Originally posted by
Stormcrow,
Originally posted by Osgiliath,
The term - "the second coming of Christ" - is not scriptural and cannot be found anywhere in the Bible.
"I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness. John 12:46 (NASB)
"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. John 14:3 (NASB)
Why must people cherry pick someones post and make it appear that it said something it didn't say.
If you read my post thoroughly, I certainly didn't imply that Christ wouldn't
"come again." Quite the contrary. I simply showed that Scripture never once speaks of a
"second coming" as being a
"single, isolated event" that happened at one specific time
in the past, or a
"single, isolated event" that WILL happen
in the future. Scripture DOES however talk about the
PROGRESSIVE REVELATION of the Son of God i.e. -
"The Revelation of Jesus Christ." Our Lord has already had many comings, and shall continue to have many more. We have limited the comings of Jesus strictly to two because of our unscriptural terms "first coming" and "second coming," but the truth is that
He came;
He continued to come;
He comes;
He continues to come;
He will come; and
He will continue to come! (see Scripture list in my previous post).
There are numerous
"comings" and
"appearings" of the Lord in the New Testament.
BUT THEY DO NOT ALL REFER TO THE SAME EVENT. The word
"coming" is very often used in the scriptures of a visitation or manifestation of the Lord to judge or bless or accomplish some aspect of His plan and purpose among His people or in the earth. Christians erroneously believe that every time the Lord says,
"I will come," He is speaking of
ONE, specific, particular, singular event sometime out in the dim and misty future, or in the distant past.
Scriptures say,
"Behold! He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him" (Revelation1:7).
The phrase;
"Behold! He cometh" is from the Greek word
ERCHOMAI. It is the third person singular, present indicative. Any reader who knows the conjugation of verbs knows what that means. First, it means
HE COMES as a present tense reality. The verb is present indicative. He comes. He is in the act of coming. Behold! He is
(now) coming! In other words, He has been coming, He is still in the act of coming, and He continues to come. More than once the coming of the Lord is spoken of in this tense throughout the book of Revelation. It is not something that is limited to a singular
parousia in the past, nor is it something that shall happen some time in the future, but instead, it is something that
IS.
The majority of Christendom is either
looking back to a
historical Christ, or
forward to a
futuristic coming of Christ, and they miss this word
ERCHOMAI which means
"Behold, HE COMES, He is coming, He continues to come, He will continue to come." It is something that can happen right now. It means that He comes out of the realm of spirit to be manifested in flesh, expressed and revealed in a visible, tangible way to the material creation.
Preterists, Dispensationalists, Futurists, etc. all hem Christ into their own theological box, and this is why they
"listen to the music, but never hear the song." They
"examine the outer shell, but never taste the kernel within." Christians talk about
"Christ IN YOU the hope of glory," "the Kingdom of God is WITHIN you," "Ye are the BODY of Christ," and then turn around and with the next breath say that the
"coming" of the Lord is still a
distant, singular, future event, or is a
singular, past event that happened long ago. They miss the boat completely because of their carnal-minded religious rigidity.