Sarassin:

Jesus has been dead for over Two thousand years, one would have thought it blindingly obvious to the Christians that he ain't coming back, here's why;

Jesus of Nazareth was an apocalyptic Jewish prophet, he came from a long line of Jewish apocalyptic prophets, like Johanne the Immerser before him and Jesus Ben Ananias after him. Jesus,much like Johanne believed the end of the world was imminent but, like all apocalyptic prophets he got it spectacularly wrong.

Jesus’ core teaching was the imminent arrival of the kingdom of God, all his other teachings were a derivative or corollary of this message. He believed God was going to perform a mighty act of salvation of his people heralded by the coming of the agent of change “ the son of Man” and that quite a lot of people would be around to witness it. His disciples believed they would “rule” at the right hand side of Jesus in the coming kingdom, each disciple at the head of a tribe of Israel (this is was the promise that enticed them to join his ministry)

Apparently this is what the Apostle Paul believed too….initially, here are his words; in his earliest recorded letter to the Thessalonians written around 49CE less than twenty years after Jesus’ death (Thess 4:15-17)

“ For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord by no means will precede those who have died………then we who are alive, who are left will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air”

It is clear that the early church that existed after the death of Jesus was apocalyptic in nature. Apostle Paul fully expected the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God in his lifetime, and quite clearly expected to be amongst those to be “caught up in the clouds” Indeed he asks his congregations not to better themselves, not to bother to get married if they weren’t already…the implications being, there was no point !

Luke writing with the benefit of hind-sight several years later makes the necessary adjustments to Mark’s account to spare the embarrassment of Christians being open to ridicule since the Kingdom of God had not arrived as expected. The changes are subtle and expertly done;

(Luke 11:20) …”the Kingdom has already come to you” and (Luke 17:21) “ Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you."

When Jesus is brought before the Sanhedrin he tells the priests in Mark (14:62)

“you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven”

Luke writing many years after the death of the priests knowing full well the priests saw no such thing modifies Mark’s words;

“from now on the son of man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God” (Luke 22:69)

See if you can spot the difference.

Christian doctrine arose largely as a direct consequence of the non-fulfillment of that particular prophecy.

Ganjafama:
I disagree bro. Jesus existed, but the Bible is not a book to be relied upon for concrete information. For example, the book of genesis was copied from ancient sumerian history. Download and read "The Lost Book of Enki" by Zechariah Stitchin.

5minsmadness:

You humans are so thick u can't understand. Only two days have passed. We are still in the second day infact. Christ will come at the end of the third day.
I can give u the year if u like but nothing more.

malvisguy212:
provide your proof, john did not write the book of revelation? Bring it let see which site brainwashed you.

Reiyvinn:
Being a Christian is really one hell of a job.

Aside the Church-bound duties required of "true" Christians (which are often quite inconvenient and demanding), one mustn't ignore the emotional, mental and psychological War that goes on in the mind of those one who are quite knowledgable or well versed with the Bible.

Trying hard to resist the doubts they tend to encounter is the order of the day for those who read wide and do lots of research in an aim to either justify or investigate their long-held faith. I was no exception.

Ranging from the bloodstained Old Testament to Scientific ludicrosities, Blatant absurdities to historical flaws, authenticities and many many more, I couldn't help giving Doubt a chance.

About this time last year, I wrote a piece here on Nairaland: Questions That Baffle Me About God
and even though it never made frontpage, I'm glad it had the amount of audience it did.

Now I'm here with something quite troubling; something a logical mind should find really really disturbing.

I remember having a dialogue with a Pastor friend some weeks ago when he was on an outreach preaching about the Second Coming of Christ and why everyone should "mend their ways".

I can't quite remember his reaction when I asked "Don't you think this Jesus is taking too long? Are you sure he's coming at all?"

but I do remember him sarcastically replying me by saying "Uhmm.... Our Lord is warming up his whips for strongheads like you, so chill..."

Well, I chuckled. But then, I needed him to go into his Bible to see for himself why I asked such a question, so I directed him to Mark 13:30 which states:

". . .this generation will by no means pass away until these things happen. . ."
(with "these things" referring to the end time, tribulation and the Second Coming talked about in the preceding verses).

He laughed. "Cheap!" He said.

"You don't understand Greek so you wouldn't know" (hehehehe does he understand Greek? Well.... I wouldn't know either lol)

"The word 'generation' in Greek is 'genea' which Lexicons define as 'people of the same kind' so from Acts 11:26, we can tell whom these people are. They are Christians, which means Christ-like. So Christians will never pass away until the Son comes". He concluded.

That was amazing. Perfect wordplay. However, the context of this passage made it clear that it literally referred to those still alive at the time. He refused; holding still to his explanation. Then I took him to Matthew 16:28 which states:

"Truly I say to you that there are some of those standing here that will not taste death at all until they see the Son of man coming in His Kingdom."
(also found in Mark 9:1; Luke 9:27)

His face didn't look so bright afterwards even though he tried making me take his explanation for an answer and how I needed the Holy Spirit to understand certain passages and so on, it was obvious that he was well aware of these passages and the problems the pose and willingly ignored them for fear of doubt (I once did that too). So he never expected it to be used in a dialogue with him. He obviously didn't research on it the way he should have and that's the same thing most Christians do today. Their fear of doubt has amounted to their fear of knowledge and information and honestly, it's really unfortunate.

Now, back to the passage, we all know that everyone "standing [t]here" are now dead, buried and forgotten (that's assuming Jesus even existed)

So what does that make of the Second Coming? A Failed Prophecy or not?

Let's be honest with ourselves.

Thank you.