Audio Transcript

We have eschatology questions today and on Monday. Here’s the first one: “Good morning, Pastor John. I am a high-school science teacher in Alabama. I love your passion and Christ-centered joy. I write because I recently had a student tell me that her church believes that the second coming of Jesus has already occurred. She said that they believe Revelation was written about the sacking of Jerusalem by Rome in AD 70. I was caught off guard because I had never heard anyone say that Jesus had already returned. I believe the term for that belief is ‘preterist.’ Have you come across this position? And how do you respond to it?”

Yes, I have heard this position. But let me see if I can distinguish between a view that says the second coming of Christ has already happened and the view that sees some of the book of Revelation as referring to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

Types of Preterism

The view that you are referring to — namely, that the second coming has already happened — is a very rare view. I don’t think it has ever been considered orthodox. It is sometimes called full preterism or hyper-preterism. Now, preterism is the view of the book of Revelation that argues that much or all of it lies in the past from our perspective — not the future. Praeter is Latin for “past”; hence preterism. It was future from the standpoint of John’s writing, but now it has already happened.

So, full preterism, hyper-preterism — this rare and unorthodox view, I think — thinks that all of the book of Revelation, including the second coming, has already happened. The coming of Christ is interpreted in such a way that it refers only to his power being shown in various historical manifestations, like the sack of Jerusalem. He’s not hidden somewhere in the world — you can get that out of your mind; that’s not what they mean. He’s not hiding out somewhere in the world because he’s already come back; he’s in heaven and has “come back” in the sense that he showed up in judgment at the destruction of Jerusalem.

Now, what you might call partial preterism — that’s the more common and, I would say, orthodox kind — doesn’t think that the second coming of Christ has already happened, even though many of the events described in Revelation have already been fulfilled in history, including the destruction of Jerusalem.

End of History as We Know It

The question I’m being asked, however, by this teacher, is how I would respond to a student who says that her church believes that Jesus has already come back, and there’s no future hope of Christ coming on the clouds personally, bodily, to establish his kingdom. And the way I would respond is to say to her,

The book of Revelation has perplexed Christians for two thousand years, and I probably won’t be able to set you straight on this point from the book of Revelation alone. Instead, what I would like you to do with me is to look at a few passages of Scripture in the letters of Paul, which I think simply will not fit into the scheme that says there’s no future coming of Christ in judgment and salvation.

“The trumpet blast is not a point in history, like a battle against a city. It’s the end of history as we know it.”

And I would take her to 1 and 2 Thessalonians, probably — not only, but first. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18, Paul is trying to comfort believers who have lost loved ones in death. And the way he encourages them is not by pointing to the fact that there’s going to be a sack of Jerusalem someday. His way of encouraging them is by showing that those who have died will not miss out on the coming of Christ because they’re going to be raised from the dead, so that, together with the living, they will meet the Lord in the air. He says,

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.

Let me pause right there. This trumpet blast at the coming is the way Paul describes the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:52. It’s not a point in history, like a battle against a city. It’s the end of history as we know it, marked by the resurrection of all believers who have died. Now he goes on:

And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

Now, that’s the description of a decisive coming of Christ that gathers all believers, dead and alive, into one people under the reign of Christ. It simply will not do to say that this is somehow a reference to an unseen visitation of Christ at some point in the past.

King Jesus Revealed

And then he gets even more graphic in 2 Thessalonians, where he says in 1:7–10 that the Lord Jesus will be

revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.

“Throughout the New Testament, the second coming of Christ is presented as a precious and blessed hope.”

Or as he says in verse 6, God will “repay with affliction those who afflict you” and “grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels” (verse 7). This is God’s judgment on all unbelievers, and his rescue of all Christ’s people. In 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 8, Paul argues that the day of the Lord cannot have already come like this. There are people in Thessalonica who were thinking, “It’s already here! It’s already here!” And he says,

For that day will not come unless . . . the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, . . . whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.

And I would say to my young student, “I don’t think these and many other references to the second coming of Christ in the New Testament can be legitimately interpreted as somehow symbolic references to the destruction of Jerusalem two thousand years ago.”

Blessed Hope

Throughout the New Testament, the second coming of Christ is presented as a precious and blessed hope of resurrection for all believers and relief for all the living saints and rescue from the wrath to come. Over and over, the New Testament pictures the people of Christ waiting eagerly for what Christ will do for us at his second coming — not for something a long time ago, but what he will do for us at his second coming. And here’s an example I’ll close with:

Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. (Philippians 3:20–21)

And I would look at my student friend right in the eye and say, “Neither you nor I have such a glorious body yet, because the Savior has not yet returned. But he will. And that’s our hope.”

Audio Transcript

On Monday, we started the week by looking at the cross. That is always a great way to start the week. And we saw that the manner of Christ’s death was fitting. In that episode (in APJ 1816), Pastor John told us to underline and draw a big red circle around that word “fitting” in Hebrews 2:10, where it says, “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.” The fittingness of Christ’s public humiliation on the cross is a profound point worth “much study and hours of meditation,” Pastor John said, because “God’s eternal decision to achieve our salvation through the sufferings of Christ is not arbitrary or whimsical or meaningless but is owing to a profound fitness and suitableness.”

This fittingness of the cross calls for intense focus from us. And we focus on the cross to resist drifting away from the gospel. That’s a major theme in the book of Hebrews. And I wanted to connect Monday’s episode with today’s sermon clip, and we do that with Hebrews 2:10. Here’s Pastor John preaching on this text in 1996, talking about gospel drift and how to avoid it.

Now the reason I call him a forerunner or a captain is because of the phrase in Hebrews 2:10: “leading many sons to glory.” Let’s read verse 10: “For it was fitting that he [God the Father], for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory” — that’s what he was doing in sending Jesus to suffer, die, and be glorified: he was leading, bringing many sons to glory. It was fitting, in doing that, to “make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.”

Our Great Salvation

Now, there are a lot of important things in that verse. That verse could keep us for months. What an amazingly rich verse this is. But what I want to focus on right away is this phrase: God is bringing many sons to glory. The reason that’s important is because it connects way back up with verse 7, where he quotes Psalm 8 to say that the destiny of human beings is glory, honor, dominion over the creation — under God, alongside Jesus Christ. That’s your destiny. That’s your goal.

Now, we don’t yet see that as the case. Human beings suffer; they die. But what we do see is Jesus made a human for a little while, breaking into death, out of death, seated on a glorious throne, where we will one day join him — unspeakably, according to Revelation 3 — on his throne. And in doing that, what is he doing? He is leading or bringing many sons with him to glory. So, the reason the Son assumed human flesh is so that Psalm 8 — which seemed to be aborting — would be fulfilled in the first man out of the grave, and he would bring others with him. That’s the flow. That’s what’s going on here. This is our great salvation.

When he says in verse 3, “Beware lest you neglect your great salvation,” this is what he has in mind — this great coming of the Son into humanity, breaking through death, going into the Father’s presence, being crowned with glory and honor, and bringing with him many sons and daughters to glory, so that Psalm 8 will have a fulfillment. It will be fulfilled.

“The glory that Jesus now enjoys at his Father’s right hand will become our glory as well.”

It is a great salvation for several reasons. We’ve seen them. It’s great because there’s a great destiny. There will be no more cancer. There will be no more paralysis. There will be no more blindness. There will be no more arthritis. There will be no more heart disease. There will be no more depression. There will be no more violence or conflict anymore, for the former things will have passed away. Psalm 8 will be fulfilled. The glory that Jesus now enjoys at his Father’s right hand will become our glory as well, and there will be a new heavens and a new earth. And Psalm 8 will be true as you and I, vice-regents, as it were, rule the universe alongside our older brother, Jesus Christ. That’s coming. That is our great salvation.

It’s a great salvation, secondly, not just because of our goal, our destiny, but because of our Savior — he is a great Savior. His glory is our ultimate destiny. We share in the glory that he has won by his death and resurrection. And he was the Son of God coming to rescue us. No mere human could have done what Jesus Christ did. So, our salvation is great because he’s a forerunner to God, and his goal is the glory of God.

Neglecting Glory

Back to Hebrews 2:1–3: “Therefore” — we’re always coming back to the therefore — “don’t neglect this great salvation.” Don’t neglect it. One of the great reasons for weakness in the American evangelical mainline churches is neglect of the greatness of our salvation. Ask yourself: How much mental energy do you expend to occupy yourself with the greatness of your salvation compared to the energy you expend on your finances or housing or job?

There is a colossal neglect of the greatness of our salvation in the church, not to mention outside the church. Well, what would be the opposite of neglect? Let me list off for you answers from the book of Hebrews.

In Hebrews 2:1, it is to pay close attention to what we’ve heard.
In Hebrews 3:1, it is to consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of your confession.
In Hebrews 3:12, it is to take care lest there should be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart — but exhort one another every day.
In Hebrews 4:16, it is to draw near to the throne of grace to get help from Jesus.
In Hebrews 10:23, it is to hold fast our confession without wavering.
In Hebrews 12:1, it is to run the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our salvation.
In Hebrews 12:25, it is not to refuse him who speaks from heaven.

“How much mental energy do you expend to occupy yourself with the greatness of your salvation?”

Not neglecting is the mental, spiritual, emotional engagement with God to behold, to taste, to see, to embrace him in his greatness and all that he wrought for us — to ponder, to think on it, and not to neglect it.

Slowly Drifting from Jesus

My dad and I were coin collectors when I was growing up. There was a sequence of years — I can’t remember the exact age — when we were coin collectors. I wonder how many have ever been coin collectors. I haven’t looked at the books for a long time, but there used to be these full open blue books with little holes, dates, place of minting. And you would push the coin in. Eventually, you’d get a book full. That was a big deal — it’s probably worth hundreds of dollars.

So, my dad is a traveling evangelist. He’d go away, and he’d talk to coin collectors. He’d save all his coins and bring them home. Then he and I would sit down together and look at them. And we’d look them up in the book and see, “Is this good, excellent, or is this fair?” And we’d push them into the book, and we’d try to finish books.

And then something happened. I cannot tell you what happened. We just started to not do it. And there were a few spurts, in the years after that, of interest. We would go down in the bottom shelf where there was a little door, and we would push the door. There they were. We’d pull one out and do it a little bit, and put it back. And longer months would pass. Today, I don’t have a clue where those books are, and they’re worth thousands of dollars.

That’s the way many people experience the Christian faith. There’s this spurt, there’s this engagement, there’s this flowering of apparent zeal and interest. And then weeks pass and no prayer, no meditation on the word. It’s easy to skip worship. “The lake home really needs some attention, and there’s good fellowship there. And the glory of God is proclaimed in the sunshine.” Little by little, you wake up one day, and it’s over. It’s not only neglected; it’s forgotten, and you’re cold. And there may be no return, according to Hebrews 12 — maybe.

Imitating Hebrews

That’s what this book is written to help not happen. That’s the point of the book of Hebrews. Don’t neglect it. It is a great salvation. It’s ten thousand times greater than dozens of full blue coin books. And this author is pleading with us, don’t neglect a great salvation.

He writes this book to model for us and to help us copy him in meditating on the greatness of salvation. What is the book of Hebrews? The book of Hebrews is one extended effort not to neglect the greatness of salvation. It is one long meditation on the magnificence of Jesus Christ and what he has wrought through his death and resurrection for you and me. So, if you want to know how not to neglect your great salvation, let the book of Hebrews model for you how not to neglect your great salvation. That’s what he’s doing here.

“Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?”

Cassius, one of the villains in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, is ambitious. He sees Julius Caesar ascending to power, and Cassius hates it. Yet he knows, like Scar in The Lion King, that if he wants to take down Caesar, he must gain powerful allies. Brutus, a noble war hero, is such a man.

Cassius slithers up to Brutus while Brutus is in some untold conflict with himself (perhaps fighting a similar concern with Caesar’s rise). Listen again to his question,

“Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?” (1.2.51)

Cassius asks Brutus if he can see himself. In other words, Cassius asks if he can properly know himself — see Brutus as Brutus is — without the help of another.

“No, Cassius,” Brutus responds, “for the eye sees not itself, but by reflection, by some other things.” (1.2.52–53)

As the eye cannot see its own face, Brutus responds, neither can he know himself alone. He must see his reflection by some mirror. Cassius, to recruit this needed Knight to checkmate the potential King, offers to be that mirror for Brutus. Flatteringly, he reflects a majestic Brutus. A regal Brutus. A Brutus that is as great, if not greater, than Caesar — a Brutus the people would wish was in charge.

Who Shows You Your Face?

Shakespeare gives us the perceptive question that I turn now to you.

“Tell me, good reader, can you see your face?”

Who do you look at to see yourself? Whose opinion of you forms your identity? If you have been like me, perhaps you rely on many mirrors. Does this group think I am fun to be around? Does my wife find me desirable? Does this pastor or small group respect me? Do these people think I am smart, or those people, funny? Does this group like my writing; does he think I talk too much?

“Who do you look at to see yourself? Whose opinion of you forms your identity?”

I see myself, if I am not careful, reflected in a carnival of mirrors. In this one, I’m short and chubby. In that one, I am tall and skinny. In this one, I have an inflated head. In that one, massive feet. In the one over there, I am “too Christian.” In this one here, I am just right — at least for the moment. We too often live from mirror to mirror, always looking into others’ faces to see our own. We live and move and have our being looking for certain people to approve of us.

Isn’t it a wonder, then, that there was one who walked among us who cared not for human mirrors, one of whom even his enemies had to admit, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you [do not look at the faces of men]” (Matthew 22:16)?

Nothing but the Truth

The Pharisees, in the spirit of Cassius, said this to manipulate Jesus. They meant to entangle him. They wanted him out of the way, so they held a meeting to discuss how to trap him in his words. This introduction, which flattered Jesus for not regarding faces, was bait.

For their plan to work, they needed him to continue to do what he had been doing: speak truthfully regardless of the consequences. He couldn’t back down now, or the web wouldn’t stick. They need him to answer; they think they’ve asked a question Jesus cannot answer without his harm. So they say in effect,

Teacher, we know you’re true and speak God’s way truthfully and that you don’t fear any man. We know you will tell us exactly how it is — that you will speak plainly the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth — come what may.

They speak truly of Jesus falsely, yet they speak truthfully about him. Matthew Henry comments,

In his evangelical judgment, he did not know faces; that Lion of the tribe of Judah, turned not away for any (Proverbs 30:30), turned not a step from the truth, nor from his work, for fear of the most formidable. He reproved with equity (Isaiah 11:4), and never with partiality.

He did not shrink back from declaring the whole counsel of God. He spoke the truth as it was. No faces swayed him; no appearances prejudiced him against the truth. He is the Truth.

Whether Friend or Foe

We come to more fully appreciate our Master’s impartiality when we consider the various groups to whom he delivered the undressed truth.

He spoke plainly to his enemies and to sinners. He saw the faces of the chief priests and Pharisees, the faces of tax collectors and prostitutes, the faces of large crowds, and taught directly the way of faith and the way of repentance. He “went there” with the woman at the well concerning her sordid relationship history. With the powerful scribes and Pharisees, he pronounced “Woe to you!”

What’s equally admirable (and at times more difficult) is that he lived without undue regard even toward the faces of his own family and friends, altering his message for none. At twelve years old, he caused his parents great distress by staying back in the temple three days, only to ask when found, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). He notes the disciples’ little faith, and then memorably confronts Peter, that great rock of an apostle, saying, “Get behind me, Satan!” (Mark 8:33).

He did not receive his identity from men and thus he could perfectly love men with the truth. Uninhibited by the fear of man or the craving for endorsement, he did not campaign for human votes, but baffled crowds as one who spoke with authority, as one without need of their applause and support.

The King’s Face

So tell me, Christian, can you see your face?

Instead of looking around to see your reflection in faces around you, look to the beautiful face of God in the face of his only Son, Jesus Christ. His face gives freedom from the fear of man. If he approves, let all the world condemn.

“Jesus’s face gives freedom from the fear of man. If he approves, let all the world condemn.”

To illustrate how looking to this exalted face can extinguish the slavish fear of any other face on earth, consider in closing a story Michael Reeves recently gave at Ligonier about Hugh Latimer (1487–1555). Latimer, an English bishop, once preached before the frightful King Henry VIII, an easily provoked man with many wives and mistresses.

Spurgeon described the scene this way.

It was the custom of the Court preacher to present the king with something on his birthday, and Latimer presented Henry VIII. with a pocket-handkerchief with this text in the corner, “Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge” [Hebrews 13:4]; a very suitable text for bluff Harry. And then he preached a sermon before his most gracious majesty against sins of lust, and he delivered himself with tremendous force, not forgetting or abridging the personal application.

The king, as you would expect, was not pleased. He told Latimer that he was to preach again the next Sunday and apologize to him publicly. Latimer thanked the king and left.

The following Sunday arrived, Latimer climbed the pulpit, and said these unforgettable words:

“Hugh Latimer [referring to himself in the third person], thou art this day to preach before the high and mighty prince Henry, King of Great Britain and France. If thou sayest one single word that displeases his Majesty he will take thy head off; therefore, mind what thou art at.”

But then said he, “Hugh Latimer, thou art this day to preach before the Lord God Almighty, who is able to cast both body and soul into hell, and so tell the king the truth outright.” (Godly Fear and Its Goodly Consequences, 237)

The most foreboding face among men looked menacingly upon Latimer and bid him mind his tongue. But Latimer gazed above the man, in whose nostrils was breath, and considered the face of Christ, the Lord of heaven and earth. He would not play small. He would not tamper with his Master’s message. He would not mind a merely human face, even the face of his earthly king, if that face bid him look away from the face of the King of heaven.

And while our moments may be (far) less dramatic and less threatening, we are still in need of such lion-hearted, Christ-exalting courage. Who cares what the world thinks? Faces do not show us ourselves; but Christ does. Christ calls us to look to his face, to hear his word, and to listen to his people to understand who we are in him. And as we hear what he speaks over us, mere human faces lose their hold on us. We speak truthfully and love freely because we, like Christ, are not receiving glory from men.