Second Coming
In Christianity, the Second Coming is a time when Jesus Christ will come back to earth. The Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed state that "Christ will come again". This coming is to judge the living and the dead. Throughout history, there have been different ideas about the details of this event. These disagreements are related to the Millennium which is described in the Book of Revelation as a 1000 year reign of Christ on the earth. Some Christians, called Amillennialists,[1] think the 1,000 years refers only to the eventual triumph of the Gospel. Others, called Postmillennialists[2] think that Jesus will return physically to earth. This will happen only after Christianity has been predominant for the 1,000 years. This may be a real 1,000 years or an indefinitely long time. In recent times, many Christians, especially in the United States, have believed that there will be a Rapture of the Christians.[3] This means that at a certain time all Christians will go up to heaven to be with Jesus. After seven years of trouble on earth, Jesus will return with all the Christians to defeat the Antichrist and rule on earth for 1,000 literal years. Others who believe in the rapture put it at in the middle or at the end of the seven years. These different views come mainly from the Book of Revelation, but other Old Testament and New Testament books are also used to develop the different views. Since the Book of Revelation uses highly symbolic language, it can be understood in different ways. What virtually all Christians agree on is that in some way, Jesus will someday destroy all evil from the earth and bring goodness and peace.
Second Coming Media
The Last Judgement, c. 1100 AD icon, by John Tohabi, kept at the Saint Catherine's Monastery
The Last Judgement by the Armenian manuscript illuminator Toros Roslin, 1262
The Second Coming of Christ stained glass window at St. Matthew's German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Charleston, South Carolina, United States
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian (1835-1908). The photograph was taken in November 1907 by a traveller from Russia named Dickson (or Dixon) who vistied Qadian.
