SECOND COMING IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

SECOND COMING IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

• Old Testament reveals many details about the coming of Messiah, but  nowhere in so many words declares that He will come twice.

For example:
Gen. 3:15 Seed of Woman Cf. Matt. 1:1
Gen. 12:1-3 Nation of Israel Cf. Matt. 1:1-2
Gen. 49:10 Tribe of Judah Cf. Matt. 1:2
Isa. 11:1-5 Family of Jesse Cf. Matt. 1:6
2 Sam. 7:12-13 Line of David Cf. Matt. 1:7
Micah 5:2 City of Bethlehem Cf. Matt. 2:1-6
Isa. 7:14 Born of Virgin Cf. Matt. 1:18-23
43 Jews have claimed to be the Messiah. But the real fulfillment of the promise is found in Matt. 1:1-2:1.

• However, within this growing content of Messianic prophecy, we find two apparently conflicting lines of prediction:
• Messiah as a great, powerful, glorious, reigning King

Isa. 9:6-7 "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this."
Isa. 11:1-5 "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD; And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins."
Isa. 40:9-10 "O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! Behold, the Lord GOD will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him."
Jer. 23:5-8 "Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that they shall no more say, The LORD liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But, The LORD liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land."
Dan. 7:13-14 "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."
Mal. 3:1-2 "Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap:"

• Messiah is a lowly, rejected, suffering, dying figure

Psa. 22:1, 14-18 "To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?" "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture."
Isa. 53:2-9 "For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth."
Zech. 13:7 "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones."
Dan. 9:26 "And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined."

To the OT Jew these two lines of prophecy raised a very serious problem of interpretation.
To the prophets themselves: (Inspired man) Searched their own writings.
1 Pet. 1:10-11 Problem of a time element "What or what manner of time" that is - when, what kind of time.
To the Jewish Rabbis: (Uninspired men)
one group - Acts 8:32-34 Applied the sufferings to the prophet himself. Also the idea of two Messiahs.
other - Applied them to the nation of Israel.
central difficulty: John 12:34 Death of Christ. People could not understand, therefore they said - "Who is this Son of Man?"

• The true explanation became clear only after His first coming, and in the light of His own teaching:
• By His first coming He fulfilled prophecies of rejection and suffering.

Luke 24:20-27 (26) "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things"

• He promises to fulfil prophecies of power and glory in a Second coming

Matt. 24:30 "Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."

• After the first coming, we can go to the Old Testament and identify those passages which refer to the Second Coming:

The Rule: Every prophecy not fulfilled at first coming, is fulfilled by the Second Coming.
The Ratio: For every prophecy of the first, there are eight for the second.
The Argument: Since the few pertaining to the first have been fulfilled literally, we have a right to believe that the many will also be fulfilled literally.

• The Modern Blunder:

Liberals accept the prophecy of the suffering and rejection and reject the prophecies of the glory. This is just the reverse of the Jews.

• Why were these two lines of Old Testament prophecy woven together so  closely that not even the prophets could distinguish the time element in the two comings?

The Nature of Biblical Prophecy: 1 Pet. 1:10-11 "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow."

Quotation from Delitzsch - p. 36.
"Prophecy sees together what History unrolls into separate events"

From standpoint of human contingency, the second coming might have followed the first almost immediately.
Cf. Acts 1:6-7 with 3:19-20 "When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power."
"Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you:"

• Omission of the time element has made the second coming a moment by moment contingency

Rapture, then, is a timeless event, and one without signs. Signs belong to the revelation, even though the signs may occur before the rapture.