Christ’s Coming an Academic Question?
ACCORDING to Jesuit Joseph Christie, one of London’s best-known Roman Catholic preachers, “the question about our Lord coming back is interesting but academic. He has never been away. In any Catholic church you can find him, and his authentic voice goes down the ages through His teaching church.” But is that the way Jesus’ apostles and early disciples, those who had personally known him, felt about it? Did they feel that the question of his coming back was merely academic, that is, without any real practical value or application? Surely the church of which they were to be a part had Christ’s presence and he taught through them, but did that mean that for them the question of Christ’s coming again was purely an academic one?
If the question of Christ’s coming again were purely an academic one, why did the apostles evince such an interest in his return? Why did they associate it with the consummation of this system of things? And why should Jesus have taken the pains to give them the long answer as he did as recorded at Matthew 24, 25, Mark 13 and Luke 21 if he could have dismissed the subject as glibly as did Jesuit Joseph Christie?
He who views the question of Christ’s return as merely an academic one overlooks entirely the fact that Christ Jesus returns for the purpose of doing a judgment work, to reward his followers, to punish the wicked and, above all, to establish his kingdom. Those events are not merely of academic interest. And that they are associated with Christ’s return or second presence the Scriptures clearly show. Thus Paul associated Christ’s manifestation at the time of his second presence with his kingdom, and so did the prophet Daniel.—2 Tim. 4:1; Dan. 7:13, 14.
Jesus associated his return with the rewarding of his followers. Said he: “If I go my way and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will receive you home to myself, that where I am you also may be.” And again: “Look! I am coming quickly, and the reward I give is with me, to render to each one as his work is.” Paul understood it this way, for he wrote: “I have fought the right fight, I have run the course to the finish, I have observed the faith. From this time on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me as a reward in that day, yet not only to me, but to all those who have loved his manifestation.”—John 14:3; Rev. 22:12; 2 Tim. 4:7, 8, NW.
And Christ’s second presence is also a time of separating the sheep from the goats: “When the Son of man arrives in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit down on his glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” Jesus’ illustrations of the pounds or minas and the talents drive home the same point, that when Christ returns there will be a judgment work.—Matt. 25:31, 32, 14-30; Luke 19:11-27, NW.
Further, the Scriptures also show that Christ upon his return will destroy the wicked. Thus Paul, in comforting the Thessalonian Christians who were suffering much persecution said: “This takes into account that it is righteous on God’s part to repay tribulation to those who make tribulation for you, but, to you who suffer tribulation, relief along with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels in a flaming fire, as he brings due punishment upon those who do not know God and those who do not obey the good news about our Lord Jesus.” “Then, indeed, the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will annihilate by the spirit of his mouth and bring to nothing by the manifestation of his presence.”—2 Thess. 1:6-8; 2:8, NW.
In view of all that the Scriptures show Christ will accomplish at his return, the establishment of his kingdom, the rewarding of his followers, the separating of the sheep and goats and the destruction of the wicked, the question of his coming back is certainly not just an academic one. Those who so hold show that they either do not believe the Scriptures or are blind to their import—in either case being blind guides who can but lead their blind followers to the ditch of destruction.—Matt. 15:14.