What is the day of Christ?

The coming day of glory, when the earth will be filled with gladness under the beneficent rule of Christ and His saints, is called the day of Christ (Phil. 2:16) .

And what is this "Day" of which the Apostle so often speaks? This "Day of our Lord Jesus Christ"? or, "Day of the Lord Jesus"? or, "Day of Christ"? In 2 Peter 1:19 it is just called "The day:" "Until the day dawn." In 1 Cor. 4:3 we read of "man's day." (See the margin). We speak of "Caesar's day", or, "Napoleon's day"; and we all understand by this that it means the day when Caesar or Napoleon held sway, and exercised his will. So is it now: it is "man's day", when man is permitted to act according to his own will. But the time is coming when the Lord Jesus Christ will have His day: when He will come again and take all His own to be with Himself for ever, as we read in 1 Thess. 4. That is the beginning of the Day of our Lord Jesus Christ: but it will include the Judgment Seat of Christ, of which we read in 2 Cor. 5:10, and other Scriptures: and I think this is the time that the Apostle refers to in our verse in Phil. 2. When he sees his beloved brethren from Philippi receive their reward for their faithful walk down here, it will be a boast to Paul, that not in vain he ran, and not in vain he toiled. And, beloved fellow labourer, you and I have that same bright hope: nor do I mean by that word "fellow labourer" any special class of persons. A child who seeks to lead a school-mate to the Saviour; the Sunday School teacher who seeks to win the class to Him; the workman who points his companion to Christ: and, perhaps the sweetest of all, the parents who win their own child: these all are "labourers" for Christ: these all may look forward to that same boast the apostle had: if these dear souls continue in the path marked out.

In 2 Thess. 2:2 we read of "the day of Christ." If you will look at the New Translation, or any good modern translation, you will see this should be "The day of the Lord:" for it speaks of a different time, and "The Day of the Lord" is very different from "the Day of Christ." That is the day when Christ will take His place as Judge, and this poor wicked world must be judged before Him. We often read of it in the Old Testament, as well as the New: and a terrible time it will be. It "is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?" (Joel 2:11).

On the other hand, where the day is spoken of, as for instance in the Epistle to the Philippians, we shall find that faithful conduct or endurance is always before the mind of the Spirit of God. He says there, "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it (or carry it on) until the day of Jesus Christ: even as it is meet for me to think this of you all." (Phil. 1:6) So afterwards in verse 10, "That ye may be sincere and without offence, till the day of Christ;" again, in the next chapter (Phil. 2:16) he says, "Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain." It is a question of faithful service. The day, we see, is connected with the display of how far an apostle or any other has been faithfully serving the Lord. The coming of the Lord will not do this. The effect of it is not to display us before the world, but to take us clean out to be with Christ. When the Lord returns and appears before the world, then He will display how far we have been faithful. The day therefore is bound up with the display of faithfulness. The coming of the Lord is the taking us out of the world to be with the Lord Jesus before His Father in undeserved and infinite grace.

Then the apostle, having left with the Thessalonians the comfort of this about their brethren, turns to the day of the Lord, or His appearing. "But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." "The day of the Lord" is invariably in Scripture that period when the Lord will come in manifest and awful judgment of sinful men. It is never applied to any dealing with the Christian as on the earth. We find a very particular application of it, which seems connected with the saints. This is not exactly called the day of the Lord, but "the day of Christ." Confessedly there is a connection between the two. The day of Christ means that aspect of the day of the Lord, in which those who are in Christ will have their special place in the kingdom assigned. Consequently, where it is a question of the fruit of labour in the service of Christ, reward of faithfulness, or anything of the kind, "the day of Christ" is mentioned.

Nor is it to be doubted that in the day of the Lord there will be something like a reflection of what the path has been here, loss in case of unfaithfulness and reward for the service of His name. But it would appear from the New Testament, I think, that this to us is rather called the day of Christ, thus distinguishing between it and the day of Jehovah. Assuredly Christ is Jehovah; but still it is a very different thought where He is so styled, as in the Revelation. And it is remarkable that in Zephaniah — so external is its usage comparatively — we never see Him brought in as Christ at all. We find simply Jehovah here. It is therefore more judicial. If "the day of Christ" may be received as judicial too, it has certainly more application, even in that character, to what was based on and flowed from Christ. "The day of Christ" is that aspect of the day of the Lord in which those who have lived and walked and suffered in grace will have their portion assigned to them by the Master. Hence the apostle Paul says a good deal about "the day of Christ" in the Epistle to the Philippians. There we have the results of service and of suffering, of thorough identification with Christ now.

I apprehend that by "my day" He means the day of Christ's glory; not vaguely the time of Christ, but the day when He will be displayed in glory. "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day." He looked for that day of Christ's appearing in glory, and he "saw it, and was glad." It was the day when the promises would be accomplished, and very naturally he who had the promises looked for the time when they are to be made good in Christ.

But we have not done with 2 Thessalonians 2. There are two expressions in Scripture, “The Day of the Lord” and “The Day of Christ.” There is a difference between them. The Day of Christ refers to the Day when Christ shall give character to everything. It is connected with the thought of blessing. The Day of the Lord is connected with judgment. Now is man’s day, but, when the Church is raptured to glory, the Day of the Lord—the Day of Judgment—will begin. We will quote a few Scriptures to prove what we say.

He begs them "by the coming of the Lord and our gathering together unto Him" not to be disturbed by the rumours these false teachers were circulating, as if the day of the Lord is present. The Authorized Version has the misleading translation, "the day of Christ." (Equally incorrect is the translation, "the day of the Lord is at hand." The meaning is "present," that it had actually come. The same Greek word is also used in Rom. 8:38, "things present.") There is an important difference between the day of Christ and the day of the Lord. The day of Christ concerns the Church, the saints of God. The day of the Lord concerns the earth-- Israel and the nations. The day of Christ begins when He takes His saints in glory and they are with Him. The day of the Lord will bring, as stated before, the visible manifestation of the Lord from heaven. The day of Christ comes first and the day of the Lord follows at least seven years later. The following passages speak of the day of Christ, and it will be seen that that day is for God's people only (1 Cor. 1:8; 2 Cor. 1:14; Phil. 1:6-10, 2:16). The day of the Lord does not concern the saints at all; it falls on the world. Before the day of the Lord can come, His saints have to be gathered together unto Him. The promise of 1 Thess. 4:16-18 needs first to be fulfilled. He uses this hope of being gathered to Christ, when He comes for His saints, as a motive why they should not listen to those who said the day of the Lord is present. He reminds them of the fact that their gathering unto Him had not yet taken place. How, then, could the day of the Lord be present? And this opens the way for still more important teaching.

The apostle now utters his inspired prayer for them. It is still the prayer of the Holy Spirit for God's people. They had love, but he prays that their love may abound yet more and more. But this abounding love is to be "in knowledge and all intelligence." Love must not and will not tolerate evil. If the heart is fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ, then the Christian will manifest this love in knowledge and all intelligence, having discernment of good and evil. As Christ is before the heart the believer will abound yet more and more in love and also "judge of and approve the things that are excellent." Walking after this rule means to be "pure and without offence till the day of Christ." That day is not the Old Testament day of the Lord, when He is revealed on earth in power and glory to judge and to establish His kingdom, but it is the day for the saints when they meet Him in the air and then appear before His judgment seat. And such a walk produces the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God. Thus it is seen that love is the source of everything in the life of the believer.

Thus "that day," "the day of Christ," is to have an aspect toward those who are now Christians, who will be with Him in the glory in the heavens. But it is "the day of Christ" more particularly which affects a Christian. "The day of Jehovah" in scripture is invariably that which deals with the world, with living men and their works on the earth, and finally with the frame and elements of the universe itself, but this rather at the close of His day than at its beginning, as we gather from the comparison of several scriptures. "The great day of Jehovah is near, it is near, and hastes greatly, even the voice of the day of Jehovah: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against Jehovah: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of Jehovah's wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land." Nothing can be plainer. It is distinctly judicial, and this as regards the habitable world. "The day of Christ" has also a discriminative bearing, and this with a view to rewarding the saints who shall have laboured for the Lord or suffered meanwhile. All will be made up to them then. It is possible that this has been overlooked: what has not been? Excellent men, in their desire to give grace its scope in redemption and our justification by faith, have failed now and then to leave room for another principle equally plain. The apostle Paul, if weighed, would keep us by the Spirit both large in heart, and free from the confusion of things that differ. It is he who insists that we "are saved by grace," and that "every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour." Not only will God be justified by our account of all as it is to Christ, but the ways and work and suffering with Christ of those who are His will have their due place and display in the glory of the kingdom by and by.