This passage, then, must be symbolic; after all, how could “those who pierced him” see Christ return?

Furthermore, the angels said that Christ would return “in the same manner” as he departed.

In this way he cut short the days of that tribulation upon Satan’s organization invisible and visible.

Then in the spring of 1919 he brought to his “young children,” to the remnant of those whom Jesus Christ confesses as his brothers, release from their captivity to modern Babylon.

Consider the manner in which Jesus left his apostles on his way to heaven.

So when Jesus began going into the sky, a cloud hid him from the literal eyesight of his apostles.

34. What evidences did Jesus Christ foretell to prove his invisible return, and when did those evidences begin?

³⁴ A few days before Jesus Christ was put to death he was asked about the evidences to mark his invisible return and the end of this system of things.

 5. How would Jesus come in the same way he departed?

⁵ Jesus had just issued that worldwide preaching commission when he began to ascend to heaven.

That ascension started with upward movement away from his disciples, and later Jesus entered into his heavenly Ruler’s presence and into activity in the spirit realm. (1:9-11)

So it is not a literal, visible, fleshly return by Christ Jesus, but a spiritual one that is the hope held out by God’s Word, the Bible.

29. Is Jesus’ second coming visible to human eyes? What facts and scriptures determine the answer?

²⁹ When Jesus said he would come again he did not mean he would return in the flesh visible to men on earth.

After Jesus’ death as a human he was raised to immortality as a spirit in the express image of God, so that now it is impossible for man to see the glorified Christ Jesus either.

Jesus definitely did teach that he would return again.

43, 44. How, in contrast with Rishi’s definition, does the Bible identify the human spirit?

⁴³ But in this case does not the scripture, Ecclesiastes 12:7, apply: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it”?

Amid these rumblings of industrial, commercial, social and religious changes early voices of small religious groups were heard in their efforts to read the signs of the times and predict the imminent second coming of Jesus, Jehovah’s Christ.

Various adventist groups were busy in the United States and Europe, proclaiming a visible return of Christ for 1873 or 1874, even though the American founder of their movement, William Miller, had acknowledged his error and disappointment as to the former set dates of 1843 and 1844.

 2. (a) How has the content of the good news been enriched in our day? (b) What obligation rests on all true Christians today?

² From 1914 onward, evidence began to mount that the sign that Jesus had given respecting his return and invisible presence was undergoing fulfillment. (Matthew 24:3-13, 33)

15. All that restoration work was in fulfillment of what that had been foretold by God’s prophets, and it was part of “the sign” foretold by Jesus to indicate what?

¹⁵ All that restoration work, on a small scale at the beginning, was the postwar start of “the times of restoration of all things of which God spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets of old time,” to mark the invisible return and presence of the glorified Jesus Christ. (Acts 3:21)

Because Jesus’ words at Matthew 24:21 evidently had a larger meaning.

Christ’s invisible presence as Messianic king ruling over the globe did not begin in 70 C.E.

22. The “slaves” in being ten in number picture whom, in the complete fulfillment of the parable?

²² The “ten slaves of his” in Jesus’ parable did not find their complete fulfillment in the apostles and disciples of the first century of our Common Era.

Thus, the “ten slaves” of the parable would nicely picture all the spirit-begotten, anointed slaves of Jesus Christ who are prospective heirs with him in the heavenly kingdom and who have been produced all down through these past nineteen centuries until Christ’s coming into kingly power at the close of the Gentile Times in the year 1914 C.E. and till now.

On his return Jesus obviously would not be seen with human eyes, since he is said to come with his invisible angels.

10, 11. (a) How do some argue around the fact that Jesus could not take a fleshly body to heaven as 1 Corinthians 15:50 shows? (b) How is it shown that there was no need to spiritualize material things?

¹⁰ Jesus could not take a human body through the Van Allen radiation belts and outer space to heaven, for, in discussing the resurrection, Paul says: “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption,” which agrees with Paul’s preceding statement: “It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption.” (1 Cor. 15:42, 50, AV)

But, we ask, did those angels who materialized human bodies in order to appear to the disciples on resurrection day and on ascension day spiritualize those bodies in which they appeared in order to return to the invisible spirit realm?

Months later, down in Kanpur, I started a Bible study group, hoping to learn more about the Lord’s return.

He explained to me that Jesus had been present since 1914, invisible to man.

From the beginning, these Christians understood the basic truth regarding Jesus, who gave his life as a ransom, and they made his invisible return and God’s Kingdom the heart of their activity.​—1 Timothy 2:6.

What occurred then was also a pattern of a future destruction of the ungodly during the invisible “presence of the Son of man,” Jesus Christ. (Matthew 24:37-39)

Now the question is, If Jesus gave visible signs to indicate his presence, his effective return, would he then be personally visible or invisible?

 6. What truths did these Bible Students appreciate regarding Jesus Christ?

⁶ From the beginning, these earnest Bible Students, as they called themselves, clearly understood the basic truths regarding Jesus Christ.

He was resurrected a spirit and ascended to heaven as a spirit, and he was to return as a spirit​—the invisible Messianic king of God’s kingdom.