March 1, 2022

172. Bible Questions: Will Jesus actually return to planet Earth?

172. Bible Questions: Will Jesus actually return to planet Earth?

While some Bible students "spiritualize" the passages and images about the return of Jesus (they believe He will return by dwelling in hearts of people or perhaps through His people/Church influencing the world), here are three strong reasons from Scripture that Jesus will return personally and bodily to Earth
1. the integrity of Scripture requires it
2. the integrity of Jesus' words require it
3. the imagery of a wedding/marriage -- the prominent metaphor of Scripture of the relationship of God and His people (the Church) requires it.

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172. Bible Questions: Will Jesus actually return to planet Earth?

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Show Notes
Transcript

Here are three reasons in Scripture leading many to believe He absolutely will!

While some Bible students "spiritualize" the passages and images about the return of Jesus (they believe He will return by dwelling in hearts of people or perhaps through His people/Church influencing the world), here are three strong reasons from Scripture that Jesus will return personally and bodily to Earth...
1. the integrity of Scripture requires it
2. the integrity of Jesus' words require it
3. the imagery of a wedding/marriage -- the prominent metaphor of Scripture of the relationship of God and His people (the Church) requires it.

Transcript

If you've been hanging around a Christian Church for any time at all, you've heard the message. Jesus is returning. You've heard it in our songs like how great thou art and its lyrics when Christ shall come with shouts of acclamation and take me home and even non church people know amazing grace. And it's fourth verse when we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun though, the song, doesn't talk about how we get there for those 10,000 years, scripture does is Jesus really returning to planet earth. The Bible is filled with excellent reasons why Jesus needs to come back personally and physically to our planet though.

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00:00:46

I've gotta be honest. Not every religious person, even Christian thinks that way. For those thinking that way. I want to give three reasons, pretty strong reasons why many Christians are keeping their eye on the sky for Jesus personal bodily returned to earth. Here are just three of those reasons. One, the Bible's integrity demands it. One Bible scholar has identified over 300 prophecies about the Messiah in the Bible of those 300 plus prophecies. Only about one third were fulfilled in Jesus. When he came 2000 years ago, if Jesus does not return to earth to fulfill the other two thirds, then Jesus is either not the Messiah.

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00:01:29

The Bible speaks of, or the Bible is wrong. Further. Some have identified 1500 old Testament passages, which refer to a coming of a Messiah, but were not fulfilled in Jesus' first coming in the new Testament. The subject of the return of Jesus is the second most mentioned subject just behind the subject of faith for every time. The first coming of Jesus has mentioned, the return of Jesus is mentioned or alluded to eight times. So how do so many well-intended Bible students get around this overwhelming weight of evidence toward Jesus return in a word they spiritualize it.

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00:02:10

They claim he will come in a spiritual way, maybe into our hearts to rule or slowly impacting our world. Not in a literal sense in bodily form. If you press these same folks, they believe Jesus literally came bodily to fulfill predictions in his first coming 2000 years ago. But there's good reason that others believe in the personal physical return of Jesus to our planet. There are a number of prophecies like this one in acts chapter one, Luke, the writer of acts writes he Jesus was taken up before their very eyes in a cloud, hid him from their sight.

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00:02:49

Then reports angels at the site stating this same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way. You have seen him go into heaven to spiritualize. Many of these passages really stretches the Bible's integrity. The second reason may be more compelling. The promises of Jesus himself demanded Jesus spoke of his return no less than 21 times in the new Testament in John 14, a very famous passage often read at funerals. Jesus explains that he's going away to prepare a place for his disciples in my father's house. Then he says, if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me for that amazing grace verse for 10,000 years thing.

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00:03:39

Not only did Jesus make this claim while on earth, but he made it after he left six or seven times in the book of revelation. We overhear Jesus utter from heaven. I am coming. The third reason, maybe hasn't grabbed you so much because it's so tied to Jesus culture. And that's this the imagery of a wedding in scripture demands it. The new Testament's choice image of the relationship between Jesus and believers is that of a groom and a bride. We saw this in Ephesians five, verses 31 and 32. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be United to his wife. And the two will become one flesh.

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00:04:21

This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church add to this, the imagery of a bride and groom in the old Testament, in the gospels and in the book of revelation. And we can see, we need to unpack this bride and groom metaphor. Jews knew how to celebrate weddings. As we learned in the story of Mary and Joseph in episode 84, there were two parts to a Jewish marriage, the betrothal and the wedding itself, the betrothal was something like our engagement, but far more serious. I mean, you didn't just cancel it. If the couple had a spat, you know, break up in Jewish culture, breaking up from a betrothal was indeed very hard to do read, get a divorce, the betrothal agreement, stipulated, the mutual obligations and the brides dowery that dowery was expected from the bride to be his father.

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It was expected to fit her family's station in life. If her family was really poor or if she was an orphan, it was understood that the bride groom would delicately before the marriage give her sufficient dowery for the necessary items. A second part was the giving of gifts celebrated during this time of betrothal and to groomsmen were chosen friends of the bridegroom who acted like intermediaries between the couple during this petroleum period, this betrothal was followed by the wedding itself. Even the world's grandis weddings today would pale compared to Jewish weddings. They were our contemporary weddings on steroids, Jewish weddings at the time of Christ lasted a week.

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00:06:05

Guests viewed it as their religious duty to give pleasure to the newly married couple. So the friends and family of the couple would fill the entire wedding week with laughter singing and feasting. If you're familiar with the story of Jesus' first miracle, changing water to wine in the little village of caner, you understand how important this festivity was. They ran out of wine that week and Jesus' mother begged him to do something about it. We looked at that in episode 91, during the wedding festivities, the two groomsmen gave the couple gifts, covered the bride and groom with the bridal veil and led the couple to the bridal chamber and the bridal bed.

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And in part were guarantors of the bride's chastity during the parade to the groom's house, the bridal chamber family and friends, waved Palm and Myrtle branches as music played and grain and money was thrown. That's maybe where we get that rice thing. Anyone who passed along the way was expected to join the parade and lamps usually tend to number were lit and carried along. Now, what does this have to do with the personal bodily return of Jesus to earth? Well, the old and new Testament writers and Jesus himself speak of his return using this betrothal marriage imagery, God uses the metaphor of marriage to describe his joy in his people in Isaiah 62, he writes as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride.

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So your God will rejoice over you. Jesus. When challenged by the religious bullies of Jerusalem, why his disciples were feasting? When the religious authorities thought they should be fasting said, how can the guests of the bridegroom mourn when he's with them? The time will come. When the bridegroom will be taken away from them, then they will fast. That's in Matthew nine. There Jesus identifies himself as the bridegroom, right after telling the disciples, the sign to look for surrounding is coming. We looked at that in episode one 10, Jesus tells him a parable here are excerpts from his parable. At that time, the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.

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The bridegroom was a long time in coming at midnight. The cry rang out. Here's the bridegroom come out to meet him. The bridegroom arrived, the virgins who were ready, went in with him to the wedding banquet and the door was shut. Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know the day or hour you ask the day or hour of what the coming of the bride groom. And as to those two groomsmen, the apostle Paul tying into the imagery of groomsmen writes to the Corinthian church. I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband to Christ so that I might present you as a pure Virgin to him.

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Paul explains the reason he labored so hard to build the Corinthians as godly followers of Jesus was to prepare them to be ready. That is chaste and pure to be presented to him. The bride groom. When he comes John, the baptizer identifies himself as a groomsman too. He said, I am sent ahead of him. The bride belongs to the bridegroom, the friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him and is full of joy. When he hears the bridegroom's voice, that joy is mine and it is now complete. John thinking that Jesus had come to complete, the marriage is filled with joy.

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He didn't foresee that Jesus first coming would only complete phase one, the betrothal. And then there's the matter of the gifts. Paul identifies the betrothal gift Jesus gave to his bride. He writes this in Ephesians chapter one, having believed you were marked in him with a seal. The promised holy spirit, who is a deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession. What's all that mean. The word used here for deposit is the word used by Jews to describe an engagement ring as giving a girl, a diamond means a man intends to finish the job. He started at the wedding ceremony.

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Paul is saying that Jesus intends to finish the job he started when he gave the gift of the holy spirit to believers individually, and to the church of believers corporately that suggests he needs to show up for his bride and not be a runaway groom. Will Jesus return personally and bodily to this planet, a pretty strong case can be made that the Bible's integrity demands it. The promises of Jesus demand it and the imagery of the bride and groom demand it, which prompts several other questions. When will he come for that? I urge you to listen to episode one 10.

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Other questions include how will he come and to do what I'm going to have to answer those two in a future Bible question.

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