The Day, the Hour, and the Mystery of the End
Questions Concerning the Time of Christ’s Second Coming
ABSTRACT: One of the greatest misconceptions ever blamed on The Bible is that Jesus supposedly told us that nobody knows the day or the hour of His Second Coming, not even Him. In reality, however, the scriptural context of this statement, along with the prophetic timelines outlined in The Book of Daniel and The Book of Revelation, reveals a far different truth. To begin with, for many who perceive The Bible in its entirety, they can’t help but wonder, if God is truly a God of Set Times—as Scripture clearly portrays Him—then how could Jesus possibly claim ignorance about an event as significant as His Return. And so, by examining the foreshadowing of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks and the intricacies of biblical prophecies related to the timing of significant events, we begin to gain insight into the true meaning behind Jesus’ words and to see how history is actually repeating itself in a very profound and paradoxical way.…
EVERYWHERE we turn, there’s an obsession with time—time is up, time to go, time is money. Clocks chime, watches beep, phones chirp. Everywhere, some kind of device is reminding us of what time it is.
Even so, long before the modern world became obsessed with the concept of time, The Bible declared its importance in the plan of God: “There’s a time for everything—a time to be born and a time to die, a time for war and a time for peace.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2, 8) The prophet Isaiah referred to the “time” of God’s favor. (Isaiah 49:8) Daniel spoke of the “set times” of the Lord (Daniel 7:25), and twice he spoke of the “appointed time.” (Daniel 8:19; 11:29, 33) Jesus spoke to His disciples about the importance of His doing things at the “right time.” (John 7:6) Paul, too, spoke to the Corinthians about an “appointed time,” (First Corinthians 4:5) and to the Romans, he described how at just the “right time” Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6)
How interesting, then, that when it comes to the precise timing of God’s intrusions into the stream of human affairs, there’s still so much ignorance about these timetables of history. So much so that one of the greatest misconceptions ever blamed on The Bible is that Jesus supposedly told us that nobody knows the day or the hour of His Second Coming, not even Him.
And to think: God’s word clearly reveals His concern with doing things “on time,” even to the point that He could literally be called a God of Set Times. Yet for some odd reason, when it comes to God’s most important “appointments” on His schedule, God’s Son is clueless. How is that even possible? Could tradition really be correct in its view that however much God does things according to His set times, Jesus Himself has no idea when they’re supposed to occur?
TO DETERMINE whether such a thing could be true or not, let’s begin by examining what we know about one of the most important set times of biblical history—so far—the First Coming of Christ. Do you remember what evidence every biblical scholar looks to in determining God’s faithfulness regarding the time of Jesus’ birth?
It involves the prophecy spoken of in The Book of Daniel, called, appropriately enough, the Seventy Weeks of Daniel. But as I always like to do, before we review that stretch of prophetic history, let’s turn to what I refer to as the foreshadowing of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks. In preparing humanity toward an awareness of the timing of His promises, God made sure to lay down His unmistakable patterns from the very dawn of prophetic time.
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The Day, the Hour, and the Mystery of the End: Questions Concerning the Time of Christ’s Second Coming
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Part of God’s effort in establishing Himself as a God of Set Times, as you’ll recall from a previous chapter, occurred in the days of Noah. Mankind was given a specific timeline in which to know, before it happened, when the impending judgment of the Great Flood was to be unleashed. Through Noah, God’s word to them was that their time left on Earth would be one hundred and twenty years. (Genesis 6:3)
Then, when God told Abraham his children would be as numerous as the stars of Heaven, he was told his descendants would be slaves for four hundred years in a land that wasn’t theirs, but that afterward they’d come out richer than when they entered. (Genesis 15:8, 13-14)
And when Jeremiah was contending with the rebellious kingdom of Judah, he told them that because they refused to obey God, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, would come against them and their country would become a desolate wasteland for seventy years. (Jeremiah 25:8-9, 11)
All this, then, laid the groundwork for God’s ultimate messianic timeline for human history, which was revealed to Daniel, and which we now know as Daniel’s Seventy Weeks.
Taking his cue from the prophecy of his predecessor Jeremiah, concerning the seventy-year judgment of Judah, Daniel had been praying to God about the fact that the time was fast approaching for this period to end. It was then that God revealed to Daniel that not only would He be honoring that promise to restore the House of Judah, but also that:
Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy.
The importance of this chain link of events is the way in which it demonstrates that the God of Set Times has consistently laid down such patterns. As such, it provides humanity with a clear-cut way to recognize the arrival of the One Whom all prophecy was intended to foretell: Jesus Christ, Who in the fullness of time—I repeat, in the fullness of time—was sent by God. (Galatians 4:4)
Based on the foregoing information about the precise timing of Christ’s First Coming, what would make anyone think God wouldn’t lay down the tracks of His set times concerning His Second Coming?
The answer, of course, is three laws of disinformation; what else?
Having established this idea, then, so integral to understanding the timing of Jesus’ birth, let’s turn next to the evidence that refutes the notion that no one will know when to expect the Second Coming.
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THE REFUTATION of this classic misconception rests on two critical foundation stones. The first has to do with the actual context of this statement made by Jesus in The Gospel of Matthew, and the second, with the chronology of the Last Days as it’s revealed in The Book of Daniel and The Book of Revelation.
As for the statement in Matthew, we’ve already noted in a previous chapter the way tradition has glossed over what’s really being said there, so in looking at this passage again, we can only be doubly thunderstruck that we’re faced with a situation that perfectly mirrors that one.
First, let’s look at an extended section of that text before we proceed to break it down into its component parts.
Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its branches become tender and sprout leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that He’s near, even at the door. I tell you honestly that this generation won’t pass away until all these things have been fulfilled.
Heaven and Earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away; but of that day and hour no one knows, not the angels, or the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the Great Flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, right up until the day that Noah entered the ark. They were oblivious until the Flood came and swept them all away.
It’ll be the same way at the Coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left behind. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and the other left behind. Therefore, keep watch, because you have no idea what day the Lord will come.
Understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he’d have kept watch and never allowed his home to be broken into. That’s why you should always be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you least expect Him.
Now, before I offer my interpretation of this passage I believe it’s essential to acknowledge one thing. If you can’t accept that this message concerning the “Coming of the Son of Man” is full of ambiguities and inconsistencies, you’re kidding yourself. And by that I mean, the message that Jesus has imparted here seems to be just as much about concealing the truth as it is about revealing it.
Again, it seems entirely possible that what Jesus said is meant to act like a cosmic Rorschach test. Instead of spelling things out with precision, the message is purposely designed to expose the nature of the one who’s analyzing it. This should become all the more obvious if we’re willing to appreciate how the story of “one being taken and another being left behind,” found midway through this same discourse, was overthrown in a previous chapter by unabashedly digging into its ambiguities and inconsistencies. (To this point, see the essay entitled Raptures, Eagles, and Bodies: Questions Concerning Those Who Will Be Left Behind)
That said, I’m content to approach this problem knowing there will be some things that can be figured out with the methodology that’s gotten us this far, while other aspects of the truth, because of the nature of the message itself, will remain veiled and unclear. So, as long as everyone reading this appreciates that God designed Scripture this way, we can proceed with that understanding between us.
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The Day, the Hour, and the Mystery of the End: Questions Concerning the Time of Christ’s Second Coming
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TO DEMONSTRATE what I mean when I say this passage both conceals and reveals the message contained in it, consider the following. The longstanding premise is that Jesus is telling us that no one can know the day or the hour of His Second Coming. But if that’s true, then why does He tell us if we learn the lesson of the fig tree, we’ll know He’s at the door?
If I’m not mistaken, this contradicts the original idea that no one will know when to expect His return. Not only that, but in Jesus comparing His return to what happened in the days of Noah, we’re given another telling clue.
As we’ve already noted, God in His mercy revealed that He was giving humanity one hundred and twenty years to get their act together before He sent the Flood. And to anyone who insists that God only told Noah about this timeline of grace, as opposed to revealing it to the population at large, I’d ask: “But what would that say about the righteousness of God if He only told Noah but not the very ones who were in danger of impending judgment?”
Well, you may ask: “How can you say that Noah warned them about the one hundred and twenty years if Jesus said the people were oblivious until the Flood came and swept them away?”
I say that because describing them as being oblivious doesn’t necessarily mean they had no knowledge of God’s warning. What’s more likely is, it reports that the ones who were warned were oblivious in the sense that they remained unconvinced that anything was going to come of that warning. That’s why Jesus compared them to those living in the Last Days who are also being warned that a “great and terrible day of judgment” is looming on the horizon, and who remain just as unconvinced that anything is going to come of it.
The next thing that sticks out like a sore thumb, when you read these verses in context, is that the event Jesus is speaking about, of which it’s said that no one knows the day or the hour, is preceded by the statement: “Heaven and Earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.” Again, if I’m not mistaken, we discovered that this was another of those overlooked Scriptures that, upon further review, revealed a brand-new way of seeing it. Rather than continuing to think of Heaven as being eternal, in and of itself, we finally realized what Jesus was really saying, and so were forced to reassess our view of its true nature. (To this point, see the essay entitled Heaven, Hell, and the Human Soul: Questions Concerning the Nature of Eternal Things)
In the same way, then, when you pay attention to the context of the statement, “No one knows,” you’ll see that what’s being said here is: “Heaven and Earth will pass away; but of that day and hour no one knows.” The reason no one will know the day or hour of that event is because it occurs after the Second Coming, and after the Millennial Reign, which commences upon Christ’s return. After that, an indeterminate length of prophetic time will follow, which The King James Bible calls “a little season.” This “little season” will run its course, and then Satan will be released to lead one last rebellion, after which he’ll be thrown into the Lake of Fire. (Revelation 20:1-10) Then, following all of those events, the twenty-first chapter of The Book of Revelation opens with the words:
And I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth, because the first Heaven and first Earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
Thus, it’s because of this “little season”—the only stretch of prophetic time, actually, that’s said to be of an undisclosed length—which makes it impossible for anyone to know the day or the hour when the first Heaven and Earth are destined to pass away.
SO, NOW THAT we’ve established that the event Jesus described wasn’t the Second Coming but, rather, the passing away of Heaven and Earth, let’s augment this new view by turning to the Scriptures for evidence of a different kind.
Naturally, I realize there are still those who are unwilling to accept such a conclusion in spite of the context provided by this passage. They’d rather argue that there must be something wrong with my conclusions. They’d rather dismiss the context altogether as if it were irrelevant because The Bible says that the Coming of the Son of Man is to overtake mankind as a thief in the night. And so, if Jesus’ return is said to come as a thief, we simply won’t know in what hour He’ll be coming back.
But if you remember, I’ve already conceded that apparent contradictions abound within this passage of Scripture. I’m way ahead of the game on this issue, so don’t be alarmed when I tell you I have a perfectly good explanation for what’s going on here.
As usual, whenever we encounter such contradictions, the first thing we have to do is consider whether we’re dealing with a true contradiction or simply one of the many paradoxes found throughout The Bible. In this case, after careful consideration, I can tell you with all certainty, we’re dealing with a paradox.
Do you remember how we defined a paradox in a previous chapter? A paradox is an apparently contradictory statement that, when investigated or explained, may actually prove to be true. So, in what way can the Coming of the Son of Man be described as an event that we can “know is even at the door,” while at the same time “as a thief in the night?”
The answer: When we’re dealing with two different aspects of the very same event.“But how’s that even possible?” you may ask. “How can the Second Coming of Christ be more than one thing? It’s just one event—the Return of Christ, right?”
To which I’d reply by asking, “You mean you’ve forgotten the number one lesson the First Coming of Christ taught us? You forgot how hard it was for those early Christians to realize Christ’s coming didn’t bring everything they’d anticipated? That His birth, death, and resurrection only heralded the first phase of His establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth?”
Only after Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice for sin and ascended to the Father did it begin to dawn on them that there’d be yet another phase to His ministry. Only then did the Church begin to see the difference between that first phase and those prophecies that spoke of the Messiah as Conqueror and Judge, which would have to wait until later to be fulfilled.
Of course, this only became clear with the help of the apostles John, Peter, and Paul, who in their letters to the churches explained the connection between what Jesus accomplished in their time and what had been predicted in the Suffering Servant portions of The Book of Isaiah.
