Pastor Note #127: A Devotional on the Lord’s Return

Introduction:
Surely, there are few biblical topics that have generated as many books, articles, Bible studies, and sermons as the topic of the return of Christ.  They are often filled with charts and tables and complex speculations that make quantum physic seem simple.  A. W. Tozer writes this, “There have been enough foolish formulas advanced about the return of Christ by those who were simply curious to cause many believers to give the matter no further thought or concern”[1].

Silent Reflection:
Maybe the key passage for our reflection on the return of the Lord Jesus is found in Revelation 21:1-3.  “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.  He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.’” [ESV]

Read those verses a few times, then reflect on what it might mean for you to be dwelling with God.

Prayer of Confession:
Lord, I am not the new creature you intend me to be.  In your mercy, show me the places in my life where sin and evil still live.  And by your Spirit, enable me to uproot it so that more and more I might reflect the goodness of your coming new creation.  Amen.

Devotional:
Imagine this.  You find yourself stranded in a dangerous and unnerving neighborhood at midnight.  You call a friend.  You wait anxiously.  Finally, your friend pulls up in her car. She pushes open the passenger door and yells, “Come on! Get in and let’s get out of here!”  You drive off together to someplace that feels safe and comfortable, leaving that dangerous neighborhood to stew in its wrack and ruin.

That’s often how the return of Christ is portrayed in popular Christian thought.  But is that how the Bible presents it?   What we see in the passage quoted above is a very different picture of Christ’s return.

What we see in Revelation 21 is that Jesus is not returning for a brief curbside pick-up in order to take us away.  Rather, Jesus is returning to settle in and take up residence with us on the new redeemed earth where he will reign and rule as king forever.

But we should take comfort and live in confident expectation, because the earth where Jesus will take up residence with us will not be this same old thorn-infested earth we live in now.  “Behold,” Jesus assures us, “I am making all things new.” (Revelation 21:5; see also v. 4)

The Apostles’ Creed speaks of that “making all things new,” though we often miss its meaning.  It says, “He will come to judge the living and the dead.”  We are prone to think of God’s judgment and God’s work of redemption as separate and opposite things.  But the Bible presents things differently.  There we see judgment not as something separate and opposite to redemption, but rather as a necessary part of the work of making “all things new.”  If God is going to make a new creation, one that is again “very good” (Genesis 1:31), then the “thorns and thistles” (Genesis 3:18), the evil, that we human beings have brought into the world has to be removed.  That’s what judgment is about.

But let’s be careful.  The sin and evil that needs to be judged isn’t just “out there” in the world.  It’s also inside of each of us.  There is no room for arrogance on our part.  Our sin and evil needs to be judged and removed, too.  It has been judged when Jesus took it to the cross for us.  And it is being removed from us now by the working of the Holy Spirit within us, making us new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus is even now at work in us and in the world, preparing the way for the new creation.  Jesus challenges us on this point.  When the Master returns, what will he find?  Will he find us hiding in a corner or seeking our own comfort and pleasure?  Or will he find us alert and prepared (see the parables in Matthew 25)?  Will he find us as lights shining in the darkness (Matthew 5:14-16)? 

Questions:
Jesus, the “Master of the house” might return at any moment.  How do you feel about that fact?

Afraid?  Eager?  Confused?  Reflect on what life in a world that is again “very good” might be like.

Identify some concrete way in which you might be more at work preparing the way for the new creation that Jesus will bring about at his return.  What are some specific ways you might begin to do that work today?

Genesis 3:18 describes how the very good world that God had made became full of “thorns and thistles” after sin came into the world.  Those thorns represent ways in which the world is not now the way it’s supposed to be.  What might you do that will pull up some of the thorns in this broken world, and in that way prepare the way for God’s new creation and show others what it might look like when Jesus returns to make everything new?

Closing Prayer:
Lord Jesus, I long for that day when you will make all things new.  Show me how by your Spirit at work through me I can even now begin to make some things new.  Amen.

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[1] A. W. Tozer, The Apostles’ Creed (Chicago: Moody Press) 2023, p. 90.

Photos by GAC