I suppose there are skeptics or scoffers in every age. Atheist and for that matter even some Jews, if we were involved in a debate would scoff at the Second Coming of Christ. They tell us that the New Testament writers believed he would come during the first century AD,[1] even Jesus predicted he would return before that generation to which he preached past away (Matthew 24:34). And, you know what? They are correct, both the New Testament writers and Jesus claimed he would return in the first century AD. However, the premise of their argument depends entirely on Jesus coming in a physical body that everyone could see. Their whole argument is based upon a physical Kingdom and a physical Second Coming, as is preached by all three groups of futurist eschatology (premillennialism, postmillennialism and amillennialism).
Futurist eschatology supports the premise of our modern scoffers (atheists and other unbelievers), and there is no way one is able to show that differently. After nearly 2000 years and no body of Jesus in the clouds, people are beginning to talk. Something like this was occurring in Jesus’ day. The Pharisees believed in and taught the resurrection of the dead, as did Jesus. However, the Pharisees assumed the Law of Moses would be valid and in force in the Kingdom of the Messiah, so the Sadducees were able to spin their yarn and come up with a myth to disprove such an idea, and they presented their argument to Jesus, whose eschatology they assumed was just as that of the Pharisees. Their myth is found in Matthew 22:23-28.
The argument concerned the law of the levirate marriage. Their story concerned a man dying before his wife was able to bear him a son, an heir. The law states in such cases, the brother of the man would marry his wife and their first son would be the heir for his brother. Well as chance would have it, his brother died also without raising up an heir for his brother and so on through his five other brothers. Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife would the woman be, since all seven brothers had her as his wife?
Jesus’ reply revealed the false premise of their argument. In the resurrection they neither marry nor are they given in marriage. The idea here is not that folks don’t marry and have children. Rather, the argument has to do with how the Kingdom is enlarged or how one inherits the Kingdom. In physical Israel the only way one inherited was through being born into the Jewish race. One’s inheritance was founded upon the Law. In the resurrection, however, this is not the case (Galatians 3:18). The believer’s inheritance is through Christ by faith (Ephesians 1:10-11).
In the Kingdom of God there is no physical land to inherit. Our inheritance is spiritual in nature, and this is proved in that those who have trusted Christ and believed the Gospel have received the earnest of their inheritance by being sealed by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14). In what manner could the Holy Spirit be a precursor of a physical Kingdom?
In my previous study I discussed a similar theme that concerned the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8), who in physical Israel had no inheritance, neither, if he would marry, could he produce an heir. He was considered a dry tree (cf. Isaiah 56:3). Nevertheless, this isn’t so in the Kingdom of God, because the modus operandi is not physical. The Ethiopian eunuch, after being baptized by Philip, could return to Ethiopia tell others about Christ and, in so doing, produce children of God through faith in the Gospel. Seeing the Kingdom of God as a physical matter is what caused the Jews in the first century to reject Jesus. They missed the point, because they didn’t approach the Kingdom through faith. Faith, by the way, is a spiritual matter, not physical. So how should we view the Kingdom of God? If it is spiritual, why do so many still look for a physical coming of Jesus? Why couldn’t he have returned, as he promised he would (cf. Matthew 26:64) cir. 70 AD, when he returned to vindicate his elect by judging Jerusalem and the Temple (Matthew 16:27-28)?
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[1] Some of the scriptures that testify to this are: Romans 13:12; Philippians 4:5; 2Thessalonians 2:2; 1Peter 1:5-7, 13; 4:7; 1Timothy 6:14; 2Timothy 4:1; Titus 2:13; Revelation 1:3; 22:10.
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