Language is built on words. Words carry meaning. There are no
redundant words in God’s Book. Every word has its place. Each
carries its own weight. Some words are used many times, others few.
Some words are employed only once, giving them a peculiar
distinction afforded to no others. There are words that are only to
be found within the sacred page, words that are entirely absent from
the secular writings of the time. Such words have a peculiar force.
Every word in
Scripture is divinely inspired and
each is needed to
convey the exact meaning of a passage.
The words that form the title of this paper are taken from v16 in a
passage (1 Thess. 4: 13–18) that speaks of the coming again of the
Lord Jesus Christ. History tells me He came once; prophecy tells me
He will come again. The Bible is full of detail about this great
event and yet it is largely absent from the current theology of
Christendom! It was far from absent among believers that formed the
early Church. On the contrary, it dominated their thinking. The
final cry of Christians in Rome’s arenas before being mauled to death by
savage beasts was “Maranatha”—the
Lord cometh. Death was imminent for them, but the Lord’s return
was their expectation. Death is
never presented in
the Bible as the hope of the believer. He may have to die,
multitudes already have, but his hope is always the return of the
Lord. Yet the Christian’s hope is not exactly the event as such. You
can be occupied with the event in prophecy and lose sight of the
Person. It is an event, but hope is in the One who returns. Sadly,
the hope of many believers is little more than heaven when they die.
This is
never what Scripture
presents. What was Paul looking for? It was “being with Christ”
(Phil. 1: 23). It was a Person, not a place. Heaven will only be
heaven, because
He is there. In this
very passage before us Paul says, “and thus we shall be always with
[the] Lord” (1Thess. 4: 17).
Now who is coming? You say ‘The Lord’. That is true, but it is not
quite what Paul says in the passage before us. You have left an
important word off and you have lost a wealth of meaning as a
result. Yes, we are back to words again. It is “the Lord
himself” (v16, my
emphasis). In Greek the order is “himself, the Lord”. In Greek, as
in English,
himself is a very common
word, but when it is used it introduces definiteness, distinction
and certainty. Look at the emphasis it gives to a passage, see the
force it exerts when used. It completely eradicates any doubt of
identification. It is the Lord HIMSELF who comes. He does not send
an angel or some other heavenly representative. In the United Kingdom, the Queen may send
another member of the royal family to represent her at some
important event. That will enhance the occasion and underline its
importance. But it is not the same as the Queen herself being
present. If she is present, its importance cannot be increased
further.
Let us stay with this word
himself. I read of “God himself” (Rev. 21: 3), of the “Father
himself” (John 16: 27), of the “Spirit itself” (same Greek word,
different gender, Rom. 8: 16) and of the “Son also himself” (1 Cor.
15: 28). The Lord said “I am coming again and shall receive you to
myself, that where I
am ye also may be” (John 14: 3, my emphasis). This is the selfsame
One who “gave
himself” (Gal 1: 4; 1
Tim. 2: 6, my emphasis) and will finally “present the assembly to
himself” (Eph. 5: 27,
my emphasis).
Forgive me, but I must linger a little longer on this word for I
want you to grasp all that it implies. You have some appreciation of
what it cost the Lord to die for you, you gladly acknowledge that it
was something no other could do. You see something of the force of
that word when it says He has “given
himself for me” (Gal. 2: 20). You realise that in giving
Himself, He could give no more. I read in Eph. 5: 25 that “Christ
also loved the assembly, and has delivered himself up for it”. That
is true and very precious in its context, but it is not the same as
what we have in Gal. 2: 20. Multitudes form the Church, but in Gal.
2: 20 we come down to an individual, to a single person, to one who
says “the Son of God, who has loved
me and given himself
for
me” (my emphasis). In
both cases the love is
His love, so there is
no difference there. The difference is this: in Eph 5 it is His love
to a company, the Church; in Gal. 2 it is His love to an individual.
The Lord’s love comes right down to the personal level: He loved ME.
You will notice that when it speaks of His love for the Church, the
title used is Christ and not Lord—words yet again! Names and titles,
like the words that describe them, are never confused in Scripture.
The Son of God does not stand as Lord in relation to the Church.
Lord is His title of authority in relation to the individual. Yes,
in 1 Thess. 4 He comes for the Church, but that is not how it is
presented. The Church is not spoken of as such in that passage. The
word is “The
Lord himself …” (my
emphasis) for He comes for the individual. He comes for you. He
comes for me.
Suppose that you had bought something, something that was very
costly, something that cost you everything you possessed. How
precious and valuable it would be to you! When the time came for you
to collect that purchase, who would you send? Into whose hands would
you commit that assignment? ‘No one’ is the answer, as you well
know. You must go yourself, for the purchase is too precious to
engage another. The example is really too feeble and but a hazy
shadow of the glorious reality I want it to illustrate! Dear
fellow–believer, you are so precious to the Lord, you have cost Him
so much that He could never entrust that mission to anyone but
Himself. He MUST come HIMSELF for YOU. This is what is conveyed by
these simple but wonderful words “The Lord himself …”.
