01.03. The Period of the Parousia

III. THE PERIOD OF THE PAROUSIA. The first resurrection, accompanied by the removal of the living, will take place at a certain moment when the Lord Himself shall descend from His present place at the right hand of the throne of God, in the upper heavens, to the neighbourhood of the earth (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17). He is now absent from the earth: then He will be present again. This will be the commencement of His Parousia (presence). The Word of God shows that this descent will take place at the end of that Great Tribulation which is to be inflicted upon the saints by the Beast at the very close of this age. It has been suggested that the phrase sat down on the right hand of the Majesty in the heights (Hebrews 1:3) does not imply place, but merely dignity. Yet this will not be said of 1 Kings 2:19 : “The king sat down on his throne, and caused a throne to be set for the king’s mother, and she sat on his right hand.” There is a spot in the heaven of heavens where the Father is throned in light unapproachable by man in the flesh. There the Son sits at the right hand of God, and thence He will descend at the hour which the Father has set within his own authority.

1. Christ stated that a time would come when His enemies should “see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64): from which it would appear that down to an hour when He is to be seen by the godless at the right hand of power He remains there, which place therefore He did not leave for the air several years before that time. Christ had said before that the hour when the world should thus see Him would follow the Great Tribulation (Matthew 24:29-30).

2. Now under seal 6 (Revelation 6:1-17) the godless are shown fleeing in terror from the face of God and from the wrath of the Lamb and are hiding in the rocks. This accords with paragraph one above and with Isaiah 2:10, Isaiah 2:19, Isaiah 2:21. The latter passage fixes the hour as that when “Jehovah ariseth to shake terribly the earth,” again showing at what point the Lord leaves the throne on high. Seal 6 repeats the many signs in heaven and earth which Christ said should follow the Tribulation (Matthew 24:29-30), which confirms that the “arising” of the Lord and the appearing of His glory to men follow that Tribulation.

3. According to Paul himself the “blessed hope” of the church is the “appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13), not any secret, invisible event. The words in italics are a repetition of words used by Christ on the same topic (Matthew 24:29-30). So that at the close of His then presence with His disciples the Lord pointed them onward to His appearing in glory, and they adopted that appearing as their hope. But the Lord stated that this His appearing would be after the signs that should immediately follow the Great Tribulation. The suggestion that the “blessed hope” is a first event and the appearing a second is denied by the grammar of the passage in Greek. “Hope and appearing belong together” (Alford. See also Bloomfield, Conybeare, Weymouth, etc.). “‘The blessed hope’ is the appearing” (Speaker’s Commentary).

4. The Lord stated next (Matthew 24:31) that at that moment of His appearing He would gather together His elect. That the elect are Christians, not Jews, is certain. (a) No gathering of Jews to Palestine at this hour is known to Scripture. There is to be one before the reign of the Beast, for he will persecute them there, and another, expressly termed the second, after Christ shall have come to Jerusalem (Isaiah 11:10-12). If this at the moment of the appearing were of Jews that later one would be the third. (b) This gathering of the elect is universal: were it of Israelites none of these would be left for that later and second gathering. (c) The Gentile nations, not angels, will be agents of that second gathering of Israel (Isaiah 11:12; Isaiah 14:2; Isaiah 49:22; Isaiah 66:19-20). (d) This gathering takes place while Christ is yet in the clouds, whereas Israel are not to be gathered there, but to their land and city. (e) The term “elect” is applied to angels (1 Timothy 5:21) and to Christ (Luke 13:35; 1 Peter 2:6). “Election” is used of God’s purpose concerning Jacob (Romans 9:11). The cognate verb “chosen” is used of Jehovah’s choice of Israel as His earthly people (Acts 13:17), of guests selecting the chief seats (Luke 14:7), and of Mary choosing the good part (Luke 10:42). None of these places has any bearing upon the interpretation of Matthew 24:31 and Mark 13:27 : and in every other place of the many in the New Testament the invariable application of these terms is to Christians. Even in Romans 11:5, Romans 11:7, Romans 11:28, though Israelites are in view, it is as Christians they form the “remnant according to the election of grace.” Nothing arises to suggest that Christ meant the term in another sense to His former use in Luke 18:7, “shall not God do justice to His own elect,” or for supposing that the Christians to whom the Gospels first came could think it to have any other than its by that time fixed application to Christians.

5. Christ further stated that the gathering of the elect should be accompanied by “a great sound of a trumpet” (Matthew 24:31). This is repeated in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, and 1 Corinthians 15:52 describes this as the “last trump.” The last trump of Scripture is recorded in Revelation 11:15-18. Under it four events are grouped: (1) The anger of the nations and God’s wrath upon them; (2) The time of the dead to be judged ‑ the godly dead, for it is before the millennium: comp. Daniel 7:22; (3) The rewarding of the prophets, saints, and those who fear God; (4) The destruction of the destroyers of the earth.

Thus the raising and rewarding of the godly take place at the same epoch as the destruction of the wicked, and all is after the Tribulation, for it is the time of the destruction of the Beast, and is after he has persecuted, and has killed the Two Witnesses in Jerusalem (Revelation 11:1-13).

6. This is confirmed by the declaration of the strong angel whose message follows trumpet 6 (Revelation 10:5-7). He announces that the mystery of God shall be completed during the period of the seventh trumpet. Paul taught concerning: (1) the mystery (secret); (2) that it was according to the gospel (good tidings); (3) that it was made known according to the commandment of the eternal God; (4) and that this was done through the writings of the prophets (Romans 16:25-27). The angel repeats these four particulars concerning (1) the mystery; (2) that it was according to the good tidings (the same word as gospel); (3) that it was declared by God; (4) through His servants the prophets. The two passages read thus:

Romans 16:25-27 : “Now unto Him that is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal, but now is manifested, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, is made known unto all the nations unto obedience of faith. . . .”

Revelation 10:7 : “. . . in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then is finished the mystery of God, according to the good tidings which He declared to His servants the prophets." The attempt to make out that these are not the same mystery, and that there are two divine purposes of which all four particulars are equally and separately true, will surely only be made in the interests of some special theory of interpretation. The mystery that was such a vital element in apostolic teaching is shown by Ephesians 3:1-13 to be the gathering of the church from Jews and Gentiles, and therefore was it to be made known unto all the nations. This work will be com­pleted by the resurrection and rapture, which will be under trumpet 7, which will be after the Tribulation, as shown above under (5).

7. Other Scriptures also reveal this same grouping of events. In 2 Thessalonians 1:6-8, it is said that the delivering of the saints from trouble at the hands of the godless will be at the time of the destruction of the latter by the Lord at His revelation in flaming fire with His angels. Thus the church of God is viewed as continuing in affliction right down to the apocalypse (public appearing) of Christ.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11, belong together, though often arbitrarily dissevered, and they similarly associate these events for the godly and the godless respectively. The “times and the seasons” of verse 1 necessarily means the times and the seasons in which will come the events just mentioned. No other events have been mentioned, so that there is no other antecedent to the expression, which thus connects the paragraphs.

Thus the earliest revelations by Christ, the middle period teachings of Paul and others (see 2 Peter 3:15, that Peter and Paul taught alike), and the latest through John (Revelation 10:11), agree.

8. This harmony is seen further in the passages which picture the Lord as coming as a thief.

Christ used the figure to warn His own servants of His own household (Matthew 24:42, Matthew 24:44; Luke 12:39). Peter, who heard that warning, repeats it to those who had “obtained like precious faith” with himself “in the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:10-11, 2 Peter 1:1). Paul reminds the Thessalonians that they, by his particular instruction, knew of that thief‑like coming, and so they need not be caught unawares by its unannounced arrival, only they must be very careful to keep awake, continuing watchful and sober (1 Thessalonians 5:21). The Lord from heaven repeats these warnings to the church at Sardis (Revelation 3:3), plainly declaring that it is possible for Christians to cease to watch (comp. Mark 13:36), and so to be overtaken by that day as a thief. Finally, just as wicked spirits are gathering the armies of the Beast for the final battle with the Lamb at His return, the Lord interjects the announcement, “Behold, I come as a thief” (Revelation 16:15). This were a singularly inappropriate place for the renewal of this warning if in fact the coming as a thief had taken place long previously at a supposed coming of the Lord before the end days entirely.

Thus it appears that the “house,” and the Lord’s servants in it, continue on earth in His absence down to the close of the Tribulation era when the Beast is preparing for the final battle.

9. That the first resurrection takes place after the Tribulation is clear from the fact that those martyred by the Beast share therein (Revelation 20:4). The supposition that this resurrection will be completed in stages, of which this will be the last, is not needed and seems without Scripture authority.

10. In Revelation 14:1-20 there is a series of six visions. In the first a company of saints are seen on the Mount Zion with the Lamb, in the region of the throne of God, for the elders and the living creatures are present, before the throne.* These saints have been “purchased out of the earth” (showing that they are not then on earth), and they learn the song of heaven. In the second vision the hour of judgment strikes; that is, the end days begin. In the third we learn that the Harlot, Babylon, has been destroyed, which vision is amplified in Revelation 17:1-18. In the fourth the Great Tribulation is contemplated, for the Beast is persecuting. After this the fifth vision shows: (1) The Son of man now on the clouds, having therefore come down from Mount Zion. (2) His angels (the sickle, comp. Matthew 13:39) are gathering up from the earth His “harvest,” the ripened saints He has grown as wheat, and will gather into His barn in safety. The sixth and last vision pictures the destruction of the Beast and his armies, which is further shown in Revelation 19:11-21.

[* In Revelation “before the throne” always means a heavenly locality, not on earth. It is the place of the presence of God, of the elders, living creatures, angels, the glassy sea, the heavenly throne and altar. See Revelation 4:5-6, Revelation 4:10; Revelation 7:9; Revelation 8:3; Revelation 14:3; Revelation 20:12; all its occurrences.]

Here again the presence on the clouds, with the gathering up of the godly, is put between the Tribulation and the destruction of the lawless. With unique emphasis Christ had taught that the “wheat” must remain in the field with the “tares” “until the harvest” and that the harvest is the “consummation of the age” (Matthew 13:30-39), not any point of time prior to the End Days. In Revelation 14:1-20 this harvest is shown appropriately as the last great event but one in this age. The whole New Testament agrees in putting at this point the appearing in glory of the Son of man, which was seen from afar by Old Testament prophets; nor does the Scripture know of any earlier descent of the Lord from the throne to the air. And so Paul in one sentence (2 Thessalonians 2:1-5) grouped together (a) the Parousia, (b) our gathering together unto the Lord, and (c) the Day of the Lord, and most expressly announced and warned that these all must be pre­ceded by the apostasy and the revelation of the Man of Sin. George Muller said: “having been a careful diligent student of the Bible for nearly fifty years, my mind has long been settled upon this point, and I have not the shadow of a doubt about it. The Scripture declares plainly that the Lord Jesus will not come until the apostasy shall have taken place, and the man of sin, the ‘son of perdition’ (or personal Anti­christ) shall have been revealed, as seen in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17.”