Paradise Restored

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THE DAY OF THE LORD
One of the greatest interpretive mistakes made by Bible
students is the assumption that the Bible cannot use the same expression,
such as “Coming,“ in different senses. Much of the
present book has been written to refute that basic error. As we
have seen, God “came in the clouds” on numerous occasions in
Scripture, and collapsing-universe terminology is used to
describe several different historical events. Once we understand
this, however, we seem to be presented with a different problem:
What about the Second Coming of Christ? Since so many
prophecies turn out to be references to the destruction of
Jerusalem in A.D. 70, how can we be sure that any prophecy
refers to a future, literal return of Jesus Christ?
There are several ways to approach this question. One fruitful
method is to examine a common Biblical expression for
“Judgment Day”: lhe Day of the Lord. Now, don’t misunderstand
me – I am not suggesting that “the Day of the Lord” only
refers to the end of the world and t-he Last Judgment. Far from
it. Nevertheless, a solid grasp of this Biblical concept will provide
us with an interpretive key, a method for arriving at an accurate,
Scripture-based understanding of the Second Coming.
The first Biblical use of the term Day of the Lord was by the
prophet Amos, in a very strange reference. Speaking to the rebellious
Israelites who were soon to be destroyed by the
Assyrians, Amos said: “Alas, you who are longing for the Day
of the LoRD, for what purpose will the Day of the LORD be to
you? It will be darkness and not light . . .“ (Amos 5 :19). The important
thing for us to notice at the beginning is that this expression
had never been used before, at least not in Scripture. Yet it
seems to have been a rather common, familiar idea in the Israel
of the eighth century B.C. Amos did not question its validity:
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