The Second Coming of Christ

The Second Coming of Christ

The seers and prophets of old foretold Christ's first mission to earth. 

The promise was given to Abraham when he was lamenting the backslidings of his people—it was renewed to Isaac and Jacob in a special manner, and all through the old records, glimpses and promises of someone who should redeem them from their sins were scattered.

Christ's mission so long foretold was not an ordinary one, neither was it ushered in without many signs and manifestations.

The accounts in our Bible though garbled are mainly true. A star was seen in the heavens to guide the wise men of the east—descendants of the old Hindus. Spirits did appear to the shepherds, and many other phenomena indicated that some unusual event was in progress.

That He was the child of Joseph and Mary to all outward appearance is true, but laws ruled in Jesus' conception that obtained in no other case.

Joseph, while in the trance state, had his place entirely supplied by the Holy Spirit—or heavenly magnetism, so that only the God-principle, unadulterated by his animal nature, had any part in the conception, so far as Joseph was concerned. Mary was herself unconscious of the act until afterwards when the spirits revealed it to her. She could then realise the nature of the charge she bore—the sacred burden she carried.

Christ was indeed truly born of this virgin.

Though unconscious to themselves, Joseph had been made the instrument for conveying the God-principle to her.

The power of the Holy Spirit was made manifest to these two good and holy people—and they understood what had occurred and rejoiced with exceeding joy that this great blessing had been brought to humanity through their instrumentality.

The knowledge that all the Jews possessed that the time had arrived when they were led to expect a Messiah caused Joseph and Mary's persecutions and troubles during the infant Jesus' childhood.

Some were displeased that He should come in so humble a guise—others dreaded that He might deprive them of temporal power. These contending, selfish influences necessitated the cause for Joseph to remove for a time with his precious charge from the country.

The need was great for something higher and nobler to visit and redeem humanity from its degraded condition.

The promise had been made to Abraham and others, and in this way it was worked out.

Changes, like those Christ advocated, do not take place in a lifetime or in many ages. Reform is a slow process, especially when it attacks the cherished desires and feelings of individuals and nations.

There was no impossibility in conveying through Joseph and Mary, mediums as they were, the full influx of the Divine Essence to the infant Jesus who was to be his people's Messiah.

Means must always be used to produce an effect.

If the human family required a teacher of higher righteousness and purer truths than they had yet realised—

If they had progressed to that stage of development when the aspirations of many souls went up for light—

Was it not to be given to them? Do we ever really seek for help in vain?

No—the world had then arrived at that state foreseen by Divine Wisdom, as the effect of humanity's gradual progression. The time had come that prophets and seers had foretold and a new era of development was to be inaugurated on earth. Simply and unostentatiously, it commenced.

We know little of the early life of our Master and Teacher.

It was not spent in working at any trade, but in holy meditation and prayer, for that further light that should fit him for his mission. 

Many may now say He was only a medium. This is not correct.

He was truly a medium, but such as we can little conceive of. From His birth, He had been filled with God's Divine Spirit. He was while yet on earth in constant communion with the angels. When He retired to meditate and prepare himself for his work, of which He was fully conscious, wisdom was poured down upon Him in all its fullness.

The Spirit of God lived in him and his earthly nature was entirely subdued by its power over Him.

He was human—at the same time, He was so imbued with the Spirit of God that He spent a long time in solitude before He ventured to give His high teachings to the world. When He did come forth in His purified and exalted state, no trials or troubles could move Him.

He had learned His lesson fully—He understood perfectly what was in men and what was required of Him to teach them.

He made no extraordinary parade, no effort to attract attention, but a word in due season dropped here and there were the first seeds sown of the gospel that was destined to bear such abundant fruits.

Men listened with wrapt attention to teachings, so different to what they were accustomed to receive from their scribes and Pharisees.

The simplicity and practical utility of His moral lessons, so easy to follow and so capable of producing the best results, struck them with admiration and multitudes soon waited on him to listen to his words.

The wonderful power of healing He possessed attracted all the poor sufferers and cripples to His side, and He healed them.

His power was from a far higher source—

He had the Holy Spirit direct from God and his very presence carried a balm and consolation with it. The heavenly magnetism He threw off bore relief on its breath, and men felt, not only purified in spirit, but better in body from contact with Him.

Our Testament though incorrect in some unimportant details gives us a faithful picture of His life and enough of His teachings to make us wise unto salvation if we only followed them out in the true spirit. The last scenes of His earthly career, there related are also tolerably well described.

He suffered the utmost indignity and cruelty, but His Immortal Soul, His Spirit, rose superior to every trial, and buoyed up by its own conscious integrity soared above all the malice and cruelty, rejoicing rather that its work being now accomplished could enter into those more congenial spheres with which it had so long held sweet communion.

His sufferings and death were necessary to convince the world of the truth of the teachings He had brought to it and for which He willingly laid down His life.

When He passed from our plane, He took His allotted place high among the heavenly hosts—the acknowledged Leader, Governor and Director, of the spiritual affairs, relating to our earth.

Other spheres, also, have their great controlling power that guides and sways their movements—

The great God-principle, the Fountain of Light, All-wisdom, emanates and is given to each and all as they desire it. Christ, from this Fountain, derives all the wisdom, love and knowledge He possesses, but He has drawn from it so much more largely than any other human being—

He has made so much more of it his own by his sympathy and devotion to the cause of humanity while on earth, and since his ascension to the higher spheres by his continued exertions on our behalf that He by right of His superior wisdom, love and knowledge take the lead in heaven in this reformatory movement that is now coming to redeem us.

He is the acknowledged Head to whom the lower intelligences look up with love and respect for guidance.

He controls all the forces that are brought to battle against error and suffering, and as his power and majesty are great, so is his love and kindness to the humble and truthful seeker after good ready to be poured out in all its fullness and abundance.

So what is the second coming of Christ?

This important event was evidently expected in all sincerity by Jesus' immediate disciples to be very near at hand in their day. They mistook the spirits' teachings. They could not understand time as the spirits do who have no reckoning of it, and who when they said He would come again quickly did not think of the interpretation that we would put on their words. 

But the time has now indeed arrived when we may see the coming of Christ. 

But do you think He will come with loud and noisy demonstrations, terrifying us with thunder and lightning and earthquakes, as emblems and symbols of His presence? No—the coming of Christ will be very different to this, but far more tangible to human reason. It is to our hearts that His appeal will be made.

Consciences that have slumbered long will be awakened.

Justice will be aroused in bosoms that have too often slighted and neglected its calls.

Pity will be excited.

Sympathies will be stirred up, and love, the supreme and universal love for all, will find an entrance into every bosom.

These are the manifestations that will attend Christ's second coming to earth. These are the effects that will mark his progress. Deeds of violence and bloodshed may be enacted before that time. We may be humbled and prepared by suffering to receive him, but all the calamities that threaten to overwhelm will work out an end commensurate with the good that is to follow.

Soon He will himself take the field in person, armed for the conflict with the Light of Love, Wisdom and Knowledge from the great God Himself.

We cannot yet bear the Light of his sphere, neither could we receive his exalted teachings in their full extent.

But gradually, as the darkness is cleared away and our minds get magnetised with love and wisdom, higher and purer light will be pressed forward and the darkness of error must flee before it.

We cannot see these things because our minds are not yet sufficiently developed in spiritual knowledge to understand the workings of spirit power, but we can understand quite enough to know that Christ's second mission is also a mission of love, and when a change does take place, when the perfect rule of harmony and love and justice obtains among us, then we shall look back upon these times of trial and suffering with joy and rejoicing—realising the blessings we have received through them.

When we think at all of the second coming of Christ to earth, we imagine a dreadful day of reckoning and a sorting out among us of the good from the bad, the redeemed from the unregenerate, and that Christ as a stern and uncompromising Judge will sit on His throne and sentence the wicked to everlasting condemnation.

This erroneous idea has been fostered somewhat by a few passages in the New Testament erroneously given and probably inserted after the record was written to assimilate the teachings of the Christians more nearly to the pagans who believed in the eternal duration of punishment.

Be this as it may, the true teachings of Christ are there in all their beautiful simplicity, high enough for the wisest sages to dwell on with rapt attention, simple enough for a child to understand and practice if it is rightly trained.

The misapprehensions, regarding Christ's second coming have had their origin in part from passages in the New Testament, wrongly given or inserted after it was written, and in part also from the bias of mind of the old fathers who compiled the records and tinged them with the superstitions from which many had just emerged.

Christ himself never gave utterance to such an idea—

He was too enlightened, too full of the essence of divinity to believe for a moment that eternal punishment would be the doom of any, however guilty.

Read the old books with judgment and discrimination, taking what is good and worthy to be followed to your own soul and trying to live up to the teachings, but wisely drawing the line between the good and the evil contained in both testaments.

How many thousands have left our earth, wearing, as they thought, the bridal garments and prepared to meet the Lamb through sanctification by his blood who have found out their grievous error when too late to rectify it!

No imputed righteousness of Christ or saint can save or assist us—we must be our own redeemer.

Christ Jesus is not coming and never will come to earth in a personal form to judge and condemn any, but He will by the power given unto Him from on high come into our hearts and judge and condemn there. 

He will open each individual's eyes to see his own naked deformity of spirit and He will give him the means of curing his diseases by showing him how he may reform and improve himself.

A gradual softening of our hearts will evince the presence of some power foreign to ourselves, silently working among us. After its effects become more perceptible and we begin to entertain a different feeling for each other—

When the rich man can regard his poor neighbour as a brother and treat him as such, not coldly passing him by regardless of his condition—

When the sick and suffering are relieved and peace and plenty again bless our lives—then the power of the Spirit of Christ and the workings of his sacred mission to earth will be more fully revealed to us—its effects will then be manifested and daily we may realise them more and more.

To those who can realise only the ills that oppress them, this may appear only poetical rhapsody, but it is the simple truth. 

We have never known until now how widespread is the curse that error brings upon everything connected with it and we cannot comprehend the amount of evil our vicious and indulged passions have generated. 

But we may form some little idea of it when we consider how long and how devotedly Christ and his followers have worked, trying to bring their light to us through the dense blackness of darkness we have formed around the earth by our misdoings.

Now, however, it is penetrated, and a breach having been made, the hosts of heaven rush in armed for the conflict.

With such a Leader, they cannot fail.

Their success is certain—their triumph is sure.

Pray that they may come quickly—

Assist them in this way—

Let our aspirations go upwards and let our deeds be in accordance with our knowledge of what Christ comes to enforce.

Many will be cut down in this coming conflict of our people with each other. Many will suffer worldly loss.

But if our hopes are fixed on high—

If our desires are for the better and purer light of truth that Christ comes to reveal to us, we need not fear the approaching struggle for earthly power or human rights.

We have a hope higher than the earth—surer and more steadfast than anything on this transitory plane and which no changes, no disasters can deprive us of.

We have much to learn and much to unlearn—

The pride of human reason must be abused and we must understand that there may be some things that are past our comprehension while in this finite state.

One of these things is the real character and present position of Christ.

He was truly "God with us," as He was conceived in the fullness of the God-principle.

He was "the light that was to lighten the world."

How was He all this?

Only—as He was more entirely pervaded with that Essence of Deity that rendered him almost a part of God himself and which fullness of Deity was conveyed to him at his conception when the animal passions of both parents being at rest during their entranced state, the necessary process of generation was accomplished free from lust and with nothing to contaminate or interfere with the God-principle—and the life-principle then and there deposited to form the nucleus of a being that was intended and designed to be superior in all the higher attributes to the people of Israel or any other nation.

He was preordained by Almighty Wisdom to be the Saviour of men.

His first work was accomplished when He expired on the Cross.

His second mission is in progress and its fulfilment may now be looked for.

Christ is not God.

Neither is He equal with God, for that is an impossibility.

But at the same time, He is the highest created being that has ever been developed and to him we should all look as our King and Head, our Leader and Director, our Teacher and Guide.

Why do we do this, you will say?

Why not look to deity himself?

Simply because Deity has put all these things into His hands.

He is the appointed Messiah of the World and fitted for his high office by his superior development in all wisdom, love and knowledge—the peculiar attributes of the Deity.

It may be startling and perhaps mortifying to our pride, but it is a fact nevertheless that He is the only God we shall ever see.

He is the nearest approach to Deity we shall ever come into rapport with.

But if we have understood our teachings aright, we shall have already learned that the God-principle will always remain an unseen though ever present power from which Christ Jesus our Lord, as well as we, derive our wisdom and happiness.

Christ is and has always been the guiding and directing power in the war He has so long waged against sin, and He draws wisdom and strength for his work from the Deity who so liberally supplies the wants of all who apply to him.

Therefore, we should not confound our minds by trying to make all harmonise with our old teachings, either of one kind or another—

Though Christ is so high and so good, so powerful and yet so full of love for the whole human family—though He was specially created to reform and improve the condition of men—still, He is not God.

He is not to be worshipped as Deity, but He must be ever loved and reverenced by all who have received so much good through Him and who see his constant and untiring efforts to benefit and redeem the people of earth—a work, which He will never cease to carry forward until all are brought into the true light of God's Holy Spirit.

East and west, north and south, from all quarters, the darkness of error and superstition will be done away with and true light and love and peace will be the inmates of every bosom.