The Second Coming of Christ

Max Patterson

The scriptures clearly declare: “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh." (Mat. 25:13)

Despite this and other plain passages, there have been those who have been bent on setting a date for the Lord’s return. Consider the following:

1.  Montanism, during the latter half of the 2nd century, preached the near approach of the millenial reign of Christ, and that the age would soon end. (Maximilla, A.D. 179 stated, "After me there is no more prophecy, but only the end of the world."

2.  Joachim of Fiore (1132-1200), supposedly derived from Rev. 11:3 and 12:6, that 1260 forward was supposed to be the age of the H.S., the everlasting gospel, a time of rest and peace for all. Francis of Assisi moved this date to 1300 A.D.

3.  Johann Heinrich Alsted, a German Calvinist of the reformed theology, believed the second coming would be in 1694.

4.  Hans Hut gave the date as 1528.

5.  Melchoir Hoffmann gave the date as 1533.

6.  Samuel S. Snow gave the date as 1844.

7. Leonard Sale-Harrison (1875-1956) tried to match all the scriptures with the life and times of Mussolini. To him tis seemed to indicate the late 1930s or early 40s as the end of the age. He finally pinpointed the end as coming in 1940 or 41.

8. Elijah Muhammad, a leader of the Black Muslims, said in the 1960's, that Allah had revealed the U.S. would be destroyed in 1970. The Christian era would expire no later than 2000 A.D.

9.  Since 1937, Herbert W. Armstrong has predicted three dates for the return of Christ: 1937, 1972, 1975.

10. Jim Jones prophesied the end of the world by nuclear holocaust on July 15, 1967.

11.  William Miller, the originator of the Seventh Day Adventist group, predicted that the world would end in 1843, 1844, and 1845.

12.  Hatley Frere insisted that the Jews would be back in Palestine with a rebuilt temple by 1865. Roman Catholicism would be destroyed by 1864, and all of these things were signs of an immediate return.

13.  The Jehovah's Witnesses have predicted the end several times. In 1891, Charles Taze Russell, founder of the JWs, said, "thus we found the time of our Lord's second advent clearly proven to be in 1874 ─ in October of that year... And now he has come! The Lord is indeed present." -SITS, Series III, pp 124-133.

14.  In 1962 half of India sat up all night waiting for the end of the world based upon an astrological prediction. -Readers Digest, May, 1969, p. 244.

15. Hal Lindsey predicted it would end by 1995.