On his Gravatar profile this blog’s most recent (and welcome!) subscriber cites a few Bible verses: Titus 2:13, Isaiah 40:5, and 2 Timothy 4:1, 8. He adds this caption: “Awaiting Anxiously God’s Next Move, Having That Blessed Hope: His Appearing, Blazing Forth (Epiphaneia) . . . . The Next Event (God’s Prophetic Clock ).”
That Greek word, epiphaneia, is in each of those New Testament verses. (Our word “epiphany” descends from it.) The Greek root, phaino, means “to shine,” and the prefix epi- intensifies it. Otis Q. Sellers suggested that “blazing forth” does justice to it.
A verse containing epiphaneia that the subscriber tellingly does not cite is 2 Thesslonians 2:8:
And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.
Tellingly, I say, because this violent action of the Lord’s is what most students of Bible prophecy believe is what will happen next (or at least right after the so-called “Rapture”). The “brightness of His coming” translates “the epiphaneia of His parousia.”
That last Greek word refers to Christ’s presence, but not an ordinary presence. It certainly does not mean “coming” (as it’s sometimes mistranslated), although for Christ to be present on earth again he must first arrive. His parousia presupposes His “second coming.” When He gets here, He’ll be present on earth because of Who He is and What He does. It does not mean merely “being here,” as does pareimi. (“Present!” is how modern Greek students answer their teacher when their names are called; the phrase they use is είμαι παρών [eimai paron].)
The epiphaneia in the cited verses refers to a different event.
. . . while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing [epiphaneia] of the glory of our great God and [kai] Savior, Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13).
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing [epiphaneia] and [kai] his kingdom [basileia]. . . . Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day . . . also to all who have loved His appearing [epiphaneia] (2 Timothy 4:1, 8).
The Greek word epiphaneia does not, of course, appear in the Hebrew of Isaiah 40:5:
And the glory (כָּבוֹד, kavod) of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken (Isaiah 4o:5).
“Glory” translates the Hebrew kavod (doxa in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures). The day is coming when all will see God’s glory at the same time. That revelation will coincide with God’s assumption of sovereignty over the earth. Continue reading “God’s Next Move? The Second Coming, not of Christ, but of His Spirit.”
