It is good sometimes to compare the two comings of Christ together. At first He came into flesh; He showed Himself in the nature of man, to be judged. But at His second coming, He shall come in the flesh. He shall come from heaven, in the same human nature which He carried up with Him into heaven, there to be the Judge both of the living and the dead.
At His first coming, His forerunner was John the Baptist, the voice of one crying in the wilderness; at His second coming His forerunner shall be an archangel. “With the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God.” Then His companions were poor fishermen; now His attendants shall be the mighty angels of heaven (2 Th 1:7). Then He came riding on an ass, a colt, the foal of an ass; now He shall come riding on the clouds, sitting on a throne. At His first coming, He appeared in the form of a Servant; now He shall come as a Lord, in the glory of His Father. Then He drank of the brook in the way; but now He shall lift up His head. This is to reward Him for His humiliation. Also our Lord Jesus Christ must come Himself at the last day to perfect and finish His mediatorial office.
At His first coming, His mediatorial work was to pay a price to divine justice and so purchase His people. At His second coming, His mediatorial work will be to gather all His redeemed ones together, and to present them a glorious Church to His Father, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and without blemish – in some such language as was long before prophesied: “Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given Me” (Is 8:18).
At His first coming, His mediatorial work was to fight with the devil and all the powers of darkness, and to rescue what He had bought of the Father, out of the power of Satan – that strong man armed who kept his goods in peace. At His second coming, His mediatorial work will be to vanquish all those enemies, out of whose dominion He has freed His elect; to bind them with chains; to cast them into everlasting darkness; and to seal the bottomless pit upon them for ever.