Coming to the Disciple and coming to World
Introduction
Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen. (Revelation 1:7—NIV)
Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, "But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?" Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." (John 14:1-23—NIV)
If you will think about the above two passages you will see that there are to be two distinctly separate comings of the Lord Jesus Christ. The first coming is His historic coming in the clouds of glory. Every eye shall see Him at that time.
The second coming is to the disciple, not to the world, as Judas remarked.
There are three things we need to understand about the personal coming of the Lord to His disciples. First, His coming to us is based on our keeping His commandments. The Lord’s historic coming to the world is not based on anyone keeping His commandments.
The coming of the Lord to us is not based on our believing in Him except as our belief leads us to keep His commandments.
He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. (John 14:24—NIV)
It seems every organized effort to respond to the Divine salvation, whether Judaism or the Catholic Church or the Protestant churches, manages to find a way to avoid keeping God’s commandments. One thing or another is substituted for simply obeying God.
In our day it is the teaching of lawless grace. Just believe in Jesus and you do not have to keep the commandments of Christ and His Apostles.
I think the inability of organized religion to keep the commandments of God comes from Satan, who understands very well that God will not work where His commandments are not being kept.
The spiritual condition of the American churches, for the most part, is abysmal. While there are refreshings scattered here and there the believers, in many instances, are still not being exhorted to obey the commandments of Christ and His Apostles.
Grace, the "rapture," and Heaven are preached constantly, but not the need to keep the commandments found in the New Testament. Consequently there is a lack of the Divine Presence. Because of the lack of the Divine Presence the lamp of the testimony is growing dim. This disastrous condition is resulting from the preaching of lawless grace.
We absolutely must keep the commandments of Christ and His Apostles if we expect to have the Presence of God. Second, His personal coming to us is an absolutely necessary prerequisite for our appearing with Him at His historic second coming. Basic salvation and the baptism with the Holy Spirit are not sufficient to prepare us for the awesome role of riding behind Christ as He descends to deliver Jerusalem from Antichrist and to establish His Kingdom on the earth. We not only must have been saved and filled with God’s Spirit, we also must have opened the door of our heart and received Him in such a manner that the Father and He are now enthroned in our personality.
Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. (Psalms 24:7—NIV)
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. (Revelation 3:20,21—NIV)
The Throne of Christ is our heart when we open the door to the Lord. The Words of Christ concerning opening the door of our personality are addressed to the church in Laodicea, that is, to the church era we are approaching in which great emphasis is place on human rights, on the welfare of people—not their spiritual welfare in Christ but their physical welfare.
The stress on the physical welfare of people instead of their spiritual welfare in Christ will bring about an age of unprecedented wickedness because of the open door it will give to Satan. (When we do not open the door of our heart to Christ we automatically open it to Satan!) Therefore Christ has prepared the great third work of grace, the eternal residence of the Father and the Son in those who obey God, so every one who receives may be more than a conqueror throughout the coming age of moral horrors.
Third, the personal coming may have begun today, for the personal coming of the Lord is typified by the last three feasts of the Lord, and these come after Pentecost—that is, after we have been baptized with the Holy Spirit.
We are speaking now of a third work of grace, a Divine aspect of salvation that comes after we have been saved and filled with the Spirit. Being saved through the blood atonement gives us the authority to enter the third work.
Being filled with the Spirit gives us the wisdom and power to enter the third work. It is the third work, the dwelling of the Father and the Son in us through the Holy Spirit, that is the Kingdom of God and the climax of redemption.
It is quite clear in the New Testament, as we shall see in the following pages, that there are two separate comings of the Lord. One is His historic coming to the world. The second is a personal coming to the disciple who is obeying His commandments.
I think the erroneous teaching of the "pre-tribulation rapture" has proceeded from a misinterpretation of those passages, such as the following, that are speaking of the Lord’s coming to His disciples so they may be with Him where He is.
Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, So Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:27,28—NIV)
The unscriptural teaching of the "rapture" is the response of the adamic man to passages that are announcing a personal coming to the disciples, a coming not designed to lift their personality into Heaven (which accomplishes nothing whatever in the Kingdom) but to fill them with the fullness of God so they may be able to bear witness in the coming days of distress, and then to appear with Jesus Christ at His historic second coming. The natural man desires to flee from trouble, danger, and pain. The spiritual man is occupied more with receiving the fullness of God.
May have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, And to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:18,19—NIV)
"Filled to the measure of all the fullness of God"!
If I am correct, the Spirit of God is urging us forward. We have left Egypt (salvation through the blood). We have been to Mount Sinai (the baptism with the Holy Spirit). Now it is time to march forward toward our land of promise. Our land of promise is, first of all, the fullness of God; the fullness of resurrection life. After that our inheritance is the possession of all the works of God’s hands, especially the earth and its peoples. We are not there yet. Many wonders lie before us. We have gone around our present experience long enough. It is time to get moving. Do you have a heart to march forward with God?