Did the Apostle John Witness Christ's Second Coming?

Did the Apostle John Witness Christ's Second Coming?

Below is the 15th of multiple excerpts of commentary from Parts I and II of The Parousia, the late 19th-century masterpiece on the Second Coming by James Stuart Russell. The initial 31 posts on this blog deal with the Book of Revelation, which is cogently interpreted in Part III of Russell's magnum opus. (For all blog posts, see russellparousia.blogspot.com)
"ST. JOHN TO LIVE TILL THE PAROUSIA [SECOND COMING] "John xxi. 22 [John 21:22].---'Jesus said unto him [Peter], If I will that he [John] tarry [remain] till I come, what is that to thee?' "It would serve no purpose to specify and discuss the various interpretations of this passage which learned men have conjectured. ... "The words themselves are sufficiently simple. All the obscurity and difficulty have been imported into them by the reluctance of interpreters to recognise in the 'coming' of Christ a distinct and definite point of time within the space of the existing generation [Matt. 10:23, 16:28, 23:36, 24:34, 26:64; Mark 9:1, 13:30, 14:62; Luke 9:27, 21:32, 22:69; Rev. 1:7]. Often as our Lord reiterates the assurance that he would come in His kingdom, come in glory, come to judge His enemies and reward His friends, before the generation then living on earth had wholly passed away, there seems an almost invincible repugnance on the part theologians to accept His words in their plain and obvious sense. They persist in supposing that He must have meant something else or something more. Once admit, what is undeniable, that our Lord Himself declared that His coming was to take place in the lifetime of some of His disciples (Matt. xvi. 27, 28 [Matt. 16:27-28]) and the whole difficulty vanishes. He had just revealed to Simon Peter by what death he was to glorify God [John 21:18-19], and Peter, with characteristic impulsiveness, presumed to ask what should be the destiny of the beloved disciple, who at that moment caught his eye [John 21:20-21]. Our Lord did not give an explicit answer to this question, which savoured somewhat of intrusiveness, but his reply was understood by the disciples to mean that John would live to see the Lord's return [John 21:22-23]. 'If I will that he tarry till I come.' This language is very significant. It assumes as possible John might live till the Lord's coming. It does more, it suggests it as probable, though it does not affirm it as certain. The disciples put the interpretation upon it that John was not to die at all. The Evangelist himself [John] neither affirms nor denies the correctness of this interpretation, but contents himself with repeating the actual words of the Lord,---'If I will that he tarry till I come.' It is, however, a circumstance of the greatest interest that we know how the words of Christ were generally understood at the time in the brotherhood of the disciples. They evidently [i.e., in an evident or clear manner] concluded that John would live to witness the Lord's coming; and they inferred that in that case he would not die at all. It is this latter inference that John guards against being committed to. That he would live till the coming of the Lord he seems to admit without question. Whether this implied further that he would not die at all, was a doubtful point which the words of Jesus did not decide. "Nor was this inference of 'the brethren' so incredible a thing or so unreasonable as it may appear to many. To live till the coming of the Lord was, according to the apostolic belief and teaching, tantamount to enjoying exemption from death [referring to the rapture of living saints]. St. Paul taught the Corinthians,---'We shall not all sleep (die), but we shall all be changed' (1 Cor. xv. 51 [1 Cor. 15:51]). He spoke to the Thessalonians of the possibility of their being alive at the Lord's coming: 'We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord (1 Thess. iv. 15 [1 Thess. 4:15]). He expressed his own personal preference 'not to be unclothed (of the bodily vesture), but to be clothed upon' (with the spiritual vesture)---in other words, not to die, but to be changed (2 Cor. v. 4 [2 Corin. 5:4]). The disciples might be justified in this belief by the words of Jesus on the evening of the paschal supper: 'I will come again, and receive you unto myself' [John 14:3]. How could they suppose that this meant death? Or they may have remembered His saying on the Mount of Olives, 'The Son of man Shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect,' etc. (Matt. xxiv. 31 [Matt. 24:30-31]). This, He had assured them, would take place before the existing generation passed away. They were, therefore, not wholly unprepared to receive such an announcement as our Lord made respecting St. John. "We may therefore legitimately draw the following inferences from this important passage: "1. That there was nothing incredible or absurd in the supposition that John [or other disciples] might live till the coming of the Lord. "2. That our Lord's words suggest the probability that he would actually do so. "3. That the disciples understood our Lord's answer as implying besides that John would not die at all. "4. That St. John himself gives no sign that there was anything incredible or impossible in the inference, though he does not commit himself to it. "5. That such an opinion would harmonise with our Lord's express teaching respecting the nearness and coincidence of His own coming, [which Christ connected with] the destruction of Jerusalem [in A.D. 70], the judgment of Israel, and the close of the [Old Covenant] aeon or age. "6. That all these events, according to Christ's declarations, lay within the period of the existing generation [Matt. 10:23, 16:28, 23:36, 24:34, 26:64; Mark 9:1, 13:30, 14:62; Luke 9:27, 21:32, 22:69; Rev. 1:7]." ##### [Scripture citations referred to above]

Prophecies that the Second Coming Would Occur Within the Disciples’ Lifetime and Jesus’ Own (1st-Century) Generation

Matt 10:23 “...truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”

Matt 16:28 “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Parallels at Mark 9:1 and Luke 9:27)

Matt 24:34 “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” (Parallels at Mark 13:30 and Luke 21:32)

Matt 26:64 [to Caiaphas the high priest and the Sanhedrin] “...you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Parallels at Mark 14:62 and Luke 22:69)

Rev 1:7 “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him…”

(All quotes English Standard Version) ##### [Other relevant verses]

END OF THE (OLD COVENANT) AGE

Matt 13:40, 13:49, 24:3, 28:20; 1 Corin 10:11; Hebrews 9:26

THE END (OF THE OLD COVENANT AGE)

Matt 10:22, 24:6, 24:13, 24:14; Mark 13:7, 13:13; Luke 21:9; 1 Corin 1:8, 15:24; Hebrews 3:14, 6:11; 1 Peter 4:7; Rev 2:26

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