some of the professed followers of Christ?

“But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; . . . the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of” Matthew 24:48-50.