Does Jesus continue to drop in to our larger story today, just as he did in the Christmas narrative?
Some would say yes, and I remember as a much younger person opening my Toronto newspaper and seeing a full page advertisement — which appeared in dozens of papers in North America on the same day — announcing that Jesus had returned and is walking among us.
At the time, I was too young to take an interest in finding out more about whoever had sponsored the ads — and how they had funded them — but I do remember the experience, and probably you’ve seen or heard similar things where people attest that Jesus has already returned.
So what about that?
Let me say for those of you reading this online, that the title of today’s piece is admittedly click-bait. Sorry about that. But if you came out of curiosity or hoping it to be true, let’s briefly indulge the possibility.
When we speak of Jesus, we are referring to the earthly name — a form of Joshua — we are speaking of the incarnate or if you will enfleshed 33 years of life of the second part of the community of God that we define as Father, Son and Spirit.
But many Evangelicals believe that there are appearances of Jesus (to use the name more broadly) in the Old Testament. We wrote about this in January, 2016 in an article titled Jesus Was No Stranger to Our World.
…earlier, we have examples which theologians and scholars call Christophanies, where what the writers termed “…an angel of the Lord appeared…” actually represents a visitation of the pre-incarnate Christ. Remember, since these are Old Testament narratives, the writers of those accounts had no context in which to frame what they were seeing in those terms. In a world where surrounding nations had many gods, our Trinitarian concept of the Godhead would have been confusing or even counter-productive to the idea that God is one. (However, it should be noted that they had an understanding of the Spirit, but not the same as a New Testament believer would frame it.)
If you look the word up on Wikipedia* you will read this:
A Christophany is an appearance or non-physical manifestation of Christ.
[click the link for a long list of possible Christophanies.]
But Paul the apostle believed that Jesus did just that, post-incarnation, post-resurrection with himself on the Damascus road:
CEB.I Cor.15.3 I passed on to you as most important what I also received: Christ died for our sins in line with the scriptures, 4 he was buried, and he rose on the third day in line with the scriptures. 5 He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve, 6 and then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at once—most of them are still alive to this day, though some have died. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me, as if I were born at the wrong time.
Wait, what? “He appeared to me?” Let’s look at that:
NIV.Acts.9.3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’
5 ‘Who are you, Lord?’ Saul asked.
‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. 6 ‘Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.’
The scripture is very clear on this; clear on whom Saul/Paul saw.
So can we make the leap and say that the possibility of Jesus appearing in London or Tokyo or New York City is a distinct possibility?
Not so fast.
I think first of all we all know that this how cults get started. I won’t press that further here, but the documentation is out there. People claim a direct contact with an appearance of Jesus. As a post-Charismatic believer, I still believe in the idea of signs and wonders, but I think we need to be extra careful, while also allowing that God is still always at work and always revealing himself to his creation in a huge number of ways.
But I think there are some other reasons to be cautious:
First, Jesus has appeared fully, in flesh in Bethlehem, growing up in Nazareth, ministering in the region of Bethany, and finally heading to Jerusalem. His ministry was seen firsthand by literally thousands and thousands of people.
Second, we now have the Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit, which once rested on select prophets and leaders now abides within everyone who names the name of Christ as Savior and Lord.
Third, we now have the written logos, the word of God in printed form. Now, I want to be careful with this one, because this is the same argument used by cessationists to say that we no longer need miracles, healings, words of knowledge, words of prophecy, etc., because we have the Bible. I just think that taken together with the other arguments, we could see why the type of appearance touted in the newspaper advertisement I mentioned is not as urgently needed.
Most important however, I believe the scripture itself promises that, apart from any “drop in” appearances which for sake of argument I’ll allow as possible, none of these can constitute the “return of Christ” or “the second coming.”
Jesus says as much in Luke 17. The Message renders this passage:
20-21 Jesus, grilled by the Pharisees on when the kingdom of God would come, answered, “The kingdom of God doesn’t come by counting the days on the calendar. Nor when someone says, ‘Look here!’ or, ‘There it is!’ And why? Because God’s kingdom is already among you.”
22-24 He went on to say to his disciples, “The days are coming when you are going to be desperately homesick for just a glimpse of one of the days of the Son of Man, and you won’t see a thing. And they’ll say to you, ‘Look over there!’ or, ‘Look here!’ Don’t fall for any of that nonsense. The arrival of the Son of Man is not something you go out to see. He simply comes.
24-25 “You know how the whole sky lights up from a single flash of lightning? That’s how it will be on the Day of the Son of Man...
We also hear something similar from two angels at the time of Christ’s ascension. (These “angel of the Lord” appearances are not post-resurrection appearances of Christ, because he is also still there, rising in the sky. Plus there are two angels, not one.) In Acts 1 (NLT) we read,
9 After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him. 10 As they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go!”
Finally, in terms of dealing with reports of Jesus showing up in your hometown or mine, I think we can learn much from the wisdom of our spiritual communities and our church leaders, all of whom would tell us we have good reason to be skeptical.
Here’s Luke 17 again, this time from the NIV:
23 People will tell you, “There he is!” or “Here he is!” Do not go running off after them.
*I quoted this exactly as it appeared, but as a general rule, if you’re teaching or leading people, it’s better not to use Wikipedia as a source. Today, I would probably quote Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary, where it links to the broader term Theophany, which is less specific than Christophany. To get to resources like this, use BibleStudyTools.com/dictionaries.
I want to again link to the piece I mentioned from 2016 about Christophanies, as well as a 2017 article specifically about Melchizedek, and one from 2018 about Jacob wrestling with God.
Christianity 201 