What is Advent?
Advent means arrival, and the writers in this collection use the word for the coming of Christ into the world — and they almost never use it alone. They speak of two advents: the one that has happened, and the one still ahead, which raises the question of what each was for and how the waiting between them should be lived.
Two Lines of Prophecy
The Old Testament writers described a Messiah in two ways that seem impossible to reconcile, and one commentator sets the two portraits side by side.
C. I. ScofieldWhoever carefully considers Old Testament prophecies must be struck by two contrasting and seemingly contradictory lines of prediction about the coming Messiah. One body of prediction speaks of Him as coming in weakness and humiliation, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief... His face is to be marred, His hands and feet pierced, He is to be forsaken by man and by God, and to make His grave with the wicked. The other line of prophecy foretells a splendid and unstoppable Sovereign, purging the earth with awful judgments, regathering scattered Israel, restoring the throne of David in more than Solomon's splendour, and introducing a reign of deep peace and perfect righteousness.
Both are true. They belong to two different arrivals.
The Long Wait Before the First
The first advent was not a surprise. It was the end of a hope handed down from one generation to the next.
J. T. MawsonThe great hour had arrived, and He who had been promised had come. God Himself had foretold His coming forty centuries before, and faithful men had waited. Their eager eyes had longed for the sight of Him, but He had not appeared in their day. They died in faith and passed the great hope on to their successors, who treasured it and passed it on to others in an unbroken line of faith. But now the due time had come... The great Deliverer had appeared, but not as some supposed He would come, with mighty armies attending and with power and great glory, to insist on His rights and rule over all nations on earth, but in weakness, lowliness and unmatched poverty.
Why He Came
If the point had been to warn people, or to punish them, a lesser messenger would have done the job. That God came Himself tells us what He intended.
J. T. MawsonIf He had wanted to send some message of warning, appeal, or command, a servant like the prophets would have served the purpose... If He had intended to make an example of sinners by carrying out His righteous judgment against them for their sins, an angel or two would have been enough, as with the guilty cities of the plain. But when Emmanuel appears, men and angels must be silent and stand aside, and every ear must be attentive to Him, for He comes to reveal the eternal purposes of God, and to declare and bring about the intentions of divine and infinite love. "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:17).
The Second Advent Is a Different Errand
The manner of the two comings is not the same, and one writer states the contrast bluntly.
A. J. PollockThe first time our Lord came in lowly grace. The second time He will come "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 Thess. 1:8).
The same writer reads the present silence of God as an open door rather than an absence.
A. J. PollockNow the next time God intervenes it must be in judgment... The fact that God is not intervening at this moment is the proof that His offers of pardon and mercy still stand good.
Waiting, and What Is Being Waited For
Titus 2:13 names the Christian's forward look, and commentators distinguish two stages within it.
Leslie M. Grant"That blessed hope" is the coming of the Lord Jesus for His saints, which is therefore unmixed blessing. "The appearing of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" is His later showing to all the world in power and great glory. To many this will be blessing; but to many others solemn judgment.
Keeping a Season
On marking the date itself, the writers are cautious. One weighs both sides carefully:
C. H. MackintoshWe should of course say that, all things being equal, it is good to meet together for worship and building up as often as we can, and good too to take every opportunity of bringing people under the sound of the gospel... But then many object to anything that might look like approving Christendom's observance of these days, an observance resting wholly on tradition and having no authority at all in holy Scripture. Who knows whether December 25 and Good Friday are really the anniversaries of the events they are said to commemorate?
Commentators differ in tone here — some are sharper about the origins of such festivals than others — but they agree the calendar date carries no scriptural command. The coming is the substance; the season is not.
Summary
- Two advents, one Christ. The prophets drew a suffering Messiah and a reigning Sovereign; the first advent fulfilled one portrait, the second will fulfil the other.
- Promised. Four thousand years of faith handed the hope forward before He arrived — and the same Scriptures that promised the first coming promise the second.
- Grace first. He came in weakness and poverty, not with armies, because the errand was salvation, not condemnation.
- Mercy still open. God's delay in intervening again is not indifference; it is the space in which pardon is still being offered.
- Waiting now. The Christian's posture between the advents is looking for the blessed hope — which meets believers as pure blessing and the world as judgment.