"The Time is at Hand."

Today I want to continue exploring what John may have meant by “time is at hand”. I have three main reason why Christ (through John) may have used this type of "immenant" wording.

Number one is the fact that right after he said those words he revealed a vision of Jesus addressing the churches of Asia Minor (now the western coast of Modern Turkey),who were already experiencing persecution. Truly the revelation he was about to give was “at hand” or near.

Secondly, at the time Revelations was written, Christians were under extreme persecution and more persecution would follow. Christ telling us that it was all going to end quickly with His return was and is our hope that it would eventually end. Many give this as to the reason why he said:

“Behold, I come quickly: blessed [is] he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.” Rev 22:7

However there are those who say that Revelations was complete in 70 AD, ( a belief that I have found is called “Preterism”). While I respect where they are coming from and even can see some of their points, I do not agree with them.

They feel because he said he’s coming quickly and it’s now 2000 years later that in fact the things in revelation did already occur. They usually state that most people are interpreting Revelations wrong. That Christ’s “return” was not a physical second coming but one of him being with us and in us in a spiritual sense. Their interpretation of the end of time is the end of the time that sin separates us from God.

I have a problem with this because what will you do with all the scriptures that say that the trumpet will sound and every eye will see him when he returns again?

If we look at the Old Testament’s prophetic book on the end times, the book of Daniel, we find this verse:

“But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, [even] to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” Dan 12:24.

Here God is saying that vision of the end that Daniel had was stopped and sealed up until the time of the end. In ancient Hebrew the word “end” means the end of time and the end of space.

God does not exist in finite time and space as we do. He is eternal. When he spoke the world into existence in Genesis, Revelations was already complete.

Not just Genesis through Revelations, but all that was and is and is to come for him is complete. It is difficult for us who live in measured time to comprehend this because we who are here in this realm live with natural laws that say space and time is fixed.

Which brings me to my third point. I believe Jesus meant what he said when said “quickly”. To him, the Eternal God, these things are happening, will happen, AND have already happened. In the infinite stretch of eternity, 2000 very well may be quickly!

However in our concept of space and time Revelations is not complete.

I believe what is yet to happen are these seals being opened as it says in Revelations and everything they portend to be finished in our time and space. It will be at that point that time and space as we know it shall end.

God knows we exist in finite time and space because, after all, he created the natural laws we live under. He also knows we need hope. When he said the end was going to happen quickly he was speaking directly to us perhaps so that we would have hope. Hope that we would not always live under the persecutions of this current world system.

I believe that for these reasons he said the time for them to happen was at hand and Jesus later said it would happen “quickly” .

As I said before, I also believe he left the time of his return ambiguous on purpose.

In Jesus' own words, "And this know, that if the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken through. Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not." (Luke 12:39-40)

Like that thief in the night he’s going to return, we don’t know when but we should watch and be ready and live like it’s going to be today.