ESC-03 The Coming of the King

When couples are about to have their first child, they often go through a predictable process. They get extremely excited. They worry about getting everything ready for the baby. They ask friends with children numerous questions. They may even read books and articles. They want to learn everything they can about pregnancy, the birth process, and taking care of a new baby. And those of us who already have children understand why. Having your first child changes your life in ways that can be dramatic, exciting, and maybe a little scary. And something similar should be true when we look forward to the return of our Lord Jesus. His return is going to change everything. So, it makes sense that we would want to understand what’s about to happen, and to live in ways that prepare us for his earthly kingdom. This is why we study eschatology.

This is the third lesson in our series Your Kingdom Come: The Doctrine of Eschatology, and we’ve entitled it “The Coming of the King.” In this lesson, we’ll explore what the Bible says about Christ’s return or “second coming,” and its relationship to events that lead to the end of the age.

In prior lessons, we’ve defined eschatology as “the study of last things” or “the doctrine of last things.” And we’ve said that individual eschatology is “the study of how individual human beings experience the events of the last days.” In this lesson, however, our topics fall into a different subcategory known as “general eschatology.” General eschatology is:

The study of God’s universal acts of judgment and salvation in the last days.

It addresses some of the same issues as individual eschatology. But it emphasizes the events rather than how individuals experience the events.

Our discussion of “The Coming of the King” will divide into three parts. First, we’ll examine what Scripture says about the return of Christ. Second, we’ll consider the signs of the times that point to his return. And third, we’ll survey the major evangelical views of the millennium. Let’s begin with the return of Christ.

Near the end of his earthly ministry, before he ascended into heaven, Jesus assured his followers that he would eventually return. We see this, for instance, in his Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, 25, and in his Farewell Discourse in John 14–17. Then, at the moment he ascended into heaven, Jesus sent two angels to remind the apostles that he would come back. As Luke wrote in Acts 1:10-11: