Why Does Jesus Have to Come Back?

[Dave]

I was reflecting today on the second coming, and I was wondering why Jesus has to come back? This is probably a simple and complicated question at the same time, but I hope someone can provide me with some insights!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I was reflecting today on the second coming, and I was wondering why Jesus has to come back? This is probably a simple and complicated question at the same time, but I hope someone can provide me with some insights!

I’m not a theologian, so I will opt for the simple, out of necessity.

I don’t know of any reason to believe He HAS TO come back. God only HAS TO do those things that are consistent with His nature. But His “have tos” are not our “have tos”. His Will and Intellect are unified unlike ours. He must do only what He decides to do.

Why Jesus WANTS to come back, then, is something i don’t know. You can read the New Testament and think it through and see how He might want to do that. But He might want to do it for reasons i could not possibly comprehend.

Possibly it has to do with our natures. If Jesus comes to judge “the living and the dead”, it may be that the presence of God must be, to the living, mediated by the dual nature of Jesus. There are biblical reasons to think a living human being cannot be fully in the presence of God in His fullness, and survive it, though the dead can and, presumably, those who, after the Last Judgment, have glorified bodies surely will. Might be that if we are really presented with infinity as mortal beings, the emotional upsurge and intellectual challenge might be so intense as to cause us to have heart attacks and/or strokes and die. I don’t know, but people have had fatal heart attacks and strokes over a lot less stimulus than being suddenly confronted by God would be.

We can’t know the mind of God. We just can’t. But I think it would be a mistake to suppose that Jesus is somehow compelled to come back by anything other than His decision to do it.

 

[ConstantineTG]

I was reflecting today on the second coming, and I was wondering why Jesus has to come back? This is probably a simple and complicated question at the same time, but I hope someone can provide me with some insights!

Because it is the intention of God to create a perfect physical world and share with man in this world. So Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead and His kingdom will have no end (its in the Creed). At the second coming all will resurrect and those who rejected God in their lives through sin will be rejected by God. And those who have lived faithful lives will be glorified and will live on forever in a renewed heaven and earth and Jesus will live among us in the flesh.

 

[david_friol_1]

I was reflecting today on the second coming, and I was wondering why Jesus has to come back? This is probably a simple and complicated question at the same time, but I hope someone can provide me with some insights!

The short answer is that that was his favorite linen cloth that he left in the tomb and he wants it back!

If you don"t think that one is correct then I’d say it is because he promised that he would to judge the living and the dead.

 

[Lancer]

Catechism

II. “THY KINGDOM COME” **
2816 In the New Testament, the word basileia can be translated by “kingship” (abstract noun), “kingdom” (concrete noun) or “reign” (action noun). The Kingdom of God lies ahead of us. It is brought near in the Word incarnate, it is proclaimed throughout the whole Gospel, and it has come in Christ’s death and Resurrection. The Kingdom of God has been coming since the Last Supper and, in the Eucharist, it is in our midst. The kingdom will come in glory when Christ hands it over to his Father: **
It may even be . . . that the Kingdom of God means Christ himself**, whom we daily desire to come, and whose coming we wish to be manifested quickly to us. For as he is our resurrection, since in him we rise, **so he can also be understood as the Kingdom of God, for in him we shall reign.86 **

So…he has to come…to bring the Kingdom of God to its fullness…and most importantly…and most critically…He Himself has to hand over the Kingdom to his Father…to complete His Messianic mission and to glorify the Father…and thus also glorify Himself and the Holy Spirit…The Most Holy Trinity.

Matthew 6:33 (New International Version, ©2010)

33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

**. **

Pax Christi

675 Before Christ’s second coming** the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers**. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.

1021 Death puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ. The New Testament speaks of** judgment primarily in its aspect of the final encounter with Christ in his second coming,** but also repeatedly affirms that each will be rewarded immediately after death in accordance with his works and faith. The parable of the poor man Lazarus and the words of Christ on the cross to the good thief, as well as other New Testament texts speak of a final destiny of the soul – a destiny which can be different for some and for others.

2859 By the second petition, the** Church looks first to Christ’s return and the final coming of the Reign of God**. It also prays for the growth of the Kingdom of God in the “today” of our own lives.

2818 In the Lord’s Prayer, “thy kingdom come” refers primarily to the final coming of the reign of God through Christ’s return. But, far from distracting the Church from her mission in this present world,** this desire commits her to it all the more strongly.** Since Pentecost, the coming of that Reign is the work of the Spirit of the Lord who “complete his work on earth and brings us the fullness of grace.”