MIF 10:5 (Sept-Oct 1978)
The Only Hope
Our Lord’s second advent will be as historic as was His first; He will actually come into the midst of human history on some date in the human calendar, which no man knows, and which no man is intended to know; in the actuality of this coming He will be at once as positively a Person as in His first advent, and as mysterious also.
We base that conviction, first, upon His own plain statement; secondly, upon the clear apostolic teaching of the New Testament; and finally, upon the naturalness of it, indeed, the necessity of it, in view of His first advent. Whereas grace had its epiphany, its outshining, in the lowliness of His first marvellous coming and life, so glory must have its epiphany, its outshining, in the majesty of that coming, which He described as being “in the glory of His Father with His angels.” We believe the age in which we live is bounded by these advents, because our Lord declared that it would be consummated by His coming. More than ever today, hope centred in earthly thrones or governments, in human diplomacies, in leagues of nations is seen to be futile. The only hope which maketh not ashamed is that which believes that when God has “overturned, overturned, overturned,” He shall come.
—G. Campbell Morgan