31 - The Return of Christ - When and How?

When and how will Christ return? Could he come back at any hour?

As we begin the final unit of Grudem’s book, we turn to consider events that will happen in the future. The study of future events is often called “eschatology,” from the Greek word eschatos, which means “last.” The study of eschatology, then, is the study of “the last things.”

Unbelievers can make reasonable predictions about future events based on patterns of past occurrences, but in the nature of human experience it is clear that human beings of themselves cannot know the future. Therefore, unbelievers can have no certain knowledge of any future event. But Christians who believe the Bible are in a different situation. Although we cannot know everything about the future, God knows everything about the future and he has in Scripture told us about the major events yet to come in the history of the universe. About these events occurring we can have absolute confidence because God is never wrong and never lies.

Regarding our own personal future as individuals, we have already discussed the teaching of Scripture in chapter 25 (on death, the intermediate state, and glorification). The study of these future events that will happen to individuals is sometimes called “personal eschatology.” But the Bible also talks about certain major events that will affect the entire universe. Specifically, it tells us about the second coming of Christ, the millennium, the final judgment, eternal punishment for unbelievers and eternal reward for believers, and life with God in the new heaven and new earth. The study of these events is sometimes called “general eschatology.” In this chapter we will study the question of the return of Christ, or his “second coming.” Subsequent chapters will deal with the remaining topics in a
study of the last things.

There have been many debates—often heated ones—in the history of the church over questions regarding the future. In this chapter we will begin with aspects of Christ’s second coming with which all evangelicals agree and then at the end move to one matter of disagreement: whether Christ could return at any time. In the following chapter, we will discuss the question of the millennium, a topic that has long been a source of disagreement among Christians.

Anyone who reads the Bible on a regular basis has begun to develop a “theology” of who God is and what he has revealed of Himself to man down through history. But is it organized to the point where you can confidently say “this is what the Bible teaches” on a particular topic, or do you just base your beliefs on random verses that could well be misunderstood because they are taken out of context?

My confidence in going out to share the Gospel with strangers comes largely from my study of “Systematic Theology”, which I’ll define as learning what the whole Bible teaches us about a given topic. I’m confident that I’m not misrepresenting God as revealed in his Word, and I’m confident when people make unbiblical claims about God that challenge my own beliefs. I’m increasingly amazed by the consistency of the Bible, written by so many human authors but without contradiction, that I can only conclude it was written by divine inspiration.

I’ve gained so much personally from my systematic study of theology that I’m teaching a 34-week class on it at church, based on Dr. Wayne Grudem’s books “Systematic Theology” and “Bible Theology”. I’m excited to dig deeper personally as I prepare the outlines and lessons, and I want to take as many people along with me on this journey as possible. So I am recording the class and posting the videos to my YouTube channel, and making downloadable PDF chapter outlines and audio recordings available on a Google Drive folder as well.

Care to join me? Links to my YouTube channel and shared resources are as follows:
Video: YouTube.com/c/JeffReiman
Shared Resources folder: https://tinyurl.com/yxy2kb56