The answer
The second coming of our Lord Jesus is a certainty; but of the time of His coming, we remain ignorant. His disciples often asked Him when it would happen, but He answered them: “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority” (Acts 1:7).
As the perfect human being, the Lord Christ Himself did not know: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven,1245 but My Father only” (Matt. 24:36). Some believe that as the Judge of all humanity, the Son does know the day; but like a teacher setting an exam, He chooses not to disclose the answers to his students.
St. Paul expresses the reality of the second coming, saying, “For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night” (1 Thess. 5:2). St. Peter uses the same analogy: “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up” (2 Pet. 3:10). Our Lord Himself compared His second coming to the days of Noah, saying, “But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be” (Matt. 24:37–39). According to the words of our Lord and the disciples, then, we should not seek to know the time of His second coming, but rather be vigilant and prepare ourselves to meet the Lord.
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
1245 Translators’ Note: Some ancient manuscripts add “nor the Son.”