On things unseen this week, we've been reflecting together on the return of the Lord Jesus.

And we've been deliberately trying to focus our attention not on the details, the chronology,

the geography, but on the Lord Jesus himself,

and actually aspects of his return that aren't obscure or controversial.

Because there is much about Christ's return that's still mysterious to us.

The great biblical scholar Gerhardus Voss was surely

right when he wrote that there are prophecies about Christ's return in Scripture whose best and

clearest exegesis will actually be only their fulfillment. Only then will everything be clear

to us. So it's wise to be modest in our statements and to focus on the main things.

And as the Westminster Confession reminds us, the main things about our salvation are usually fairly clearly stated in Scripture and often in several places.

And it's important for us to have that in mind, as we've seen.

Jesus prayed before his crucifixion that all of his people would in the future be with him to see

his glory. I think you can understand why he wanted that, even from a human point of view.

After all, his closest friends, the apostles, had been and would be with him through the days

of his suffering, and see him in the depth of his humiliation, and they would come to taste

suffering for Jesus themselves.

So of course he wanted them to see him in his glory and in his triumph.

And Jesus wants the same for us too, because there's a sense in which most of us, probably

all of us, have actually seen and experienced Jesus being humiliated by others, and we've been humiliated with him.

And that's one of the things that makes us long to see him as he really is on that day.

And if we ask the question, well, then how will Jesus come?

The central answer is, he'll come gloriously.

...