The Hope of the Church # 4

The Hope of the Church # 4

I gather from this passage that Jesus Christ is "the same yesterday, and for ever," and that when He returns He will be the same wonderful Saviour that He was when He was here on earth. And I shall look into His eyes, and they will be human eyes. I shall listen to the words that fall from His lips, and they will be human lips. I shall pour the story of my love and adoration into His ears, and they will be human ears. I shall feel the touch of His hands upon me, and they will be human hands. For the Man, Christ Jesus, abides for evermore. The Russelites and the Ruthfordites can have a dead, ghostly kind of a Christ if they like, but as for me:

"I shall know Him, I shall know Him,
As redeemed by His side I shall stand.
I shall know Him, I shall know Him,
By the print of the nails in His hands."

Yes, He will be the same Jesus. Why, the last word that ever  came ringing down from Heaven before the volume of inspiration was closed, was this, "Surely, I come quickly." And the apostle John, speaking for the whole church, responded, "Even so come, Lord Jesus." This is our hope - the personal return of our Blessed, adorable Saviour.

"The Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout." Now, mark you, it does not say that His feet are going to touch the Mount of Olives on that occasion. That will be; but this is something a little different. Follow it carefully. We gather from this passage, and from 1 Corinthians 15 that the Lord is going to descend from Heaven, and He is coming down into the region of the atmosphere of this earth, and He will come with an awakening shout, and the voice of the archangel will be heard, and the trump of God will sound, "and the dead in Christ shall rise first." Literally it may be rendered "the dead in Christ will stand up first." The word that is used throughout the New Testament for resurrection is that of standing up. I think it is something like this. Here is a company of soldiers in the battlefield. They have been fighting hard, and they have thrown themselves down on the ground and they are asleep. Suddenly the trumpet sounds, and they spring to their feet and then perhaps another trumpet sounds, and away they march. And so when the Lord descends from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, in an instant the dead in Christ stand up; no longer are they sleeping in the dust. You say that is an impossibility. With God nothing is impossible. If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we need not be afraid to believe the rest of it. He was the first-fruits of them that slept. He came forth from the tomb, and the dead shall come forth from the tomb in their glorious resurrected bodies.

The Lord Jesus will descend from Heaven, and the dead will be raised, and the living changed at the last trump. There are many very earnest and sincere Christians who tell us that this last trump is the seventh trump of the Book of Revelation, and that the Church will be on the earth all through the blowing of the trumpets of the Tribulation, and at the sounding of the last trumpet the Church will be raised. But may I say as one who can claim to have some knowledge of the teaching of this Book, for I give the first place in my thinking, that the Book of the Revelation was not written when this Epistle was written, and, therefore, the apostle Paul cannot be referring to the seventh trump of the Book of Revelation. That book was not written until about forty years afterwards. And, further, he refers here not to the trump of an angel, but to the trump of God. The trumpets of the angels in the Revelation give us the various stages of the Tribulation, period, and they finally come to the culmination which ushers in the Kingdom. What we, as the people of God, are waiting for is the shout from Heaven, and the voice of the archangel, and the sounding of the trump of God which will close up this present dispensation. Therefore, it is called the last trump.

What is to take place? The dead in Christ will stand up at His Coming, clothed with their resurrection bodies, and prepared to meet the King. "Then we which are alive and remain shall he caught up together, with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." There will be a generation of believers living on the earth when our Lord returns. You and I may be in that generation. Those who know their Bibles best are more concerned about the signs of the times than those who do not and we believe that the hour when this passage is to be fulfilled must be drawing very near. And we may be those of whom the apostle speaks "which are alive and remain" and who will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air." How wonderful is the thought! Oh, the separations that death has made; the way in which it has broken families, as well as individual hearts. But when Jesus comes the dead in Christ will all be raised, and the living in Christ will be changed, and we will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air.

~Harry A. Ironside~

(continued with # 5)