The Question

“Where is the promise of his coming?”

That question in verse four does not arise out of an earnest longing for the corporal and visible appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ on the clouds of glory, when he will bring the perfected kingdom of God to usher in the new heavens and the new earth.

That question is not asked out of an earnest hope for Christ’s parousia—he who is faithful and true, who will descend from heaven in the glory and power of the living God to crush the head of the serpent; whose victory is certain; who arrives, as it were, on a noble and war-lusty steed with diadems crowning Christ’s head, with garments already stained by the blood of his foes, with the title King of Kings and Lord of Lords emblazoned upon his vesture and thigh, and with a sharp sword issuing forth from his mouth to smite the nations; who comes to prepare a supper feast from the corpses of God’s enemies for the fowls of the air.

That question does not come out of a travailing anticipation for the Son of man to take his seat upon the great white throne, his eyes blazing with holy zeal to reveal the righteous judgment of God; to take man’s lying record of history and to rewrite it in the light of God’s true and eternal counsel; to open the books and manifest the thoughts and judgments of the Holy One toward every man and spirit; to bring all the unspeakably vile works of the ungodly reprobate that were done in darkness out into the public sphere of every moral creature; and to open the book of life and speak peace unto his righteous elect.

Where is the promise of his coming?

Many times that question has been uttered by God’s saints, suffering the reproach of Jesus Christ in this world that is hostile to his truth, panting for the refreshing streams of righteousness and life, and yearning for the time of deliverance when Christ shall cast all his and their enemies into everlasting condemnation and translate the chosen ones to himself into heavenly joys and glory.

Many times that question has been asked of angels, who throughout the ages have passionately looked into the prophecies of salvation, and who erupt in joy when the power of Christ’s kingdom crushes the stronghold of Satan in the heart of an elect sinner and turns that sinner to repentance.

But that question in verse four is not born of faith and love of Christ’s appearing.

That question is the ugly offspring of unbelief.

That question is the slanderous and blasphemous jesting of scoffers, who descend upon the church like vultures. These scoffers descend upon the church with the purpose of tearing into her flesh by their cruel words and stealing away her only hope in the midst of this crooked and perverse generation. Making light of the promise is the scoffers’ wicked game. Scoffers want nothing to do with the promise. That promise for them is a savor of death unto death. That promise for them means that their portion on this earth shall melt away with fervent heat. Because they hate the coming of Jesus Christ, his appearing is the butt of their jokes.

Such scoffing at the promise might come by a literal attack against the truth of the final coming of the Son of man in glory with all the holy angels to sit upon the throne of his glory. But that is not all that can or must be understood about such scoffing. This scoffing also attacks what that day of Christ’s appearing is all about, and this scoffing detracts from the reality that whatever transpires in this world stands solely in the service of that final coming.

What scoffers deny is that this day of God is the event in all of history, the end that God has determined from the beginning, the telos or goal or purpose of this present age. What scoffers deny is that this day exists for God alone, to vindicate all his righteous judgments from the beginning to the end of the world, to exalt his name to abase all other names among men. What scoffers deny is that as Christ sits at the right hand of majesty, loosening the seals of the book of God’s counsel and executing all of God’s decrees in the power and authority of God, Christ bends every moment and every creature into the service of his coming. What scoffers say is that there is something extraneous, some secondary purpose in the world than the revelation of the kingdom of God from heaven, which shall burn up this world at its appearing.

These scoffers exist today when they preach and labor for an earthly millennial kingdom. “If only the church would get busy,” they say, “infiltrating earthly politics and influencing earthly culture, then the whole world should come under the grip of Christendom, then the knowledge of God should fill up this earth from sea to shining sea, and then the church should have its golden age of carnal prosperity.” These scoffers exist today when they teach two purposes of God in this world—the formation of the New Testament church and the reformation of the Jewish kingdom. These scoffers exist today when they preach the day of the Lord as if it was all about the good works that people do, stealing the day from God’s glory and turning that day into a competition for who can get the best seat in Christ’s court. These scoffers exist today when they preach without any reference to the coming of Jesus Christ, but rather give their congregations to the intoxicating drink of iniquity by refusing to call sin sin, to call false doctrine false doctrine, and to call the lie the lie. They cause people to forget what it means to lay down one’s life for the truth. They cause people to be carnally minded, to labor for the meat that perishes, and to seek peace with the world and to join in its hedonism and debauchery.

Such scoffing at the promise might come in the literal form of that question: Where is the promise of his coming? But understand this: the essence of that scoffing is a denial of the truth and doctrine of the promise. Men do not need to ask that question verbatim to be reckoned as scoffers.

What scoffers deny is that the promise is the living word of the triune God, plowing through space and time like a ship carves through the sea at flank speed, racing through history toward its ultimate perfection, when all the ungodly are cast into outer darkness and when all the righteous are ushered into the great marriage feast in the New Jerusalem. What scoffers deny is that the promise plows through the realm of men, its bow pushing every elect starboard into everlasting glory and pushing every reprobate port side into everlasting damnation. What scoffers deny is that the promise of God is a most mighty, irresistible, and effectual word, bringing the seed of the woman to crush the head of the serpent. What scoffers deny is that the promise of God is absolutely sure apart from and in spite of the labors and efforts of men. That God swore by his own immutable and holy name to fulfill the promise, that all things, including God himself, must vaporize into nothingness if his word falls to the ground as null and void—this means nothing to scoffers.

Rather, what scoffers affirm is that the promise of Christ’s coming—and all that is caused by his coming—must be subjected to their own carnal judgments.

How Scoffers Judge Things

“But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

A puzzling assertion this is. It is a puzzling assertion not because the doctrine of this statement is unclear. That one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day means that God is eternal. A thousand years in his sight are but as yesterday when it is past and as a watch in the night. All things change and wax old as a garment; but God is the same, and his years have no end. That God is eternal means that change and succession of moments, that future and past, do not apply to him. God says, “i am.” Time is not a form for God’s being and life. Time is God’s creature, and he may judge time however he pleases.

It is a puzzling assertion because even the scoffers would acknowledge that God is eternal. No one teaches that time rules over God. Does the apostle actually believe that the church of Jesus Christ would forget this truth? that she would fail to expound upon it in her ministry of the word? that she would ignore it in her catechism instruction? Can the truth of God’s eternality actually escape her remembrance?

Yes. Yes, indeed.

Oh, true it is that man gives cunning lip service to the doctrine of God’s eternality. Man gives cunning lip service to that doctrine, just as he gives cunning lip service to the doctrine that we are saved by grace and not by works. Man may speak of God’s eternality when it arises in a passage of scripture or in a catechism book. Man just will not let the truth of God’s eternality govern his carnal thinking and judgments. It is a doctrine that is best left in heaven or stuffed away in some dogmatics book. It is a doctrine that comes and goes like a distant memory and remains unapplied to the promise of Christ’s coming. And the church is not immune to this.

“But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing…”

Do not be ignorant! Why? Because man who is corrupt flesh and of the earth earthy always takes heavenly truths and subjects them to his own carnal interpretations. Man cannot understand spiritual things spiritually. Whatever pure and simple doctrines that he elicits from scripture must first be rubbed around in the dust of the earth and dipped in the filthy swamp of his mind. He cannot help but subject eternal, timeless truths to his own carnal, temporal judgments. And no less does man do this to the promise of Christ’s coming.

“Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” All things continue as they were from the beginning—that is the argument of the scoffers over against the promised coming of Jesus Christ. It is an argument that finds its starting point from man’s experience. It is an argument based not on the word of God but based on man’s carnal interpretation of things. Christ’s coming is analyzed and judged from the perspective of man, who today is and tomorrow is not.

The argument of scoffers might come in this literal form: “We do not see any evidence of his coming. Look how much time has expired since God spoke the promise of his coming in the garden! All things continue as they have from the beginning.” But understand, when these scoffers argue this way against Christ’s final coming, they also argue this way against all that Christ causes by his coming.

Let us hear the truth of the coming of Jesus Christ. When a man repents, what has happened? Christ, in the power of his coming, has delivered a man from the wrath to come! When the triumphant declaration of forgiveness reverberates in a man’s soul, what has happened? The promise that plows through space and time has pushed a man into the joys of the everlasting kingdom of heaven! When a man loves God, even when God sends him grief and affliction, and when a man loves his neighbor, even when that neighbor limits his earthly way, what has happened? Christ has come with the new beginning of the life of God, which soon shall be revealed in all its glorious fullness! When a man enjoys the blessings of God’s everlasting covenant, what has happened? He has been lifted up by the power of the promise unto the pleasures that are at God’s right hand! Wherever there is the grace of God manifest in the earth, there are the impressions of Christ’s foot as he hastens to bring the end according to the truth of his coming.

But scoffers, who are ignorant of God’s eternality, judge the coming of Jesus Christ—together with all that is caused by his coming—in light of what? Time.

Time. Time. Time.

Man is, of course, creaturely and subject to time. He says, “Today or tomorrow I will go into such a city and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain.” He measures things according to the rule of the sun and the rule of the moon, which stand over him. He speaks in terms of minutes and hours and days and months and years. He is time-bound and creaturely.

The problem with man is that he cannot get enough of time, particularly when it comes to heavenly doctrines. When man arrives at the truths of soteriology, then he manifests his ignorance of the fact that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. When man arrives at the subject of how God applies salvation to the elect sinner and how the sinner appropriates salvation, then man leaves God’s eternality behind. Man judges not in light of the fact that our God is in the heavens and has done whatsoever he has pleased, but man judges in light of his own experience of things. Rather than letting heaven speak, man constantly interrupts as a creature of the dust and expounds things from his own carnal point of view.

How does a scoffer teach salvation (that is to say, how does a scoffer teach the coming of Jesus Christ)? The scoffer maintains that the order of salvation is a strict, temporal process that cannot be violated. The scoffer teaches that there is a vitally important sense in which man acts first. There is an activity of man that is required, which when he performs it by grace and the enabling power of the Spirit, then God bestows some saving good. Scoffers drool over the word then. In time man first repents, and then man knows he is forgiven. In time man first performs his good work, and then man enjoys a covenant blessing. The scoffer teaches that the fullness of salvation, being treasured up in Christ, comes to the believer piecemeal according to some sacrosanct order of this then that then this then that. And if you transgress the scoffers’ strict, time-governed theology, then they cry out in horror like the Pharisees did when a man was healed on the Sabbath. That is the only way that scoffers know how to judge the promise—from their experiences!

Now, I do not deny that there is a certain logical order in salvation. When Christ comes in the power and authority of God to bring a man the blessings of the kingdom, there is undoubtedly a divine relationship between all the riches that Christ bestows. God is not the author of confusion. Those whom he justifies he also sanctifies. A man who will walk in all good works must first be regenerated. A man who will believe must first be indwelt by the Author of faith.

But the carnal mind cannot leave the matter here, unless he also subjects the truth of the promise of Christ’s coming to time and his own personal experience.

How God Wills Things

“But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing…”

When the apostle deals with the promise of Christ—together with all that is caused by his coming—the apostle simply is not interested in the timebound reasoning of scoffers. It is hogwash. It simply falls away when you consider the fact that God is eternal.

That the promise of Christ’s coming should not be considered in terms of time is evident in how scripture often treats the promise. Consider how the book of Revelation presents the whole unfolding of the new dispensation. It is not chronological or linear. Rather, what transpires in the new dispensation is examined in light of the seals that Christ loosens to execute the counsel of God. And upon the events caused by the opening of the seals is overlayed the events caused by the sounding of the trumpets. And upon the events caused by the sounding of the trumpets is overlayed the events caused by the pouring of the vials. In the book of Revelation, we encircle the whole new dispensation multiple times and from different points of view, observing how the heavens and earth quake to hasten the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But not only is this the case for the New Testament. Consider also the fact that time in the Old Testament is not measured from the beginning of creation, from 4000 BC. Rather, events are recorded from the viewpoint of the infallible effects of the promise as it plows through history. How are events recorded in the wilderness wanderings of Israel, but from God’s realization of his promise to redeem Israel from her bondage in Egypt? “In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai” (Ex. 19:1). Or when did God’s salvation of the eight souls and his judgment upon the ungodly world with a flood occur? There time is measured in terms of Noah’s life, an heir and product of God’s promise. “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened” (Gen. 7:11). Or what about that peculiar phrase that occurs time and again in Holy Writ: “And it came to pass…” What does that mean? It means that Christ pushes all things into the service of his coming.

Scripture is not at all interested in subjecting the realization of the promise to time. It is the promise that determines time.

But if this is true, then how does the believer consider the promise of Christ? The believer must think of this word instead: fullness. Pleroma. There must be a fulfillment that is realized in the light of God’s counsel.

That fullness is, above all things, the body of Christ. What does the apostle say? “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise…but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

No, this text is not teaching a well-meant offer of the gospel. The explanation of the text that God desires the salvation of all men is patently and egregiously false. Such an explanation ignores the “us-ward” in the text. Such an explanation ignores the fact that the reason God’s promise of Christ’s coming is not yet fulfilled is because not all have been gathered. If “all” means all men, then God’s promise cannot and may never come until literally all men repent. Furthermore, if God wills the salvation of all men head for head, then there are two possibilities: God does not get what he wants, and he shows himself to be a liar; or God gets what he wants, and every single being—including the antichrist—will be saved.

Rather, the text is teaching that the promise of the coming of Christ is a promise that brings a perfect Christ, a full Christ. The church is his body and the pleroma of him who fills all in all.

God has not chosen an arbitrary number unto salvation but a complete whole. Christ has suffered and made satisfaction for a complete whole according to God’s determinative counsel. God has willed that a church be gathered from every nation, tribe, and tongue, from the beginning to the end of the world. And so, when Christ appears, he comes to gather a complete body with all of its members to himself.

Because Christ is many members, that body must be fully gathered out of the world. It must. God has given to Christ, the master of God’s house, the task of building his house with many lively stones, of which not one stone may be missing. All whom God wills to belong to Christ must also be called by Christ unto repentance. That corrupt plant of Adam must be given space to grow and to develop organically in the world. That plant must produce all of its corrupt stems and branches over the course of history, so that those who were predestinated and given to Christ might be cut out and implanted into him. Space must be given for all the elect to be born. Space must be given for all the elect to be called unto salvation and unto faith and repentance. This is none other than our confession in the Belgic Confession, article 37: “Finally, we believe, according to the Word of God, when the time appointed by the Lord…is come, and the number of the elect complete, that our Lord Jesus Christ will come from heaven” (Confessions and Church Order, 76).

There must be fulfillment, a pleroma of Christ, for God does not will that any should perish. And for that fulfillment Christ comes. Christ does not dawdle in heaven. Where is the promise of his coming? We see its evidence in all who are called to repentance! The conversion of every elect sinner is one step closer to the day of God.

Not Slack but Longsuffering

Yet we must say more about fulfillment. The realization of the perfect body of Christ is not the only fulfillment that must come to pass in this age. When Christ appears corporally and bodily to slay all his enemies with the glittering sword of his mouth, he comes upon a world that has brought sin as far as sin can go.

There must also be a fulfillment of the ripening of the bitter fruits of Adam’s disobedience, such that iniquity abounds in the world and has reached the terrible limits of corruption. Man must attain 666, man to the nth degree, man as far as man can go apart from God. And there must be such a fulfillment in order that God might display the infinite fullness of his fierce hatred of sin in its just condemnation.

And understand well, that development of sin is inseparable from the suffering that God’s saints must endure. God has also promised that the seed of the serpent would bite the heel of the seed of the woman. Satan and his children are always persecuting Christ and his children. Throughout history Christ has been subject to suffering, both personally and through the attacks on his body the church. And the world becomes ripe for judgment only through that severe hatred of Christ in the world’s persecution of Christ’s church that has been called out of fellowship with the world. The world fulfills its cup of iniquity as the reproach of Christ is fulfilled in the sufferings of the church. Just prior to Christ’s coming, there shall be the greatest tribulation and persecution that the church has ever known.

What must the church expect in her love of God’s truth and in her testimony for that truth? What must she expect in her spirit-filled spouting of the truth over against the lies of men? The most bitter and cruel things imaginable. Words that make your stomach turn. Deeds that make you weep. And such persecution does not come primarily from the unchurched world but from the apostate church. Christ said that it will be in the synagogues where God’s people are beaten. And such persecution does not come primarily from strangers but from family and former friends. Did not Christ also warn that brothers shall betray brothers to death? that fathers shall be set against their own sons? that children shall rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death?

And in this suffering, the church cries out with the saints of all ages, “How long, O Lord? How long until the time of our deliverance? Where is the promise of his coming?”

Do not the souls of those who were slain for the word of God and for the testimony that they held cry out with a loud voice, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” (Rev. 6:10).

To suffer for the truth’s sake is a glorious thing. “Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you” (Matt. 5:12). But it does not make the suffering any less grievous.

What is the response to those who cry out under the altar? “And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled” (Rev. 6:11).

Fulfillment. The believer does not judge the coming of Jesus Christ with respect to time. Rather, the believer looks for fulfillment.

Know this, ye who suffer for righteousness’ sake, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward.” God does not delay! No delay. But longsuffering! In contrast—bold contrast—to the idea of slackness in the coming of Jesus Christ is the truth of God’s longsuffering.

Toward the church in Christ, the heirs of the promise, the longsuffering of God is that he constantly and unchangeably wills their final glory in all of its unspeakable richness. God constantly and unchangeably wills that the heirs of the promise dwell with him in the New Jerusalem and enjoy everlastingly the inheritance that he has prepared for them. Unwaveringly and without intermission, the triune God desires that his people be blessed, that they enjoy the goodness of his house with immortal life free from sin, free from fear of death, and free from any sorrow, in peace and contentment and joy that can never be lost.

Not slack but longsuffering!

That God is longsuffering magnifies the glory of God in this: that his love for his people and his determination to bless them is so deep and so great, that in spite of how much he hates sin and in light of the fact that he is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity and is a consuming fire against all that is profane, he only returns for judgment and final redemption when every last elect is saved. Those who assault and mock and torment God’s people assault the apple of his eye. They repeatedly poke God in the eye. Yet God will lose none of his own. None can perish! His counsel must be fulfilled.

As the farmer longs to gather his precious fruits into the barn and would do so immediately to enter into the enjoyment of his labor but is longsuffering over his fields until the proper time of the harvest, so the Lord is eager to gather his people unto himself and to make them partakers of the final glory of his kingdom without delay, eager to deliver his church from her misery in this world, yet he is longsuffering as his counsel is fulfilled.

So let the scoffers laugh and sport all they please. The promise of Christ’s coming never fails. Let them giggle like children do when someone passes gas. Behold, Christ comes quickly, and his reward is with him, to give every man according as his work shall be. “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still” (Rev. 22:11).