One Mission, Two Phases – A Crucial Interpretative Motif

I am not much for extracting motifs from Scripture. At the moment the motif de jour is jointly the Cosmic Temple motif, and the Second Exodus motif. Give it a few years and someone will discover a new motif in the Bible and academe will all hurry on over to it, and the up-to-date books will treat it like it’s an essential teaching without which the Bible cannot be fully understood.

However, there is one clear motif (if I should even employ the term) that the Bible itself is very consistent about, and that is the dichotomy of the first and second comings of Christ. Scripture often views them not as separate events but as part of the one work of Christ. A look at some OT texts will reveal this.

Isaiah 9:6-7 is perhaps the best known example:

For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

The first two lines speak of the first advent. Jesus was born and was “given” by God to represent God to men par excellence and to provide salvation to sinners through His vicarious sacrifice. But the rest of the prophecy concerns His second advent. This can be seen by introducing Gabriel’s words from Luke 1:32-33:

He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

The kingdom rule of Jesus will be over Israel (“Jacob”) upon the throne of David to bring justice and peace. When Jesus came to the synagogue in Nazareth after being tempted by the Devil, the place He read from was Isaiah 61:1-2. But He stopped the reading before the clause about “the day of vengeance.” The reason He did so is because He did not bring vengeance, so had He continued reading verse 2 He could not have said “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Lk. 4:21). This is because what follows in Isaiah 61 concerns the second coming, not the first. Yet Isaiah fuses the two advents together in one prophecy.

Isaiah’s contemporary Micah famously predicted,

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Though you are little among the thousands of Judah,
Yet out of you shall come forth to Me
The One to be Ruler in Israel,
Whose goings forth are from of old,
From everlasting. – Micah 5:2

Jesus was born in Bethlehem Ephrathah, but He will not rule in Israel until after He returns. If we turn to Zechariah we find the same phenomenon:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your King is coming to you;
He is just and having salvation,
Lowly and riding on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey. – Zechariah 9:9

This verse refers to the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem days before His death (Matt. 21:5). One should notice the earthiness of the passage; Zion and Jerusalem are to look to their King. But this is all first coming. Now let us read the next verse:

I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
And the horse from Jerusalem;
The battle bow shall be cut off.
He shall speak peace to the nations;
His dominion shall be ‘from sea to sea,
And from the River to the ends of the earth. – Zechariah 9:10

The first half of the verse is not my main concern here. I believe it refers to the Tribulation. But however that is understood, the second half of verse 10 concerns the setting up of Christ’s earthly kingdom after His second advent. The point again is that the first and second comings are fused together in the passage. Other OT texts could be provided, but I think I’ve made my point. But what about the NT?

I have already cited Luke 1, but we should return to it and back up to verse 31:

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end. – Luke 1:31-33.

The first sentence in verse 31 applies to the first coming. The two verses that follow apply to the second coming, yet they are placed together. Again, this is because the passage describes one work of Christ in two phases. It becomes necessary, therefore, to be able to parse these prophecies correctly so as not to import second coming predictions into the first century where they cannot be interpreted at face value and must be spiritualized. Let me give two more examples:

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes. – 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.

The major part of the passage refers to the institution of the Lord’s Supper at the first coming. But verse 26 looks to the future day of the Lord’s second coming. Hence, one work in two phases.

Finally, consider this passage:

And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days. – Revelation 12:4b-6.

This one is a little more tricky, but verses 4 and 5 refer to events that occurred in the first advent of Christ: The woman, who is Israel (compare Rev. 12:1 with Gen. 37:9-10), gives birth to a child, who is Christ. This child is caught up to heaven, which is the ascension of Christ. But the prophecy about this child ruling the nations with a rod of iron concerns the second coming (cf. Psa. 2:9; Rev. 2:27; 19:15). And the flight of the woman (Israel) into the wilderness concerns the Tribulation (cf. Matt. 24:15-22), just prior to the second coming.

Being able to tell a first coming passage from a second coming passage becomes extremely important. Sadly, our amillennial brothers confuse this terribly, and end up spiritualizing the second advent prophecies and squeezing them into a first century context where they don’t belong. Going back to the Second Exodus motif I referred to in the introduction, this is what that motif tries to do. It creates all kinds of confusing errors in doing so.

What we have to do is to ask ourselves which part of these prophecies refers to the first advent and which parts refer to the second advent. But while doing so we ought to observe the fact that they are two parts of one work. The cross and resurrection are but half of the whole. We have not yet received our “saved” redemption bodies, which awaits the second coming (1 Jn. 3:2; Rom. 8:19-23). And the Lord Jesus has not yet received His kingdom (Matt. 19:28; Lk. 19:11; 1 Tim. 4:1). The work of restoration of the Creation and the Imago Dei has to be completed. All the more reason to pray, “Even so, come Lord Jesus!”