Will Jesus come back?

JesusIn theological review

The short answer

Yes. Jesus promised to come again, the angels at his ascension confirmed it, and the New Testament ends with his promise and the church's prayer for it. His return will be personal, visible and glorious, bringing resurrection, judgement and the renewal of all things, though its date is not given.

The fuller answer

Yes, and the promise comes first from Jesus himself. On the night before the cross he comforts frightened disciples by telling them he is going to prepare a place in his Father's house and will come again to take them to be with him. The return is not an idea the later church invented to keep hope alive. It is the farewell pledge of Jesus to his friends.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that you also may be where I am.

John 14:3 (BSB)

At the ascension two angels make the pledge public and precise. This same Jesus, taken up from the disciples into heaven, will come in the same way they saw him go. Same Jesus rules out a merely spiritual or symbolic return. Same way rules out a secret one. The church's hope is a personal, visible arrival of the risen man who left from the Mount of Olives.

“Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven.”

Acts 1:11 (BSB)

Paul describes the event with sound and spectacle: the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ rising first. The return is therefore also the resurrection day and the great gathering of his people. It is not an escape from the world God made, but the day God's world is finally put right by its returning king.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise. After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 (BSB)

The Bible ends where the promise ends, with Jesus saying he is coming soon and the church answering, come, Lord Jesus. That prayer has been prayed in prisons, in persecutions and at gravesides for twenty centuries. Christians may differ about the sequence of events surrounding the return, and the next question takes that up, but the return itself is not an optional extra. It is the creed's own confession.

Sources

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Review status: in-theological-review. Every Contend page passes a human theological review against the Statement of Faith before it is published as approved teaching. This section is in that queue.

Dig deeper

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When will Jesus come back?No one knows, and Jesus said so plainly: of that day and hour no one knows, not the angels and not the Son in his earthly life, but the Father only. Christians differ over charts of the order of end time events, but the timing itself is not an open question the Bible leaves us to calculate.Where is Jesus now?Jesus is in heaven, bodily risen and ascended, seated at the right hand of the Father. From there he intercedes for his people, rules over all things, sends his Spirit, and waits for the day he returns. Seated means his saving work is finished; it does not mean he is inactive.What happens when we die?The Bible says we die once, and after that face judgment. For those who trust Christ, death is not the end or a long unconscious wait: Jesus told the dying thief, today you will be with me in Paradise. Beyond that lies what the whole story leans toward, resurrection of the body and a renewed world where death itself is finished.Bible Character: JesusThe Son of God, born of Mary in Bethlehem, who preached the kingdom of God, was crucified for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was raised on the third day.Lesson: Did Jesus rise from the dead?The Christian faith stands or falls here, and Paul says so himself. Learn the answer at three depths: hallway, coffee, and the long evening.