Tag Archives: C S Lewis

The Age to Come

Posted on 16/07/2025 | Leave a comment

As Jesus was leaving the Temple grounds, his disciples came along and wanted to take him on a tour of the various Temple buildings. 2 But he told them, “All these buildings will be knocked down, with not one stone left on top of another!” 3 “When will this happen?” the disciples asked him later, as he sat on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. “What events will signal your return and the end of the age?” 4 Jesus told them, “Don’t let anyone fool you. 5 For many will come claiming to be the Messiah and will lead many astray. 6 When you hear of wars beginning, this does not signal my return; these must come, but the end is not yet. Matthew 24:1-6

The Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition referred to a future era of divine fulfilment, the Messianic Age. This period was envisioned as an age of universal peace, harmony, and the reign of the Messiah, where evil will be eradicated, and the knowledge of the Creator will be widespread.

That’s why Jesus and the disciples along with the Jews expected a future era which was referred to as ‘the age to come’, contrasting with their current age.

In Christian tradition, the “age to come” is similarly associated with the return of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the Kingdom of God.  

For Jews, the idea of the Messianic Age is deeply rooted in the Hebrew Bible, particularly in the books of the prophets. Isaiah speaks of a time when “nation will not lift sword against nation” and “they will no longer study warfare. Isaiah 2 speaks of a time when the Mount of the Lord’s house will be established as the highest of the mountains, and all nations will stream to it, seeking peace and learning the ways of the Lord.

Isaiah 11 describes the Messianic Age as a time when a shoot will come forth from the stump of Jesse (David’s father), and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.

This figure, the Messiah, will be filled with the Spirit of the Lord, bringing wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and the fear of the Lord.

The Messianic Age is also described in Isaiah 32, where the Spirit of the Lord will be poured out on the people, leading to a time of peace, security, and prosperity. The passage emphasizes that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

In addition, Isaiah 42 highlights the Messiah’s role in bringing justice to the nations. He will not falter or be discouraged until he establishes justice on earth, and the nations will look to him for guidance and hope.

Isaiah 65:17-19. “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.

These Old Testament passages collectively paint a picture of the Messianic Age as a time of peace, justice, and the presence of God’s Spirit, where the Messiah will reign and bring about a new era of harmony and righteousness.

Now consider these passages from the New Testament:

Now consider these passages from the New Testament:

Matthew 12:32. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

Luke 18:30. . . . . . receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”

 

1 Corinthians 2:6.  we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away

 

Ephesians 1:21. Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.

 

Hebrews 6:5.  . . .tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come

 

Revelation 21:4  He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, . . . . .  nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away

Jesus would have expounded to the disciples many Old Testament scriptures that pointed to end times. Also He would have given them His own direct teachings. Matthew recorded many of these He gave them before the Olivet discourse. See Matthew 4:17, 5:17, 10:23, 16:17-18,  9:36-43, 13:47-50, 22:2-14.

It is a huge mistake to think that the End in the Bible means the end of everything. But that’s what a surprising number of Christian people believe.

              That’s an error which the famed scholar C S Lewis made. Lewis blatantly said Jesus was mistaken! He said Jesus failed to come back in the End time as he said he would. (See Lewis’ book “The World’s Last Night”).

That is also the mistaken view of many liberal scholars, atheists and Islamic writers.

So, please do not make this mistake.

Jesus was not mistaken and he cannot lie. But true to his promise, he returned as he said he would before many of his followers passed away (Matthew 10:23, 16:17-18 and 24:34.

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Jesus’ Second Coming: A Historical Perspective

Posted on 27/04/2025 | Leave a comment

Jesus told his disciples, as recorded by Matthew at 10:23, 16:27-28 and 24:34, that he would return before some of his listeners, ‘this generation’, had passed away.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever! He is the unchanging One, the only constant in this crazy world. The alpha and omega, the first and the last!

His integrity is critical. If he made one mistake or false prophecy, everything else he said would be suspect.

The Bible defines a false prophet as one who prophesies events that do not come to pass. If someone prophesied that a specific event/s would occur at a specific date or time and that time were to come and go without the event happening, he could legitimately be labelled as a false prophet.

But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name, a word which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ‘How will we recognise the word which the Lord has not spoken?’ When the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and the thing does not happen or come true, that is the thing that the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you are not to be afraid of him. Deuteronomy 18:20ff.

Jesus made many, many promises to his disciples. Some of these promises were prophecies about his second coming. For example:

When you are persecuted in one town, flee to the next. I tell you the truth, the Son of Man will return before you have reached all the towns of Israel. Matthew 10:23

That was part of Jesus’ instructions to his disciples.  And that happened!

For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father and will judge all people according to their deeds. And I tell you the truth, some standing here right now will not die before they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.” Matthew 16:27-28.

That happened too! And then Jesus, after pronouncing the woes upon the leaders of Jerusalem, said:

“Therefore, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers of religious law. But you will kill some by crucifixion, and you will flog others with whips in your synagogues, chasing them from city to city. As a result, you will be held responsible for the murder of all godly people of all time—from the murder of righteous Abel to the murder of Zechariah, son of Barachiah, whom you killed in the Temple between the sanctuary and the altar. I tell you the truth, this judgment will fall on this very generation. Matthew 23:34-36. We know all those things actually happened –exactly as we read in the New Testament! They are history.

And then only days before his passion

I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass from the scene until all these things take place. Matthew 24:34.

And yes, all those things Jesus spoke about in Matthew 24 were in the near future, but they happened in the 1st century! All of them! And before his generation had died out!

How can we know this?

Read Paul’s 1st letter to the Thessalonians 1, verse 10 written about AD 65, certainly within ‘this generation’:

 And they speak of how you are looking forward to the coming of God’s Son from heaven—Jesus, whom God raised from the dead. He is the one who has rescued us from the terrors of the coming judgment.

What judgment did Paul mean? These believers suffered persecution from the unbelieving Jews in their community. So we read 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16:

And then, dear brothers, you suffered persecution from your own countrymen. In this way, you imitated the believers in God’s churches in Judea who, because of their belief in Christ Jesus, suffered from their own people, the Jews.  For some of the Jews killed the prophets, and some even killed the Lord Jesus. Now they have persecuted us, too. They fail to please God and work against all humanity as they try to keep us from preaching the Good News of salvation to the Gentiles. By doing this, they continue to pile up their sins. But the anger of God has caught up with them at last..

Ask yourself this question: if those Thessalonians were wrong by expecting Jesus to come within their lifetime, why didn’t Paul correct them? Why didn’t he write to them saying, ‘no, you’ve got it wrong, Jesus won’t be coming for a long, long, time!’

But Paul did not correct them. Instead, he continued to encourage them as he wrote this letter to encourage them and then followed it with another letter, which we call Second Thessalonians, with further encouragements.

So why do you, dear reader, still expecting Jesus to return soon or in the future? That is logically impossible if you trust Paul’s letters to be the word of God. Paul reports similarly in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 10, 2 Corinthians, Philippians 2 and in his other letters.

And then there are what Peter wrote and James as well. They all expected Jesus to come very soon.

I know it is so difficult to throw off false teaching that has taken such a hold on Christians everywhere, such that people, including theologians, call Paul into question, saying that Paul was just wrong.

But why are the apostles of Christ, men filled with the Holy Spirit, the ones who are wrong? Why is it that we can be persuaded to think that Paul and the others were in error, rather than to question our own underlying premise of what we have been taught?

Who is it that is wrong – the apostles or the teaching of men that we have been exposed to?

What is more probable: that our understanding is wrong or that Paul’s was right? And if not only Paul was wrong, but that Jesus must have lied to his disciples living in the first century, that he was coming back soon, before their generation had all gone.

Or if men teach that he was mistaken, as C S Lewis did when writing in his book ‘The World’s Last Night’, are they then not anti-Christ?

Where do you stand? What do you think?

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Jesus Has Come

Posted on 10/02/2025 | Leave a comment

Jesus came back within the generation of his peers!

Please look up and study very carefully Matthew 24 :32–34.

And when you’ve studied this passage carefully, perhaps you will come to a different opinion when you can understand that Jesus came back within the lifetime of many of his contempories.

Was Jesus mistaken? The esteemed writer C S Lewis said Jesus was mistaken! Jesus did not come back as he said (See his book “The World’s Last Night”). That is also the view of many liberal scholars and Islamic writers. This discredits Jesus. They fail to look at the rest of the New Testament.

Christ has already come back long ago. He came at the ‘end of the age’ i.e., the end of the Jewish (Mosaic) age, the end of the Old Covenant. It was NOT the end of the world or the end of history. It was the end of Judaism. Jesus came when Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Temple were utterly destroyed (the great tribulation). It was a divine visitation. 

This is just unbelief period, plain and simple. This unbelief is so dishonouring of our Lord. it must break his heart. Of course, he is so forgiving. That’s amazing.

Let’s think about Peter, James and John listening to Jesus, when He spoke of the sign of Jesus’ coming:

 30 And then at last, the sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens, and there will be deep mourning among all the peoples of the land. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send out his angels with the mighty blast of a trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from the four winds—from the end of the sky to the other. 32 Now learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branches bud and its leaves begin to sprout, you know that summer is near. 33 In the same way, when you see all these things, you can know his return is very near, right at the door. 34 I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass from the scene until all these things take place.  (Matthew, 24:30-34)

How did these disciples and other apostles such as the apostle Paul respond to this information? That’s very easy! We can tell how they responded by their writings in the NT. They wrote unaminously of Jesus’ coming using terms like “right at the door,” “soon,” “near” and “at hand”. These do not mean 2000 years.

Right?

The first believers “waited eagerly” for his appearing (1 Cor 1:7-8, Gal 5:5 , Phil 3:20, 2 Tim 4:8, Heb 9:26-28).

Question: But could the disciples have possibly thought that by ‘generation’ Jesus meant something else far into the future, like some today who twist the scriptures saying that ‘generation’ here meant ‘race’ (the Jewish race) or others that say that by ‘generation’ Jesus meant some future generation who would see the signs of the end. No!

How can I say that? Because they took his words plainly and seriously as we can see in the rest of the New Testament!

Let God be true and every man a liar (Rom 3:4). Truth matters, evidence matters. We have been told a terrible lie. How can we behave so unfaithfully, ignoring what Jesus actually said?

Have you been brainwashed, deceived, indoctrinated? People will believe whatever they hear and do whatever they’re told by famous commentators, commentaries, or pastors. They have all been groomed by ‘dispensationalism,’ and they will follow that to the edge of a cliff.   If you’re still oblivious to the fact that you’ve been brainwashed into some sort of cult, it’s probably because you’ve already been indoctrinated.

Time to wake up. It’s time to stop waiting for the ‘rapture’. Time to spread the word of God.

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Jesus—A False Prophet?

Posted on 06/01/2025 | Leave a comment

Jesus made many, many promises to his disciples. Some of these promises were prophesies about his second coming. Here are just a few recorded in the Gospel of Matthew: see Mat 10:23, 16:27-28.23:34-36, 24:34. However let’s just look at the last one of these in more detail:

I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass from the scene until all these things take place.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Jesus and his apostles prophesied many times about his imminent second coming, and yet countless numbers of believers today still hold that no such return took place? So was Jesus wrong? Or have they have misunderstood what had been said?

Famed Christian apologist C S Lewis wrote a collection of essays, called ‘The World’s Last Night’, (Harvest Books, 1st edition, November 4, 2002). In that book Lewis wrote:

“It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.”

He goes on: “It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible. Yet how teasing, also, that within fourteen words of it should come the statement “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” The one exhibition of error and the one confession of ignorance grow side by side. That they stood thus in the mouth of Jesus himself, and were not merely placed thus by the reporter, we surely need not doubt . . . . . . .  he would never have recorded the confession of ignorance at all; he could have had no motive for doing so except a desire to tell the whole truth. And unless later copyists were equally honest they would never have preserved the (apparently) mistaken prediction about “this generation” after the passage of time had shown the (apparent) mistake. This passage (Mark 13:30-32) and the cry “Why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) together make up the strongest proof that the New Testament is historically reliable. The evangelists have the first great characteristic of honest witnesses: they mention facts which are, at first sight, damaging to their main contention. The facts are these: that Jesus professed himself (in some sense) ignorant, and within a moment showed that he really was so. ….”

So Lewis believed Jesus prophesied that he would return in that same generation. Lewis did not attempt to twist any words of Jesus to make them talk about some future generation, like some commentators. Lewis then concluded that those prophesies were not fulfilled at that time.  So Jesus and his apostles were delusional.

Lewis’ error stems from unrealistic expectations about what Jesus had in mind: Jesus prophesied the imminent end of the world, yet the world is still here. Jesus was wrong.

But it was not to be the end of the world. In 70 AD, Jesus came and went, having finished every single thing he promised to do, and the world is still with us today.

But why did Lewis then not reject Jesus and the apostles and return to atheism? For Lewis, the high status of Christ remained! This makes no sense.  If Lewis’ ideas were correct, it would make Jesus a liar and false prophet.

The Bible defines a false prophet as one who prophesies events that do not come to pass. If someone prophesied that a specific events would take place within a specific time and that time were to come and go without the event happening, then he could legitimately be labelled as a false prophet.

So dear reader, can you see that if you think Jesus did not come just as he promised, within that generation, you must conclude that Jesus was a false prophet.

Jesus said that he did not know “the day or the hour” of his coming. But he emphatically knew the generation within which he would come—his own, and that of his first followers!

What Lewis held was the wrong notion that Jesus’ return would mean the end of the world. He then decided to question Jesus’ understanding, rather than his own. 

Dear reader, are you making the same mistake as this greatly esteemed apologist? Perhaps you should question your own understanding, rather than the Lord Jesus’ understanding? Hey?

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Expecting Jesus?

Posted on 29/01/2024 | 2 comments

What do you expect –what do you imagine the Coming of Jesus to be like?

Did you know that there are over a hundred passages by New Testament authors that anticipated Jesus’ return? Were the apostles mistaken? Many sceptics think they were misled.

Here’s one: C.S.Lewis, the famed Christian apologist wrote: “the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘this generation shall not pass till all these things are done.’ And He was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.” From The World’s Last Night

So what were Lewis and other sceptics expecting? And what are you expecting?

Perhaps you, like countless others, expected the wrong thing and thus concluded that He has not come as promised after 2000 years?

Just like the Jews they expected Jesus to come in a physical body appearance. And He didn’t. Nor did He promise to come like that.

The Jews also thought He was literally coming to stand and physically rule on the earth, a deliverer from the Roman occupational forces. That’s why they rejected the teachings of the apostles. And He didn’t come like that nor did He promise to do so.

Perhaps you thought He should come with visible signs like “the sun will be darkened, the moon will give no light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken” (Mat 24:29).

Well the fact is that sort of terminology was understood by Jews who knew their scriptures to mean judgment upon a nation—the collapsing of cosmic entities is a common motif in judgment prophecies, e.g. Isa 13:10, 19:1,24:18-20, 34;8-15, Ezek 32:7–8; Joel 2:28 Acts 2:19-20.

Should we interpret the Bible “literally” in every instance? No. We must interpret each text as it was intended to be understood in its context and as understood by its original audience, the Jewish apostles.

The fact is most people fail to understand that His coming was a coming in judgment against the unbelieving Jewish generation who had perverted God’s word and rejected Jesus’ claims and teachings. This is clear from  passages like Mat 23:29-39, 1 Thes 2:19f.

But Jesus also taught many times that there would be much more to His Coming than merely the judgment upon Israel. His Second Coming in judgment would be the fulfilment of the eschatological promises to Israel.

The Old Covenant Age ended in AD 70 with the destruction of the temple. All the genealogical records were destroyed along with the temple. That day, the nation of Israel ended and the whole system of temple sacrifices for sin with it and forever. It was the end of the age—not the end of the world.

Today, many Christians expect the same sort of future return of Christ that the Jews expected for the second coming of Elijah—that is, a literal physical return in his previous body. This is a mistaken expectation.

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