Then Comes the End
The arrival of Jesus in glory will be an event of great victory and finality that ushers in the age to come and final salvation.
In the New
Testament, the return of Jesus at the “end of the age” is an event of great
finality. His “arrival” in glory will be accompanied by celestial and
terrestrial upheaval, the New Creation, the resurrection of the righteous, the
judgment of the ungodly, the “gathering of his elect,” and the cessation
of death. Nothing will ever be the same again!
When responding to believers who were denied the future bodily
resurrection, Paul named several events that will precede the “arrival”
of Jesus or coincide with it, including the consummation of the kingdom of God,
the subjugation of all His enemies, the resurrection, and the termination of
death:
- (1 Corinthians 15:24-28) – “Then comes the end, when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father when he shall have abolished all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign till he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be abolished is death.”
THE PAROUSIA
Disciples of Jesus will be resurrected just as he was but
at his Parousia or “arrival,” a day that will
not come until after he has put “all things under his feet,” just as the
Psalmist wrote. His sudden appearance on the “day of the Lord” will
mark the consummation of the kingdom of God, and afterward, there will be no
more enemies to subdue - (Psalm 2:6-9).
Paul described that day as “the end.”
Moreover, the “last enemy” eliminated by that time will be death itself,
and death will no longer hold sway over humanity. As the
Apostle declared:
- “We will not all sleep, but we will be changed, in a moment...the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed...But when this mortal frame puts on immortality, then will come to pass the saying, Death is swallowed up in victory” - (1 Corinthians 15:51-56).
Likewise, in his first letter to the Thessalonians, he taught
that the resurrection occurs at the Parousia of Jesus - his “arrival
from heaven.” The dead in Christ will rise first, then “we that are
alive and remain until the Parousia the Lord” together
with them will “meet him” as he descends from heaven.
And in his second letter, Paul linked this event with
the “Day of the Lord,” a day that will include the “gathering
together" of the saints by Jesus. And Christ himself predicted on the
Mount of Olives that he would dispatch his angels to gather his “elect” when
the “Son of Man arrives on the clouds”- (Matthew 24:31, 1 Thessalonians
4:13-18, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-9).
THE LAST DAY
Years later, the Apostle Peter warned of coming “scoffers”
who will mock and ask, “Where is the promise of his Parousia?”
He also linked it to the “Day of the Lord”:
- “God is not slack concerning his promise...for the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are in it will be burned up...But according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth in which dwells righteousness” - (2 Peter 3:3-12).
Thus, according to Peter, the arrival of Jesus will mean nothing
less than the replacement of the old creation by the promised “new
heavens and new earth.”
And in his letter to the churches in Rome, Paul also
coordinated the resurrection with the arrival of the New Creation - At present,
the entire universe is groaning and travailing while it:
- “Waits for the revelation of the sons of God...for the creation itself will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God...even the redemption of our body” - (Romans 8:19-23).
Thus, the New Testament presents the day of his “arrival”
as an event of great finality. It will mean nothing less than the resurrection
of the righteous, the gathering of the elect to Jesus, the consummation of the
kingdom, the judgment of the wicked, the cessation of death, the arrival of the
New Creation, and the end of the present age.
