Contemporary churches, particularly of a conservative disposition, have as a prominent tenet of their faith the belief that Christ will come a "second time" at some point after his crucifixion/resurrection (around 30 CE).
This expression "second coming" appears, so far as I know, only one time in the New Testament:
[H]e has appeared once for all at the climax of history to abolish sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as it is our human lot to die once, with judgment to follow, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of mankind, and will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await him. (Heb 9:26–28, Revised English Bible)1
Here is the same passage in another translation:
[H]e has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes the judgment, so Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (RSV)
It is interesting to me that the second coming referred to in this passage in Hebrews does not sound as if it is part of the Day of God and the final judgment of the world as it appears in Rev 20:11–15; Matt 25:31–46; 2 Pet 3:10–13. The event in Hebrews (and 1 Thess 4:13–18) seems to be a different kind of event in which Christ returns "to save those eagerly waiting for him," as Hebrews puts it (RSV). This suggests that Christ followers will not face a final judgment at the end of time.
The usual expression in the New Testament for the return of the Lord is parousia. English words used to translate parousia are: "presence, coming, advent."2 Only eleven of the twenty-four uses of parousia, however, reference the coming of Jesus/Christ/Lord Jesus Christ/Lord Jesus.3 The other thirteen refer to: the coming of the Son of Man, Stephanas, Fortunatus, Achaicus, Titus, Paul's bodily presence, Paul, the Lawless One, Day of God.4
There are several sayings of Jesus stating that he will come again.5 The earliest reference to a return of Jesus, however, is 1 Thess 4:13–18, where it is usually thought to be part of the Hebrew end-time Last Judgment scenario, the Day of God/Lord (see Isaiah 2 and 9, and Amos 2:1–3:21). Second Thessalonians is a disputed Pauline letter and its writer differs from Paul's own view in the undisputed First Thessalonians letter, where Paul held that "the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night" (1 Thess 5:2–3). In 2 Thess 2:1–12, on the other hand, the author writes that certain "signs" must happen before the parousia of the Lord Jesus Christ occurs. When those signs take place, people have fair warning that the parousia is near.
There is also to be considered a different idea about the (final?) Resurrection, a view held by Hymenaeus (who was excommunicated by the "Paul" of 1 Tim 1:19–20, a disputed Epistle attributed to Paul) and Philetus (2 Tim 2:18). Hymeneus believed that "the resurrection is past already." Apparently, these men denied the future resurrection of the physical body and held the resurrection to be a spiritual event in which one has died and risen with Christ, an event depicted in the experience of baptism (Rom 6:3–5). Compare the following statement in the later Gnostic essay, Treatise on Resurrection NHC I, 45.29–46.2:
Now if we are manifest in this world wearing him, we are that one's beams, and we are embraced by him until our setting, that is to say our death in this life. We are drawn to heaven by him, like beams by the sun, not being restrained by anything. This is the spiritual resurrection, which swallows up the psychic in the same way as the fleshly.6
The psychē is usually thought of as the soul, or if one prefers, from this contrast, the essential inner you, as opposed to the outer fleshly you. This writer claims that the "spiritual resurrection" incorporates them both. Hence, in the early second century there were two ways of viewing the resurrection of the dead: a completely spiritual experience and the physical events at the last judgment at the end of time. Paul, of course, agreed with Hymeneus (1 Cor 15:35–50).7 Paul anticipated a resurrection of believers that was at once bodily and spiritual. This appears to be what he describes in 1 Thess 4:13–18 and refers to in Rom 8:23.
With respect to end time speculations, it might be wise to recall that toward the end of the first century there was a widespread belief that the Roman emperor Nero (who died 68 CE) would return to the throne of Rome again. It did not happen (or maybe it hasn't happened yet?). Believing a thing to be so, however, doesn't make it so.8
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University
1The date of Hebrews is uncertain. One recent dating (Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews [Hermeneia, 1989], 9]) dates the writing somewhere between 60–80. An earlier dating (Kϋmmel, Introduction to the New Testament [rev. ed.; SCM, 1975), 403] dates the writing between 80–90.
2W. Bauer and F. W. Danker, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. (3rd ed.; University of Chicago, 2000).
31 Cor 15:23; 1 Thess 2:19, 3:3, 4:15, 5:23; Jas 5:7, 8; 2 Pet 1:16, 3:4; 1 John 2:28; Matt 24:1.
4Matt 24:27, 37, 39; 1 Cor 16:17; 2 Cor 7:6, 7; 10:10; Phil 1:26, 2:12; 2 Thess 2:1, 8, 9; 2 Pet 3:12.
5For example, John 24:2–3, 18. I do not include the Son of Man sayings (Matt:24:27–30; Rev 16:15; 22:7, 12, 20) as the Son of Man may be a different figure.
6Malcolm Peel, Treatise on the Resurrection, vol. I, 123–57 in H. Attridge, ed. Nag Hammadi Codex I (The Jung Codex) (NHS 22; 2 vols.; Brill, 1985).
71 Cor 15:51–55 is likely a reference to the "Second" coming (and not the Hebrew expectation of Judgment Day). at which time dead followers of Christ will "meet the Lord in the air" to forever be with him (1 Thess 4:13–18), the moment when the believer is changed in the "twinkling of an eye," receiving their "spiritual bodies" (Rom 8:23).
