When the Son of Man Comes will He still find faith on earth1
PART I. INTRODUCTION
These momentous words of the Son of God, Jesus, remain a challenge to all who have accepted the Truth and wish to live by it. They demand mobility of the spirit that will permit us not only to recognize the Son of Man but also to recognize His time. This spiritual mobility also means that we remain upstanding and alert at this time of the Son of Man, also called the end times or end of the ages. The Lord Jesus considered the guidance to spiritual mobility and alertness in the end times so essential that He devoted a fair part of His Mission on earth to giving us many pointers to who the Son of Man Is and how to recognize Him and His time.
There is general acceptance amongst believing Christians that we are now in the Biblical end times, the time for the manifestation of the Son of Man; a period that is marked by an intensification of the activity of the Light on earth and the establishment of the Kingdom of God. Even the non-religious and atheists accept, albeit reluctantly, that our world is dying, primarily from human activity detrimental to the planet. Scientists talk about Climate change, Ozone layer depletion, global warming, polar ice melting, etc., and politicians worry about the threat of nuclear conflagration and/or collapse of the world economy. All these are based in part on frequent reports of earthquakes, landslides, floods in parts of the world and droughts in others, Tsunamis, wars, threats of war, and terrorism.
The truly wise and the religious see these events as fulfilments of guidance and warnings sent by the Light to humanity as markers of the time of judgment, the time of the coming of the Son of Man. Even before Christ, Daniel and the other prophets gave insights to this epoch, and Isaiah summarized it briefly and succinctly – “Take counsel together, and it shall come to naught; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us”2. Despite the available knowledge and resources in our world today, these events remain beyond our capability to resolve.
The landmark boundary, the point of departure in the story of humanity in the Material Spheres, is the rejection of the incarnated Son of God, Jesus by humanity. His incarnation represented a special Grace of Love intended to lift us from the darkness, and help Creation prepare for the coming of the Son of Man, the Creative Will of God in Creation. Jesus was sent by the Father at a critical point in human development, to halt the decline. By rejecting Him, however, humanity made judgment inevitable and salvation uncertain.
But being a part out of the Love of God, the Saviour nevertheless held out a line for the salvation of those who may still awaken on hearing His word. He promised to ask the Father to permit that before He institutes the Judgment, the Son of Man who represents Justice will, as a last grace, first approach us as the Spirit of Truth with the Word. He will come from the same origin and with the same authority as Christ; and it is understandable that coming from the same Source in the Father as Jesus, some believers will regard the Mission of the Son of Man as the second coming of Jesus.
This is not such a serious problem as long as it does not prevent the individual from recognizing and accepting the Son of Man. Unfortunately, the wrong concepts held about the Son of God and the Son of Man constitute a major reason why many have refused to acknowledge the last help from God. Instead, they adopt questionable deductions from the Bible to reassure themselves that they are waiting for the Lord. Yet the fact remains that the Son of God cannot at the same time be the Son of Man, that the Son of God, Jesus had specifically said that He will return to the Father and we will no longer see Him.
We ought to be aware that the loose use of the word ‘son of man’ as sometimes applied to all humanity in the Bible is not applicable for One coming from God. The Son of Man when He comes will manifest first as the Spirit of Truth to remind us of All that Christ gave us and extend the knowledge about Creation for us, that will permit us to embrace all the Truth the human Spirit as a creature in Creation is capable of relating to and absorbing. As the Spirit of Truth, therefore, He will teach us about Creation or the World (World Teacher). He will bring us the last word from God for our salvation (and so is also the Comforter). He will clarify and complete Christ’s Mission (and as such may also be seen as a second manifestation of Jesus, but Jesus will no longer incarnate in the personality and role we had previously recognized Him).
Following on the granting of the Message of the Kingdom, He will manifest, in the same incarnation as the Judge from God, as an embodiment of the Will of God in Creation, the Son of Man who brings the Judgement. The Spirit of Truth and the Son of Man will manifest on earth as One person because they are One in the Father, but the granting of the saving Word is a separate activity from the judging. As discussed in an earlier blog, the promise of sending the Spirit of Truth which holds for us the possibility of Salvation at the time of Judgment is not the same as the promise of power from the Holy Spirit that was meant to empower the faithful for an overcoming life. The latter promise was to manifest almost immediately and did manifest on the day of Pentecost, shortly after the Lord left the earth, and was to remain with us always. The empowering of the faithful continued throughout the apostolic era and continues to this day.
The Spirit of Truth on the other hand was to come in person, not as an outflow of power from the Holy Spirit and He will come with specific tasks to fulfill. It is the responsibility of the faithful to remain alert to recognize Him. The different tasks or activities He comes with will define Him for us. And the Love of God left us clear guidance with His teachings about the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter, the Son of Man, the Bridegroom, the owner of the Vineyard, all being designations that should help us form the necessary picture, which in turn allows any alert spirit to form a pure enough conception to recognize Him.
Even after He left the earth, the Love of God in Jesus did not abandon failed humanity, again because of the few who have accepted His Word. He sent the book of revelation, through an angel to John, which details the events that will occur with the coming of the Son of Man, and the events of the purification and Judgment thus making it possible that the servants of God in the various spheres of the World of Matter may recognize the Son of Man and His time.
The revelation to John tells a wondrous story of the path of Man in the World of Matter, shown to Him through apocalyptic visions. He was permitted to see well above His origin looking into the Divine Sphere as if through an open door. The highest point of these specially exalted visions is that of the throne of God at the summit of Creation with a luminous personality seated on it, before whom all the Divine host worshipped3. The One seating on the throne is clearly a manifestation of God in His Creation. He held in His hand a scroll, comprehensively inscribed (i.e., front and back), containing all there is to know about the Creations and everything that exists4.
This knowledge was meant for all Creation but could no longer be accessed by any being in Creation because it had been sealed with seven seals. We will subsequently understand that these seals were placed by the failure of human spirits in Material Creation. The only possibility of making this knowledge about Creation, so necessary for our Salvation, once more available to Created beings, lay in the intervention of the Son of God, Jesus, who John next sees as a Lamb, standing in the center of the throne, i.e., as distinct but still One with the seated Majesty. God manifests in His Creation as Justice (the Holy Spirit seating on the throne) and as Love (Jesus, in the center of the throne, able to also receive the worship of the Divine host).
Jesus is the only one capable of taking the scroll from the hands of the One seated on the throne and of opening the seals for two reasons. First, He is One, as part of the Trinity, with the Son of Man Seated on the throne and so is worthy. Secondly, His previous mission for humanity, here obliquely referred to when He was designated as the slain Lamb of God, makes Him the part from God that intercedes for humanity. When He sequentially opened the seals, they unfolded the story of Man in Material Creation, from their advent endowed with a pure volition (the white horse) and untainted abilities (the bow) to lead or rule over Material Creation (the crown) to their failure and Judgment.
The sequential and cumulative failure of human volition was shown as progressively darkening horses through red, to black, and finally to the pale, indeterminate color of death. John also saw Man’s abilities and talents progressively deteriorating, from the conquerors bow through the unwieldy sword of discord, then intellectually calculated deprivation of spiritual support to the whole of Material Creation represented as weighing scales, to death. The last three seals showed the Judgment called forth by the activities of humanity5.
Man (human being) is essentially spiritual; the highest being in the World of Matter, combining within himself all the levels of Creation. He was spiritually equipped and given the mandate to uplift Material Creation, but Man has largely been a failure, unable to live up to his responsibility. The story leads inexorably to judgment and the designated judge is the Son of Man6. Is it then any surprise that the Son of God, during His Mission on earth lamented over the World and asked this pertinent question? “But When the Son of Man comes will He still find faith on earth?”1
Further on in the revelation7, John’s attention was redirected to the World of Matter where He now sees a form of the Majestic One on the throne, a Messenger representing Him, whom John describes as ‘one like a Son of Man’. This Envoy was shown standing astride Material Creation with one foot in the finer Material realms (the sea) and one foot on the coarser Material (the earth), indicating that He has dominion over the World of Matter. He still has the scroll in His hand, and so we could easily link Him with the One on the throne. However, the scroll is now less bulky and is open and accessible to all, because the seals have been removed.
He has brought the Message or gospel of the Kingdom promised by Christ8,9. As John’s vision also showed, the scroll was not just to be given to human spirits. They had to ask for it! They were even pre-warned that although highly desirable (will be sweet in the mouth) the message will be demanding and even difficult to live (sour in the stomach). Only those who reach out for it (not just request for it, but make a personal effort to take it), may benefit from the Message He brought, and this was exemplified by John.
After granting the Word, the book of knowledge about the Will of God in Creation, John was shown the change in the activity and role of this Envoy from God. John records this change in the activity of the Envoy of God, from the bringer of the Message (the Spirit of Truth – the pure gate from Man to God) to the bringer of the Judgment, the bringer of the end times (the Son of Man, Imanuel – God with us)10.
The change as documented by John in revelation 10:3, happened when the Envoy of God declared Himself and His origin, with a loud voice, penetrating all Creation. This declaration was confirmed by voices of Thunder from the throne of God. In the revelation voices or pearls of thunder are associated with activities related to the throne of God11,12,13. We also remember that a similar voice from heaven, like the voice of thunder, confirmed Jesus’ Mission at the time of His stepping into that Mission, after His baptism by John 14,15,16. With this event, Jesus received the power to commence His Mission. At that time John was allowed to tell humanity the import of the voice from heaven “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”. In this instance, John was not allowed to tell us what the voice of Thunder said because, in this end time, recognition must be a personal, individual effort.
Thereafter, the Son of Man started His Mission by announcing that there is no more time, that everything must now become new, and that all the mysteries will now be fulfilled.
1. Luke 18:8; 2. 8:10KJV; 3. Rev 4; 4. Rev 5; 5. Hidden in plain sight. A study of the revelation to John by Uchenna Mezue; 6. Rev 6; 7. rev 10:1-2; 8. John 16:13; 9. Matthew 24:14; 10. Rev. 10: 3-7; 11. Rev 4:5; 12. Rev 8:5; 13. Rev11:19; 14. Lk 3:21-22; 15. Matt. 3:16-17, 16. John 1:32-34
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