The Orthotometist: October 2026

Thursday, 22 October 2026

Jesus Will Return Once, Not Twice

Around the world today there are millions of Christians who agree with what is known as dispensational theology.

This way of thinking differs in a number of important respects from traditional Christian beliefs, including in ideas about what will happen in the future.

The usual dispensational understanding of Jesus’s return

According to usual dispensational thinking about the end times, the following sequence of events is supposed to happen as regards Jesus returning from heaven to the earth:

First, Jesus will return without warning from heaven to the air above the earth, without setting foot on the earth itself. At that time, all Christians then on earth (according to some) or most Christians then on earth (according to others) will be caught up into the air to meet Him in the so-called ‘rapture’. Then He and the Christians who have been caught up will go immediately to heaven.

Next, there will be a time of severe suffering on earth, which is known as ‘the tribulation’. This will last for seven years, during which many people on earth will come to faith in Christ.

Then, after the seven years are completed, Jesus will return from heaven to the earth again and this time set foot on it.

So in usual dispensational thinking, Jesus will actually return from heaven to earth twice, once coming as far as the air above the earth, and once actually setting foot on the earth.

It is true that there is a small minority of dispensationalists who believe that Jesus will return only once. But a large majority of them are expecting Him to return twice, and it is this group that I will be thinking about in what follows when I use the label ‘dispensationalists’.

Lack of evidence that anyone believed this before the 1830s

In many parts of the world today, this pattern of supposed future events is so well known that many believers seem to think that this is what faithful Christians have believed during most of the last 2000 years.

Actually, this could hardly be further from the truth. I don’t think there is any evidence that anyone believed this before the 1830s. And this is despite the fact that there is an enormous amount of Christian literature that exists from the late first century up until that time.

This idea of the church being raptured up and in this way escaping the tribulation seems to have come from a dream that a girl had in the 1830s. Somehow, a man called John Nelson Darby became convinced that this was true and then had great success in persuading others. And the rest is history.

The apostle Paul’s use of certain words

Like the vast majority of Christians down through the centuries, I am convinced that Jesus will return from heaven to earth once, not twice. The Christians on earth at that time will indeed be caught up to meet Him in the air (1 Thess 4:17), but then He and they will descend immediately onto the earth itself. And this will be the one and only time that He returns.

There are many lines of biblical evidence to support the idea of a single return. Here I would like to focus on just one of them, which is the wording the apostle Paul uses to refer to Jesus returning.

In the New Testament Paul uses three different Greek words in connection with Christ returning:

First, the word ‘parousia’ means ‘coming’ or ‘presence’.

Second, ‘apokalupsis’ means ‘revelation’ or ‘unveiling’.

And third, ‘epiphaneia’ means ‘appearance’ or ‘manifestation’.

Importantly, Paul uses each of these words in passages that dispensationalists believe refer to Jesus’s first return and in passages that they believe refer to His second return. And when he uses these words in these passages, he never says whether he is talking about Jesus’s first or second return.

I would suggest that if Paul thought that Jesus would return twice, we wouldn’t expect him to have used the same words to refer to each return, while at the same time never taking the trouble to explain which return he had in mind. That would be too unclear and confusing for his readers.

Or to put it another way, because it makes little sense to think that Paul has been unclear and confusing, especially when we bear in mind that this is inspired Scripture, it is reasonable to conclude that he hasn’t been unclear and confusing and that he believed that Jesus will return only once.

So as not to let this article become too long, I will concentrate on how Paul uses just one of these words, ‘parousia’, in connection with Christ returning. And I will limit my references to Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians.

It is worth noting, however, that if I were to look at all three words and at all the New Testament books, the same conclusion would be reached.

Parousia in 1 Thessalonians

Let’s start with 1 Thessalonians.

Firstly, in 1 Thess 2:19 Paul writes:

‘For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming [Greek: at the parousia of him]?’ (ESV)

Dispensationalists typically think this refers to the first return of Jesus.

Then in 1 Thess 3:13 Paul writes:

‘…so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming [parousia] of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.’ (ESV)

Dispensationalists think this refers to Christ’s second return.

Then in 1 Thess 4:15 Paul says:

‘For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming [parousia] of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.’ (ESV)

Dispensationalists believe that this refers to Jesus’s first return.

Finally, in 1 Thess 5:23 Paul writes:

‘Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming [parousia] of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (ESV)

Dispensationalists generally think this refers to Christ’s first return.

Note that each of these verses refers to the coming/parousia of Christ rather than to a coming/parousia, which more naturally suggests one rather than two returns. And note too that there is not the slightest hint in any context that there will be more than one return.

Furthermore, because each of these verses is in the same letter, this means that these verses were designed, by Paul and of course also by God, to be read by readers while the preceding verses are still fresh in their minds. This makes it all the more unnatural for readers to switch back and forth between understanding Paul to be talking about a first and a second return of Christ.

In short, it seems more than a little strange for Paul to have written in this way if he expected Jesus to return twice. We would expect him to have explained himself more clearly.

Parousia in 2 Thessalonians

The same point can be made, but even more strongly, about 2 Thessalonians.

First, in 2 Thess 2:1 Paul writes:

‘Now concerning the coming [parousia] of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him…’ (ESV)

Dispensationalists typically think this refers to the first return of Jesus.

Then in 2 Thess 2:8 Paul says:

‘And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming [parousia].’ (ESV)

Dispensationalists believe this refers to Jesus’s second return.

Importantly, these two uses of ‘parousia’, used to refer to Jesus returning, are found not just in the same letter but in the same passage, and without the slightest suggestion in the context that two different returns are in view.

It is very difficult to think that Paul expected his readers to understand him to be talking about two different returns. If that were the case, I think we would have to say that Paul has written very clumsily.

Instead, the far easier solution is to say that Paul hasn’t written clumsily and that he believed that Jesus will return from heaven to earth only once.

Summing up

A look at how Paul has used the word ‘parousia’ in 1 and 2 Thessalonians in connection with Christ returning from heaven to earth suggests that there will be one, not two, returns. And the rest of the Bible also points us in the same direction.

The idea that Jesus will return twice is a late development that doesn’t fit Scripture or historical Christian beliefs, and it should be abandoned.

Thursday, 1 October 2026

Beware of Those Who Seek to Pin the Blame on White People

As Christians, we need to be clear-eyed about what is going on around us, as far as ideological trends are concerned. Where an evil ideology is gaining ground in popular opinion, we must be careful to avoid being caught up in its mindset. And where appropriate, we need to take a stand against it.

There is an evil ideology that has been gaining ground in the last few decades around the world that I think many Christians are unaware of. It is a racist ideology, and I would suggest that it is now one of the more significant race-hate movements that exist today. Basically, it is the attempt to pin the blame for most of the world’s problems – often for a large majority of the world’s problems – on white people.

This ideology is sometimes called ‘Critical Race Theory’. I won’t use this label myself, because people use it in different ways, and I don’t want to use potentially confusing language. So I will just stick to talking about the attempt to unfairly blame white people for things.

A close parallel with Nazi propaganda

When I have heard supporters of this ideology speak in recent times, the thing that has struck me is the close parallels with Nazi propaganda of the early-mid 20th century.

I don’t know if you have ever seen a video of Adolf Hitler giving a speech in the German parliament in the 1930s. If you have and you have managed to get through it to the end, you won’t have failed to see him spend some time furiously denouncing Jews.

In the Nazi narrative, Jews were the race that was to blame for Germany’s problems and for most of the world’s problems.

This is, of course, a ridiculous thing for the Nazis to have claimed, but claim it they did. And then their well-oiled propaganda machine got to work trying, with a lot of success, to persuade people that it was true.

For Hitler and others to try to convince people that Jews were the ones to blame, they did several things:

First, they ignored all the good things Jews did.

Second, they pointed to the bad things Jews did. (Obviously, Jews, like other racial groups, had their fair share of blame for Germany’s and the world’s problems.)

Third, they added to the list of bad things with lies.

And fourth, they massively downplayed the bad things that non-Jews did.

The result of all this was a picture of a race of evil people that was to blame for Germany’s and most of the world’s problems.

The modern attempt to pin the blame on white people also does all four of these things. It ignores the good things white people do and have done. It focuses on the bad things white people do and have done. It adds to that list with lies. And it massively downplays the bad things non-white people do and have done.

Where this propaganda is successful, the result is hatred for white people, which at times leads even to violence and murder.

It may well be true that at the present time only a small minority of people who buy into this ideology go as far as actually wishing that white people didn’t exist. But this could easily change.

Let’s not forget that at the beginning of the Nazi movement of the last century, relatively few Nazis wanted to go as far as killing Jews. At that time most of them would have been content for Jews simply to be forced out of Germany.

But later, as the propaganda did its work, more and more Nazis were no longer content with just expelling Jews. They wanted them dead. And the same growth of hatred could well happen in the future in connection with the anti-white ideology that exists today.

I am not saying that white people will ever be in as much danger overall as Jews were last century. In most places we have much more safety in numbers. But hatred for white people does have the potential to increase a lot, and so does the number of racially motivated murders.

White people who buy into this ideology

It isn’t just non-white people who help to push this ideology. More than a few white people do so too.

I am not saying that these people are deliberately trying to whip up hatred against their own race. But unwittingly they are helping to do this.

There are many white people, myself included, who look at some of the evil things that members of our race have done in history and are appalled. In and of itself, there is obviously nothing wrong with this. To call evil by its name and hate it is a good thing to do.

However, for some it doesn’t stop at just hating evil. There are many who go further in problematic ways.

Firstly, there are those white people who actually seem to accept some personal guilt for sins their ancestors committed.

However, Ezekiel 18:19-20 is clear that people are not guilty of sins committed by their ancestors. In this passage God says:

‘Yet you say, “Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?” When the son has done what is just and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.’ (ESV)

So it is a mistake to see ourselves as guilty of sins that our ancestors committed.

Secondly, many of the white people who are fixated on past sins by members of their own race seem to have the idea that white people have historically been worse than other racial groups.

This is complete nonsense. When history as a whole is taken into account, the truth is where we would expect to find it, that white people have on balance been no better or worse than other racial groups. I would suggest that anyone who reaches any other conclusion cannot remotely be trying to be fair with the data.

The United Nations declaration

The influence of the ideology I am opposing in this article has been considerable.

On 25 March 2026 the United Nations voted to recognise the transatlantic slave trade (t.s.t.) as the gravest crime against humanity in human history.

I think this is an astonishing thing to claim. Of course, the t.s.t. was clearly a major act of great evil that affected millions of people. But there have been hundreds of other similar evil acts in human history.

Why, for example, was the t.s.t. worse than the Nazi holocaust that killed and displaced more people? Why was it worse than the Arab slave trade in black Africans that lasted for more than half a century after the t.s.t. came to an end? Why was it worse than the horrors of the Japanese empire of the last century or the Mongol invasions of Europe or the Aztec practice of breeding captive tribes of people to sacrifice to their gods? And so on, and so on.

It is true that part of the reason for the U.N. vote had to do with the attempt by some countries to get money from European and North American countries as ‘reparations’. But I am sure that in part it was also influenced by the ideology that seeks to pin the blame for things on white people. After all, this is an increasingly fashionable thing to do.

Christians must oppose all racism

As Christians, we need to take our stand against all racism, whether it is against white people or black people or brown people or whoever.

The idea that there is one racial group that is especially to blame for the world’s problems is an evil notion that serves to divide people and encourage hatred, quite apart from the fact that it is utter nonsense.

Let us all, then, have nothing to do with this destructive ideology.