When Will Jesus Return?

The short answer to this question is "no one knows."  In fact, the Bible literally tells us in Mark 13:32, "32 “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

There is much confusion though as to what is meant by the Second Coming of Christ or the Return of Christ because like the phrase "The Day of the LORD" in the Old Testament, it refers to a number of different events that will take place in the last days.  First, there will be a day that this verse in Mark 13 refers to when Jesus will return for the Church and take them to heaven for what is called The Marriage Supper of the Lamb (it is the completion of the meal that He had with His disciples at what we call The Last Supper which He intentionally left unfinished with a promise to finish it when He returned for them.  This is why the celebration of the Lord's Supper (The Eucharist) looks back and looks forward).  Before this happens, the gospel must go forth to all people groups (often translated as "nations," but it is more correctly seen in light of "The Table of Nations" in Genesis 10.  God promises multiple times that there will be people from every tribe, tongue and nation, making one people out of all the people that were divided at the Tower of Babel.  We start to see this fulfilled on the day of Pentecost when the Spirit of God came upon the Jewish people who lived in all the nations close enough to Israel to make the required pilgrimages, but that still left a lot of the world to be covered as most of the world was populated by Gentiles.  We see the gospel going forth to the Gentiles as the book of Acts progresses and the book of Acts is left open-ended as we are still continuing in that mission of taking the gospel to the whole world today.

There is another event that people are usually referring to when they talk about Jesus coming back, and that is when the Lord comes back riding on the white horse to make war with the enemies of God, destroy the wicked and establish His Kingdom here on earth.  There are lots of various opinions on exactly when this is going to happen, but it would seem from most of the passage I read that this is coming at the end of the time of Jacob's Trouble that we call the Tribulation.  The Antichrist and the False Prophet will be thrown into the Lake of Fire, but Satan will be held in a place called the Abyss or the Bottomless Pit for 1,000 years.  At the end of this time, he will be released to turn the hearts of those born during this 1,000-year reign of Christ on this earth (The Millennial Kingdom) against Jesus.  As I read the text, none of those born during this time will be saved--all of them will join Satan's final rebellion in the battle that many call The Battle of Armageddon.

At that time, Jesus will put an end to this creation (again, there are various opinions on whether the heavens and the earth go up in a huge nuclear explosion of sorts and nothing remains or whether they are simply "cleansed" with fire and the earth remains, but is formless and empty like in Genesis 1:1-2).  It is at this time that God (we know from other passages that this will be Jesus) judges the wicked at the Great White Throne judgment.  All those who stand there will not have their names found in the Lamb's Book of Life and they will be judged by their deeds and found guilty and cast into the Lake of Fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

Also as this time is when The New Heavens and the New Earth are revealed (The New Jerusalem, the Bride of Christ, comes out of heaven and heaven and earth are one once again).  This is both a place made of a people and a people made for a place.  What makes this place and people different is that it is eternal and incorruptible.  There will be no more sin, death or disease.  Death and Hades (literally "The Grave") have been cast into the Lake of Fire never to be seen or heard from again.  This is usually what people are longing for when they say "When is Jesus going to come back?" (to fix the brokenness and make all things right and just).  There are many things that must still happen before this, but we are already living in the beginning of the sequence of events that must take place.  We have been living in the Last Days since the time of the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus (He returned back to heaven 40 days after His resurrection and promised that He would return for us).  It's been even clearer that we were living in the Last Days since 70 A.D. with the destruction of the Temple.  This was the first of many "signs" that Jesus told us to look for.

We are told that in the last days there will be earthquakes and all kinds of natural disasters, wars and rumors of wars, a great time of both revival and apostasy.  We are seeing all these things, especially the part about wars and rumors of wars.  Jesus said when we see all these things we should think of them like a woman feeling contractions that knows she is about to go into labor.  Once they start, the baby is definitely coming, but no one knows exactly how long until the baby comes.  The contractions will become more intense and more frequent as the delivery gets closer, and there is no stopping the process.  That is how it will be in the last days.  We know that it is most urgent for people to make a derision which side they are on now because there is not much more time left for them to make that choice, even if death does not take them first.  Any day now the last person that the Father is waiting for to make a decision to submit their lives to Jesus will repent and believe and the Father can turn to the Son and say "Go get your Bride and bring them home to the place you've prepared for them."