Wednesday, January 11, 2017

How many Second Comings are there?

My take on this has kinda changed since I last did a post on this subject, so I'm making this new post.

Post-Tribbers like to mock mainly Pre-Tribbers, but the Mid-Trib view would fit into this as well, for believing in "Two Second Comings".

My first response to that, as someone who's view can be considered a variation of Mid-Trib, is that the term "Second Coming" is not Biblical at all.  There are various references to His Parousia, translated Coming, but never with a numerical designation.

However the big problem here is that Pre-Tribbers like to call the Rapture and the Second Coming distinct.  And on that I strongly disagree with them.  They are correct that 1 Thessalonians 4 and Revelation 19 are not about the same event.  But 1 Thessalonians 4, and 1 Corinthians 15 both clearly refer to the event in question as the Parousia.

Here is the big perhaps shocking point of this post.

Revelation 19 is NOT the Second Coming.

It does not use the word Parousia, in fact Parousia isn't used in Revelation at all.  And chapter 19 has nothing of any real substance in common with the passages that do.  At the Parousia He comes on a Cloud or Clouds, in Revelation 19 He's riding on a White Horse.  At the Parousia his feet never touch The Earth, He gathers His Church and takes them to Heaven (Mark 13:27).  In Revelation 19 His Saints are already in Heaven and follow Him as He leaves (though The Bride as New Jerusalem doesn't descend till the New Heaven and New Earth).

So yes it's technically an event where Jesus "comes" to a certain location.  But when it comes to The New Testament using the Greek word Parusia as a technical term for a specific Biblical Event, it is not that Parusia.

Jude 1:14 may be about the same event as Revelation 19, and uses Cometh, a form of the word, but still ultimately not the same word.  But in the Greek it's not even that similar, it's not a form of Parusia, it's elquen, and actually means Apeareth.

Isaiah 63 also uses Cometh and is seemingly in close proximity to Revelation 19, but that Hebrew word seems more similar in meaning to elquen then Parousia.  And there He "Cometh" from Edom, not Heaven..

The Parousia is about Revelation 14 not 19.

Revelation chapter 14 is where The Son of Man is riding on a Cloud.  The Seven Bowls of God's Wrath are poured out between that event and the Revelation 19 event.

 I'd made before the observation that you can technically say he had more then one "coming" at his first Advent.  In fact it's only the Triumphal Entry that is refereed to with a form of the word "come", in Daniel 9, and that wasn't even the first time he came to Jerusalem.  But that is in light of all this a very minor point.

3 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation."

      Which is consistent with what I said, only one incident is properly called the Parusia.

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    2. And it certainly doesn't preclude there being 3rd, fourth or 5th appearances after that.

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