We read in Hebrews 9.28 that ‘Christ having been once offered to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time apart from sin to those who wait for Him, with a view to (final) salvation’.

The image being used here is of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement who, having made his sin offering for the sins of the people, went into the Most Holy Place behind the curtain to offer the shed blood before the Throne of God (the Ark of the Covenant) prior to coming out again to confirm to the people that God had accepted the offering. In the same way Jesus Christ is seen as having first offered Himself up as a sin offering, and as now being in the presence of His Father presenting His blood on behalf of His people, ‘ever living to intercede on our behalf’. But the day will come when He will come again in order to receive His people to Himself, and that will be at His Second Coming.

In these words we thus have underlined the twofold purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ in His twofold coming. At His first coming He offered Himself up once for all as a sacrifice on our behalf. ‘He, Who knew no sin, was made sin for us, so that we might be made righteous with the righteousness of God in Him’ (2 Corinthians 5.21). And now He is in the presence of the Father presenting His shed blood on our behalf. By this means He offers eternal salvation to all who truly believe, a salvation which is guaranteed to them from the moment that they receive it because it is not dependent on them but on Him (John 10.27-28) and His intercession for them. Because He suffered for us, the Righteous One for the unrighteous, He can continually bring us to God’ (1 Peter 3.18) as those who are perfect in His sight, in spite of what we are underneath, and from then on He continually presents us as perfect before God.

It is because of this work of Jesus Christ on our behalf that we can have the assurance that we are right with God, and can live our lives in the consciousness of sins forgiven. Meanwhile we know that our Lord Jesus Christ is Himself in Heaven continually presenting His sufficient sacrifice before the Father ensuring out total acceptance by Him.

But one day He will come again a second time. Not this time as a helpless baby, but as the King of Glory. He will come in the glory of the Father with His holy angels, and He will gather up His elect from one end of Heaven to the other (Matthew 24.30-31). For the Lord Himself will descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first and then those who are Christ’s at His coming who will be caught up to meet Him in the air (1 Thessalonians 4.16-17). In that moment, in the twinkling of an eye we will all be changed (1 Corinthians 15.52). This perishable body will put on the imperishable, and this mortal will put on immortality, and we will be presented holy, blameless and irreproachable in His presence (Colossians 1.22). And then our Lord Jesus Christ will deliver the Kingship to God His Father and the Godhead will be all in all (1 Corinthians 15.24, 28).