8 And behold he cometh, according to the words of the angel, in six hundred years from the time my father left Jerusalem.
One of the differences between the Lord’s first and second
coming is the nature of the prophecies about it. Nephi says here that the angel
told him that Christ would come 600 years after Lehi left Jerusalem. Later, in
2 Nephi, he gives the same timetable, but this was “according to the words of
the prophets” (2 Nephi 25:19). So in the First Coming, the Lord gave a fairly
precise time that people cold look to for His coming into the world. It appears
that the scribes and Pharisees, who gave Christ such a hard time during His
mortal ministry, were not the sincere students of scripture as they considered
themselves to be, or at least tried to convince people they were. Clearly there
were some at the time who knew Christ had come (Simeon and Anna—Luke 2: 25–32,
36–38). Yet even though the scholars knew where (Matthew 2: 4–6), and the wise
men confirmed when (Matthew 2: 7, 16), they still crucified him. So the First
Coming was well documented, or prophesied as to when it would occur.
The Second Coming, however, is much less precise. Thanks to
John’s book of Revelations, we have the general time (opening of the 7th
seal—Revelation chapter 8), but that’s about as close as we come to a time
frame for the Second Coming. In fact, we are told several times that nobody
knows the time of His Coming (see D&C 49: 7 for an example). So why the
difference in the type of information given? It’s tempting to simply say that
we live in a time different from any other, and for some reason that makes the
difference. But they obviously needed faith to accept Christ during His mortal
ministry, just as we accept His Second Coming by faith. I’m not sure I have the
answer to this right now.
- 1 Nephi 10: 4 (4–11)
- 2 Nephi 25: 19
- 3 Nephi 1:1 (1–21)
