What is Look at the Book?

You look at a Bible text on the screen. You listen to John Piper. You watch his pen “draw out” meaning. You see for yourself whether the meaning is really there. And (we pray!) all that God is for you in Christ explodes with faith, and joy, and love.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back on this Friday. Pastor John, back in June of 2021, here on the podcast, you gave us a personal update. And at the very end of that update, like a little footnote, you briefly mentioned that you were about to head off for a two-month writing leave to write a whole book about 2 Timothy 4:8 on the second coming of Christ. That was back in APJ 1641. In God’s kindness, the book you alluded to there got written, edited, and published, and is now out under the title Come, Lord Jesus: Meditations on the Second Coming of Christ (Crossway, 2023). We’re going to look at that book over the next week or so on the podcast in four episodes of questions that I have for you.

First off, in this new book, what becomes pretty obvious to any reader is that you don’t spend too much time dwelling on wrong views of the end times. Your goal really was to clarify what actually happens when Christ returns and to celebrate it and encourage us to love his appearing. That’s the main theme of the book. But I wonder if you would be willing to take ten minutes or so on this episode to sketch for us some of the misconceptions — the blunders and the urban legends — about the second coming that you hope your book will help people to avoid in the future.

In general, I do think it’s right that we do the most good for the church with regard to the second coming when we don’t focus on distortions and misconceptions, but rather on the truth and the beauty of what it really is in the Bible. And yet, it’s right, now and then, to make our people understand there are misconceptions; there are errors.

Five Misconceptions

Frankly, I’m really happy that my book is viewed as being mainly proactive and positive rather than critical. But of course, even that positive view can be overstated. If we never focus on what’s wrong and show how harmful it is, we won’t really be biblical, because the biblical witness itself describes errors and their harmfulness — like Jesus did with the scribes and Pharisees or like Paul in exposing errors of false teaching in Colossians and other places.

So yes, I am willing to point out some misconceptions about the second coming. Let’s just take them one at a time, and I’ll try to explain why I think they’re a problem.

1. Christ will come after a golden age of Christendom.

First, I would mention the view that the second coming of Christ is far into the future. It will not happen until the kingdom of God is established as the ruling earthly power, including the Christianization of the cultures and societal structures of the earth. This is usually called postmillennialism, meaning that the second coming happens after (or post) the millennium. And the millennium in that view is understood to be an extended period in this age when the gospel has triumphed in such a way that a golden age of Christendom holds sway around the world and the powers of civil government, for example, are brought into the service of promoting Christian doctrine.

Now, I think this view does not adequately come to terms with both the teaching and the spirit of the New Testament that we are to live with a consciousness of the nearness of the coming of the Lord. I don’t think it comes to terms adequately with the teaching of the New Testament concerning this present age as lying “in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19), or how Paul describes this age till Jesus comes as this “present evil age” (Galatians 1:4), or the statement in Hebrews that “here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14), or how the movement toward the end is described with a movement of greater evil, not less evil (2 Timothy 3:1–5). And practically, I think this view pushes the appearing of the Lord so far out into the distant future that it becomes inconsequential in the daily consciousness of the churches that embrace this view.

“There is no New Testament promise that the church, in this fallen age, will transform any given culture.”

And I think it skews the mission focus of the New Testament away from world evangelization and personal disciple-making and the process of sanctification. It reorients people’s passions onto culture transformation as a foregrounded goal rather than a possible secondary consequence of speaking truth and doing love to the glory of Christ. And the reason I say “a possible secondary consequence” is that the culture is not the report card of the church. There is no New Testament promise that the church, in this fallen age, will transform any given culture. It may. It has. And it may not. It is as likely in any given setting that martyrdom, not transformation, will be the effect of obedience. And when that happens, the church has not failed. Just read the book of Revelation. Martyrdom is not failure.

2. Christ has already come.

Second, there is a view of the second coming that basically says it’s already happened — for example, in the events of AD 70, when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. It’s not a very common view, I admit, but in that view, the descriptions of his coming that sound globally visible and world-shaking and obvious were really just traditional apocalyptic language to say that the Lord comes in historical judgments in this age, and then he carries it out for the rest of the time — namely, his rule over the world through the church, with no expectation of any literal second coming at all.

And I don’t think the language of the New Testament that describes Christ coming can be reduced to symbolic statements of historical events like AD 70. Paul’s understanding of the second coming in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–17 is that it involves the resurrection of all the Christians from the grave. That did not happen in AD 70 or at any time. It’s going to happen when the Lord’s appearing comes.

3. No events need to happen before Christ comes.

Third, I think it’s a mistake to say that there are no events that are yet to happen in history before the Lord comes. Second Thessalonians 2:1–12 describes an apostasy and the appearance of the “man of lawlessness.” And Paul gives these two realities as an answer to the question for those who thought that the day of the Lord was upon them. And he says, “Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction” (2 Thessalonians 2:3).

4. Christ will spare his people from the tribulation.

Fourth, perhaps the most common misconception of the second coming is that it happens, so to speak, in two stages. First, he comes and takes Christians out of the world and returns them to heaven with him while there’s a great tribulation on the earth. And then, after a short time, maybe seven years, he returns with his saints to establish his kingdom.

Now, that’s one misconception I do deal with in the book. I devote a whole chapter to it, in fact. So I’m not going to go into any detail here. It is probably the most common misconception, and people will be surprised. “Whoa, I didn’t know that was a misconception. That’s what I’ve always believed.” I grew up with this view. My dad held this view. I love my dad to death, to the day he died, and we got along just fine. But gradually I came to see that this view did not have the Bible on its side.

I think the primary danger of a view like this is not that it undermines any important doctrine (at least I’m not aware of anybody going off the rails in any fundamental way because they hold this view). But the danger is that it fosters the expectation that God will spare his people from suffering in the latter days. I think that’s a mistake. And it could be a harmful mistake if people lost their faith because suddenly they found themselves enduring end-time hardships that they thought they were going to escape.

“God’s own people experience some of the suffering of judgment, but we don’t experience it as punishment.”

First Peter 4:17 says, “It is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” I think he’s showing in that statement that God’s own people, the apple of his eye, experience some of the suffering of judgment, but we don’t experience it as punishment. Christ took our punishment. We experience it as testing, proving, purifying us.

5. Christ will never come.

Finally, I think it’s a mistake to say what the skeptics did in 2 Peter 3:4: “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” In other words, it’s a serious mistake, Peter says, to think, “Well, it’s just been too long. Everything just goes on. He’s just not coming. It was all a myth.” That is a tragic mistake. And here is Peter’s response: “Do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness” (2 Peter 3:8–9). Wow — what a response.

Love the Lord’s Appearing

So again, Tony, like I said at the beginning, I would much rather spend three hundred pages in a book meditating on the beauty and the power and the wonder of what’s really going to happen when the Lord comes than I would talking about mistakes. So that’s what I tried to do in the book. The aim isn’t mainly to correct errors. It’s mainly to help people love the Lord’s appearing.

Audio Transcript

Happy Monday, and welcome back to the podcast. Today, I’m going to batch several questions together all on the same Bible text: Colossians 1:20. Here’s the first one, from John, a listener to the podcast in Mullumbimby, Australia. “Pastor John, hello! What does it mean that God reconciled to himself all things, whether in heaven or on earth? And why did he need to reconcile all things to himself?”

A listener named Ryan writes in, “Dear Pastor John, a friend of mine and I have been discussing Colossians 1:20 and the reconciliation of ‘all things’ in heaven and on earth, making peace by the blood of the cross. What does this mean for those who are not elect? Does Colossians 1:19–20 allude to a reconciliation for both elect and non-elect alike? Many thanks from a longtime listener!”

And a listener named Lake writes in, “Pastor John, I understand that earth needs reconciliation. But what’s in heaven needing reconciling?” So also asks Vikki in Dayton, Ohio. “Pastor John, Colossians 1:20 seems to imply that not just earth but also heaven has been reconciled to God. The ladies in my Bible study group can’t agree here. Some think Paul means the general universe. Others think he means the actual heavenly abode of God. We’re wondering which is correct? It would seem to me that when the devil originally sinned, he contaminated heaven. Therefore, part of Christ’s atonement also cleansed the heavenly sanctuary. Maybe. Is that consistent with Scripture?” So, a lot of questions on Colossians 1:20.

Well, let’s get the text in front of us. This is Colossians 1:19–20: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

So, the questions our listeners are raising revolve mainly around what it means that God, through the ministry of the divine Christ, will reconcile to himself all things. The phrase “all things” raises the question of universalism for a lot of people. That is, will every person, even the demons and Satan himself, be reconciled to God — and there will be no hell, and there will be no final judgment, no final destruction of anyone? That’s the first question. Second question is raised by the phrase “whether on earth or in heaven.” What would it mean to speak of reconciling anything or any being in heaven? What in heaven needs reconciling? And then the third question I hear would be, How does the blood of Jesus establish peace in heaven and on earth?

Let’s take these one at a time.

Will Everyone Be Saved?

First, through Christ, God reconciles all things to himself, whether in heaven or on earth. Does that mean that there is universal salvation and that, in the end, hell will not exist, and all unbelievers and all demons and Satan himself will be reconciled and saved?

The first problem with that interpretation is that Paul himself, both in this letter of Colossians and elsewhere, teaches that there will be the final wrath of God that will last forever on people. It’s not even that they will be put out of existence (called annihilationism). For example, in Colossians 3:5–6, he says, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.”

Then if you ask, “Well, how long will that wrath last? What will that experience be like?” And he says in 2 Thessalonians 1:9, “[Those who do not obey the gospel] will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”

And if we look for confirmation that we’re on the right track here in understanding Paul, we find in the teachings of John and the teachings of Jesus the same kind of thing. For example, in Matthew 25:46, Jesus says, “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” And since “eternal life” is parallel with “eternal punishment,” then it seems clear that the eternal punishment will have the same duration as the eternal life.

And then in Revelation 14:11, John uses the strongest phrase possible in Greek to express eternity. He says, “And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.” The Greek phrase behind that “forever and ever” is as strong as it can be.

So, we’re talking everlasting duration of wrath, and therefore, the problem with thinking that Colossians 1:20 is teaching that all things will be reconciled and thus saved — with no hell, no eternal punishment, and no unbelievers or demons in existence — is that Paul says that’s just not true.

What Does ‘All Things’ Mean?

So the question is, Well, what does it mean? If it can’t mean universalism or annihilationism, what does it mean — “through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven”?

I would say to our readers, Have you ever asked why it doesn’t say “to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven or under the earth”? Why does Paul omit “under the earth”? And I say that because he uses that phrase in Philippians 2:10, when he says that every knee will bow to Jesus and confess that he’s Lord — every knee “in heaven and on earth and under the earth.” Even the unsaved will grant that Jesus is Lord.

But here in Colossians 1:20, he doesn’t mention “under the earth” as what will be reconciled. It only says that he will reconcile all things to himself in heaven and on earth. So, here’s my suggestion: Paul is not at all contradicting the fact that the Bible teaches eternal judgment on Satan and his angels and on humans who are unrepentant, but all of those persons will be consigned to a realm outside the new heavens and the new earth.

“Everything in the new heavens and the new earth that has been contaminated with sin in any way will be reconciled.”

In Matthew 22:13, Jesus calls this “outer darkness.” They will be in a realm that is not part of the new heavens and the new earth. Everything in the new heavens and the new earth that has been contaminated with sin in any way will be reconciled, will be redeemed.

So, when Paul says that all things will be reconciled in heaven and on earth, he means that because of the work of Christ, there will be nothing unreconciled on earth, nothing unreconciled in heaven, when God consummates his purposes. For demons and unbelievers, there will be another entirely different realm of existence, which we call “under the earth” or “outer darkness,” but it will not be part of the new creation. All things will be reconciled in that earth and that heaven. So, that’s my answer to the first part of the question.

What Needs Reconciliation in Heaven?

Let’s turn to the second question: What would it mean to speak of reconciling anything or any being in heaven? What in heaven needs reconciling? What would Paul mean when he says that through Christ God reconciles to himself, “whether on earth or in heaven,” all things? And one answer is implicit in what I’ve already said — namely, he may not be talking about reconciling what is in heaven now but what will inhabit the new heavens and the new earth. And his point is, nothing contaminated by sin will inhabit the new heavens and the new earth that’s not reconciled to God. Everything will be reconciled that’s there.

But if someone pushes back and says, “Well, it looks, Piper, like it’s referring to the present heaven and earth, not just the future heaven and earth,” then my suggestion would be — if they’re right and I’m mistaken in that first suggestion — that Paul teaches in the next chapter, Colossians 3:4, and in Philippians 1:20 and 2 Corinthians 5:8, that Christians who have died are now in heaven. And Paul would then be saying that all of them are reconciled to God by the work of Christ.

That’s my suggested answer to the pushback and the suggestion that he may be referring to the present heaven and not just the future heaven: Christians are there. Christians are reconciled in heaven through the blood of Christ.

How Does Jesus’s Blood Make Peace?

One last question: How does the blood of Jesus establish peace in heaven and on earth? Paul says, “making peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20). And I add this question for two reasons. One, because we know that demonic beings not only inhabit the earth but are referred to, for example, in Ephesians 6:12 as being operative in the heavenly places. For example, Job teaches that Satan had some kind of access to God.

“The blood of Christ takes away the one damning weapon that Satan has: the power to accuse us for sin.”

The other reason I ask this question is because Paul connects the blood of Christ with the defeat of the demonic rulers and authorities in Colossians 2:15. So, right after saying that the record of our sins, the record of our debts, is nailed to the cross so that our guilt is removed and our forgiveness is secure, he says in Colossians 2:15 that God, by this work of Christ, stripped (or disarmed) the demonic powers and shamed them and triumphed over them in him.

I take that to mean that the blood of Christ takes away the one damning weapon that Satan has — namely, the power to accuse us for sin, because they’re all forgiven. Our sins are all forgiven. He doesn’t have that weapon because of the blood of Christ. He’s stripped of it. He’s disarmed. And with that triumph over Satan and his demonic forces, all demonic hopes of victory are shattered, and Satan is finally consigned to outer darkness with his forces. And in that way, complete peace is established in the new heavens and the new earth.

So, when Paul says that God made peace through the blood of his Son, he means not only that Christians enjoy no condemnation and peace with God forever, but also that the marauding, tempting, destructive work of Satan and his forces is totally disempowered and consigned outside the new heavens and the new earth forever. There’s only peace.