Jesus' Return

We’ve walked through Isaiah 53 and this week I’ve backed up to where I should have started in Isaiah 52:13-15. So far we’ve look at verses 13 and 14, but let’s close by looking at the rest of verse 15,

“Kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which has not been told them they shall see, and that which they have not heard they understand.”

Here we find the Amazing Return of the King. Some differ as to whom the writer is referring in this passage—it could be that Isaiah is looking forward to the Jews who would reject Jesus as their Messiah and this is a further reference to their astonishment over His crucifixion, but I am inclined to see this as a look forward to Jesus’ return. There is coming a day when Jesus will come back and every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue will confess Him as Lord.

When He comes everyone will be speechless because there will be nothing to say—the things we value on earth will melt away in the presence of His Glory. The ones we look up to as being great will seem pitifully small when you see the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Gentile and Jew, Christian and Muslim, man and woman, believer and atheist will be overwhelmed at the glory of the returning King. Money, fame, power, and popularity will no longer matter because you will be in the presence of the Famous One—the Omnipotent One, the Creator of heaven and earth.

At the moment we stand before God we will either stand on our own merit or we will stand in the merit of Christ. For those who stand in their own merit there will be those who thought Jesus was just a way to God, some will think He was just a good teacher, some will think Hewas just an outdated figure in history and they will be forever be reminded of their eternal mistake. Others will know that He was who He said He was, but they never bothered to respond or they were just too busy or they were just indifferent. Can you imagine the moment when life is gone and eternity is before you? The only thing that will matter at that moment is what you have done with Jesus.

For those who stand before God in Christ John says we have an advocate with the Father. There on Judgment Day Jesus will plead on our behalf and He will plead for justice. Justice because there is no double jeopardy with God—He will not hold anyone accountable to the sin for which Jesus has paid. For those of us who have bowed the knee to Jesus. For those of us to whom the arm of the Lord has been revealed we will spend an eternity rejoicing in the salvation of our Lord. For us, the moment of Jesus’ return or the moment of our death is not something to dread—it is the great moment for which we long. The reason is we will not face God still in our sin—we will stand before God with PAID IN FULL stamped across every single sin.