My dad died earlier this year. I wasn't there the day he died, but I was able to see him just a couple days earlier and sit with him in his hospital room overlooking the water while the sun came up. I'm very grateful I was able to say goodbye: not everyone gets to do that.
Dad was characterized by 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18. He talked about the Lord's coming every time he got a chance. My mother tells me that when my grandfather died, Dad took us kids through that passage and explained that our granddad wasn't gone for good: the Lord was going to bring him back with Him. I don't remember that, but I'm glad he did it.
I am certain the Lord's return will come in two distinct phases: He will come for us (1 Corinthians 15:51ff, 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18) before He comes with us (Jude 1:14–15, Revelation 19:11ff). Not everyone agrees on that, but it seems evident to me that the Lord's coming is taught in Scripture in a way that the only way to reconcile all the pieces is to have a two-part event.
Notice that's not very different from His coming the first time. It's clear from Acts 1:6ff that the disciples assumed the Lord would fulfill all prophecy in His first advent. They were looking for a physical, earthly kingdom centered in Jerusalem – and as John MacArthur points out, this was after He had spent six weeks teaching them about the Kingdom (Acts 1:3) – and apparently thought they were on the verge of that.
I have to believe that their question about the Kingdom wasn't rooted in ignorance about the true nature of the Kingdom: I have to believe the Lord's teaching them for 40 days would have addressed that. So they were correct in their expectations, but not about the timing.
My point is that the disciples were clearly not expecting the Lord's departure and promise of a second coming (Acts 1:9ff). They saw only one Advent in the prophets. When we look back on the Old Testament after the Ascension, it's almost obvious that the prophets were predicting things that couldn't happen all in one go. They predicted Christ as both the conquering Savior and the suffering Redeemer. Those things weren't to happen at the same time.
We admit that the Lord has fulfilled those prophecies in a spiritual sense, but it's pretty weak soup to try and read Psalm 2 as a spiritual conquest. It is a physical conquest.
We're not in Psalm 2:6ff, we're in Psalm 110:1.
In other words, we expect Psalm 110:2ff and Psalm 2:1ff will happen literally, bodily, and visibly.
Maybe I'm belaboring the point here. Just like the disciples didn't expect the Lord to leave and come back to fulfill all those other prophecies, a lot of Christians think He is coming back for us and with us in a single event. But I think Darby, Kelly, et al. were correct in understanding that there are actually two events.
It's early April, we had a snow storm last a little over a week ago, but we're now seeing early signs of spring. The grass is starting to look more green than brown, the standing water around our garden is starting to dry up, and the buds on the willow trees are starting to look fat. Spring turkey season opens next week, and the firewood is almost used up: time to get moving on next year's supply! There are fences to mend and trees to tend and all sorts of other tasks and chores to get a start on.
And I have one more apple tree to plant before spring gets truly underway.
In other words, the seasons are still coming in their appointed order (Genesis 8:21–22). God's wisdom and divinity are still on display (Romans 1:18), and there's still a whole lot of work and blessing for me here. But at the same time, I am called to live in the expectation that it will all end abruptly when He comes back for us.
That shouldn't surprise us: God doesn't stay where He belongs. He doesn't mind His own business. He keeps inserting Himself where He isn't wanted. How thankful that should make us!
I spent many years thinking that an expectation of the Lord's coming should diminish the world around us in our eyes. When I realized how wrong that was, I spent a few more years enjoying the Lord's blessings in this world, learning to appreciate the God who richly provides all things for our enjoyment (1 Timothy 6:17) . There is a ditch on both sides of the road: we can't lose sight of the Lord's coming to change everything in a moment, and we can't lose sight of the witness in this creation to the Lord's wisdom and divinity.
So to come back to my initial point: my dad taught us that our granddad wasn't gone forever, the Lord was going to bring him back. And now I can say that same thing about him too: he's not gone forever, the Lord is going to bring him back when He comes for us.
