Imagine the following story: a child is kidnapped and the parents pay a huge ransom to the kidnappers. Only one problem: After paying the demands, the parents never get the child!
If that sounds ridiculous, it’s not as ridiculous as the idea of Jesus Christ not returning to the earth in order to rescue us. Why? Because He paid a very expensive ransom for us: His own life.
“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).
“For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men — the testimony given in its proper time,” (1 Timothy 2:5–6, NIV).
The Bible says that we're redeemed by “the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:19). The idea of “redeemed” carries with it the same idea as “ransomed.” Christ paid for our redemption with His own life. What could be more ludicrous, then, for Him to have done that, to pay such a great price for us, and yet not come back and get what had cost Him so much?
And that is what the Second Coming is: Jesus returning to get what He, Himself, had paid for at His first coming. The whole purpose of the first coming was the Second. The first coming of Jesus is the guarantee, written in blood, Christ’s blood, of the Second. If Jesus doesn’t come back, then everything He did at the first coming — from His incarnation into human flesh, His sinless life, and His death on the cross — was for nothing, and if you don’t believe that then you have all the assurance you need of Christ’s return.
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