Objection:
Jesus Christ said that He would come as a thief in the night. The apostle Paul made a similar statement. Therefore, you are unwarranted in claiming that you can know something definite about the time of Christ’s coming.
Answer:
We agree that we can’t know precisely when Christ will come. We have accepted the words of Christ concerning the time of His coming literally: “Of that day and hour knoweth no man.” “Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.” Matthew 24:36, 42. Christ immediately follows with an allusion to a thief’s unexpected coming.
But we do not confine our belief regarding the Second Advent to these two statements by Christ. We believe all that He said. We accept all the Bible. Christ did not confine His comments about His coming to the two texts quoted. Those texts are part of a lengthy discourse on the subject. That discourse was prompted by the question asked by His disciples, who knew He would soon leave them and who naturally wondered when He would return: “What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world ?” Matthew 24:3. The first and perhaps most significant fact to be noted in Christ’s reply is this: He did not even suggest that their question was wrong.
Christ most evidently thought the question so pertinent that He proceeded at length to answer it. He described various signs that were to occur both in the heavens and in the earth and then added: “Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.” Verses 32-33.
The tender leaves on the trees in early spring provide us unmistakable proof that summer is near but do not enable us to say precisely when summer will arrive. By this simple illustration, Christ harmonized His two statements, the one which declares that we may know when the Second Advent is near, with the statement that “of that day and hour knoweth no man.”
Paul indeed says Christ’s coming will be wholly unexpected—even like a thief’s coming to a class who will be mistakenly forecasting “peace and safety” (See 1 Thessalonians 5:3). Thus lulled to sleep with a false sense of security, they will be overtaken by “sudden destruction,” Paul adds. But what of those to whom Paul is writing, who know “the times and the seasons”? Listen to his words: “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.” Verses 4-6.
And how may we know “the times and the seasons”? By studying the prophecies of the Bible. When the prophet Daniel stood before the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, who had been troubled over the question of “what should come to pass hereafter,” he said to the monarch, “There is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days.” Daniel 2:29, 28. The whole book of Daniel is filled with prophecies regarding Christ’s coming in glory.
When Christ answered the disciples’ question regarding the time of the end of the world, He referred to a prediction made “by Daniel the prophet,” and added, “whoso readeth, let him understand.” Matthew 24:15.
The opening chapter of the Revelation contains this blessing: ‘Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.” Revelation 1:3.
To say that nothing can be known about the time of Christ’s coming is to fly in the face of these and similar texts and to affirm that the God of the prophets has concealed from them any information concerning this most pivotal event of earth’s history.
