Objection:
The whole idea that Christ will appear in flaming glory in the heavens, suddenly to change the present order of nature, destroying the wicked, and taking the righteous to heaven, belongs to the age of superstition. We in this modern era know that all this is incredible and contrary to the laws of nature.
Answer:
It is perhaps profitless to attempt to answer this because those who make such declarations are so confident they know just what is credible and how the laws of nature must continuously operate that it is hard for them to consider any line of reasoning that might challenge their viewpoint. But for the benefit of those willing to believe the Advent doctrine but awed or confused by declarations like the above, we offer some observations in reply.
First, we would ask: What solution to the long tragedy of a disordered and dying world does the objector offer? Until recent years, he would probably respond with easy assurance that the world is gradually getting better. There is a great law of progress throughout the universe, and thus ultimately, all will be well. If he were a religious man, he would add that this improvement was taking place due to the slow but steady work of the Spirit of God on the hearts of men.
But this theory that the world is gradually getting better has suffered a mortal blow. The wars, racial tensions, riots, and murders at every level have entirely shattered it. Even a great host of ministers who formerly declared most confidently that we were headed for the millennium of peace have quite wholly lost their confidence. Ask them what solution they now have for the world’s tragedy, what way through to a new earth wherein dwells righteousness, and they almost invariably begin to speak in vague and shadowy language of a divine solution of the tragedy of our world beyond history. But they do not explain what they mean by that phrase; it is relatively new and strange to them.
If you ask non-religious men their present solution to the world problem, they will probably look at you in astonishment. Their expression reveals that they are amazed you should expect them to have an answer. They forget how recently they were sure they had the answer because they knew just how the laws of nature must operate!
To the objector, we would say: You admit, as we all must do, that you don’t know how nature’s laws operate concerning the betterment of the world. Then how can you any longer assert confidently that the coming of Christ is contrary to nature’s laws? Why confess ignorance on the former and claim sure knowledge on the latter?
But perhaps you fall back on the general statement that the whole idea of the supernatural appearing of Christ to bring an end to the present world is unreasonable, incredible. Then let us ask you another question: If you believe in a God—as most men do, does it seem reasonable to you that God would permit this tragic world of ours, where the innocent so often suffer at the hands of the guilty, and where tragedy and death stalk the steps of all men, to continue in this state forever? We think you will naturally answer no.
That no gives us a point in common. If we both believe in God, and thus both agree that it is reasonable to assume that He will bring this present tragic world to an end, we come right around again to the question: How do you believe He will do this? You have admitted that you do not know, that your former idea that the world was steadily moving upward by some vast law of progress must now be abandoned, or at best, viewed with deep suspicion. In other words, for all you know or can say of the mysteries of nature’s laws or the ways of God to man, this world of ours might roll on in blood and tears forever. You have nothing to protect you from despair save your belief that surely a good God will not permit an evil world to go on forever.
But if you rest your hope, even if vaguely and uncertainly, on God, are you not thereby injecting the supernatural into the affairs of this world which, according to your objection, is entirely in the control of natural laws? Most obviously so. And if the supernatural is admitted, are you going to presume to say just how God may be permitted to bring on the closing act in the drama of the world’s tragedy? Is the divine Lawgiver slave to the laws He has made?
Again, if we all think it reasonable for God to bring an end to injustice and cruelty, is it not also most reasonable that He, as the divine judge, should call all men to His judgment bar and openly mete out penalties and rewards? Should not those who stand before the eternal bar be permitted, in fairness, to meet their judge face to face?
But all this simply leads us to the doctrine of the personal second coming of Christ.
Again: Does not a belief in God, who will bring righteous judgment at last to all men, carry with it the idea that this God, in fairness to all, would provide men with some revelation of His will that they might know how to order their steps aright against the great day of judgment? The answer surely must be yes.
But to answer yes is really to admit that the Bible is the Book of God, for that is the book that believers in the true God have ever understood to be the revelation of His will. And when we open its pages, we find clearly taught the great doctrine of an end to this wicked world and the creation of a better one. There we find explicit declarations that at the climax of earth’s history, when God will mete out judgment, Christ will come in flaming glory, bringing joy and translation to the righteous, and terror and death to the wicked. (See, for example, 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10; Revelation 1:7) In that awful and pivotal moment, it will not occur to any of the children of men to protest the event because it is contrary to the laws of nature, for they will be standing before the God of nature!
