at hand when He should leave them and return to His Father, but that His
departure was not to be final, for He would come again to gather all
nations before Him, and to judge the quick and the dead. He comforted
them by the statement that His going away was expedient for them. "I go
to prepare a place for you." "I will come again, and receive you unto
myself."[153] But the return was not to be only for the reception of the
faithful into His kingdom and glory, but for judgment upon all mankind.
"The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels;
and then shall he reward every man according to his works."[154]
"Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they
also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because
of him."[155]

The time of Christ's return to judgment has not been revealed. "Of that
day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father
only."[156] The first Christians looked for it with joyous expectation,
believing that their Lord and Master would speedily appear and redress
their wrongs. Cruelly persecuted by Jew and Gentile, it is no wonder
that Apostles and other believers associated the second advent with
emancipation and victory, and termed it "That blessed hope, the glorious
appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ."[157] Under the
influence of false teachers, this expectation gave rise to unhealthy
excitement and consequent disorder in the Church. In his second Epistle
to the Thessalonians Paul set himself earnestly to counteract their
teaching. He indignantly repudiated the doctrine attributed to him,
apparently in connection with a forged epistle, and he supplied a test
by which the genuineness of his letters might be proved.

The mistake of the Thessalonians has often been repeated. Attempts have
been made to fix the time of the Lord's second coming, and the work of