Page:Studies in the Scriptures - Series I - The Plan of the Ages (1909).djvu/95

 STUDY VI,

OUR LORD'S RETURN ITS OBJECT, THE RESTITU- TION OF ALL THINGS.

OUR LORD'S SECOND ADVENT PERSONAL AND PRB-MILLENNIAL. ITS RELATION- SHIP TO THE FIRST ADVENT. THE SELECTION OF THE CHtiRCH AND THE CON- VERSION OP THE WORLD. ELECTION AND FREE GRACE. PRtsoNBRS OF HOPE. PROPHETIC TESTIMONY REGARDING RESTITUTION. OUR LORD'S RETURN MAN- IFESTLY THE HOPE OP THfi CHURCH AND THE WORLD.

44 A ND He shall send Jesus Christ, which [who] before was until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." Acts 3:20, 21.
 * preached unto you; whom the heaven must retain

That our Lord intended his disciples to understand that for some purpose, in some manner, and at some time, he would come again, is, we presume, admitted and believed by all familiar with the Scriptures. True, Jesus said, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age" (Matt. 28:20), and by his spirit and by his Word he has been with the Church continually, guiding, directing, com- forting and sustaining his saints, and cheering them in the midst of all their afflictions. But though the Church has been blessedly conscious of the Lord's knowledge of all her ways and of his constant care and love, yet she longs for his promised personal return; for, when he said, "If I go, I will come again" (John 14:3)* he certainly referred to a second personal coming.

Some think he referred to the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost; others, to the degtrudiion of Jerusalem, etc.; but these apparently overlook the fad that in the last book

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