The longing to see
Christ that burned in the breasts of those first Christians seems to have
burned itself out. All we have left are
the ashes. It is precisely the
'yearning' and the 'fainting' for the return of Christ that has distinguished
the personal hope from the theological one.
Mere acquaintance with correct doctrine is a poor substitute for Christ
and familiarity with New Testament eschatology will never take the place of a
love-inflamed desire to look on His face.
If the tender
yearning is gone from the advent hope today there must be a reason for it; and
I think I know what it is, or what they are, for there are a number of
them. One is simply that popular
fundamentalist theology has emphasized the utility of the cross rather than the
beauty of the One who died on it. The
saved man's relation to Christ has been made contractual instead of
personal. The 'work' of Christ has been
stressed until it has eclipsed the person of Christ. Substitution has been allowed to supersede
identification. What He did for me
seems to be more important than what He is to me. Redemption is seen as an across-the-counter
transaction which we 'accept,' and the whole thing lacks emotional
content. We must love someone very much
to stay awake and long for his coming, and that may explain the absence of
power in the advent hope even among those who still believe in it.
Another reason for
the absence of real yearning for Christ's return is that Christians are so
comfortable in this world that they have little desire to leave it. For those leaders who set the pace of
religion and determine its content and quality, Christianity has become of late
remarkably lucrative. The streets of
gold do not have too great an appeal for those who find it so easy to pile up
gold and silver in the service of the Lord here on earth. We want to reserve the hope of heaven as a
kind of insurance against the day of death, but as long as, we are healthy and
comfortable, why change a familiar good for something about which we actually
know very little? So reasons the carnal
mind, and so subtly that we are scarcely aware of it.
Again, in these
times religion has become jolly good fun right here in this present world, and
what's the hurry about heaven anyway?
Christianity, contrary to what some had thought is another and higher
form of entertainment. Christ has done
all the suffering. He has shed all the
tears and carried all the crosses; we have but to enjoy the benefits of His
heartbreak in the form of religious pleasures modeled after the world but
carried on in the name of Jesus. So say
the same people who claim to believe in Christ's second coming.
- A. W. Tozer
