The Lord’s redemption includes His second coming. Without the Lord’s return, we could not enjoy His full redemption. Although we were delivered from the punishment and power of sin through the Lord’s death and resurrection, we often still sense the presence of sin. We were delivered from a sinful living by the Lord’s life, but we often still feel the working of sin within us. Today we witness many sinful situations around us. The life within us is spiritual and is connected to the heavens, but today we are still in the flesh on the earth. Furthermore, the earth is filled with darkness and evil, and everything on the earth gives us a negative sensation. Our bodies are weak and sick as well. All creation is decaying, groaning, and travailing in pain. Whenever we think of the Lord and fellowship with Him, we are inwardly soothed. Yet when we see evil situations, such as moral degradation and material corruption, our heart is grieved. All these negative things need to be set right by the Lord’s coming back.
1. “I...will receive you to Myself” (John 14:3).
Although the Lord’s ascension brought us into a heavenly reality and position, our actual entrance into the heavens awaits the Lord’s coming and our rapture. We have the Lord’s presence, but we are still on the earth, which is full of evil, filthiness, turmoil, unrest, and pain. The earth cannot compare with the bright, heavenly home and the glorious, holy city that the Lord has prepared for us. In order to leave the earth, we need the Lord to return and rapture us. When the Lord comes again, He will rapture us to our heavenly Father’s home. At that time we will be delivered from the earth, which is filled with suffering and sin.
2. “The dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thes. 4:13-18; see also 1 Cor. 15:23, 52; John 11:25; Rev. 20:4-6).
The Bible reveals that when the believers die, although their bodies are buried in the grave, their souls enter into Paradise. When the Lord returns, He will resurrect the dead believers by His power; that is, He will cause their souls to return from Paradise and their bodies to come up out of the grave. Their souls and their bodies will be united and become incorruptible. The believers will then be completely delivered from death and the grave.
We know the pain and grief of separation caused by death. If the believers have any saved relatives or friends who have died, the pain of separation will be removed only when the Lord comes to resurrect them, and we meet each other again. Therefore, when the Lord returns to resurrect them, they will be delivered from death and the grave; at the same time, we who are living will be delivered from the pain of separation from our friends and relatives. Their hope and our hope is in the Lord’s coming again.
3. “Then we [believers] who are living, who are left remaining, will be caught up...in the clouds to meet the Lord...and thus we will be always with the Lord” (1 Thes. 4:17).
When the Lord returns, the dead believers will be delivered from death and the grave and will be raised up. The living believers who are left remaining on the earth will be raptured out of the unrest and suffering on the earth together with the resurrected believers. They will meet the Lord in the air and will be with Him eternally. Although we have the Lord’s presence within us, we are outwardly separated from the Lord and live in a world full of sufferings. When the Lord returns and we are raptured, we will be completely—even outwardly—delivered from the restless and painful realm of the earth to be with the Lord forever.
4. “The redemption of our body”; “Who will transfigure the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of His glory” (Rom. 8:23-25; Phil. 3:20-21; see also Luke 21:27-28; Eph. 4:30; 1 Cor. 15:51-54; 2 Cor. 5:1-4).
The Lord’s death redeemed our person, and His resurrection regenerated our spirit; thus, we were saved, transformed, and became a new creation. However, our body, which is contaminated and corrupted by sin, is not yet saved or redeemed. Because our body is still in the old creation and is ruled by corruption, it causes us to suffer and groan because of weakness, sickness, and pain. When the Lord returns, He will transfigure our contaminated, corrupted, and vile body “to be conformed to the body of His glory, according to His operation by which He is able even to subject all things to Himself” (Phil. 3:21). He will change the nature of our body: corruptible will put on incorruption, and mortal will put on immortality. The Lord’s resurrection life will swallow up all the death in our body. Our body will be redeemed to enter into glory; our whole being will be redeemed to enter into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Rom. 8:21). At that time we will obtain full sonship.
Our body is a temporal tabernacle. When we are clothed with our glorious body, we will enter into an eternal abode. Today we groan and toil in our temporal tabernacle, but when we enter into the eternal building, our groaning and toil will cease. This will be accomplished through the Lord’s return.
5. “The hope of glory”; “Like Him” (Col. 1:27; 1 John 3:2-3).
Although the Lord’s resurrection gave us His life and nature and made us like Him inwardly, we do not have His likeness outwardly. When the Lord returns, He will transfigure our body; we will have His glorious image outwardly and will be like Him in our whole being. This glorious likeness is the hope of glory. Today Christ is in us to be our life, but when He returns, He will saturate our body from within; that is, He will change our body so that it expresses His glorious image. This is the hope of glory. We will obtain this hope of glory when the Lord comes again.
Before the Lord’s return, no one can realize the Lord’s salvation to the uttermost. We must wait until the Lord returns in order to be made fully like Him. Then we will realize how high and wonderful His salvation is. At that time the Lord’s life, which is the Lord Himself, will come out from within us to be our glory. Today He is the hope of glory within us. In the future He will come out from within us, transfiguring us to be completely like Him within and without. Our transfiguration is simply the Lord’s resurrection life saturating us from within until we are exactly like Him both inwardly and outwardly.
6. “Manifested with Him in glory” (Col. 3:4; see also Rom. 8:17-19).
When the Lord comes again, we will not only enter into His glory but also appear with Him in glory. The Lord’s resurrection enabled Him to enter into us to be our life, but His life within us is a hidden mystery and a hidden glory. In the Lord’s ascension our life is hidden with Christ in God, but this also is a hidden mystery and a hidden exaltation. Only when the Lord returns will our hidden relationship in life and the mystery that has been hidden with Christ in God be manifested in open glory. At His return the Lord will reveal to the entire universe that He is our life within and our glory without and that we are joined with Him to God to appear in God’s glory. What a glory that will be! What a glorious manifestation! We must say, “Hallelujah!”
Since the glory that will appear to us is so great, the apostle Paul says, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory to be revealed upon us” (v. 18). Even the creation is anxiously waiting for us, the sons of God, to appear in glory (v. 19).
7. “Rest with us” (2 Thes. 1:7-10).
Although we have the Lord’s peace and rest inwardly, we still face tribulation and persecution outwardly. When the Lord returns, He will rapture us to be with Him and will transfigure us. Then our entire being will fully enjoy the Lord’s rest and enter into His peace and joy. The Lord will be glorified in us, and the people in the world will be surprised and marvel at the Lord in us.
8. “They...will reign with Him” (Rev. 20:6, see also v. 4).
We are a royal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9). God saved us to serve Him in His presence, and He wants us to also be kings to reign over the people on the earth. Today we serve God as priests, but we are not yet kings ruling over the people on the earth. When the Lord comes again, we will reign with Him over the nations of the earth.
The Lord’s salvation is indeed high. The Lord gave us His life that we may be the children of God, and He gave us His authority that we may be the kings of God. Through His resurrection we received His life to be God’s children, but He must come again in order for us to receive His authority to be God’s kings. Therefore, the Lord’s coming will bring us to the highest point of God’s salvation.
9. “They will not hunger any more, neither will they thirst any more” (Rev. 7:16-17).
As we live on the earth, we cannot escape the pressures of life, the difficulties of our environment, and natural calamities, all of which cause grief and tears. Only when the Lord returns and we are raptured to His presence will these things be removed completely. Then there will be no more hunger and thirst, no more hardships of life or natural calamities. The Lord will shepherd us and guide us to the springs of waters of life, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.
10. “He laid hold of the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years and cast him into the abyss” (Rev. 20:2-3).
Although the Lord judged Satan on the cross, that judgment has not yet been fully executed. Satan is still rampaging on the earth, especially tormenting God’s children. When the Lord returns, He will fully execute the judgment that He accomplished on the cross upon Satan. Satan will be bound and cast into the abyss. He will be powerless to act or damage anyone.
The Lord’s return will take care of many situations for us, accomplish many things for us, and bring us the blessings that can be received only at His coming back. Thank the Lord that His salvation includes not only His death, resurrection, and ascension but also His second coming. He died, resurrected, and ascended, and He will come again. His return is our hope of glory, a blessed hope. May we long for and await His second coming!