§ 2. No Second Coming of Christ is mentioned in Scripture.
It is also a remarkable fact that only one coming of Christ is mentioned in the New Testament. Orthodoxy speaks continually of Christ's second coming, but without any warrant. It assumes that the manifestation of Jesus in the flesh was his first coming as the Christ, and that consequently the predictions (in Matt. ch. 24, and the parallels) must refer to a second coming. Hence the phrase “second coming” has been introduced, and naturalized in theology. But, in truth, the life of Jesus on earth was not regarded as his coming as the Messiah.[41] What the disciples expected was his manifestation or investiture as the Messiah, which evidently had not taken place at the time of their conversation. And this was to be, not “at the end of the world,” but at the end of the age. They, like other Jews, divided time into two periods, “the present age,” or times previous to the Messiah, and “the coming age,” or times of the Messiah's reign. When, therefore, Jesus was with them, only teaching and healing, they did not at all consider him to have come as the Messiah. But when he spoke of the destruction of the Temple, as that [pg 326] indicated the end of the existing economy, they understood it to be synchronous with his coming as the Christ. So they said, “What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the age?” And so through the Epistles, when the “coming of Christ” is spoken of, is meant his manifestation in the world as the Messiah. This was a single event, to take place once, not to be repeated. Such a thing as “Christ's second coming” is unknown to the Scriptures.[42]