Do We Still Believe Jesus is Coming Soon? Our Adventist Conundrum.

Spectrum Website
1

Sacred cows. We find them everywhere, a ubiquity which sometimes blinds us to the absurdities they represent. In religion they are embedded in doctrines and manifest in the hands-off approach to certain positions, warding them off as untouchables. Not because we are dedicated to their truisms but because we risk embarrassment by asking questions. So we build shrines to honor sacred cows pretending they are protected, self-evident truths.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://spectrummagazine.org/views/2019/do-we-still-believe-jesus-coming-soon-our-adventist-conundrum
6 Likes
2

there was definitely a time, in my early teens, particularly while at boarding academy, where i truly believed christ was coming soon, perhaps within a week or two, or certainly by the end of the year…by the time i’d hit college, and especially by the time i’d finished college, it isn’t that i no longer believed christ would come soon, but i definitely started thinking i could afford to defer it for awhile…

in retrospect, and at this point in my life, i’ve come to approach the soon coming of christ in terms of a deliberate strategy of cognitive dissonance: christ is coming soon, and he likely won’t return in my lifetime…there’s no question that christ himself said 2,000 yrs ago he was coming “quickly”, Rev 3:11; 22:12,20, which i think can be interpreted to mean “soon”, and there’s no question that my life could end through an accident at any time, which would make these words effectively and literally true…but there’s also the reality that while none of this is happening, i do have to plan to be in this world in the future if that future is going to have any security…i’m thinking now that cognitive dissonance with respect to the soon coming of christ is how a mature christian handles this subject…

i also don’t believe our church has any choice but to characterize the return of christ as soon…would a message of christ’s return in the far future have a stronger impact than a message of his soon return…i don’t think so…i think we’re all naturally like the servant in Matthew 24:45-51: we’re going “eat and drink with the drunken” in proportion to the belief that jesus is delaying his coming…human nature requires a constant wake up call, or our spiritual sensibilities, which are weak to begin with, fade into nothingness…the possibility of crying wolf one too many times notwithstanding, there’s no other way…

1 Like
3

It’s dishonesty to deny the second coming message without attending to its sister message of the state of the dead.

We cannot abandon the “soon” second coming message, without discrediting the state of the dead as we know it.

The soon coming is central to the individual and as death is borne by the individual, we assume the time span after death to second coming to actual time. In reality it’s zero time.

Hence the soon coming of Christ is to the individual and that life ends at death and the only after life event is second coming.

Looking at it with time done by all of us since our founders is quite dishonest and does injustice to salvation being individual and not corporate.

3 Likes
4

We are all hardwired to believe. Religious convictions are the language of our belief. As such it can never be proven right nor wrong but it does not make it untrue either.

Just talk to a child and see for yourself.

3 Likes
5

Doesn’t that wipe out the “peculiar” Adventist beliefs associated with Christ’s return… If judgment started in 1844 surely it would have been over by now. If the unfallen universe is still watching all this, aren’t they getting a little frustrated how this experiment in pain and death is getting drawn out…

The second coming is, of course, the central point in Adventism, right along side the literal Sabbath requirement to successfully get through the judgement.

I never have understood the importance of SOON. As “soon” as we die - the judgement. So yes, “like a thief in the night”, when we least expect it. In essence, the SDA message is keeping our mortality front and centre, which seems a little morbid. Taking the entire gospel to heart, it might be better to concentrate on living fully as God intended us to live, without the angst we hoist upon people to come join us before it’s too late (probation closing soon).

10 Likes
6

Matthew: I have often confessed my admiration for what your columns have asked us to consider. I think that this time you surpassed them all. Your exploration of the problem facing the Adventist Church is magisterial and worthy of serious consideration. Thank you very much for what you have been doing. Please continue to bless us with your gifts.
What needs to be brought into the discussion is an analysis of the function of apocalyptic texts. Then the soon coming may be viewed withing a broader horizon.

10 Likes
7

well, if christ moved into the MHP in 1844, it means he was in the HP for roughly 1800 yrs…using the ratio of 359 days in the HP/1 day in the MHP, which is what we saw in the earthly sanctuary, it would mean christ should have wrapped up IJ in 1849, which obviously didn’t happen…this means we have no real indication of how long IJ should last…but considering the fact that noah preached for 120 yrs, i don’t think the 175 yrs that have passed since 1844 are inordinate, especially considering the fact that IJ is essentially about the eternal destinies of all humans who have ever lived, including the people who lived before the flood…

personally, i think christ’s high priestly ministry in the heavenly sanctuary is the only real explanation for why he didn’t return in the disciples’ life-time, and why he still hasn’t returned…no other denomination can explain this 2,000 yr wait…

i doubt whether anyone is going to “get through the judgement” just because they go to church on saturday…being vindicated in IJ is about having christ stand in one’s stead, which is a big deal…to continually die to self, so that christ can reign and justify, is an enormous calling…one really wonders how people are going to make it who accept christ just before probation closes, and who have to learn in a few days, or moments, what others have had a lifetime to learn…

8

you seem to be suggesting everyone will die before christ returns…don’t you believe there will be 144,000 who are translated without seeing death…

9

There are 3 affirmation that millions of believers make every Sunday –
Christ has died
Christ has risen
Christ will come again

Millions of believers who affirm these statements live their lives as
best they understand so they will be ready when the event happens.
I have seen many take their last breath with hope in “Christ will come again.”
And the funeral services directed by family members celebrate this Hope.

According to SDA understanding of Death. One “Sleeps”. The next voice one
will hear will be the call of Christ to arise at the Trinity’s appearing with all the
holy angels. And since heaven is “silent”, perhaps that will include the elders
around the throne.

3 Likes
10

Not at all, my thrust is the indivuduality of the message. Since 1844 many have died and many born into the faith. The soon return of Christ is a message to be believed across the ages and not just the 1844 believers.

Would you guess the ages of the 144,000… over 100, 10 or 1 year. Thus i find the article not alive to the state of the dead truth.

11

An epiphany about the Second Coming happened to me in France.

I am the ultimate Francophile having owned two homes in France.

Years ago I was visiting the Loire Valley, literally littered with splendid castles built centuries ago by the French aristocracy ( their largesse with French taxpayer money led to the French Revolution )…

I overheard a tour guide telling her group that these stunning castles were extremely uncomfortable to live in — infested with rodents and bugs — even the king’s bed crawling with bedbugs, mites, fleas and lice.

The high ceilinged rooms were very difficult to heat even with their huge fireplaces — the tapestries on the walls were to keep out the damp and not merely for decoration !

No running water, so no hot showers / baths nor flush toilets — only smelly “ chamber pots “. The hygiene in these palaces was deplorable

(— Even today, half of earth’ s current population, live in shanty towns, sleazy slums, tacky tenements, festering favelas, and have zero access to a flush toilet nor hot showers )

When learning about the unhappy / unhealthy living conditions of the wealthy former French nobility, I asked myself, what was the plight of the impoverished peasants, living in unheated huts ??

The people’s pitiful poverty promoted pestilences like the “black death “ ——rodent caused bubonic plague which exterminated one third of Europe’s population.in the mid 1300s.

My epiphany / moment of truth:

That MISERY was the malevolent misfortune of multiple millions throughout the Middle Ages—-

Why did God not “cut it short in righteousness “ ? —-
by fast forwarding Christ’s Second Coming to alleviate affliction, adversity and anguish ??

Mankind’s MISERY over multiple millennia has been monstrous— famines, floods, plagues, pestilences —- abject awfulness !

Christ declared emphatically on Calvary, IT IS FINISHED — implying that the atonement was complete.

He Himself voiced vehemently and vociferously three times in the final book of Revelation BEHOLD I AM COMING SOON !!!

( One more reason to doubt the fake 1844 date —- nearly two millennia after Christ’s promise of imminence, 1844 was hardly . “soon “ …)

Why did He renege on His promise ???

Why has He tolerated millennia of
human misery,
an abundance of atrocities,
a plethora of plagues,
an egregious enormity of climate catastrophes,
all creating massive misery for.mankind ??

My plaintive plea is not WHEN He is coming,
but WHY He did not FAST FORWARD the Second Coming,
multiple centuries ago —
a compassionate action that would have eliminated extensive human suffering
( is He a sadist to allow such suffering when He could expedite an end to it ? ) —- more particularly when the atonement was completed two millennia ago !

9 Likes
12

I constantly remind my friends, family and colleagues that 21st century middle class citizens of first world countries live far far far better than the kings and nobility of any period prior to 1900.

4 Likes
13

I wonder how long this will go on. I wish I could still be around in 80 years. I won’t be here, but my children do have a chance of seeing the year 2100. When we enter the 22nd century, will the SdA church still be preaching the imminent 2nd coming? Or, like the advent movements of the 10th century (the millenium) or the 14th century (bubonic plague) or the 17th century (30 years war), will the movement adapt or die out?

6 Likes
14

Thank you Pierre-Paul for emphasizing the appalling living conditions ( even for the wealthy ) in pre- modern times. No wonder that multiple millions yearned for that heavenly mansion behind the “ pearly gates “ !

2 Likes
15

And the populous saw that the CLERGY were part of the Wealthy and
squandering money and goods from them also. Later their anger went
after the Church. Later they set up the Goddess in Notre Dame. Disrespect
to the Church.
But with any local church there, in those monasteries, there were probably
True and Faithful priests who were killed along with the others. Might see
them in the Kingdom.
But even in the middle 1600’s we had poetry and set to religious music
extolling the soon coming of Christ. We have the poetry and music in the
1982 Episcopal hymnal. Anglicans probably sing them also, since the poets
were Anglicans. A Great Awakening then.

THIS is why we need to make Christ Followers and not necessarily Seventh
day Adventists FIRST.

8 Likes
16

SIRJE,

YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY APT WHEN YOU AFFIRM :

“ IF JUDGEMENT STARTED IN 1844, SURELY IT WOULD HAVE BEEN OVER BY NOW “.

The Investigative Judgement, so unique and peculiar to Adventist Christians —- no other sect / denomination ever affirmed it —- may have made sense when we envisioned Angels poring over pages in massive books, searching for the sins of the saints.

That image of weighty tomes — libraries of litigative literature —- disappeared in the computer age.

When Wikipedia can elucidate any topic in a heart beat,
surely God’s super computers could have performed the entire
“ Investigative Judgement “ in a nano second !

Our ardent IJ believers surely “have egg on their face “ if they believe that God has a crude / crummy / clunky / crippled computer system that would slow walk this Investigative Judgement for 175 years, and counting !

The Angels must be overjoyed not to be spending arduous hours scanning for sins on dusty pages in heavens’s archives !

Our Investigative Judgement theology is just as sacrosanct as our Second Coming belief, and surely both are in need of urgent revision.

8 Likes
17

The way I understand the message of Jesus’ second coming it is a message of hope. The whole Bible works toward it and ends: “Surely I am coming soon!” (Rev 22:20). That positive message is the ultimate hope of all followers of Jesus. Not preaching it would leave us without hope for the future! Sure enough we need to balance it with our involvement in our present world, as well as to remember the past, but cutting of the future aspect of our hope would be fatal.

3 Likes
18

The Second Coming of Christ is coined as the blessed hope against despair. I do not know if Matthew has answers to the despair that exists in our world, or maybe he now believes that living in USA (albeit in the ghetto) he is now in heaven. Mind you, many people from the developing world liken America to heaven. Sorry to burst the bubble Matthew. USA or any developed world may satisfy you, but it doesn’t meet my expectation of heaven. Yes, I choose the road you say is well traveled and I still believe Jesus is coming soon.

Thank you

3 Likes
19

Let me be clear, I don’t think there are compartments in “heaven”; and, since that is a place invisible to us unlike the hilltop in Maine where the faithful waited for Christ’s return in 1844, no one can prove that one way or another. The compartmented heaven is a face-saving hope that sprang in a cornfield. We place concrete dates on all these events, so one must ask, calculated on what calendar…

Jesus’ message had nothing to do with counting years, and tracing His activities in heavenly architecture. His message is for the here and now. If the only reason we are seeking redemption is a fear of being lost, then we’re already lost.

The wording in the Bible comes from a time where no one had even an inkling about our natural world, much less, universe. It may have been useful to picture God sitting on an actual thrown somewhere above the clouds - today, that makes no sense. Having said that, quantum physics leaves the door open for “anything could be possible”. Since matter is only a form of energy, our physical world is less material than we think; and the material world may not be what we should be worried about. Will Jesus appear among the fluffy clouds of water vapour, having travelled through space with a list of names to be saved - in a place through Orion’s nebula - I have some doubts. That’s not to say I don’t think this world is not about to implode; and God is not in control. I leave the details up to God.

4 Likes
20

The reason the IJ resonates with all of us has nothing to do with what is yet to come but what has transpired in the past. As children we experienced the IJ in so many ways as we developed our personality. No doubt everyone of us have heard our parents say, “Wait Johnny til your father comes home.” No doubt all of us had to learned to reckon with Parent-Teacher meetings to account for school performance and behavior. The template is cast and reinforced all throughout childhood that once we reach adulthood our subconscious world takes over and now we look up to the stars to represent what really is in our our inner worlds. Our default is to resort to IJ. It takes self-awareness to undo the shackles of our childhood years. William Wordsworth had it all right when he proclaimed “The Child is Father of the Man.”

We see this phenomenon in child clinics and in so many neuroses and disorders such as PTSD where the past hold hostage the present and the future. The IJ has similar underlying dynamics but in a different facade. As Matthew 7:15 warns all “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”

6 Likes