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Regarding the second coming, our best Bible scholars are largely united in realizing that the New Testament writers were not anticipating the “end of the world” and the destruction of the space-time universe.9 They were anticipating the “end of the world as we know it” and the beginning of a new spiritual-historical age or era. For them, the “blessed hope” outlined in the gospels focused on several soon-to-be-fulfilled historical realities, not one far-distant history-ending one.

First, from Holy Thursday through Easter morning, gospel hope focused on Christ’s resurrection, which was fulfilled. Second, from the resurrection until Pentecost, it focused on the coming of the Holy Spirit, which was fulfilled. Third, for about the next forty years (during which nearly all the letters were written), it focused on the survival and rebirth of God’s people through an anticipated catastrophe, which came to fruition in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. In this light, it turns out that Jesus was right after all when he said, “This generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place” and “Not one stone will be left here upon another,” and Paul was right when he said, “The present form of this world is passing away” (Matt. 24:34, 2; 1 Cor. 7:31).10

The question remains: Was everything they anticipated fulfilled by 70 CE, or was there something more? To this many reply, “The second coming of Christ wasn’t fulfilled, of course.”11 When you point out that the term “second coming of Christ” never appears in the Bible, they will then point to a Greek term that does occur: parousia. That word was formed by adding the prefix para, meaning “alongside,” to the root ousia, meaning “substance.” Its primary meaning as “presence” is even clearer in contrast to its opposite, apousia, meaning “absence.” Although it us often used in the New Testament simply to refer to the arrival or presence of a friend or associate (see, for example, 2 Cor. 7:6; 1 Cor. 16:17), Paul uses it to refer to Jesus eight times (once in 1 Corinthians and seven times in 1 and 2 Thessalonians). James also uses it referring to Jesus twice, 2 Peter twice, and 1 John once. Jesus himself only uses it four times, all in one single passage (Matt. 24:3, 27, 37, 39). According to scholar N. T. Wright, the term, like the Greek words for “kingdom,” “gospel,” and even “church,” often had political connotations, being used “in relation to the visit of a royal or official personage.”12

Whatever parousia meant in the apostolic era, it’s clear that New Testament writers believed it was coming in the immediate future, and my bias is to assume, at least provisionally, they were in some sense right. If that’s the case, if the New Testament writers were in fact correct in their expectations of a close-at-hand parousia, then how should we understand the term? If we aren’t restricted to think and work within the old Greco-Roman six-line narrative, the term could mean the arrival or manifestation not of a Platonic eternal state of Greco-Roman perfection and damnation, but rather of a new age or era—a new season of growth. It could mean not the full arrival of the “end of the end,” but the full arrival of the “beginning of a new beginning.”13

Parousia, in this way, would signal the full arrival, presence, and manifestation of a new age in human history. It would mean the presence or appearance on earth of a new generation of humanity, Christ again present, embodied in a community of people who truly possess and express his Spirit, continuing his work.14 This would be the age of the Spirit and grace rather than law and law-keeping. It would be the age of God’s presence in a holy people being formed in all cultures rather than God’s presence localized in a holy temple centralized in one city. It would be the age of love rather than circumcision or other in-group markers as the prime identification of the people of God. It would be an age in which the cult of animal sacrifice and related