Disciples Global Network

Several Greek terms are used in the New Testament for the return of Jesus at the end of the present age. They include  parousia  (“arrival”),  erchomai  (“coming”), and  epiphaneia  (“appearance”). Regardless of which one is used, in each case, it is always singular, and refers to only one future “ coming .” The term  parousia  is applied to his return most often in the letters of Paul, though not exclusively so. It signifies an “ arrival ” rather than the process of someone or something “coming.”

Jesus compared the final years before his return to the period leading up to the Great Flood of Noah. “ Just as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be ” when the “ Son of Man ” returns. Some commentators take this saying as a prediction of the return of the same conditions that existed in Noah’s day; that is, a repetition of the moral anarchy and violence that prompted God to send the floodwaters in the first place.