PWMI

Study 2 - The Second Advent Explained

We have seen that prophecy occupies a large place in the Scripture. To neglect its study, avers Dr. Rene Pache, is to deprive ourselves of "an essential vitamin" in our spiritual nourishment.

Of all the subjects taught in the Bible, this is the greatest, and when the secular world speculates about tomorrow's world, we should be proclaiming the crowning article of our Christian creed, the Return of Jesus Christ, first to receive to Himself His Church, and then to appear on earth to reign for a millennium of years.

These are two separate events and must never be confused. In our next study we will differentiate between the Rapture and the Revelation.

Study 3 - The Rapture:
The Next Event In The Prophetic Programme

The next great event set before the Christian is the translation or Rapture of the Church. This event is the crowning and closing episode of this Christian dispensation, and entails what the Lord's return will mean for the Christian, dead or alive. It will be the next issue in the prophetic programme, but it will also be the first movement in the great drama of the end. As Dr. Skevington Wood puts it, "Christ's coming for His own touches off the chain reaction of startling consequences connected with the final age. An entire sequence of events awaits the signal of the Lord's return to transfer the saints to be with Him forever". In this age of grace, which began at Pentecost, and will terminate at the Rapture, God has been calling out a people from among the nations. That company, termed in the Scriptures as the Church, the Body of Christ, (1 Cor. 12:13-17; Eph. 1:22, 23; 5-23, 30, 32; Col. 1:18), will be the caught up company when Jesus descends from heaven and shouts the quickening word. It is very evident that the Church has not only a heavenly origin, but a heavenly destiny, and, wrote Robert Middleton in (THE COMING GREAT WORLD CHANGES), "The only way in which the Church is connected with prophecy is in connection with her translation to glory." The Rapture is decidedly the Christian hope.

Study 4 - Resurrection

 Thinking about the subject of resurrection we call into view belief in immortality. Our use of the word "immortality" suggests a belief in the survival of the soul after physical death. Indeed the Scriptural concept of immortality exceeds the mere existence of the soul, it involves the self-conscious existence of the whole person, in a state of felicity, resulting from the redemptive work of Christ.

Survival beyond the grave has been a matter which has been almost universally accepted, to a greater or lesser degree. As Dr. Herbert Lockyer puts it: "The hope of immortality, resident within the breast of both savages and saints, was planted there by Him who has no beginning or end."

Death is not a full-stop to life, for, if there is nothing beyond this life, there is nothing in life. In this area alone, philosophers and rationalists have drawn a blank, while Christian eschatology affirms that the true evaluation of this world must be seen against the background of its impermanence.

The Bible assumes man's immortality as an undisputed postulate, as it does the existence of God. The Old Testament teaches immortality, but not with the lucidity of the New Testament. Indeed the latter is an inspired commentary of the former.

The one concise message of the New Testament is that Jesus Christ has fulfilled the hope and expectation of the Old Testament.

Study 5 - The Review Of The Believer

The Lord in the closing chapter of the Bible stressed that the Rapture of the Church, the subject matter of Study 3, will be implicational, (Rev. 22:12).

It is clearly implied in the New Testament that following the Church's removal from the earth there will follow the examination of the believer.

Now it is admitted that this is a serious aspect of the great hope, yet, observed Dr. Denny, "The Christian hope is not clouded by the judgment seat of Christ; it is sustained at the holy height which befits it."

It will be recognised that no aspect of the doctrine of the Advent is of greater importance to the believer than this one. The Christian must be prepared to face up to the Scriptural challenge of this truth, since it is one that should actuate his life for the better.