THE RETURN OF THE LORD AND WORLD-WIDE EVANGELISM
BY S. W.
ZWEMER,
It
is only modern rationalism and unbelief which, after denying Christ's virgin
birth, His bodily resurrection and ascent into heaven, mock at the promise of
His return, saying, "From the day that the fathers
fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the
creation." Let them mock! The Christian Century says
in a remarkable article on the "War
and Second Coming" (Aug. 18, 1943): "It
is interesting to note the growth during these past years of the new apocalypticism. This is found mainly in scholarly
circles; pre-millennialism is a lay theology. But both share the mood
which we find beginning with Jewish writings twenty-one centuries ago: a sense
of hopelessness as to the achievement of good in history or by human effort,
the belief in the existence of powerful forces of evil and their dominance over
humanity and the course of events, and the conviction that human hope must rest
upon a final, decisive and irresistible act of God."
Dr. Deismann, the great New Testament scholar,
declared that "for the past thirty years the
discernment of the eschatological character of the gospel of Jesus has more and
more come to the front in international Christian theology ... We to-day must lay the strongest possible stress upon the
eschatological character of that gospel which it is the practical business of
the Church to proclaim, namely, that we must daily focus our minds upon the
fact that the Kingdom of God is near, that God with His unconditional
sovereignty comes through judgement and redemption, and that we have to prepare
ourselves inwardly for the Maran-atha – “the Lord cometh."
All earnest Christians of every school of theological thought seem
agreed that we face to-day an eschatological crisis. The day of the Lord
is at hand. We hear the same note of warning from many voices. Professor D. R. Davis, of
THE UNFINISHED TASK OF THE CHURCH
In
view of all this it is not remarkable, therefore, that those who look eagerly for Christ's second advent
are most eager also to complete the task of evangelism. "The gospel [of the kingdom] must first be preached unto all nations for a witness." The law of priority always
produces a crisis. There is no stronger incentive to immediate evangelism
than the imminence of Christ's return.
In
a day when the pillars of western civilisation are crumbling, when the
foundations of society seem tottering, and when sword and famine and pestilence
walk abroad, we must preach a message that
is otherworldly, or we have no message at all. To-day's evangelism
must be, in the words of Adolf Harnack, "in the midst of
time for eternity by the strength and under the eye of God."
The older generation of evangelists was not ashamed of a gospel that dealt with
eternal issues. They preached a message that bridged death and revealed
eternal glory or eternal woe. Evangelism that preaches Christ's
resurrection and His return goes far beyond social reformation or new-world
plans or political blueprints. We can no longer go to the East to share
the social and cultural benefits of the West, for the whole of so-called
Christian culture stands at a period of terrible crisis, every section of it
under God's judgement. We are compelled by the present situation to
"look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."
A LIVING HOPE FOR A DESPAIRING WORLD
The
return of Christ is the living hope for a despairing world. It tells of
the dawn of an eternal morning after the night of gloom. As Jesus said to
John in lonely Patmus: "Fear
not; ... I am he that liveth, and was dead; and,
behold, I am alive forever more." Because he lives, we shall live also. We
are not ambassadors of a dead Hero, but of Him who was "declared to be Son of God with power ... by the resurrection [out] from the dead," to whom "all power is given ... in
heaven and in earth." And who is coming again. Then
"they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that
turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever."
"And many of them that sleep in the dust of
the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and
everlasting contempt."
When
the gospel of the resurrection lays hold on our minds and hearts, we begin to
see the meaning of Barth's penetrating words: "Eternity is not the prolongation of time. Eternity is
the unknown which in Jesus Christ has broken into our world."
According to this conception, eternity is, as it were,
the hidden, the other side of time. Time
is empty, impoverished eternity. Eternity is time filled full. There comes a year, there comes an hour when
things grow earnest, when some crisis comes. That means eternity is
flooding into time, as a mountain freshet after storm floods the dry bed of a
stream. The fullness of time is the
crisis. Christ's return will be the crisis of all human history and its
final consummation. ‘Then cometh the end’."
THE STRONGEST INCENTIVE TO MISSIONS
This
hope of Christ's imminent, personal, visible return is the strongest possible
incentive to missions. It sounds the note of urgency. Those who are
filled with the hope of His coming are also on fire for the world-wide
evangelism. Of this fact the cloud of witnesses is evidence absolute and
convincing. Great church theologians, great pioneer missionaries, and many
ardent evangelists are among them: Dean
Alford, Delitzsch, Auberlen,
Bishop Ellicott, Vanoosterzee, Bengel,
Godet, Bonar, Bickersteth,
Pentecost, Whittle, Lord Radstock,
There
are different views of the "times and seasons"
which the Father only can reveal in His own time and way. But even our
post-millennial brethren do not deny the second advent.
Even the a- millennial group, who reject dispensationalism
and the millennium idea, hold just as firmly that Christ will return from
heaven to judge the world. The greatest danger is not the discordance
between these views of the time of the advent, but rationalistic unbelief which
denies and derides Christ's second coming altogether. The fullness of
time for the coming of our Saviour at
THE PRACTICAL IMPLICATION OF THIS BELIEF
Unless
a Christian doctrine has practical effect in our lives, it is a dead
letter. For example, there is no particular benefit in a mere
intellectual belief in the deity of Christ unless with Thomas we are willing to
call Him "my Lord and my God."
It has occurred to me that there is perhaps no doctrine which has received such
prominence in recent years, both in print and in discussion, and at the same
time so little is emphasised in practical life, as the doctrine of the second
coming.
Some
have been very clever at preparing a timetable of prophetically events and
suggesting the hour when we may expect our Lord. A man may know all about the timetable, and yet miss the train!
Some are not living as if they were anxious to be found ready for that
return. Pre-millennial teaching
demands above everything else other-worldliness, a sense of stewardship, and a
supreme sense of the urgency of our task. There is no other event in
history which will have such absolute, immediate, and startling effect on all
property values as the rending of the sky and the return of our Lord.
Are
all of us ready for His coming and faithful
stewards of His blessings? Were men's hearts ever so expectant of a
climax and a crisis in history as now? Are not the signs of which Jesus spoke in the Gospels, and which usher
in the day of the Lord, on the front pages of our newspapers? Were the opportunities for evangelism ever
so great as now? Apart from His coming again is there any hope for this
disillusioned, stricken, war-torn world? An age, which
is drinking the bitterest waters of all historical eras. In a day
when the judgement of God has melted into burning lava and is pouring through
the ruins of man's proudest achievements, let the prophetic trumpet-call of
repentance pierce the tormented soul of man.
Jesus came; Jesus is coming again. To accept these two statements,
which are the shortest summary of the New Testament, with all they imply of faith and hope and glory, would
fill us with the joy of the early Christians and their devotion.
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