This clause of the Creed points to the future.  As those who saw Jesus ascend stood gazing up, two heavenly messengers in white apparel appeared and said to them, “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."[152] Jesus Himself often warned the disciples that the time was at hand when He should leave them and return to His Father, but that His departure was not to be final, for He would come again to gather all nations before Him, and to judge the quick and the dead.  He comforted them by the statement that His going away was expedient for them.  “I go to prepare a place for you.”  “I will come again, and receive you unto myself."[153] But the return was not to be only for the reception of the faithful into His kingdom and glory, but for judgment upon all mankind.  “The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then shall he reward every man according to his works."[154] “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him:  and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him."[155]

The time of Christ’s return to judgment has not been revealed.  “Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."[156] The first Christians looked for it with joyous expectation, believing that their Lord and Master would speedily appear and redress their wrongs.  Cruelly persecuted by Jew and Gentile, it is no wonder that Apostles and other believers associated the second advent with emancipation and victory, and termed it “That blessed hope, the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ."[157] Under the influence of false teachers, this expectation gave rise to unhealthy excitement and consequent disorder in the Church.  In his second Epistle to the Thessalonians Paul set himself earnestly to counteract their teaching.  He indignantly repudiated the doctrine attributed to him, apparently in connection with a forged epistle, and he supplied a test by which the genuineness of his letters might be proved.

The mistake of the Thessalonians has often been repeated.  Attempts have been made to fix the time of the Lord’s second coming, and the work of predicting goes on busily still.  Enthusiasts and impostors have been more or less successful in finding credulous followers.  Again and again the progress of time has falsified such predictions, but would-be prophets have not been discouraged by the blunders of their predecessors.

All men, quick and dead, are to be brought before the Judgment-seat, the faithful that they may be raised to everlasting blessedness, and the wicked to be dismissed to everlasting punishment.  Paul describes the events of the great day of Christ’s appearing as it will affect the saints.  “The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: