Did you know that the phrase "the second coming of Christ" does not appear anywhere in scripture? Nor the phrase "second coming"? Does this surprise you?
Many good Christians are expecting the arrival of the Lord in this era as Jesus walking again over the face of the earth... in the flesh.
But, is this really based in actual words of the Christ or is just hearsay?
What Jesus did actually say?
"And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here [is] Christ; or, lo, [he is] there; believe [him] not:"... (Mark 13:21)
"Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, [he is] in the secret chambers; believe [it] not"... (Matthew 24:26)
As you see, both of the allegories (the desert and the chambers), are instances of the same subject: The material world.
In other words: The Messiah was not to be expected as a manifestation of Nature (an astronomic being, a majestuous creature floating in the sky, and so forth) nor as a human manifestation of any kind (a physical person, a visible event, etcetera, etcetera)...
So... in which way should then the second arrival of the Christ was to took place?
Just follow the leads:
1 »»» "For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be"... (Matthew 24:27)
The Greek word for "coming" is parousia, and it means arrival, presence... obviously, Jesus is talking here to the next arrival of the Son of man...
2 »»» "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory"... (Matthew 24:30)
Wait! Doesn't this mean that He actually be seen? Physically?
Nope. The problem here is that this is not a physical, bodily coming of Christ. The idea of "seeing" here is a metaphor, not physically seeing but "to recognize, to be aware, to perceive" instead. The passage refers to the destruction of Jerusalem that would cause the tribes of Israel to recognize that Jesus was indeed the Son of man and the Messiah.
The clue here is not to mistake "the sign of the Son of man in heaven" with "the sign of the Son of man in the sky". The sky, is the firmament, and it belongs to the physical universe, not to the spiritual realm.
Some would say that Acts 1:11 teaches a physical bodily second coming. Does it? Let's see.
Some will argue that His ascension was physical and visible (Acts 1:9-10), so won't His return be also in such a way?
In the KJV version it says in that verse that he will come in "like manner." The expression "like manner" is the English wording for the Greek phrase, "hon tropon". This phrase does not mean "exactly the same," but has the more general idea of "similar or in the liking."
For example look at how this phrase is used in Luke 13:34: Did Jesus want to gather Jerusalem in exactly the same identical manner as (hon tropon) a hen gathers her chicks?
The emphasis of Acts 1:11 is that Christ's coming (arrival or presence) would be in a cloud coming, just as he left in a cloud, so he would come in the cloud.
There is no Scripture that explicitly teaches that Jesus would return or arrive again in a physical, bodily fashion. An understanding of the language of the Old Testament will help us see that His coming or arrival was not to be physical.
If you run a extensive investigation of the Bible, you will find that there are not any verses in the New Testament that point to any other manner of coming other than a spiritual arrival of the Christ.
And you will understand that The Second Coming is not an inspired phrase but a human expression...
