Second Coming

Definition and Meaning

The Korean term for the Second Coming, jaerim (再臨), means "coming again." It refers to the doctrine that Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, will return to the world in the last days. The term translates the New Testament Greek word parousia ("presence," "arrival"). The Second Coming stands at the center of eschatology, the teaching concerning the end of the world. It is commonly understood together with the resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment, and the consummation of the kingdom of God. The Apostles' Creed confesses, "from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead," and the Nicene Creed likewise confesses that Christ will come again in glory. The Second Coming is therefore a confession of faith held in common across denominational lines.

Biblical and Historical Background

Representative passages that speak of the Second Coming include the following:

• Acts 1:11: the ascended Jesus "shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."
• Matthew 24: the signs of the Second Coming. Matthew 24:36 states, "But of that day and hour knoweth no man."
• 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17: when Christ descends, the dead and the living will together meet the Lord.
• Revelation 22:20: "Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

The early church lived in the expectation that the Second Coming was near. Later in church history, various views arose depending on how the thousand years of Revelation 20 were interpreted: premillennialism, which holds that the millennial kingdom follows the Second Coming; postmillennialism, which holds that the Second Coming follows the millennial kingdom; and amillennialism, which regards the thousand years as symbolic. For further details, see the article Millennium. In the nineteenth century, dispensationalism, which emphasizes the rapture of the saints before the Second Coming, spread throughout the English-speaking world. During the same period in the United States, a movement calculated the date of the Second Coming to be 1844, and the Seventh-day Adventist Church emerged from that movement.

In the Korean Church

Many of the missionaries in early Korean Protestantism are known to have held premillennial views. Kil Sun-ju is well known for his sermons emphasizing the last days and the Second Coming. The emphases of various denominations are as follows:

• Holiness churches: adopt as their core motto the "Fourfold Gospel" of regeneration, sanctification, divine healing, and the Second Coming. The Korea Evangelical Holiness Church and the Jesus Korea Sungkyul Church follow this tradition.
• Full Gospel churches: the Korea Assemblies of God teaches the Second Coming as one element of the "Fivefold Gospel."
• Presbyterian churches: both the amillennialism of the Reformed tradition and historic premillennialism are found, depending on the denomination and seminary.
• Some Baptist and independent churches: the influence of dispensational premillennialism is comparatively strong.

In the church calendar, Advent is observed as a season of preparing for Christmas and of awaiting the Second Coming. In 1992 the Dami Mission claimed that the rapture would take place on October 28 of that year, but nothing happened on that day. Such so-called "date-setting eschatology," which assigns a specific date to the Second Coming, has been widely criticized within the Korean church on the basis of Matthew 24:36.