It has been a while since I posted in my series on the Nicene Creed. A busy ministry schedule and other series floating around in my mind have precluded me from working any further into the Nicene Creed. With that said, in the last post we noted the important of "theological triage", that is, prioritizing doctrines of Scripture by their relative weight or emphasis in the Bible in comparison to other truths here Growing Christian Resources: Post #27 1700 Years of the Nicene Creed - The Nicene Creed's Confession Of Last Things (Eschatology) and a word on theological triage.
One reason we are studying the Nicene Creed is because earlier generations of the church saw the need to give agreed-upon summaries of what was essential for Christians everywhere and at all times to confess with regards to their faith. Creeds are not meant to be exhaustive in their treatment of Bible doctrine. Other theological treatises such as confessions or doctrinal statements operate to give more detailed listings of doctrines. Even then, there is still a sense in which there is a consistency among all orthodox creeds, confessions, and doctrinal statements when it comes to what counts as first tiered theological commitments.
In today's post we continue on with our study of the Nicene Creed by noting what it has to say about Christ's second coming. I'll likely be posting installments at a slower pace, since we are also currently studying the doctrine of sanctification in this blogsite. Onto the Nicene Creed!
"And He shall come again."
The Nicene Creed affirms the second coming of the Son. When Jesus ascended into Heaven forty days after His resurrection, He gave final instructions to His disciples. In Acts 1:9-11, we read what then is said next by angels who appear to the disciples as Jesus ascends:
"And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. 10 And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. 11 They also said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.'”
The point made here by the angels to the disciples is that the return of Jesus will be a physical and bodily return. This of course isn't the only passage in the Bible that asserts the second coming, but it is among the clearer passages that affirm the bodily return of our Lord (see also Acts. 1:11; 3:19–21; 1 Corinthians 4:5; 11:26; 15:23). If one takes what the Nicene Creed is saying here in context of its overall confession of the incarnation, this point emerges all the more.
The Second Coming of Jesus Christ is the most focused upon subject in all of Biblical prophecy or Eschatology. The late Bible scholar John Walvoord notes:
"It (the second coming) constitutes the most tremendous intervention of divine power in the entire course of human history. On every hand one discovers that the Scripture dealing with the second coming is the key to the prophetic future." (Biblio Theca Sacra 114:454, April 1957, page 97).
Roughly one out of every four verses in the Bible refer to Biblical eschatology. In the realm of such references, the physical bodily return of our Lord dominates the Biblical vision of the future or last things. Jesus Himself spoke often of what would be His second coming (Matthew 16:27; 25:29-31; 26:64; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26; 22:69). Let me give one example of a pair of references from the Old and New Testaments concerning our Lord's soon return to earth.
The prophet Isaiah prophesied of the future coming of Yahweh to earth in Isaiah 25:6-9 "The Lord of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; a banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow,
And refined, aged wine. 7 And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples, even the veil which is stretched over all nations. 8 He will swallow up death for all time, and the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces, and He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; For the Lord has spoken.
9 And it will be said in that day,
'Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us.
This is the Lord for whom we have waited; Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”
In Isaiah's prophecy we certainly see the visible, physicality of this return to earth. The coming Kingdom will be manifested in a physical way, altering the very earth itself. One feature associated with the Lord's return is mention of a great banquet, a common theme in passages that speaks of God manifesting Himself to His covenant people in the context of His redemption of them (see Exodus 24 or our Lord's institution of the Lord's Supper in Luke 22).
The Apostle John records a strikingly similar description of the coming of Jesus Christ with His bride, the Church, first Revelation 19:7-9 "Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” 8 It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. 9 Then he said to me, 'Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’” And he said to me, 'These are true words of God.”
The same author then records the very vision of the coming of Jesus Christ, Yahweh in the flesh, in Revelation 19:11-14 "And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. 12 His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. 13 He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses."
This pair of references are but a small slice of numerous examples of texts that emphasize the physical, visible return of our Lord who is God and man to earth, just as affirmed in the Nicene Creed (see for instance Zechariah 14 and Matthew 24:15-31; Joel 2:28-32; Daniel 9:23-27; and 2 Thessalonians 2:7-8 and many, many others).
"With glory"
Three senses of the term "glory" are worth mentioning as revealed in the Bible. The first sense is "incarnate glory". The reason why the Nicene Creed adds this little phrase "with glory" is to emphasize the point I made earlier, namely the second coming of our Lord will not be invisible, but visible; not a spiritual non-physical return, but a return featuring Him in his post-resurrected, ascended, incarnate glory as God in the flesh. This is the first observation to note of what is meant by "glory", namely the incarnated glory of Christ returning to earth.
What is the glory of God? God's glory is that excellency of God whereby He makes visible, clear, and revelatory His otherwise unapproachable, invisible nature and attributes. As Christ returns, He will manifest the glory of deity through His glorified humanity due to His coming for His people. The second coming of Jesus Christ is promised to the Christian to be one which they will see with their own eyes (Job 19:25-28; 1 Peter 1:8; 1 John 3:2-3; Revelation 1:7-8).
Baptist Theologian J.P. Boice notes of the glory in which Christ will appear at His second coming:
"It will be an appearance with power and glory; “for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God,” (1 Thess. 4:16); “in the glory of his Father,” (Matt. 16:27); and “in his glory, and all the angels with him,” (Matt. 25:31); fulfilling to believers their expectation of “the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Tit. 2:13" (J.P. Boice, Abstract of Systematic Theology, 40.3).
The second sense concerning how Christ will return "with glory" is that He will have the accompaniment of the angelic hosts of heaven itself. Jesus earlier on in His public ministry made this statement in Mark 8:38 "For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." Theologian A.A. Hodge notes this of Christ's second coming in glory in His "Outlines of Theology":
"The coming itself, its manner and
purpose are alike defined. He is to be attended with the hosts of
heaven, in power and great glory."
Then the final sense of the term "glory" has to do with how Jesus Christ will manifest His full deity with which He shares with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the realm of the coming Kingdom itself. The Kingdom of God is the domain of the reign of the Son of God. What divides theologians concerns the issue of the millennial kingdom that it referred to throughout Scripture. Is the revelation of the glory of the King mainly in Heaven now with a final manifestation meant to then resurrect the saints, judge unbelievers, and usher in the New Heavens and New Earth (the broad outline of so-called "amillennialism" and "post-millennialism")? Or will the glory of God through Christ through His Kingdom involve an earthly physical stage of a 1,000 years duration, beginning with the resurrection of the just and concluding with the resurrection of the unjust, final judgment, and New Heavens and Earth? The Nicene Creed doesn't dive into those specifics, nor will I in this post. Suffice to say though, the whole debate over the millennium must reckon with which view most clearly shows Christ revealing the glory of His deity in such a way to flood the whole earth and cosmos, as well as to show He is the decisive revelation of God.
