We’re celebrating Advent, but in the process of thinking about Jesus’ first coming, we don’t want to lose sight of the second. My late friend Pat Mioulis in Montgomery, Alabama, used to share the gospel this way:

You know, Jesus came to earth and died for our sins that we might be forgiven and live with him forever. It’s a great offer, and you ought to take it. Why? Because Jesus is coming back, and when he does, he’s going to be angry! – The gospel as shared by my friend Pat

Really, Pat? Isn’t that a little harsh? Let’s see how the Apostle Paul tells it. Paul speaks of the second coming a lot in his two letters to the Thessalonians. Here’s how it comes out in 2 Thessalonians 1, which opens:

We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. (2 Thessalonians 1.3, 4, ESV)

Paul praised the people for:

• Growing faith
• Increasing love
• Steadfastness and faith in persecutions and afflictions

Imagine a tiny community of believers in the middle of pagan Rome. It was tough to be a Christian in those days! So Paul encourages them with a bit of news about the second coming:

This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (2 Thessalonians 1.5 – 8, ESV, emphasis mine)

So Pat was right: Jesus comes back with his mighty angels inflicting vengeance.

But there’s more to the story, stay tuned.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. (2 Peter 3.10 – 14, ESV)