It does not require very minute study to discover that the writings of the apostles are saturated, through and through, with the thought of the certainty of the Lord's immediate and sudden return to the earth in what was then (but in the nature of the case is now no longer) the near future, to judge and punish His enemies, and to bring perfect salvation and rest to those of His disciples who in anticipation of His coming, were living earnest, and prayerful lives. The object of this chapter is to examine the Epistles, as far as possible in the order in which they were written, and briefly pass in review the chief statement and implications which they contain as to what was then the near approach of Christ's Second Advent.

1st Thessalonians.-The coming of the Lord is a theme on which Paul dwells in his first letter to the Thessalonians (52 A.D.). It was an event already sufficiently near at hand for these primitive Christians to live in expectation of it [1]-and one indeed which would be sure to occur within the lifetime of some of them [2] whilst they were still in the body. [3]

2nd Thessalonians. -In this letter, addressed to the members of the same church a few months later, Paul comforted them amid the terrible sufferings which they were enduring for Christ's sake with the thought that it was only for a little time.

Their prosecutors were to be punished and destroyed, and they themselves to find deliverance and rest, not at death but, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven (1. 7). Paul also spoke of their " gathering together" unto Christ on this solemn occasion (ch. ii. 1), thus implying that some. of his readers would be among the living saints who were then to be gathered by the angels from the four quarters of heaven (Matt. xxiv.31) But, the event was not as yet so near as these Thessalonians misjudging what the apostle had said in his former letter, had concluded. Our authorised English Version gives all rendering of' (ch. ii. 2). That " the day of the Lord " was truly " at hand " in the near future was an inevitable inference from the apostle's previous utterances on the subject, and Paul does not here contradict and stultify himself by suggesting [2] otherwise. But the Thessalonians had failed to see that the language employed in the first epistle admitted of a possible delay of months or even years, and the false idea therefore which the apostle strenuously seeks to correct is that " the day of the Lord " had now actually arrived (" is now present," Revised Bible). Christ's advent was to take place in the near future, but as the apostle had repeatedly told his readers in private whilst still with them (verse 5), there were two other events that had not yet taken place which must precede it a great "falling away" and the revelation of the "man of sin"."We know from John's first epistle, written in the " last hour " of the Mosaic dispensation (ii. 18), that before. the destruction of Jerusalem the first event had happened (ii. 19; iv. 3). John asserts that he and his readers knew with certainty that the end was now immediately at hand, for by that time a great defection from the faith had taken place, and not merely one Antichrist but many Antichrists had appeared, " Little children, it is the last hour and as ye heard that Antichrist cometh, even now have there arisen many Antichrists, whereby we, know that it is the last hour," (1 John ii. 18). On the other hand, in (2 Thess. ii)., Paul writing nearly twenty years before the destruction of Jerusalem, implies that the Thessalonians ought to have known that the day of the Lord was not as yet immediately at hand, for it must have been clear to all that certain events which they had been plainly taught were to precede it-the great apostasy and the manifestation of the man of sin-had not yet been realised The name of "the man of sin," whose evil influence was already beginning to be felt ; and whose true character and awful wickedness would ere long be manifest to the world ; the apostle, to avoid needlessly compromising himself and his readers, does not mention; but it was apparently well known to them, for he had repeatedly spoken to them of him in private.

("Remember ye not that when I was yet with you, I kept telling [4] you these things? " (ii. 5). We may rightly cease to identify "the man of sin" with the, Papacy, and may well believe him to have been one and the same with the monster Nero, the vilest and most brutal of men, the murderer of his own wife and mother, and the fiendish persecutor of the Christian Church Thus, in agreement with Paul's description of "the man of sin," we know that, (1) Nero was an individual holding an exalted position in the world. (2) He claimed divine honours. [5] (3) He was a monster of' wickedness and lawlessness. (4) He was one from whom, humanly speaking, Paul and the Thessalonians had, personally, much to fear. (5) He was doomed to perish.

The person who at the time the apostle wrote proved a hindrance to the full manifestation of Nero's character [6] may either have been his step-father, the Emperor Claudius, whom he was soon to succeed on the throne of Rome, or his tutor the noble Seneca, whom, later on, he caused to be murdered. fit the fact that Nero died in June, A.D. 68, two years before the capture and destruction of Jerusalem, we have a possible explanation of' the statement that the Lord Jesus would bring to nought "the man of' sin" by the "manifestation (or first glimmerings) of His coming ;" or we may regard Nero as having been consumed in the spiritual world, after death, when Christ personally returned to the earth, a year or two later.



1st Corinthians.--In this epistle (58 A.D.), Paul thanks God that these Christians were living in constant expectation of the Lord's reappearing- "waiting for" it (i. 7). "The time is shortened," he declares (vii. 29). Unlike modern believers who, reasoning by analogy, may rightly celebrate the Lord's Supper until death terminates their earthly probation, and introduces them to (or for ever excludes them from) the Kingdom of God now already in existence in heaven, these primitive Christians were to observe it not until death, but "until He came" (xi. 26) to inaugurate that kingdom. Addressing the members of the then existing Corinthian church, Paul distinctly implies that some, at least, of them would remain on earth until the period of the Second Advent and first resurrection ("We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." Ch. xv. 51). Finally, the Aramaic phrase, Maranatha, which occurs at the conclusion of the epistle means, as may be seen from the margin of the Revised Bible, "our Lord is coming." Into this brief watchword the apostle's ceaseless and emphatic declarations on the subject were concentrated.

Unless the Second Advent took place in the lifetime of some of' the Corinthians to whom this letter was written, Paul's prediction was falsified, for then it is not true that they shewed forth the Lord's death till He came. In any case, since it is only possible for one generation of men to be alive at the time, of the Second Advent, and all other Christians must observe the ordinance until death or until a third advent, it. is as reasonable and easy to believe that the first Christians celebrated the Lord's supper until He, came, and that the rest of the Church are to observe it until death, as to believe that the mass of the Church have been celebrating the ordinance until death, and that a small minority-those who are alive at a future advent-will alone be able to literally fulfil the words of the Apostle "ye do show the Lord's death until He come"

Romans.-The original Greek shows that Paul taught that at the period this epistle was written (59 A.D.), Christ's glory was soon to be revealed (viii. 18). The apostle asserts that it was high time for his readers to awake out of sleep, for salvation was now nearer to them than when they first believed. The night was far spent, and the day already at hand (xiii. 11, 12). The God of peace would shortly bruise Satan under their feet (xvi. 20).

Philippians.-This letter (62 A.D.) has several references to " the day of' Jesus Christ." The apostle announces afresh that " the Lord is at hand" (iv. 5) and represents himself and his readers as living in constant expectation of His reappearing (iii. 20).

The Pastoral Epistles.-The Epiphany was to take place within the lifetime of Timothy, for it is this event and not death that Paul speaks of as terminating the period of his friend's earthly obedience (1 Tim. vi. 14). If the Advent has not yet been realised, Paul asked an impossibility from Timothy when he thus bade him "Keep the commandment until the. appearing of Jesus Christ." In 2 Tim. iv. 1, the original Greek also shows that the apostle declared not merely that Jesus Christ would one day judge the living and the dead, but that at the time this epistle was written He was about to do so.

1st Peter.-In this letter we have a precisely similar statement (iv. 5). Writing (66 A.D.) as a Jew and mainly to Jews, on the very eve of the dissolution of the Mosaic economy, Peter also announced that the end of all things was at hand (iv. 7); that Christ's glory was about to be revealed (v. 1); and that the time had now come "for judgment to begin" (iv. 17).

2nd Peter.-The authenticity of this epistle has been continually called in question. It is probable that all of it but the first chapter was written in the post-apostolic age. Among the reasons for this conclusion, it may be pointed out that the persons addressed were apparently no longer exposed to persecution as the readers of the first epistle had been, and the resemblances between the last two chapters and the epistle of Jude are so many and so striking as to suggest that portions have been directly copied therefrom. Further, a sufficient time is seen to have elapsed for Paul's letters to have become so widely known as already to be the subject of many varied interpretations (iii. 16), and for them to have taken rank side by side with the ancient Hebrew Scriptures. Still more significant and more fatal to the authenticity of the two latter chapters of the 2nd epistle of Peter is the fact, that unlike any other New Testament writer, the author associates the passing away of the present system of' things and the promise of new heavens and a new earth with Christ's advent to inaugurate His millennial kingdom (ch. iii.10), instead of' connecting the consummation of all things with the second (universal) resurrection and judgment destined to take place at the termination of that millennial kingdom " a Thousand years" later (Rev. xx. .11, xxi. 1).

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