The Two Advents of Christ

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Hebrews 9:27-28

And as it is appointed to men once to die, but after this the judgment:…

I. The text asserts very plainly that as we are here twice once in a life of probation, and a second time in the day of judgment; so Christ shall be here twice — once in His life of suffering, and then again in His hour of triumph, THE TWO COMINGS OF CHRIST HAVE SOME DEGREE OF LIKENESS.

1. They are like each other in the fact that they are both of them personal comings.

2. Nor less shall the advents be like each other in the fact that they shall both be according to promise.

3. But we must remark in the next place that the second advent of Christ will be like the first in its being unexpected by the mass of people.

4. He will come to bless those who do wait for Him, just as He did at the first.

5. There is this further likeness; He comes, not only to bless His people, but to be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to them that believe not upon Him.

II. THE UNLIKENESS BETWEEN THE TWO ADVENTS.

1. In His coming. Then a manger, now a throne. Then an infant, now the Infinite.

2. In His person. Ah! who would think to recognise in the weary man and full of woes the King eternal, immortal, invisible. Wire would think that the humble man, despised and rejected, was the seed-corn out of which there should grow that full corn in the ear, Christ all-glorious, before whom the angels veil their faces and cry, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth!" He is the same, but yet how changed! Ye that despised Him, will ye despise Him now?

3. In the treatment which He will then receive.

4. The difference appears once more in this; He comes again for a very different purpose. He came the first time with, "I delight to do Thy will, O God." He comes a second time to claim the reward and to divide the spoil with the strong. He came the first time with a sin-offering; that offering having been once made, there is no more sacrifice for sin. He crones the second time to administer righteousness. He was righteous at His first coming, but it was the righteousness of allegiance. He shall be righteous at His second coming with the righteousness of supremacy.

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