Bible & Christianity › The apostles & the New Testament › Book of Revelation
Second Coming and the end times
1 Thessalonians 4 (c. AD 51); Revelation· Teaching or doctrine· Church, doctrine & the world
Faith & scriptureHeld by believers on faith and scripture; history can neither confirm nor rule it out.
The Christian hope that Jesus will return in glory to raise the dead, judge the world and complete God's kingdom.
See it on the Bible & Christianity map →What it is
In the Gospels Jesus says the Son of Man will come 'with the clouds of heaven' (Mark 14:62), at an hour no one knows (Mark 13:32). Paul's earliest letter, about AD 51, pictures the dead rising and believers meeting the Lord in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). Revelation closes with the plea 'Come, Lord Jesus' (22:20). The Nicene Creed states that 'he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead'.
Why it matters
It gives Christian history a direction and an end point. Attempts to date it have fueled movements from medieval end-time preachers to modern 'Rapture' teaching.
Faith and history
Hope of an imminent return runs through the earliest letters and Gospels, even in the Aramaic prayer 'Maranatha', 'Our Lord, come!' (1 Corinthians 16:22). History cannot test the promise itself.
Questions and debates
The first Christians expected it in their lifetime; how to read the delay is debated. Catholics and Orthodox reject a literal thousand-year reign; many evangelicals expect a 'Rapture' first.
Connections (2)
▸The Kingdom of God is to be fulfilled, believers hold, at Second Coming and the end timesFaith & scripture
The connection
Jesus proclaimed that God's kingdom 'has come near' (Mark 1:15) and taught his followers to pray 'your kingdom come'. Christians believe it began in his ministry but awaits completion when he returns to judge and renew the world: the 'already and not yet' of Christian hope.
When and where
Jesus' preaching in Galilee about AD 28–30; Paul's letters from AD 51 and Revelation (about 95) describe the future fulfillment.
How do we know?
A theological link made in the texts, for example Mark 13 and 1 Corinthians 15:24, where Christ hands the kingdom to God 'at the end'. As a future event, it is faith.
Questions and debates
Did Jesus expect the kingdom to arrive within his generation (Mark 9:1)? Albert Schweitzer argued yes in 1906; others see it as mainly present and spiritual.
▸Book of Revelation describes Second Coming and the end timesMostly agreed by scholars
The connection
Revelation gives the Second Coming its most vivid images: Christ as a rider on a white horse, 'Faithful and True' (19:11); Satan bound for a thousand years (20); the final judgment; the New Jerusalem (21). It ends with 'Surely I am coming soon' (22:20). With Jesus's sayings and Paul's letters, it shapes nearly all end-times belief.
When and where
Written on Patmos around AD 95; read by Augustine (c. 420) as symbolic of the church age, and by 19th-century dispensationalists like John Nelson Darby as future prophecy.
How do we know?
A textual link: Revelation 19–22. How its visions map onto future events is a matter of faith and interpretation, not historical proof.
Questions and debates
Christians split over the 'thousand years' (literal future reign, symbolic church age, or gradual progress), and whether a 'rapture' appears in Revelation at all.