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I was on the Fight, Laugh, Feast show in Moscow, Idaho, on August 21, 2025. I was invited to come on the show by David Shannon to discuss the new book American Vision published, The Great Debate: Does God Exist?, edited with commentary by Joshua Pillows. David Shannon, Toby Sumpter, and Gabe Rench were in the studio with me, along with a small Peanut Gallery of interested onlookers. I assumed the “Three Questions Letter” controversy would come up, and it did. The first question related to the return of Christ asks, Do you believe in a future, bodily, glorious return of Christ? I asked Toby for a “slam dunk” verse that answers the question. Toby said, “Acts 1:11.”
Prophecy Wars: The Biblical Battle Over the End Times
There is a long history of skeptics turning to Bible prophecy to claim that Jesus was wrong about the timing of His coming at “the end of the age” (Matt. 24:3) and the signs associated with it. Noted atheist Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) is one of them and Bart Ehrman is a modern example. It’s obvious that neither Russell or Ehrman are aware of or are ignoring the mountain of scholarship that was available to them that showed that the prophecy given by Jesus was fulfilled in great detail just as He said it would be before the generation of His day passed away.
Buy NowIn a lengthy response to the “Three Questions Letter” controversy, not yet published, I ask, “What definitive verses describe a ‘future, bodily, glorious return of Christ unequivocally’?” Matthew 16:27-28?[1] Matthew 24:30? Acts 1:11? Jude 14-16, Revelation 1:7?[2] 1 Corinthians 15:23? There is no agreement among the letter signers except with 1 Corinthians 15:23, which does not mention a bodily return but only “who are Christ’s at His coming.” How do we distinguish this use of “coming” from many examples of the near coming of Christ espoused by the letter signers? Robert Thomas noted the problem in his 1994 review of Ken Gentry’s Before Jerusalem Fell.
How is it that the cloud-coming of A.D. 70 involves no personal coming of Christ (Matt. 24:30; 26:64; Rev. 1:7; 2:5, 16, 25; 3:3, 11, 20; 16:15; 22:7, 12, 20), but the cloud coming at the end of history does (Acts 1:11; 1 Thess. 4:13ff.)? In the first place, where did Christ distinguish between two comings, and in the second place, where did He say that He would personally appear at one and not the other? The answer to both questions is “nowhere.”[3]
The Nicene Creed states, “He shall come again, with glory, to judge both the living and the dead.” If this entry is based on Matthew 16:27, which it seems to be, and that verse describes Jesus’ coming to that generation (as many commentaries agree), then it isn’t a reference to a yet bodily return of Jesus. There are numerous verses in the NT about the “soon” and “near” coming of Jesus. Many who signed the “Three Questions Letter” believe Jesus came in judgment in AD 70, but not physically.[4] As Thomas noted above, distinguishing these comings is difficult. This is why Gentry changed his interpretation of Matthew 24:27. At one time, he believed it was a reference to the AD 70 coming of Jesus, but later changed his mind because he could not distinguish it from Matthew 24:37, 39, 44, and 31. In his books Perilous Times (pages 72-73) and The Great Tribulation: Past or Future? (pages 53-55), Gentry interpreted Matthew 24:27 as referring to the judgment coming of Jesus in AD 70. He changed his position in his 2010 book The Olivet Discourse Made Easy:
I should note that my interpretation of this verse [Matt. 24:27] has changed recently. In earlier works (Perilous Times; The Great Tribulation: Past or Future?) I argued that the lightning flash could refer to his spiritual judgment-coming in AD 70. This is certainly possible, given the dramatic nature of prophetic language. But I now reject that view because of grammatical and contextual reasons. The “for” (grammar) in v. 27 clearly gives the reason (context) why they should not expect that he may be off somewhere in a wilderness. His physical return will be visible to all. After all, the original question (24:3) shows the disciples’ conflating of the two events: AD 70 and the second advent. Just a few verses later (24:36ff), Jesus will begin focusing on that more glorious event.[5]
How does Gentry’s interpretation square with his interpretation of Matthew 24:34? If one item before verse 34 has not been fulfilled, then why not the other items? Much more could be said about all of this, but let’s get back to Toby Sumpter’s “slam dunk” verse in Acts 1:11.
The key to the timing of Acts 1:11 is found in 2 Thessalonians 1:6-7: “For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire.” This is a description of what was a near judgment coming that had been prophesied by Jesus in the Olivet Discourse and other places in the Gospels. The “you” (plural) were the Thessalonians. The Christians in Thessalonica were afflicted. Paul and Silas were run out of town by “the Jews” who were “jealous” and took “along some wicked men from the marketplace, formed a mob and set the city in an uproar” (Acts 17:5). Paul discussed the affliction in his first epistle to the Thessalonians.
For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Judea that are in Christ Jesus. You suffered from your own countrymen the very things they suffered from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and drove us out as well. They are displeasing to God and hostile to all men, hindering us from telling the Gentiles how they may be saved. As a result, they continue to heap up their sins to full capacity; the utmost wrath has come upon them (1 Thess. 2:14-16).
The Jews and Gentiles had afflicted Paul. The Jews were offended theologically, and the Gentiles were offended politically (Acts 17:6-9). The affliction ended when the Romans came against Jerusalem in AD 70. The religious and political establishment of Israel had ended.
Eschatology, or The Scripture Doctrine of the Coming of the Lord, the Judgment, and the Resurrection
Careful readers must identify the audience, the timing, the language used, and the immediate historical context of the prophetic statements made by Jesus and the New Testament writers. Samuel Lee goes to extraordinary lengths to cover some of the most difficult prophetic passages. His exegetical work sheds light on them and often counters so much of today’s prophetic speculation and reluctance to step outside the interpretive box because of creedal and confessional constraints.
Buy NowMilton Terry has an extended discussion of Acts 1:11:
“Acts i, 11, is often cited to show that Christ’s coming must needs be spectacular, ‘in like manner as ye beheld him going into the heaven.’ But (1) in the only other three places where ὃν τρόπον, what manner, occurs, it points to a general concept rather than the particular form of its actuality. Thus, in Acts vii, 28, it is not some particular manner in which Moses killed the Egyptian that is notable, but rather the certain fact of it. In 2 Tim. iii, 8, it is likewise the fact of strenuous opposition rather than the special manner in which Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses. And in Matt. xxiii, 37, and Luke xiii, 34, it is the general thought of protection rather than the visible manner of a mother bird that is intended. Again (2), if Jesus did not come in that generation, and immediately after the great tribulation that attended the fall of Jerusalem, his words in Matt. xvi, 27, 28, xxiv, 29, and parallel passages are in the highest degree misleading. (3) To make the one statement of the angel in Acts i, 11, override all the sayings of Jesus on the same subject and control their meaning is a very one-sided method of biblical interpretation. But all the angel’s words necessarily mean is that as Jesus has ascended into heaven so he will come from heaven. And this main thought agrees with the language of Jesus and the prophets.”[6]
Terry states the following in his book Biblical Hermeneutics:
To press the literal import of the words [in Rev. 1:7 that] “every eye shall see him,” and insist that at the Parousia Christ must literally appear on a cloud, and be visible to every person on the habitable globe, involves manifest absurdities. The statement of the angels in Acts i, 11, is that the Lord would come again in like manner as the disciples beheld him going into heaven; but that ascension, like the appearance of the angels, was visible to only a chosen few. That he personally came again in that generation, and was seen by multitudes, and by those who were guilty of his blood, we accept upon the testimony of the Scriptures. But no person or phenomenon in the clouds of heaven could be visible, at one and the same time, to all the inhabitants of the earth; and no one pretends that the Son of man is to pass through the clouds and make the circuit of the globe so as to appear literally to every eye. The words of Rev. i, 7, are, therefore, to be understood in general harmony with both the temporal and geographical limitations of the prophecy.[7]
Hon tropon appears in Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34; Acts 7:28; 15:11; 27:25; 2 Timothy 3:8.
Terry mentions 2 Timothy 3:8: “Just as [ὃν τρόπον] Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected regards the faith.” Following the interpretation that Jesus will return just as He ascended in every detail, then must we interpret what Paul is describing about how the men in his day were acting, so that all the elements of Moses and Aaron’s encounter with the Egyptian magicians had to be present? The common element is that they both opposed the truth and confronted those who spoke the truth.
A similar construction is found in Acts 15:11. Did Peter mean that the Gentiles were coming to Christ exactly in the same way [ὃν τρόπον] as the Jews (v. 7)? What was the same is that the Jews and Gentiles believed despite their differences.
In Matthew 23:37, Jesus mentions hens, chicks, and wings and makes a comparison: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together the same way[ὃν τρόπον] a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you did not want it.” The only direct similarity between the two examples is the use of “gathering,” and even that is not similar (John 11:52; 2 Thess. 2:1).
Mike Rogers adds:
In like manner” (Gk. hon tropon) focuses on the action of movement—going and coming. (The Greek word erchomai represents both actions.[8]) Jesus “went” at the ascension. He would “come” when the Temple fell, just as he promised (Luke 21:6, 32). There is no more justification for making the circumstances of this “going” and “coming” match than there is in the comparison of Jesus to a hen.[9]
If “like manner” or “same way” means Jesus will return in the exact same way with all the attendant conditions and agents found in Acts 1:11, then we have a problem: How does Jesus come from heaven riding on a white horse (Rev. 19:11)? Is this a different coming? If so, how does “second time” (Heb. 9:28) fit into this type of coming? How does He come “with ten thousand of His saints” (Jude 14)? How does He come “with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God” (1 Thess. 4:16)? How does He come “with His mighty angels in flaming fire” (2 Thess. 1:7)? None of these elements is found in Acts 1:9-11. This is not to say that Jesus can’t come in bodily form but Acts 1:9-11 does not demand it. What are the threatened comings mentioned in Revelation 2:5, 16, 25; 3:3, 11?
In addition, Jesus departed surrounded by a small crowd of people. The whole world did not see Him. The Second Coming is said to be universal: “every eye will see Him” (Rev. 1:7, which Kenneth Gentry argues does not refer to a bodily future coming).[10] Jesus’ departure was not worldwide. It was local, like His coming in judgment described in the Olivet Discourse, that could be escaped by fleeing to the mountains outside Jerusalem (Matt. 24:15-20).
The “same way” or “manner” [ὃν τρόπον/hon tropon] in Acts 1:11 is that Jesus was “lifted up” and “a cloud received Him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9) and will return “on clouds” in judgment (Matt. 24:30; 26:64) like the way God came in judgment against Egypt (Isa. 19:1). The manner is on clouds. Jesus quotes Daniel 7:13 in Matthew 24:30, and Gentry and many others consider it a prophecy about AD 70. There’s also this: “For the Son of Man is about to come [mellō] in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom” (Matt. 16:27-28). This is about AD 70.
Mike Rogers, in his critique of Keith Mathison’s 53-page article “Acts 1:9–11 and the Hyper-Preterism Debate” (2004),[11] states that Mathison “has not shown how erchomai can apply to one ‘coming,’ then 45 days later signify a different coming. Why would the disciples think Jesus’s ‘coming’ in Luke 21:27 differed from his ‘coming’ in Acts 1:11? In both instances, they heard this word spoken on the Mount of Olives. What contextual evidence points to this supposed change?”[12]
The following is from a much older work that takes a position like what we read above:
i.e. with marks of divine power; though not the same marks, yet as strong ones. It is not said, that they should see him come, as they saw him go: we may therefore suppose, that only Jesus’s coming to visit the Jewish nation in their destruction is here meant by the angels.[13]
Each verse used to claim Jesus will return physically must be studied to show how they are different in time from coming passages that refer to Jesus’ coming in judgment. The physical resurrection of believers from the earth is a whole other can of exegetical worms.
[1] See chapter 17, “Are There Two Comings Separated by 2000 Years?” in my book Prophecy Wars.
[2] See the first volume of Gentry’s The Divorce of Israel where he deals with Revelation 1:7. He spends pages 294-318 on this single verse. “Initially, Revelation 1:7 leaves the impression that it speaks of the second advent…. Yet looks and initial impressions can be deceiving. Despite this first impression, strong evidence compels us to interpret Revelation 1:7 differently. This verse presents us with a judgment prophecy against first-century Jerusalem and the Jewish temple, a judgment that occurred in AD 70.” (300).
[3] Robert L. Thomas, “Theonomy and the Dating of Revelation,” The Master’s Seminary Journal, 5:2 (Fall 1994), 198.
[4] Steve Gregg, who did not sign the Three Questions Letter” states in his critique of Full Preterism the following: “The verses that speak of the “parousia of the Lord” are Matthew 24:3, 27, 37, 39; 1 Corinthians 15:23; 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 2:1, 8, 9; 2 Peter 1:16; 3:4; James 5:7-8; 1 John 2:28). These are the passages most commonly attributed to the Second Coming at the end of time, though full-preterists would apply them all to A.D.70.” Gregg continues: “There is good reason to identify some references to His coming with the judgment events of A.D.70—in keeping with the Old Testament’s precedent for speaking thus of various historical disasters. But this does not apply to all, nor necessarily most, cases. There is at least one instance in which the coming of the Lord is said to be ‘at hand’ (e.g., James 5:7, 8) and a good case can be made for this being a reference to the destruction of Jerusalem. On the other hand, there is also one case which seems to refer to the transfiguration as Christ’s parousia (2 Pet.1:16), which muddies the waters a bit. In many other instances, Christ’s coming is associated with events that simply cannot be shown to have occurred, to date.” Many commentators over the centuries have associated most of the listed verses as having occurred. Gregg also notes that coming passages can refer to “a specific case of judgment upon some identified nation, city or church…. None of these particular cases is speaking of the end of the world, nor of the end of Jerusalem in A.D.70.” All preterists note these distinctions.
[5] The Olivet Discourse Made Easy: You Can Understand Jesus’ Great Prophetic Discourse (Draper, VA: Apologetics Group, 2010), 102, note 27. J. Marcellus Kik followed the same line of argument in his book Matthew 24 (page 66). Such an approach conflicts with what Jesus said in Matthew 24:34.
[6] Biblical Apocalyptics (page 247, note 1).
[7] Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics, 468, note 2.
[8] Henry George Liddell et al., A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), s.v. ἔρχομαι.
[9] Mike Rogers, “A Review of ‘Acts 1:9-11 and the Hyper-Preterism Debate’” (October 16, 2018): https://www.mikerogersad70.com/a-review-of-acts-19-11-and-the-hyper-preterism-debate-by-keith-a-mathison/
[10] Kennth L. Gentry, Jr., The Divorce of Israel: A Redemptive-Historical Interpretation of Revelation 2 vols. (Vallecito, CA: Chalcedon and Tolle Lege, 2024), 1:294-320.
[11] https://hyperpreterism.com/acts-19-11-and-the-hyper-preterism-debate/
[12] The same is also true for the use of parousia in Matthew 24:3, 27, 37, 39.
[13] Zachary Pearce, A Commentary, with notes, on the Four Evangelists and the Acts of the Apostles, 2 vols. (London: 1777), 2:4: https://bit.ly/3NX1N6W