He Will Come to Deliver

“Lo, I come.”

This spine-tingling statement in Psalm 40 prophesied the intent of the eternal Son of God to set foot on a sin-riven earth. A thousand years later, Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, having come as promised, if not quite in the way expected, made another declaration to the people He loved unto the end.

“I will come again.”

There is nothing here to be confused or misinterpreted. These are words so simple a child cannot misunderstand them. This is an emphatic promise, believer. He is coming back.

We know from the Scripture that His second coming will mean no more sorrow, pain, and tears. It will mean no more sin, no troubled conscience. It will mean no more war, and instead of death we will be reunited with all those in Christ who have gone before us. But these wonders are ripple effects. The infinitely glorious Person, Jesus, is the epicenter of the joy and longing we feel in response to this promise. In Him all fulness dwells, the fulness of the Godhead bodily. He is the living water and the living bread that can satisfy the deep hunger and quench the eternal thirst of the soul. We know this, and we long for Him.

Jesus makes three other powerful promises to His people regarding His second coming, and each one draws us deeper into hope of the deliverance that we will enjoy in the person of Christ, “who is our hope” (I Timothy 1:1).

“And Jesus said unto him, ‘Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be in paradise.’” (Luke 23:43)

The text is here intentionally misquoted. It’s only missing two words, but those two words are the difference between paradise and hell. Without those two words there is no power in this promise of paradise, no lasting joy to be hoped for. In fact, without those two words it isn’t paradise at all, but just another place of emptiness and misery. The two words are “with me.”

An eternity with Jesus Christ is paradise. An eternity without Him is hell. It’s as simple as that.

Do you, like Paul, long to “be with Christ?” The incredible truth is that Jesus longs for the same thing! In John 17:24, Jesus in his prayer to the Father says, “I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.” When He promises in John 14:3 “I will come again,” His stated purpose is “that where I am, there ye may be also.”

When Christ comes again, we will be with Him, and forever.

“When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory… and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” (Col. 3:4, 1 Thess. 4:17).

“And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb…” (Rev. 6.15-16)

To be with Jesus for eternity should be paradise. But unless we are like Jesus it would only be an eternity of shame and fear. The “exceeding great and precious promise” given us in Romans 8:29-30 is that God has predetermined the destiny of His people. The real glory of the truth revealed there is that this destination is not a place, but a person.

In fact, the entire “golden chain of salvation” found there describes God’s plan and work to make His people like Jesus Christ. He loved them before the foundation of the world as He loves His Son. He pre-destinated them to be conformed to His image, that His Son would be the first of many brethren. Then He called them out of darkness and into the marvelous light of Christ the true Light. He pronounced them to be as righteous as His Son on the merit of His blood and because it is in fact His righteousness they now wear. Finally, in this “one entire eternally completed salvation,” He consummates the transformation and glorifies them to be like Jesus, “who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.” (Php. 3:21)

Even now, beholding him, we are being “changed into the same image, from glory into glory.” Even now “are we the sons of God.” But the fulness is coming. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (2 Cor. 3:18, 1 Jn. 3:2)

Even at His first coming when “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us”, John says “we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). For those given eyes to see, and especially for a few on the Mount of Transfiguration, He was indeed glorious, but His glory was largely veiled. “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not” (John 1:10).

Not so at His second coming. In John 17:5 Jesus says, “O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” In other words, “I set that glory aside – now I’m ready to get it back.” When He comes the second time He will destroy the antichrist with the very brightness of His glory. The wicked will cry for the rocks to fall on them rather than face the awesome wrath of the Lamb. But His people will revel and rejoice in His glory, because they will be like Him.

Jesus said, “I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me.”

For the children of God, clothed in His righteousness, finally conformed to His image, to be surrounded by the unmitigated, unrestrained, undimmed glory of the Lion, the Lamb, the King, the Redeemer, will be spring, sunrise, and symphony. It will be a feast for the soul. We will never get enough but forever be satisfied.

To be with Him, to be like Him, and to see Him in His true glory will be complete and eternal deliverance.