Yesterday on Things Unseen I mentioned the church tradition that at the beginning of the

Advent season we look forward to the second Advent, the return of the Lord Jesus in glory.

And doing that reminds us that at his first coming he inaugurated his kingdom, but only

at his second coming will he consummate it.

And that's why we pray each day your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is

in heaven.

One day God's will will be done perfectly on earth, as it is already in heaven, when

Jesus comes again to reign.

I suspect some of us get just a little nervous when we hear people speaking about the second

coming, and there may be several reasons for that.

One is, to be honest, that some Christians become so fixated on the second coming, that

the details of it almost become a test of orthodoxy as far as they are concerned.

And they can be obsessed with whether Jesus will come before the tribulation, or after

the tribulation, or will the rapture be secret or public?

I think it's really important for us to see there's a big difference between convictions

about the teaching of the whole of Scripture and the fixation on one particular element

in it.

I often say there's no theology without psychology.

And one way in which that manifests itself is, when someone is an almost neurotic interest

in one facet of truth, but doesn't commit the same emotional weight or energy to, for

example, the biblical teaching on the humanity of the Lord Jesus or on the holiness of God.

The emotional commitment is out of proportion, disjointed.

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