On Christ’s Appearance — Part 1

The last paragraph of Paul’s first letter to Timothy shows his underlying prophetic perspective. As I’ve said, the pastoral nature of this epistle keeps this viewpoint in the background, but it sometimes crops out. The Apostle’s conclusion (1 Tim 6:13–21) is such a place.

In this post, I will discuss the central thought with which Paul ends his message. In my next post(s), I will discuss (D. V.) some concepts he links to it.

Paul’s arrangement of this passage makes Christ’s appearance the central element: “I urge you … that you keep this commandment … until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing” (1 Tim 6:13–14).

This emphasis should not surprise us. Paul (like the other apostles) taught that a significant prophetic event would occur in his generation. In one place, he called it the end of the ages, saying Israel’s Exodus happened “for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Cor 10:11). Elsewhere, he compared it to the transition from night to day: “The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light” (Rom 13:12).¹

This upcoming event would destroy apostate Israel. They were filling the cup of their sins, and, Paul says, “wrath has come upon them to the uttermost” (1 Thess 2:16).

But Paul did not limit this impending judgment to Israel. He told the Athenians that God had “appointed a day in which He is about to be judging the inhabitants of the earth with an equitable administration of justice by means of a Man whom He appointed” (Acts 17:31 Wuest).² And, before Felix, “he dealt with the subjects of justice, self-control, and the judgment which was soon to come” (Acts 24:25).³

Assuming Paul wrote Hebrews helps us further define his expectation. There, he spoke of the messianic age as fulfilling Psalm 110:1; Jesus would sit on the right hand of God until His enemies became His footstool. In the meantime, angels were “spirits of service—for ministration being sent forth because of those about to inherit salvation” (Heb 1:14 YLT).⁴ 

The Apostle wrote of “the age that is about to come” (Heb 6:5 Wuest). When Christ came, it was “at the end of the ages … to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (Heb 9:26). The law, he said, had “a shadow of the good things about to be” (Heb 10:1 Wuest).⁵

He also expresses his expectation of the judgment “about to consume the adversaries” (Heb 10:27 HCSB). This judgment would coincide with the appearance of the Lord Jesus: “For yet a little while,” Paul says, “And He who is coming will come and will not tarry” (Heb 10:37). This “little while” is emphatic, “a sort of double diminutive … one of the very few instances in which the superlative is expressed in Greek by repetition.”⁶ Paul expected to see the “continuing city … about to come” (Heb 13:14).⁷

In a previous post (here), I discussed other time indicators Paul placed in 1 Timothy. He said the Mosaic-age “bodily exercises” would serve for “a little while”⁸ and spoke of life in the age “about to come” (1 Tim 4:8 Wuest).⁹ 

So, here are some of the things Paul expected in his immediate future:

• The end of the ages
• The end of the Mosaic-age night and the dawn of the messianic-age day
• Wrath on apostate Israel 
• The start of Christ’s judgment of the nations
• The inheritance of salvation
• The coming of “good things”
• The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ 
• The new (messianic) age

Perhaps someone might ask, Why did Paul believe these things? The answer is simple: because the Lord Jesus had revealed them to him. Several items on this list were in Jesus’ Olivet Discourse. The temple’s fall would mark the end of the Mosaic age (Matt 24:1–3). Before that event, God would judge apostate Israel in the “great tribulation” (Matt 24:21). Then, Jesus would come (Matt 24:44), and His parousia (presence) would continue with the church (Matt 24:3, 27, 37, 39). Significantly for our purposes, Jesus said, “the Son of Man will appear,” using the verb form of Paul’s appearance in 1 Timothy 6:14. All these things would happen in His generation (Matt 24:34).

Elsewhere, Jesus gave the same perspective on the good things of His kingdom and the judgment that would precede it. He said, 

The Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom. (Matt 16:27–28)

And, Jesus said, to enter the kingdom was to enter eternal life (Matt 19:16–17, 23–24); it was to partake of “the regeneration,” the time in which He would “sit on the throne of His glory” (Matt 19:28–30).

[Notice that this list does not contain events at the end of the messianic age: the bodily resurrection, the final judgment, and the bodily presence of the Lord with His resurrected saints.]

Conclusion

Paul taught that the “Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing” (1 Tim 6:14) would occur in his near future, not thousands of years later. He based this teaching on the words of Christ Himself.

Our framework for understanding prophecy should account for the perspective the Lord and His apostle Paul taught. I recommend inmillennialism.¹⁰

 

1. The image in this post is Late Summer Dawn Over the Mojave Desert by Jessie Eastland. This file (here) is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
2. Kenneth S. Wuest, The New Testament: An Expanded Translation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), 318. Wuest’s translation recognizes the presence of the Greek word mellō.
3. Richard Francis Weymouth, The New Testament in Modern Speech, ed. Ernest Hampden-Cook (London: James Clarke and Co., 1903), Acts 24:25.
4. Young’s Literal Translation shows the presence of the Greek word mellō.
5. Wuest, Expanded Translation, 527. Again, Wuest’s translation shows the presence of the Greek word mellō.
6. Carl Bernhard Moll, The Epistle to the Hebrews, vol. 12, Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1960), 180.
7. My translation, based on Paul R. McReynolds, Word Study Greek-English New Testament, 3rd ed. (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 1999).
8. Per the KJV’s marginal note.
9. Wuest, Expanded Translation, 495. Paul’s Greek word (mellō) affects Wuest’s translation.
10. For a full-length account of this prophetic model, see Michael A. Rogers, Inmillennialism: Redefining the Last Days (Tullahoma, TN: McGahan Publishing House, 2020). It is available here. For a summary, see the free PDF here.