Theology of the End Times Archives

Based on just the title of this post, I can hear lots of people cheering and lots of other people rethinking whether or not they want to go to heaven.

No sports in heaven? For some that is truly heaven, while for others it sounds like hell.

Whichever feeling wells up within you, bear with me…

Someone once told me that since there wasn’t any mention of sports in the Bible, this means that there will be no sports in heaven.

I think that logic is pretty bad, but recently as I was listening to a news update about the passer rating of a certain quarterback, it occurred to me that there was a pretty good theological reason for there not to be any sports in heaven.

Except for baseball…. Kevin Kostner proved that there is baseball in heaven…. 😉

The Theological Reason for No Sports in Heaven

It is often taught in churches that when we get to heaven, we will never get sick, we will never die, we will have all our questions answered, and we will be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect.

That sounds nice… until you begin to realize what this means…

I like the idea of no more sickness and no more death, but the more I think about having all my questions answered and being perfect in everything, I am not sure I like that at all.

I am not a sports fanatic, but I like watching some sports, and I even play a bit of sports. … Well, no I don’t. Not any more. But I used to.

But here’s the point:

Sports is based on the universal reality that humans are not perfect in everything we do. That’s why we have batting averages. Free-throw percentages. Quarterback ratings.

Imagine if there was a person who always batted 1000, who never missed a free throw, and whose every pass of the football was for a touchdown.

Such a player would dominate the world of sports. Whatever team he was on would always win. Always.

Now imagine that every single player on both teams played just as perfectly. It sounds thrilling for about one second until you begin to think of what that game would be like.

Imagine a basketball game where every single shot was good. The announcer’s job would be easy. All he would have to say is “He dribbles down the court … he shoots … he scores!” over and over and over. Heck, the players wouldn’t even have to dribble down the court to shoot. All the shots would be full-court shots with 100% accuracy. It sounds thrilling to watch … for about five minutes. Then it becomes incredibly boring.

Of course, it is here where we start to run into problems. Take baseball as another example. It is logically impossible to have a player bat 1000 and have a pitcher throw a perfect game.

So you see? Sports are based on the fact that nobody is perfect in everything.

But if in heaven, everybody is perfect in everything, this means that there could be no sports.

So Heaven Sounds Pretty Dull After All…

Frankly, I find this highly depressing. Not because I am such a sports lover, but because I am such a lover of learning.

I love the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Just as some people love sports, I love the feeling of my mind and heart racing as I encounter a new idea from a book or insight on a particular passage of Scripture.

I wonder what life would be like without this. I think it would be pretty boring.

All in all, heaven is starting to sound like a pretty dull place.

So the only thing I can conclude is that we won’t be perfect after all in our eternal state. We will not be perfect. We will not know it all. We will grow and develop and think and ask questions and learn by trial and error. We will invent, inquire, and inspire.

As it turns out, imperfection is the only way heaven can be real and not be hell.

So maybe there will be sports in heaven after all…

All you football fans can breathe a sigh of relief.

But if Heaven Requires Imperfection…

Then the ramifications of this got me thinking.

If we are not perfect in what we know and what we do, does this mean that we can get injured and hurt after all? If, in heaven, I decided I want to learn to become a tightrope walker, and I become so good I decide to tightrope across the heavenly version of Niagara Falls, what happens if I make a mistake and I fall?

Or, what happens if I decide to become a Master Chef, and in cutting potatoes one day, I slip with the knife and slice my finger? Will it cut? Will it hurt? Will it bleed? I cannot see how it cannot. If I remember correctly, I think C. S. Wrote about this is The Problem of Pain. I don’t have the book in front of me, but I seem to remember Lewis explaining that pain tells us when something is wrong. (If you find the section, let me know!) If I cut my finger with a knife, I need it to hurt so that I can know I should stop cutting! If it didn’t hurt, I would keep cutting, and do great damage to my finger.

If there is no pain in our eternal bodies, does this mean that we will never cut our fingers? That the knife turns to rubber if we try? If we are out for a hike on Pluto, and we fall off a cliff, does that mean we will bounce when we hit the bottom? I cannot see how. But on the other hand, there will be no more death, so will we be like the Wolverine from X-Men or Claire from the TV show Heroes who can regenerate no matter what? That’d be cool…

But this then leads me to the question of God.

Earlier when I said that we will be perfect as God is perfect, I intentionally misquoted Matthew 5:48. Why? Because how I misquoted it is how I sometimes hear others misquote it.

In Matthew 5:48, Jesus says that we should be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. I have written on this text before by saying it is impossible to live perfect lives, but for our purposes here, note that Jesus does not say that we will ever be perfect just as God is perfect, nor does Jesus even say that God Himself is perfect. Jesus simply says that we should strive to be perfect, in the same way that God is, however that is.

Some people point to 1 Corinthians 13:10 as evidence that when we get to heaven we will be perfect, but this verse is talking about spiritual gifts and is not teaching anything about mental or physical perfection when we get to heaven.

Then there is 1 John 3:2-3. Some say that since Jesus is perfect, when we see Him, we will become just like Him, and hence, we will also be perfect. Well again, I am not denying that we will become like Jesus. And I am not denying that through glorification, we will achieve moral perfection.

Hezekiah 2:7: “And God gave us baseball…”

Come to think of it, I cannot think of a verse anywhere in the Bible which says that in our glorified bodies, we will be perfectly perfect in every way, including all our mental, moral, emotional, spiritual, and physical capacities. Can you think of anywhere that teaches this?

If were to achieve this perfectly perfect perfection, then we would be exactly like God.

Or maybe …. could it be? …. maybe God is not like this either? Maybe we constructed a God of our own liking according to platonic philosophical ideas of what “perfection” entails, and God is not like that at all!

Is it possible that God Himself learns, invents, and inquires as well?

Could it be that our creative desire to see and try new things comes from the very nature of God Himself?

Maybe we seek answers to life’s problems because God does.

Maybe we want to explore, discover, and seek because God has these desires too.

Of course, maybe, just maybe, we have no clue what heaven will be like after all, and this whole post is a bunch of malarkey.

One thing is for sure … who ever knew that sports could get you thinking about heaven?

Poll: Would you get a microchip implant?

By Jeremy Myers

60 Comments

When the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 occurred, I was a pastor of a small church in Montana. My theology was somewhat different then than it is now, and so shortly after these attacks, I preached a sermon about prophecy and the End Times in which I said that the governments of the world would eventually use the threat of terrorism to force everybody to accept the “Mark of the Beast.”

I said at the time that the Mark of the Beast would probably consist of some sort of microchip implanted into a person’s forehead or hand which would not only allow people to be tracked, but would also allow people to buy and sell.

While such microchip implants would initially be optional, I said that as the threat of terrorism rose, and as governments wanted to track what people bought and sold, these implanted microchips would become mandatory. They would completely replace credit cards and cash.

So anyway, I was interested to read last Saturday about plans to create and market implantable microchips. Here is a quote from the article at Fox News:

You can inject one under your skin and no one will ever notice. Using short-range radio frequency identification (RFID) signals, it can transmit your identity as you pass through a security checkpoint or walk into a football stadium. It can help you buy groceries at Wal-Mart. In a worst-case scenario – if you are kidnapped in a foreign country, for example – it could save your life.

Microchip implants like the ones pet owners use to track their dogs and cats could become commonplace in humans in the next decade. Experts are divided on whether they’re appropriate for people, but the implants could offer several advantages. For soldiers and journalists in war zones, an implant could be the difference between life and death. A tracker could also help law enforcement quickly locate a kidnapped child.

Interestingly, NFL players will all have RFID chips in their shoulder pads this year to help people track their movement, speed, and location on the field. I have often thought they should put one in the footballs so that they no longer have to bring out the chains to see if the teams got the first down or not. They could just track the ball’s precise location.

Some have even pointed out that an early version of the Affordable Care Act included a provision for RFID chips. This section was not included in the final draft of the law which Obama signed, but it does show that some people are thinking about it. Here is the NBC Report:

And while I cannot predict what will be in this new Apple iWatch which is rumored to be unveiled on September 9, I would not at all be surprised to learn that it has RFID (radio frequency identification) and/or NFC (near field communication) capability. Such RFID and NFC enabled devices can open locked doors as you approach them, start your car, communicate with your phone, instantly provided healthcare professionals with your health history, help you buy your groceries, or even accept payment from your customers.

The primary drawback to this, of course, is if someone steals your watch.

So what is the solution to this? Easy! Make it “unstealable” by implanting the microchip under your skin. It will not to be too much longer before Apple comes out with the iChip (or something similar). A company called VeriChip is already manufacturing and implanting similar chips.

The United Nations has a stated plan to issue Biometric IDs to everyone in the world by 2030 … This plan is backed by 193 world leaders and the World Bank. Hmm…

Anyway, all of this leads me up to my question… Please feel free to answer them in the comments below!

If a company produces an implantable microchip such as the one described in that Fox News article above, would you get one? Why or why not? If, in response to the threat of terrorism and the need for tax income, the government required all citizens to get an implanted chip, would you do it?

Does Jesus talk about Hell more than Heaven?

By Jeremy Myers

133 Comments

I sometimes hear pastors and teachers say that Jesus talked about hell more than heaven, and so we should do the same in our evangelism.

In other words, it is is often suggested that Jesus “scared” people into the kingdom. He threatened people with hell if they didn’t believe in Him, and so in our evangelism, we are perfectly justified in using threats of burning forever in hell and other similar scare tactics to get people into the Kingdom of God as well.

And it isn’t just the wacko fringe Christians who say this. I have heard it preached from the pulpits of some relatively “sane” evangelical churches. This sort of approach is also quite common in some of the leading evangelistic approaches of our day. People are trained to tell others that God is holy, righteous, and good, and since one sin is enough to condemn us to hell, God is justified in sending us there if we don’t believe in Jesus for eternal life.

And rather than shying away from hell, we are told to use it as a way to invite people into heaven. After all, we are told, Jesus preached about hell more than heaven, and so should we.

But is this true?

Is it true that Jesus talks about hell more than heaven?

In my book I am currently writing on the violence of God in the Bible, I will be including a full chapter on what the Bible says about hell, and the vast majority of that chapter will find its way here to this blog.

But by way of preview (and because the topic of this month’s synchroblog is hell), here are some of the main points I will be writing about in that chapter:

References to “fire” are usually not references to hell.

Jesus does speak about “fire” several times in the Gospels (e.g., Matt 3:10-12; 7:19; 13:40-50; John 15:6). But these references to fire are not references to a place of eternal torture for the unredeemed, but are simply symbols of temporal discipline and destruction that come upon some people as a result of straying from God’s instructions. Fire can even be for purification of believers (the Greek word for fire is pur) as seen in 1 Corinthians 3:15.

Sometimes Jesus refers to “hell fire” (e.g., Matt 5:22), but these are actually references to “Gehenna,” which I discuss in a later point.

The few references where fire may refer to the everlasting flames of hell are places like Matthew 25:41, and are used in reference to a place created for Satan and his angels. Do some humans end up there? It appears so, but again, this will not be for torture and torment. To explain why will have to wait for the book…

References to “the outer darkness” and “weeping and gnashing of teeth” are not references to hell.

There are several instances in Matthew where Jesus refers to “the outer darkness” and “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 8:12; 13:42-50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30). These terms are sometimes used in connection with fire and so most people think they also refer to hell.

But they don’t.

A careful contextual study of most of these texts reveal that the image of “outer darkness” is a symbol of exclusion from blessing and honor, and the image of “weeping and gnashing of teeth” is a vivid symbol of deep and profound regret. The events discussed in these places are typically events that will take place at the Judgment Seat of Christ (which is only for believers) and the Wedding Supper of the Lamb (which is also only for believers).

Again, I need full studies to show this, and these will have to wait for my book…

References to “hades” and “gehenna” are not references to hell.

There are numerous references in the Greek New Testament to hades and gehenna, and regrettably, most English translations translate these words as “hell.” But a place of eternal, conscious torment is what modern people think of when they think of hell, this is not what first century Jewish people would have thought of when they heard the words hades and gehenna.

Hades, of course, is the ancient Greek god of the underworld, the god of death. In biblical usage, it is often a Greek translation from the Hebrew sheol, which means “the pit” or “the grave.” Neither of these are references to hell, but simply refer to the hole in the earth in which dead people are laid (cf. Acts 2:27, 31; Rev 20:13).

There is, of course, the story about the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31, which seems to equate hades with torturous flames in a pit of hell. But there are numerous problems with understanding this text as referring to what really happens to people after they die (for example, Lazarus is there with the rich man and they can communicate), and so it is dangerous to take this text to literally.

Finally, Gehenna refers to an actual place that existed outside the gates of Jerusalem. It was a little valley in which trash was thrown to be burned. This imagery must be understood wherever Jesus talks about “hell fire” and uses Gehenna (cf. Matt 5:22).

And do I need to say it? … Yes, I know a fuller explanation is wanted on all these terms and texts, but it will have to wait for the book…

When all of this is considered, we see that Jesus didn’t talk about hell more than heaven. He rarely mentions hell at all. As such, I think there is absolutely no place for threatening people with hell if they don’t believe in Jesus for eternal life. Yes, we can warn people (as Jesus did) about the disastrous temporal consequences of their sin, but threatening people with eternal torment in flames is neither Christlike nor theologically correct.

To say that Jesus warned people of hell and so should we is just plain wrong.

Jesus Really Didn’t Talk about Heaven that Much Either

Having said all this, Jesus really didn’t talk that much about heaven either.

Just as we don’t really want to scare people into believing Jesus, we shouldn’t try to bribe them either. While Jesus talks about heaven more than hell, neither have a big emphasis in His teaching.

Instead, Jesus frequently talks about everlasting life, and life in the kingdom of God. Eternal life, of course, begins the moment we believe in Jesus for it, but the longer we live in Him, the great the experience of eternal life gets.

And the Kingdom of God (or the Kingdom of Heaven) is not a synonym for heaven, but simply refers to the rule and reign of God in our lives.

If you want to evangelize, and you want follow the way of Jesus and the apostles, you don’t need to threaten or bribe. Simply lay out the grand vision of what life is like when we live it God’s way. Life under the rule and reign of God is a life of joy, freedom, contentment, fulfillment, and satisfaction. It is a life of laughter and delight. It is a life free from bondage and slavery and addiction. It is life as it was truly meant to be lived.

This is the life Jesus lived, and this is the life Jesus invited people into. If we want to evangelize others like Jesus, we don’t need to threaten them with hell or bribe them with heaven, but can simply invite them into a way of life is that is better than anything else the world has to offer.

This post is part of the May Synchroblog on the topic of hell. Below is a list of the other bloggers who participated this month. Go read what they have to say on the topic of hell.

Wesley Rostoll – Hell, thoughts on annihilationism
K. W. Leslie – Dark Christians
Angie Benjamin – Hell Is For Real
Paul Meier – Hell Is For Real – I’ve Been There and Came Back
Glenn Hager – Abusing Hell
The Virtual Abbess – What The Hell?
Kimbery Klein – Hell, if I know.
Michael Donahoe – Hell Yes…or No?
Liz Dyer – Hell? No!
Margaret Boelman – Hell No I Won’t Go
Loveday Anyim – Why the hell do you believe in hell?
Linda – The Y In The Road
Edwin Aldrich – What the Hell do we really know.
Mallory Pickering – The Time I Blogged About Hell
Elaine – What The Hell?

What is “Soul Sleep”?

By Jeremy Myers

68 Comments

Several readers have recently submitted questions about “soul sleep.” I have probably received 5 or 6 such questions in the span of two weeks. I am not sure why, since I have never received this question before on this blog. I wonder if maybe there was a prominent radio or television pastor who spoke about it recently, and so that is why I all of a sudden got so many questions about soul sleep, or maybe it was just pure coincidence.

Anyway, here is one example of the questions which have been submitted regarding what the Bible says about soul sleep:

Preachers teach when we die, we go to heaven. I was told my mother was in heaven. Yet the bible says she is asleep and waiting for Christ to return (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).

Here is my response:

The Basic Teaching about Soul Sleep

The basic idea behind soul sleep is that when a person dies, they do not immediately go to heaven to be with God, but enter into a state of unconscious limbo. They are no longer alive, but they are not in heaven either. They are not conscious of being dead, but they have not ceased to exist. Instead, they are “asleep.”

In other words, it is believed that after death but before the resurrection, all people who have died are in a state of waiting for the final resurrection and the judgments that follow. They are not conscious of waiting, but are “sleeping.” When they are resurrected, it will seem as if they had just died mere moments ago, when it reality, it may have been thousands of years since their death.

One of the primary Scripture passages used to defend the idea of soul sleep is 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, where Paul uses the term “asleep” to describe those who have died. Another text used to defend soul sleep is Ecclesiastes 9:5, which says that the dead do not know anything.

Is Soul Sleep Biblical?

I do not believe the Bible teaches soul sleep.

First, Ecclesiastes 9:5 should not be taken as a reference to whether or not the dead are “conscious.” Ecclesiastes is written for those who are “under the sun,” that is, for those who are alive (Eccl 1:1-3). As such, Ecclesiastes 9:5 is telling those who are alive that it is vanity and folly to seek help from the dead, for we will get no answers or help from them.

Secondly, though Paul does use the word “asleep” in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, this is not a reference to “soul sleep” but simply pictures how a dead person appears to one who is living. To someone who is alive, a dead person looks like they are “asleep.” This imagery is used elsewhere in Paul’s writings to describe death (cf. 1 Cor 11:30). So again, the term says nothing whatsoever about the consciousness (or lack of consciousness) of the dead.

Thirdly, we see various places in the Bible where people talk about what happens after death, and there does not seem to be any “unconscious waiting period” of soul sleep at all. When the thief on the cross asks Jesus to remember Him when He enters into glory, Jesus says, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Can it really be imagined that Jesus actually meant, “Today you will die, and then enter into a state of soul sleep, so that thousands of years from now when you are resurrected from the dead, you will be with me in paradise”? I don’t think so.

Then there is the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew 17:1-8 where Moses and Elijah appear and talk with Jesus. If they are talking to Jesus, they certainly are not in some sort of unconscious soul sleep.

And of course, we mustn’t forget 2 Corinthians 5:8 where Paul says that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. This once again seems to teach that as soon as our spirit departs from our body, it is immediately present with God.

There are a few other texts as well (feel free to include them in the comments below), but I think you get the point: Soul sleep is not taught in the Bible.

Here is (in my understanding) what happens after death

After a person dies, I believe their soul/spirit goes to the place where they will spend eternity. People who have believed in Jesus go to heaven. They are conscious and awake, but they do not have physical bodies.

At some point in the future there will be a physical resurrection of all people, at which point, everybody will receive incorruptible bodies. After this there will be a final judgment, and then an eternal existence with our new bodies.

I know, I know … I left out a lot of details. I left the question of hell unanswered. I left out almost everything the End Times and the various judgments that are talked about in the Bible. I left all that out because for the purpose of discussing soul sleep, none of that matters.

Bottom line: I do not believe in soul sleep. I believe that after a believer dies, they are immediately with God in heaven, and are conscious of it, and are conscious of other people there as well. They do not yet have bodies, but will receive them at the future resurrection.

Will Jesus’ second coming be in the clouds? I’m not so sure…

By Jeremy Myers

39 Comments

I have been getting dozens upon dozens of questions from that “Ask a Scripture or Theology” section on the right sidebar of this blog. I am realizing that I might have to turn it off for a while just so I can get caught up… Ha! Many of the questions are similar though, so my wife says that maybe I should create a “FAQ” section to the blog, and that way, after I have answered a question, I can point people to the post where I have already answered it… I think I will follow her wise advice. Just another reason I love her!

Anyway, below is another question that came in recently. This one is about Jesus’ second coming.

First, thank you for replying to my posts. Once in a while I see something online that I feel strongly moved to comment upon. The subject of saying “God bless you” is not what inspired me to make the comments, it just seemed like a good place to start.

Before I go any further, I need to tell you that it occurred to me after posting that you may have taken some of what I wrote as a personal criticism. That is by no means what I intended, not even in the least, and if my writing did give you that impression, I apologize.

The reasons I bothered posting are first, because I just “happened” upon your website this morning for the first time, when researching something I’m working on. One of the two biggest questions I’ve had in my own mind for some time now, with respect to traditional Christian theology, was regarding the meaning of 2 Timothy 3:16.

I knew I needed to find the meaning of the original words because I was fairly confident that there was a problem with the meaning of the word translated into English as “Scripture.” Your initial post answered my question thoroughly. Thank you for that. Responses from your readers were of additional help. As always, I got exactly what I needed, when I needed it. It still awes me that it continues to happen, and I hope I never become nonchalant about that. I’d like to add my own comments on that passage in 2 Timothy, and perhaps I will in the near future, but that is not the biggest priority in my work right now.

The second reason I posted was because of your apparent humility and lack of ego. I haven’t yet had the time to explore your website more thoroughly, but my first impression is that you try to present yourself as a fellow seeker who, in spite of formal theological training, understands that teaching and learning are inseparable, and neither of them is a one-way street. That is a refreshing change from the attitudes of so many evangelists both online and in the pulpit.

As I referenced your website while writing this, I came upon your statement that “my theology has changed a lot since I preached these sermons (which is one reason I am not a pastor today.)” That convinced me that I should ask you my next question.

There is another passage in the New Testament which I strongly feel has been misunderstood. I don’t have chapter and verse numbers memorized, so again I had to research before writing this.

Another awesome “coincidence” just happened again. I took a Bible down from the shelf and opened it. The first page I opened it to contained the passage I was looking for! That is Luke 17: 23-24. I’m sure you know the passage better than I do. It says, roughly translated, “People will say to you, look, there (he is)! Or, look, here (he is)! Do not go off in pursuit. For as the lightning flashing under heaven (across the sky), so will be the Son of Man.” The sense I get here is that Jesus will not appear in the flesh as the same Jesus of Nazareth who was speaking, but that it would be his spirit, the same spirit with which mankind is (or will be?) anointed, that will begin to manifest across the entire corpus of humanity, like flashes of lightning seen everywhere illuminating the darkness of the clouds. A beautiful metaphor for what I like to think of as the Beautiful Apocalypse. The earlier verse of Luke 17:21 seems to support that: “Neither will people say, ‘look, here!’ or, ‘look,there!’ for the kingdom of God is inside you.”

Also, in Mark 14:62, Jesus says, “You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.” This is a much more difficult verse to interpret for those of us who know neither Aramaic nor Greek, but the same interpretation seems to fit.

I don’t know if you’ve already addressed this in your blog, but I wonder if you might find time to share your thoughts on this?

Thank you for your many kind words, although I think you may have overestimated both my humility and my biblical knowledge…

Just this morning my ego lashed out at some poor soul on Twitter who accused me of blogging just so I could sell books. I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me, but we got in a bit of a tiff over it. Such a silly thing to argue about, but my ego got the best of me on that one. (For the record, yes, I like to sell books, but I also give away all my new eBooks for free to newsletter subscribers… If I was really just trying to sell books, would I be doing that? No.)

And regarding biblical knowledge, while I do have formal training, I think people sometimes place too much value on seminary education. I know for a fact that many seminary-educated people think their degree makes them better somehow than others. But I believe that having letters after your name doesn’t mean you know more about the Bible than anybody else. It may in fact mean you know less…

Jesus’ Second Coming

Anyway, that is not what you were asking about. You were asking about passages that speak of Jesus’ second coming, or the return of Jesus. You specifically mention Luke 17:20-24 and Mark 14:62.

I am by no means an expert on these texts. I have been studying and reading a lot about them in the last several years, but have no firm conclusions. So let me simply state some tentative ideas about these texts, and then trust God to lead you into more understanding about them.

The Traditional (??) Way of Understanding Jesus’ Second Coming

I followed the word “traditional” above with question marks because although this view is traditional for me (it is what I have been taught for most of my life), I am not sure that this is the traditional view throughout all church history. I suspect that it is not.

The traditional (??) understanding of passages like Luke 17:20-24 and Mark 14:62 is that they refer to Jesus’ second coming. And yes, if that is what these texts refer to, Jesus’ second coming will be visible worldwide and there will be no doubt in anyone’s mind of what is happening. This is why Jesus says that if you hear reports about His return, you don’t need to go see if it is true. When He returns, you will know.

If this is the way Jesus’ second coming occurs, I do think it will be with a physical body. Though the passages mention clouds and lightning, these are simply things that would accompany His return, and do not themselves describe the form Jesus will take when He returns.

So if Jesus comes on the clouds with lightning, but He is in physical form, how will everyone see His return? This I do not know. I can speculate that maybe the lightning will flash all around the earth and Jesus would take a quick trip around the earth as well so that all can see Him, but I simply do not know.

It would put us on dangerous theological ground to say that Jesus’ second coming will not be with a physical body. Just as Jesus came physically the first time, died a physical death, and was raised with a physical body, so also, Jesus’ second coming and His rule and reign on earth will be with a physical body. This is partly so that Jesus can continue to identify with us in our humanity, but also so that we are not deceived into thinking Jesus has already returned spiritually when in fact He has not (this was part of the error Paul tried to correct in the Thessalonian church).

The rest of this post is going to question whether or not passages like Luke 17:20-24 and Mark 14:62 actually refer to Jesus’ second coming. But note that by challenging the interpretation of these texts, I am not challenging the truth of Jesus’ second coming itself. I firmly believe that Jesus will return at some point in the future, and that He will return physically, and that He will rule and reign upon the earth from Jerusalem. I believe in Jesus’ second coming, but I am not so sure that this is what Luke 17:20-24 and Mark 14:62 are referring to…

An Alternate Understanding of Luke 17:20-24 and Mark 14:62

So, there are alternate ways of understanding those texts you mentioned. One of the leading proponents of this alternate way of reading these passages is one of my favorite Bible scholars: N. T. Wright. (He truly is someone who has letters after his name and who knows more about the Bible than most others.)

He argues, rather persuasively, that these sorts of passages about Jesus coming in the clouds should be read in light of Daniel 7:9-14 where the “son of man” is described as going from earth to heaven for vindication before God. Wright argues that passages like Mark 14:62 do not predict a future second coming of Jesus from heaven to earth, but rather, predict the coming of Jesus from earth to heaven. This event was fulfilled through the resurrection of Jesus, and especially during the ascension of Jesus when He did in fact go from earth to heaven on the clouds (cf. Acts 1:1-11) and then was seen at the right hand of God the Father (cf. Acts 7:55-56).

This is a relatively new idea for many, so I recommend N. T. Wright’s book, How God Became King.

As for myself, I am not fully convinced of Wright’s understanding of these texts, but I also see major problems with the traditional (??) view as well.

The Coming of Jesus and the Second Coming

My current view is that both views are right. Kind of. Yes, Mark 14:62 and Luke 27:23-24 refer primarily to the ascension of Jesus, not His second coming. However, numerous other texts are pretty clear that Jesus will return physically a second time. Furthermore, Acts 1:11 seems to indicate that Jesus will return to earth in a similar fashion as He left, that is, with the clouds.

I do not know exactly what it means for Jesus to return on the clouds, how this will look, or how it will work. For me, it is enough to know that Jesus will return and finally set up His Kingdom, of which there will be no end. Until that time, we are called to live as if the Kingdom was already here. Doing so points people to Jesus, helps people see what God really intended for the world, and invites everyone to look for that blessed and glorious appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And that, actually, seems be how Jesus explains His own words. In Luke 17:21, which you referred to, Jesus says that one reason people should not look for observable signs of His second coming (cf. 17:20) is because the Kingdom of God is within you. This concept of the Kingdom of God being within us (or being at hand), is common throughout the teachings of Jesus. In my opinion, Jesus means that before the Kingdom of God arrives physically (as Jesus’ second coming), the Kingdom of God arrives spiritually in our lives.

As we live our day-to-day lives according to the principles and values of the Kingdom of God, God’s rule and reign expands in our own lives… in our thoughts, our actions, or words, and our deeds… The Kingdom of God does not reveal itself with flashes of lightning in the sky, with signs in the stars, and great miracles which cause men to take notice.

No, the Kingdom of God primary comes through giving cups of cold water, through speaking the truth in love, through loving, feeding, and clothing those who have less than we do, through hugs to the lonely, meals to the hurting, through being present with the broken.

What does this mean? It means that as followers of Jesus, we have no business sitting around twiddling our thumbs and waiting for Jesus to return. Jesus is returning right now, in us, through what we say and what we do. So let us stop waiting for flashes of lightning in the sky and Jesus coming on the clouds, and start looking for ways to show sparks of love to those around us, and let Jesus return today in how we live.

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