While Christians are not obligated to remember Christ specifically at Christmas, it has become a helpful practice to meditate on his first coming at Christmastime. However, given the proliferation of the season’s entertainment and “Christmas spirit,” it can be difficult to combine a sacred meditation with secular Christmas. One way to do so is to reflect upon the first coming of our Lord in light of his second coming. In this manner, we hope to set the incarnation of our Lord free from cultural baggage and see it in its proper significance.

The Times

From the gospel testimony, we would have to conclude that the first coming of our Lord was at one of the low points of redemptive history, at least as far as the covenant people were concerned. Politically, Israel was subjugated by the Romans, and, spiritually, the covenant people were subjugated by the darkness of contemporary Judaism. They were, with few exceptions, spiritually bankrupt. The darkness of the time was profound: the spiritual leaders were blind and leading the blind who followed. Perhaps we might say that this was the ideal time for the Savior to come. Paul states that it was in the “fullness of time” (Gal. 4:4) that God sent his Son to be born of a woman. In our Lord’s incarnation, the Light truly shone in the great and profound darkness (John 1:5).

The second coming of our Lord will be similar. Throughout the New Testament, the evidence for the growth of the church is manifold. So too is the evidence for the growth and intensification of opposition and persecution. The gospel age from Acts to Revelation 20 reveals this simultaneous pattern: as the church grows, so too does opposition to it. Perhaps we see this most clearly, with echoes of the spiritual times of the first coming, in Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonian church. In it he warns that the second coming of Christ will not be until the “rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction” (2 Thess. 2:3). Whether you take this man of lawlessness to be the pope or some other figure, what is clear is that with him comes a great opposition to the truth. So much so that the man of lawlessness sets himself up as the anti-Christ, exalts himself in the church, and proclaims himself to be God (v. 4). His influence of darkness will be profound; his activity is Satanic (v. 9); and there is a great deception and delusion regarding the truth, to the end that many “believe what is false” (v. 11), ending in their subsequent condemnation. Yes, the Satanic darkness will be profound before the Light, the Messiah, our Lord, comes once again. Stand fast in his light until he comes.

The Scope

Our Lord’s first coming was localized and national. That is to say, Christ came to Israel, in Israel. Born in humble surroundings in Bethlehem without even national fanfare, Jesus in his birth was not notable for the vast majority of Jews. Moreover, the boundaries of his first coming were largely confined to the covenant people, with notable exceptions to Gentile-populated areas. Naturally this suited the plan of redemption: he came to Judea and Samaria in order that his disciples might go beyond those boundaries unto the ends of the earth. 

The second coming will have a worldwide effect. It will be universally known. “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God” (1 Thess. 4:16). While our Lord’s divine nature at his first coming was “veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail the incarnate Deity” (Charles Wesley), this will not be the case at his second coming. The whole world will know and see him, and there will be no mistaking him for John the Baptist, Elijah, or some false Christ who comes before him. At his second coming, that which was proclaimed in his first coming (salvation and judgment) will be realized. Come, Lord Jesus! Come!

The Manner

As we have suggested, the manner of Christ’s first coming was subdued. That is not to say it was ineffective—just not what we might have expected, and certainly not what the Jews expected regarding their Messiah. Born in a questionable estate, humanly speaking, which led the Jews to question his parentage (John 8:41), our Lord had a life that was characterized by trial, suffering, and humiliation. He was a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Is. 53:3). This culminated in his death by crucifixion, his burial in the grave, and his remaining under the power of death for a time. At his first coming he became a curse for us (Gal. 3:13). What condescension!

The contrast with his second coming could not be greater. We have noted it will be worldwide; it will also be universally recognizable. There will be no “infant holy, infant lowly” or “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” (Wesley). He will come on the clouds, with the sound of the trumpet and the cry of command (1 Thess. 4:16). Not only will there be salvation, but there will also be judgment. While one cannot fully agree with A. W. Pink’s thought, “At his first coming he came to slay sin in men; at his second he will come to slay men in sin,” there is an element of truth to it. While he was judged at his first coming, slandered, spat upon, beaten, crucified, and even rejected by his Father, nothing of this sort will be at his second coming. He will be the judge of the living and the dead. He will be universally acknowledged as the glorious, eternal Son, the Messiah of God, the elder brother of his people, so “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10–11).

The Response

At our Lord’s first coming, the general response was rejection, anger, and hatred. Certainly, many were brought to him by God’s grace, but the picture of his first coming—summarized at the cross—is of a few dedicated followers surrounded by a mass of baying wolves. “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (John 1:11). That is not to say all rejected him—far from it! At his first coming, the doors of salvation were opened to the spiritually and socially lost, the despised and rejected. He who was himself rejected came to the rejected of society—those who, by God’s grace, could see their need of more than a political redeemer but rather one who would save their souls from hell.

The second coming of our Lord will produce similar responses, yet with different results. Regarding his second coming, Scripture speaks of those who reject the Lord, recoiling in horror at his appearance: “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him” (Rev. 1:7). Revelation 6 reveals that kings, great ones, generals, the rich and powerful will hide themselves in caves and among rocks while they call the mountains and rocks to fall upon them. They attempt to hide from the wrath of him who sits on the throne, but to no avail. The judge and the judged of the first coming have been reversed in the second coming. And as John records for us, “The great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Rev. 6:17).

As we consider our Lord’s blessed incarnation, it is well worth our time not just looking back, but looking forward to what is to come. For our Lord, the swaddling clothes of the manger and burial clothes of his death will be replaced with robes and garments as white a light. So great will be his glory that the New Jerusalem will need no light of sun or moon, for the glory of God and of his Lamb will be its light (Rev. 21:23). And in that glorious light will dwell the saints, who will reign and rule with Christ forever (Rev. 22:5).

Now that’s worth meditating upon at Christmas. That’s my kind of Christmas spirit.

The author is pastor of Shiloh Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. New Horizons, December 2024.