In what form will Christ return?

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normdplume

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Can someone please tell me in what form Jesus will return? As a baby or as a full-grown man? The angel in the Gospels tells the Apostles he will return in the same way as when he left Earth. However, reading that symbolically, couldn’t that simply mean as a “human” and as God? Is there other scriptural evidence that says he will return as a man instead of as a child?

Thanks.
 
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normdplume said:
The angel in the Gospels tells the Apostles he will return in the same way as when he left Earth
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You ask an interesting question, but what gospel verse do you have in mind when you say that “the angel” predicts that Christ will return in his same (human) form?
 
Interesting! Of course Acts is not gospel, but never mind that. Acts is my least favorite book of the entire NT, and I admit I can hardly remember what’s in there, so I had no idea what verse you had in mind. I don’t think there is anything like that in the rest of the NT, is there? Going purely off memory – no time for a little research right now – I think most descriptions of the Second Coming are a bit “mysterious”, aren’t they? (E.g. Mark 13:26.)
 
The general understanding is that He will appear in the sky (in a reversal of the Ascension, hence returning in the same way as the Apostles have seen Him depart), in His fully adult (and indeed glorified) body. It will be instantly obvious to everyone.

Only in popular culture does there seem to be any notion of His being born as an infant again.
 
Where does this general understanding come from? Tradition or scripture?
 
I’d say it’s from scripture-informed tradition. Apart from your Acts verse, other references to Christ’s return seem to state specifically that He’ll return in His glorified Body. (But what I find interesting also is that In Mark 13 Jesus does not say “You will see me coming in clouds.” He says: “You will see the Son of Man coming in clouds.”)
 
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“Son of Man,” coming from Jesus, is understood to be a self-reference, based on Daniel 7:13-14. I have read one specifically Jewish interpretation of the New Testament that insists Jesus is talking about a different being rather than Himself, but that is not how Christians read the phrase.
 
The parallel with Daniel 7:13-14 is obvious, of course, but it doesn’t help to explain why Jesus didn’t use a first-person pronoun in Mark 13. On the other hand, I wouldn’t subscribe to that particular Jewish interpretation that you mentioned. I’m thinking more along the lines that Jesus’ choice to avoid saying He would be back suggests that indeed we shouldn’t expect Him to have the same form. In fact He wasn’t even recognizable when He appeared at Emmaus, so even then He had already taken a different form apparently.
 
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True, but He could make Himself recognizable when He wished to.

Of course, though we have an agreed-upon image of Jesus, no contemporary images or physical descriptions exist, only art made centuries later at the earliest. So even seeing the Second Coming, we wouldn’t know for sure if Jesus looks the same as He did while walking the earth.
 
Zechariah chapter 14 is also a prophecy of the 2nd coming of Christ with all the Holy Ones with him. It is a portrayal, not of a child, but of a victorious king with great power who comes to rule over the whole earth. One who steps foot on the Mount of Olives and the whole mountain splits in two. It is a glorious picture.
 
Technically, Zechariah 14 doesn’t really address in what form He first arrived, only that He came to the Mount of Olives.
 
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He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

Christ left this world in glory, I would assume His return will be even more glorious!
 
We can read too much into His non-recognition by others post-resurrection.

First off, His resurrectional body was not identical to the body of His death. Scripture does elsewhere distinguish the two bodies.

Second, because the first hard lesson in human life is that we don’t get dead people back; no doubt His friends had a mental block concerning Him.

The idea that He would be “born” again as a baby (and therefore as someone else) is absent from Scripture. It seems clear that it will be HE who returns, in His resurrectional body.

ICXC NIKA
 
Father Jose, do you have a source for this showing that it is Catholic teaching that Jesus could be walking around somewhere?

I think we all agree “we do not know the day or the hour” but this idea of Jesus just being in the general population un-revealed is a new one on me.
 
GEddie said:
First off, His resurrectional body was not identical to the body of His death. Scripture does elsewhere distinguish the two bodies.
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That’s what I said.
GEddie said:
Second, because the first hard lesson in human life is that we don’t get dead people back; no doubt His friends had a mental block concerning Him.
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A mental block!! Nice one! 😁
GEddie said:
It seems clear that it will be HE who returns, in His resurrectional body.
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That’s what I said…
 
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