American Reformer
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the trump of God.” [
1 Thessalonians 4:16
.] And the Saviour declares:
“They shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with
power and great glory.” “For as the lightning cometh out of the east,
and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son
of man be.” [
Matthew 24:30, 27
.] He is to be accompanied by all the
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hosts of Heaven. “The Son of man shall come in his glory, and all
the holy angels with him.” “And he shall send his angels with a great
sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect.” [
Matthew
25:31
;
24:31
.]
At his coming the righteous dead will be raised, and the righteous
living will be changed. “We shall not all sleep,” says Paul, “but we
shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the
last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on
incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” [
1 Corinthians
15:51-53
.] And in his letter to the Thessalonians, after describing the
coming of the Lord, he says: “The dead in Christ shall rise first; then
we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them
in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with
the Lord.” [
1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17
.]
Not until the personal advent of Christ can his people receive the
kingdom. The Saviour said: “When the Son of man shall come in
his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the
throne of his glory; and before him shall be gathered all nations; and
he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his
sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but
the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right
hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for
you from the foundation of the world.” [
Matthew 25:31-34
.] We have
seen by the scriptures just given that when the Son of man comes, the
dead are raised incorruptible, and the living are changed. By this great
change they are prepared to receive the kingdom; for Paul says, “Flesh
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption
inherit incorruption.” [
1 Corinthians 15:50
.] Man in his present state
is mortal, corruptible; but the kingdom of God will be incorruptible,
enduring forever. Therefore man in his present state cannot enter into
the kingdom of God. But when Jesus comes, he confers immortality
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