was on the other hand more and other than the product of a law immanent in the history of the chosen people. When the fulness of the time had come there was a new movement of the Spirit of God in His covenant people towards the world. The life of Jesus was the personal coming and the personal presence of the Son of God in the Son of Man, a mystery that presupposes a fresh creative act of God, beginning a history of Messianic revelation governed by a law and fashioned after a type that had no existence before.

So is the second advent related to the Church militant. It is the outgrowth of the current Christian eon, the product of the new law of life introduced into the world on the day of Pentecost by the incarnate Son glorified, a law founded on His divine-human personality.

The parousia, however, is much more than the product of Messianic history. The revelation will be the personal advent of the God-man in heavenly glory. Like the birth of our Lord, this ultimate epoch also involves a new creative act, an act of the Head of the Church different from every antecedent mode of manifestation, which will establish an order of existence and effect a status of the kingdom of God, fashioned after a type and governed by a law that is not now operative.

The analogy of the first advent justifies us in affirming another aspect of truth. In fulfilling the purpose of the Christian economy and realizing the prospect of the Christian faith, the parousia by the realization of the hope of faith, will also transcend and abolish the present status of the kingdom. The current Christian eon will be superseded by the second coming of the Son of Man, as the entire pre-Christian economy was superseded by His first coming, a truth which calls for further consideration.

2. The first advent and the second advent are analogous, and shed light each on the other; but the difference between the two advents is as great as the analogy is close. In order rightly to grasp the distinctive significance of the final epoch this difference requires emphasis.

The incarnation was the mystery of the Son of God made man for us men. He living in the form of God came into the world, taking the form of a servant. He who was in the beginning with God, by whom and unto whom all things were made, and in whom all things consist, He came. It was the eternal personal Word, the prototype of man, who came forth from the bosom of the uncreated heavenly glory, and being made in the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man, entered really into the existing order of the fallen world. Then as the last Adam, the progenitor of the new race, having made atonement for sin and overcome death, He passed out of the existing order of the world and returned unto the Father. The name which is above every name having been given unto Him, He is on the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him.' Of Himself He says: I came out from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go unto the Father."

The Son returns to the Father not as He came out from the Father. He came out the Son of God; He returns the incarnate Son, the God-man. As the incarnate Son, the Word become flesh, He is now, during the progress of the Christian eon, apart from the world, outside of the unglorified order. He is with the Father, in the bosom of the same uncreated glory whence He came forth to take *John xvi. 28.

1 Phil. ii. 5-11; 1 Peter iii. 22.

the form of a servant.' Possessing all authority in heaven and on earth, He sits at the right hand of the Father in heavenly places, far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; all things being put in subjection under His feet. Not present among men under the limitations of 'the flesh,' of natural human life, nor absent from the world by a local separation, His will is nevertheless an immanent force in the world, shaping and controlling its movements. Related to the Church as the head is related to the body, He, though seated on the throne, lives in the members of His body by His Holy Spirit.

The presence in the world of the incarnate Son is on the one hand internal. By the Spirit He abides in His mystical body. By the Spirit He upholds the world, and so governs in it that all things work together toward His second coming.

On the other hand His presence is also external and governmental. Invested with the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, He in heaven rules over all things toward the recovery of the allegiance of His enemies and for the defence and perpetuity of His Church.

Upholding and governing all things by immanent spiritual force and by external governmental authority, Christ is active in the universe and upon it with direct reference to the consummation of the old creation and of the new creation in Himself.

1

1 John xvii. 5.

2 Eph. i. 21.

§ 366.

The second coming will therefore not be a repetition of the first coming.

It will be a new movement: new in kind, new in its relations, new as to its purpose.

1. The second advent will be a movement of the enthroned Christ new in kind.

His first coming was by conception of the Holy Spirit and by birth of the lowly Virgin. The second coming will be in His glory,' and He shall 'sit on the throne of His glory.' This manifestation will be the act, not of the eternal Son, but of the eternal Son in perfected humanity. It will be the revelation, not only of Him by whom all things were made, but of Him who having made all things has also resumed all things in Himself. For it is 'the mystery of the will' of God the Father 'to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth. All things are summed up in Christ

Matt. xxv. 31.

12

Eph. i. 10. Tertullian: "The two letters of Greece, the first and the last, the Lord assumes to Himself, as figures of the beginning and end which concur in Himself: so that, just as Alpha rolls on until it reaches Omega, and again Omega rolls back till it reaches Alpha, in the same way He might show that in Himself is both the downward course of the beginning on to the end, and the backward course of the end up to the beginning; so that every economy, ending in Him through whom it began, that is, through the Word of God who was made flesh, may have an end correspondent to its beginning."-On Monogamy, Ch. v. Alford: "All creation is summed up in Christ. * The Church is subordinated to Him in the highest degree of conscious and joyful union: those who are not His spiritually, in mere subjugation, yet consciously: the inferior tribes of creation, unconsciously: but objectively, all are summed up in Him."

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inasmuch as the word became flesh,' man being both the image of the Son and the head and lord of the mundane economy. One with the natural world Christ is also one with the supernatural order of absolute Spirit.

The second advent accordingly is the coming of One who in His personal constitution organically unites the creature with the Creator, the ideal cosmos with God. He represents and in Himself connects two worlds, the heavenly and the earthly, the eternal and the temporal. Under one view above the time-world and ruling over it, He under another view is vitally conjoined with the timeworld and in truth from within shaping its processes.

Supported by the typology of the New Testament we are warranted in believing that the final epoch will prevail under a twofold character: it will be transcendent and in glory.

The movement will be revealed in presence of heaven and earth, a manifestation confronting, under a form not now describable excepting under apocalyptic imagery, the vision of angels and men. Transcendent, the coming will at the same time be mystical and dynamic, an irresistible movement in the Church and in the world, an internal energy felt by all men, felt among the living and among the dead, determining the direction of their activity with an all-controlling will towards the issues of the final day. 2. The second advent will be a movement of Christ new in its relations.

The first advent of the Son of God by incarnation was His entrance into the Abrahamic covenant, which was but 'a shadow of the good things to come,' and into a world lying in the evil one," subject to the law of sin and 1 1I John v. 19.