Christians: What's the lowdown on The Second Coming?

[Skammer]

Episcopalian here - which is another way of saying, the opinions that follow are mine alone. Episcopalians to do not have an “official” theology of the second coming or end times, other than what is in the Nicene Creed:

[Jesus] will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.

Officially, that’s what we can say with certainty. There are parts of the Bible apart from Revelation that seem to give additional details - trumpets will sound, the earth will quake, believers will be caught up in the sky to meet Him - this may be literal, or poetic imagery. Personally I lean toward the latter. As far as the Book of Revelation, a lot of it is clearly an indictment of the contemporary Roman empire and not a strict roadmap to the apocalypse. That’s not to say there’s not a prophetic (in the modern sense) element, but it’s clearly invoking metaphorical imagery. And Jesus himself said that no one, not even himself, knew when his second coming would occur.

Preoccupation with end times prophecy is not really a big focus in the Episcopal/Anglican tradition.

[Steken]

@Czarcasm

Has the Book of Revelation got it down pat?
Is the Book of Revelation only a metaphor for what will happen and, if so, what does this metaphor actually mean?
Or will The Second Coming have nothing to do with that book? What’s the lowdown?(and if you could identify which sect, if any, you follow please do so-thank you.)

According to the Swedenborgians, the Second Coming has already happened, way back in 1771.

The timeline is as follows:

In 1757, the Last Judgment happened. Heaven and Hell were “brought to order,” and “the foundations were established for the emergence of a New Church.” Swedenborg, being Swedenborg, naturally got a front row seat and witnessed it all personally.

Then, on June 19, 1770, Christ gathered up his twelve disciples - now angels - and sent them out on a second mission.

The following year, i.e. 1771, the Second Coming itself happened, with Christ finally returning to the world, only this time not in the flesh but rather in the form of a book, written in Latin, titled Vera Christiana Religio, and printed in Amsterdam.

[Shodan]

No, the Rapture happened during the 70s. Unfortunately, the only one taken was Jimmy Hoffa.

Regards,
Shodan

[Steken]

@Shodan

No, the Rapture happened during the 70s.

Told ya.

[Voyager]

@John_Mace

Let’s just say that when it does happen, you, me and quite a few others will be scrambling to find a way to delete many of our posts on this MB!

It won’t work - Jesus has a Carbonite subscription.

[Pleonast]

Growing up United Methodist, and currently a member, I can’t recall ever having studied Revelation or having verses from it read during a church service. I have no idea what the official UM guidance is.

For my personal beliefs, I don’t really see the importance of the second coming of Christ. I’m more focused on the here and now. “So then, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own.”–Matthew 6:34.

[Skammer]

Methodists originated in the Anglican tradition, so that’s not a surprise. In fact, I would be surprised if any of the mainline denominations placed much emphasis on it in their teaching. After all, the religious establishment of the day were befuddled by his first coming, which was long awaited; why assume we’ll be any better at predicting the nature of his second coming.

[ISiddiqui]

@Czarcasm

Elaborate a little on that, please?

Which part?

[Czarcasm]

@ISiddiqui

Which part?

New Heaven and/or New Earth, please.

[ISiddiqui]

Revelation 21:

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’** or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

[Flyer]

The majority of Revelation is literal. Some of it is symbolic. And some of it describes literal events in a poetic, semi-symbolic manner. Pretty much all other end-times prophecy outside of Revelation is meant to be taken literally.

At some point, after the Antichrist takes power, he will sign a 7-year agreement with Israel. Note–this is NOT the Tribulation. The Tribulation is the last half of the period.
Daniel 9:27

And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

Matthew 24:15-21

When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

The Second Coming will be a very visible, very noticeable event. The whole world will know it when it happens.
Matthew 24:29-31

Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Non-christians will be taken by surprise. HOWEVER, Christians who are paying attention will not be. The first half of this passage is often quoted, but virtually everybody ignores the rest of the passage.
I Thess. 5:1-6

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. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.

The Christians who are still alive will rise up, through Divine power, and meet Christ in the air.
I Thessalonians 4:16, 17

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

After this, Jesus will finish His descent.
Zech. 14:4

And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.

As an aside, there’s an earthquake fault that runs through that area. It’s a branch fault from the Great Rift Valley system. Of course, the Bible was written long before the science of geology was established.

[JohnT]

@ISiddiqui

Revelation 21:

Everybody knows that one, it was in Titanic.

[BigT]

@Skammer

Episcopalian here - which is another way of saying, the opinions that follow are mine alone. Episcopalians to do not have an “official” theology of the second coming or end times, other than what is in the Nicene Creed:

[Jesus] will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.

Officially, that’s what we can say with certainty. There are parts of the Bible apart from Revelation that seem to give additional details - trumpets will sound, the earth will quake, believers will be caught up in the sky to meet Him - this may be literal, or poetic imagery. Personally I lean toward the latter. As far as the Book of Revelation, a lot of it is clearly an indictment of the contemporary Roman empire and not a strict roadmap to the apocalypse. That’s not to say there’s not a prophetic (in the modern sense) element, but it’s clearly invoking metaphorical imagery. And Jesus himself said that no one, not even himself, knew when his second coming would occur.

Preoccupation with end times prophecy is not really a big focus in the Episcopal/Anglican tradition.

This is pretty much what I would say, but without any reference to Episcopalianism. The imagery in Revelation is intentionally vague, and so anyone who claims to know exactly what will happen doesn’t, for the same reason no one knows the time or place.

I’ve read too many people who were sure about what would happen but completely disagree with each other to believe there is any certainty to be gathered from the Bible. And, when it comes to Christian beliefs, I don’t believe in pulling in other sources.

My personal best guess is that there will not be a literal Rapture, though. That idea seems rather unsupported.

[Dr.Strangelove]

Jesus the Traveler will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. First, during the rectification of the Vuldrini, the traveler will come as a large and moving Torg. Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they will choose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor. Many Shuvs and Zuuls will know what it is to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!

To answer the question, I was raised Catholic and can only say that they spent approximately zero time on the Second Coming stuff. If there’s some official Catholic doctrine on it, it’s not apparent as a layman. The Nicene Creed is the only obvious reference to this stuff, but isn’t exactly detailed.

[vtxrider]

Southern Baptist

There is probably a wide variety of viewpoints within the Baptist church. Especially about how literal to take Revelations and about the tribulation.

Some do bible studies on it, others like me figure God is going to do what He is going to do and there is nothing we can do about it so why fret.

But basically, I think most are of the opinion that Jesus will not come back in the manner He came the first time (as a baby), but in a big “boom here I am kind of way”, those who are Christian and living will be raptured (taken from their bodies and go to meet Him in the air) and those that have passed already, will burst forth from their graves to go to meet Him (there is question about since they have already gone to Heaven what will happen to them in the rapture).

But in the end, those that have chosen to follow Him, will live the rest of time in His presence. What we will do is largely unknown. Whether that is on a re-done earth or in Heaven, is largely unknown.

One reason most Baptists believe that they go instantly to be with Him is the verses in Luke 23:39-43 where the thieves on the crosses with him, have the following dialog.

39One of the criminals who hung there heaped abuse on Him. “Are You not the Christ?” he said. “Save Yourself and us!”

40But the other one rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same judgment? 41We are punished justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our actions. But this man has done nothing wrong.” 42Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom!”

43And Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

So with the pronouncement of Jesus to the thief that “today you will be with Me in Paradise”, it indicates that at the point of death, those who have accepted His sacrifice will instantly go to be with Him.

It is also where we tend to believe that acceptance is not difficult as all the thief did was say “remember me when you go into your Kingdom” and why we feel baptism is an outward sign of the inward decision, but not required, as the thief was not baptised.

So long way of saying, yes, the Baptists tend to believe it will be an event that everyone no matter their beliefs will know He has returned.

[Nava]

Flyer, could you give your denomination please? Thank you!
Doesn’t get more official RCC doctrine than this - well, yes, in Latin (the original text was Latin), but my Latin isn’t so good. Gotta love that the site is Baha’i studies. The expression “second coming” appears 6 times, of which 1 corresponds to a prayer and another to a note about the Byzantine rite.

[Flyer]

@Nava

Flyer, could you give your denomination please? Thank you!
Doesn’t get more official RCC doctrine than this - well, yes, in Latin (the original text was Latin), but my Latin isn’t so good. Gotta love that the site is Baha’i studies. The expression “second coming” appears 6 times, of which 1 corresponds to a prayer and another to a note about the Byzantine rite.

I’ve never belonged to a specific denomination. But I’ve always attended very, very conservative churches. Strictly for comparison purposes, I consider Southern Baptists to be rather liberal in some respects.

[Velocity]

@Czarcasm

Has the Book of Revelation got it down pat?
Is the Book of Revelation only a metaphor for what will happen and, if so, what does this metaphor actually mean?
Or will The Second Coming have nothing to do with that book? What’s the lowdown?(and if you could identify which sect, if any, you follow please do so-thank you.)

My beliefs:
Some parts of Revelations can be interpreted literally - a significant portion of the world’s population *will *die, there will be massive conflict, etc. - but some other parts are more metaphorical, or maybe limited by John’s ancient descriptive ability.

[tomndebb]

@smiling_bandit

Let me elaborate.

The Book of Revelations is mostly accepted as prophecy (if vivid and confusing). However, it was specifically believed to be prophecy about an event which historically happened: the fall of Rome as a center of persecution and its “conquest” by Christianity. (Obviously, Revelations was written long before those events.) That said, there are a variety of ways of interpreting it, and some people think it’s about the Final Judgement.

Actually, the RCC position regarding Revelation is that it addressed the specific persecution of the church in Asia minor at the behest of Domitian, using the particular literary genre that now bears its name, (apocalyptic, from the Greek word for revelation). The apocalyptic genre that developed over the couple of centuries prior to the life of Jesus used extreme imagery to convey a message in a way consistent with psychedelic images from forty years ago or imaginative CGI renderings, today. The message was that the churches should maintain their faith in the face of persecution because God would ultimately triumph, however, there was no specific forecasting of specific events.

smiling bandit’s summary of Catholic eschatology is accurate.

[truthseeker3]

If you’re interested in speculation with a catholic flavor, The Lamb’s Supper by Scott Hahn is pretty good (if you can stomach his zeal for puns :rolleyes: ); but it is just
speculation - NOT official Church teaching. There’s also The World’s Last Night by C S Lewis - also NOT official Church teaching, but very influential.