Second Coming of Christ

In first Thessalonians, the early Christians were worried about the second coming of Christ. Ever since Christ promised to come back, the second coming has always been a question among followers of Christ. When will it be? How will we know?
The early Christians had similar questions. Paul answers some of their questions in his epistle to the Thessalonians. He says, “We ourselves glory in you in the churches of God your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure (2 Thess 1:4).”

They must have been wondering when it would end because Paul goes on to say that they “who are troubled rest with us, when the lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day (2 Thess 1:7-10).”

Paul is promising the early believers that rest from their tribulations will come. But when? He answers the when in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. In verses 1-3 Paul writes, “Now we beseech you, brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed the son of perdition.”

We learn a couple things from these verses. First, there were other proselytizing Christians who were sending false letter preaching that the second coming was coming near. Paul refutes this by saying, “be not…shaken...by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.” He then says, “there come a falling away first.” As a Latter-Day Saint, I believe there was a falling away, meaning that the early church of Jesus Christ, that he established with his apostles, fell into an apostasy. The early Christian church was lost in the first century of the new millennium. However, we also believe that God restored his church again, through a new prophet called Joseph Smith.

So what do we do as Christians waiting for the second coming? Paul says, “Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day; we are not of the night, nor of darkness, therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober… but let us… be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet the hope of salvation (1 Thess 5:5-8).”
We are to look forward, be faithful, hopeful of the future but not forgetful of the present. That is Paul’s call for Christians waiting for the second coming.