Perhaps Today
The Imminent Coming of Christ
by
Thomas Ice
The New Testament teaching
that Christ could return and rapture His church at any-moment, without prior
signs or warning (i.e., imminency), is such a
powerful argument for pretribulationism that it is
one of the most fiercely attacked doctrines by pre-trib
opponents. Non-pretribulationists sense that if the
New Testament teaches imminency, then a pre-trib rapture is virtually
assured.
DEFINITION OF IMMINENCY
What is the biblical
definition of imminency? Dr. Renald
Showers defines and describes imminence as follows:
1) An imminent event is one
which is always "hanging overhead, is constantly ready to befall or
overtake one; close at hand in its incidence." ("imminent,"
The Oxford English Dictionary, 1901, V, 66.) Thus, imminence carries the
sense that it could happen at any moment. Other things may happen before
the imminent event, but nothing else must take place before it happens.
If something else must take place before an event can happen, then that event
is not imminent. In other words, the necessity of something else taking place
first destroys the concept of imminency.
2) Since a person never
knows exactly when an imminent event will take place, then he cannot count on a
certain amount of time transpiring before the imminent event happens. In light
of this, he should always be prepared for it to happen at any moment.
3) A person cannot
legitimately set or imply a date for its happening. As soon as a person sets a
date for an imminent event he destroys the concept of imminency,
because he thereby is saying that a certain amount of time must transpire
before that event can happen. A specific date for an event is contrary to the
concept that the event could happen at any moment.
4) A person cannot
legitimately say that an imminent event will happen soon. The term
"soon" implies that an event must take place "within a
short time (after a particular point of time specified or implied)." By
contrast, an imminent event may take place within a short time, but it
does not have to do so in order to be imminent. As I hope you can see by
now, "imminent" is not equal to "soon."1
A. T. Pierson has noted
that, "Imminence is the combinatioin of two
conditions, viz,: certainty
and uncertainty. By an imminent event we mean one which is certain to occur at
some time, uncertain at what time."2
IMMINENCY IN THE NEW
TESTAMENT
The fact that Christ could
return, but may not soon, at any moment, yet without the necessity of signs preceeding His return requires the kind of imminence taught
by the pre-trib position and is a strong support for pretribulationism.
What New Testament passages
teach this truth? Those verses stating that Christ could return at any moment,
without warning and those instructing believers to wait and look for the Lord's
coming teach the doctrine of imminence. Note the following New Testament
passages:
1 Corinthians 1:7-"awaiting eagerly the
revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,"
1 Corinthians 16:22-"Maranatha."
Philippians 3:20-"For our citizenship is in
heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ;"
Philippians 4:5-"The Lord is near."
1 Thessalonians 1:10-"to wait for His Son from
heaven,"
1 Thessalonians 4:15-18-"For this we say to you by the
word of the Lord, that we who are alive, and remain until the coming of the
Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will
descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of {the} archangel, and with the
trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive
and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord
in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one
another with these words."
1 Thessalonians
5:6-"so then
let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober."
1
Timothy
6:14-"that you
keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord
Jesus Christ,"
Titus 2:13-"looking for the blessed hope
and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus;"
Hebrews 9:28-"so Christ . . . shall appear
a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly
await Him."
James 5:7-9-"Be patient, therefore,
brethren, until the coming of the Lord. . . . for the
coming of the Lord is at hand. . . . behold, the Judge
is standing right at the door."
1 Peter 1:13 -"fix your hope completely on
the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."
Jude
21-"waiting
anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life."
Revelation 3:11; 22:7,
12, 20-"'I am
coming quickly!'"
Revelation 22:17, 20-"And the Spirit and the bride
say, 'Come.' And let the one who hears say, 'Come.'"
"He who testifies to
these things says, 'Yes, I am coming quickly.' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."
It is significant that all
of the above passages relate to the rapture and speak of the Lord's coming as
something that could occur at any-moment, that it is imminent. This is why
believers are waiting for a person-Jesus Christ-not an event or series of
events such as those related to the tribulation leading up to Christ's second advent in which He returns to the earth and remins for His millennial reign.
IMMINENCE AND
PRETRIBULATIONISM
As we consider the above
passages, we note that Christ may come at any moment, that
the rapture is actually imminent. Only pretribulationism
can give a full, literal meaning to such an any-moment
event. Other rapture views must redefine imminence more loosely than the New Testamnet would allow. Dr. Walvoord
declares, "The exhortation to look for 'the glorious appearing' of Christ
to His own (Titus 2:13) loses its significance if the Tribulation must
intervene first. Believers in that case should look for signs."3 If the
pre-trib view of imminence is not accepted, then it
would make sense to look for signs related to events of the tribulation (i.e.,
the anti-christ, the two witnesses, etc.) and not for
Christ Himself. But the New Testament, as demonstrated above, uniformly
instructs the church to look for the coming of Christ, while tribulation saints
are told to look for signs.
The New Testament exhortation
to be comforted by the Lord's coming (John 14:1; 1 Thess.
4:18) would no longer have meaning if believers first had to pass through any
part of the tribulation. Instead, comfort would have to await passage through
the events of the tribulation. No, the church has been given a "Blessed
Hope," in part, because our Lord's return is truly imminent.
MARANATHA!
The early church had a
special greeting for one another, as recorded in 1 Corinthians 16:22, which was
"Maranatha!" Maranatha
consists of three Aramaic words: "Mar" ("Lord"), "ana" ("our"), and "tha"
("come"), meaning "our Lord, come." As with other New
Testament passages, Maranatha only makes sense if an
any-moment or imminent coming is understood. Such an understanding supports the
pre-trib position.
No wonder these ancient
Christians coined such a unique greeting which reflects an eager expectation of
the Blessed Hope as a very real presence in their everyday lives. The life of
the church today could only be improved if "Maranatha"
were to return as a sincere greeting on the lips of an expectant people. Maranatha! W
ENDNOTES
1 Renald
Showers, Maranatha Our Lord, Come! A
Definitive Study of the Rapture of the Church (Bellmawr, N.J.: The Friends
of Israel Gospel Ministry, Inc., 1995), pp. 127-28.
2Arthur
T. Pierson, Our Lord's Second Coming as a Motive to World-Wide Evangelism
(published by John Wanamaker, n.d., cited in Showers,
Maranatha, p. 127.
3 John F. Walvoord, The Rapture
Question: Revised and Enlarged Edition (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1979), p. 273.