When Jesus comes again, He will come in glory. This devotional reading looks at what that means and in Whose glory He comes.
Nuggets
- Jesus will return in honor and glory provided by His Father.
- Jesus, as God, has glory of His own.
- When Jesus comes again, He will come with angels.
Jesus has always been God. However, when He came to earth the first time, we did not see His glory.
At Jesus’ Second Coming, we will see His glory. But what can we learn from that?
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the On the Day of the Lord theme, click the button below.
Devotions in the The Second Coming of Christ series
The foundation of this series is Gritton’s sermon Christ’s Coming.
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Phil Weber
In the Glory of His Father
“For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done” (Mt. 16: 27 ESV)
Jesus will return in honor and glory provided by His Father.
First things first. Glory is the outward show of the essence of God — His majesty, splendor, and beauty — representing the attributes of God resulting from the authority and holiness of God.
Matthew was rock solid on Jesus’ return. There was nothing equivocal about He is going to come.
This coming is going to be totally different than Jesus’ first coming. There won’t be any humble surroundings as a defenseless child.
King Jesus is going to come in all the might and power bestowed on Him by His Father. God was very pleased with how Jesus accomplished His mission on earth the first time. The Plan of Salvation was finished.
Jesus will have an important part to play on the Day of the Lord. Charles told us what that part is. He wrote, “The judgment of the world has been committed to the Son as Mediator, as an appropriate [honor] to One who had humbled Himself for the redemption of the world.”
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God honored Jesus because He humbly agreed to His part of the Plan of Salvation. Now, God probably had the easy part – designing it.
How are we going to honor Jesus? Eyre and Brock gave us a list.
- The number of saints.
- Our unity.
- Our holiness.
- Our admiration for Him.
- Our acknowledgement of His sovereignty.
- Our recognition of what He has done for us.
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Jesus had the hard, painful part. He had to die a horrendous death.
But Jesus did so that, when the Day of the Lord comes, we can be judged as God’s children. Only through His death and resurrection would our relationships with God be restored.
Sidebar. Charles added a little tidbit about saints. On the Day of the Lord, it will be revealed that saints are the ones doing God’s Will on earth.
That stresses the fact that saints are those who are obedient to God, not just have bought some fire insurance or are lukewarm.
Our judgment as saints on the Day of the Lord will be to prove our righteousness through our works. Are we genuine disciples? Are we replacing our sinfulness with holiness?
No, I don’t think this is going to be the Matthew 25: 35-36 to do list. I think this is going to be the Philippians 2 work out our salvation.
Charles agreed with that. Our visible works aren’t a priority to God. It is the work we do in secret – in our hearts – that is important.
In His Own Glory
“For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels” (Lk. 9: 26 ESV)
Jesus, as God, has glory of His own.
Jesus is coming in His glory as Mediator. He is our go-between with God. Only when our sins are covered by His blood can we even think about approaching God.
Remember, Jesus was rewarded after He completed the Plan of Salvation.
- “who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him” (I Pet: 3: 22 ESV).
- “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me’” (Mt. 28: 18 ESV).
We can also assume that Jesus picked back up any glory of which He had emptied Himself (Phil. 2: 7) when He came down to earth. He has always had His own glory because He is God.
“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (Jn. 17: 24 ESV).
We shame Christ when we compromise with the world. And ooo, baby, is the world ever stressing that is what disciples need to compromise!
It is sad that unbelievers think they can demand that God fall into line with their opinions and goals. They ignore the authority their Creator has over them.
We shame Christ when we try to hold onto our pet sin. We think He will be fine since we are trying to follow Him in everything else.
But it doesn’t work that way.
This won’t be Monopoly. We won’t get a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Many are ashamed of being called Christians. Here at Seeking God with Elaine, I don’t use that term very much — not because I am ashamed of it. I put these devotions online to teach — first myself, then others.
That is why I use the term disciples. That one word pulls in so many things that we are supposed to be: students, followers, believers, adherents, devotee. It sums up our varied tasks.
But we should never be ashamed of being a follower of Christ.
When we endure in God’s Will, we will appear with Jesus in glory. “When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3: 4 ESV)
I have to process something Mellor said. He wrote, “Indeed, it may be said that Christ was a mystery in His day both to His disciples and to His enemies. If He had not been a mystery, He would not have been a [Savior]. No man who is merely on the level of man both in his intellectual and moral nature can be the [Savior] of man.”
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- Oh, yeah. The Apostles didn’t have it straight until after the Plan of Salvation was complete. (How could they? They were asking to believe something fantastical while it was happening.)
- The original sin was because of disobedience. We have to show that we will put aside self and totally believe and obey God.
- We can’t save ourselves. We have to be helpless. Flawed us can’t save flawed us. There is no way we are going to un-flaw ourselves. Our intelligence isn’t going to do it, and being a good person isn’t going to do it either.
God didn’t try to denigrate us by allowing sin to corrupt our nature this way. He is trying to show us our dependence on Him.
How do we show our shame for Christ? Mellor gave us a list.
- We backslide.
- We don’t join or do the work of the church.
- We don’t want to commit.
- We want our freedom.
We have to be very careful when we stop doing Christian things in public. Let’s say we stop praying for our meals in restaurants because we may not want to put up with the ridicule we may sense from other patrons.
If we are ashamed of Christ, He will be ashamed of us. We will be sentenced accordingly.
Yes, being a disciple of Christ’s means sacrificing. We are called to be living sacrifices. We are called to give up — sometimes — the easy and the pleasurable.
If we aren’t willing to sacrifice, if we aren’t willing to lay down our lives at the foot of the cross, Jesus is going to be ashamed of us — even if we think we are a disciple.
Why will fake disciples be condemned? They are disobedient to God’s Will, they profess an outward religion only, and they are lukewarm.
With His Angels
“and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.” (II Thess. 1: 7-8 ESV)
When Jesus comes again, He will come with angels.
Now, this is interesting. Matthew 16: 27 and II Thessalonians 1: 7 say Jesus is coming with the angels. Luke 9: 26 makes it sound like He is coming in the glory of the angels.
Personally, I think the angels will accompany Jesus. He had to come by Himself the first time. This time, Jesus is going to have a whole army of angels with Him. “
Jesus is going to need that many angels around. They are going to be very busy.
- “So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous” (Mt. 13: 49 ESV).
- “And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Mt. 24: 31 ESV).
- “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt. 13: 41-42 ESV).
So, angels are coming at the Second Coming and on the Day of the Lord.
Melville reminded us that the angels are “… are the loftiest beings in creation, and may justly be taken as its representatives.”
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Maybe the in the glory of the angels is as Melville said — it is because Jesus is their Creator. “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (Jn. 1: 3 ESV). He takes glory in His creation.
Maybe it is more like Woodhouse sees it. There is something to be said of the precision of a military review.
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But I think the addition of verse 8 places it as on the Day of the Lord, not Jesus’ Second Coming. Jesus isn’t going to come after the Church with vengeance. He isn’t coming for those who do not know Him during His Second Coming.
If the Church has already been Raptured, the Day of the Lord will still be monumental to us. It will be when eternity truly starts.
Making the Connections
We can look at the Second Coming in two ways. It is either going to be a revelation or a disaster. How it affects us will depend upon our spiritual condition.
We should want to prepare for the revelation. How do we do that? We wait.
- “… as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Cor. 1: 7 ESV).
- “waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Ti. 2: 13 ESV).
- “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Rom. 8: 19 ESV).
I know. Mankind has been waiting a long while for Jesus to come back. John thought He would return soon. “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (Jn. 14: 3 ESV).
We already said in another devotion that John and Paul – and probably a lot of other people – thought Jesus’ return was going to happen any day. What we do have to have is the urgency that John, Paul, and the others of their day had. They thought Jesus was coming as early as today.
Since the Second Coming hasn’t happened yet, it is easy for some to think that it isn’t going to happen. “They will say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation’” (II Pet. 3: 4 ESV).
But while we wait, we have to prepare for Jesus’ coming. “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (I Pet. 1: 13 ESV).
We prepare by shedding the sinful nature and embracing God’s righteousness. Our reward will be the crown of righteousness. “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing” (II Tim. 4: 8 ESV).
How Do We Apply This?
- Serve Christ.
- Witness for Christ so the unsaved can make a conscious decision for God.
- Be eternally grateful to Jesus for what He has done for us.
- Be obedient.
Resources
Father God. We can’t wait to see Jesus in His glory! Thank You for restoring His glory and adding to it because of His obedience to Your plan. Lord, thank You that He will not be returning alone. Amen.
What do you think?
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