What Does “Return” Even Mean?

Very Man and Very God: Why Christ Must Return

Hyper-preterism repeatedly stumbles over one unavoidable question: if Christ “returned” in AD 70, where is He now?

The New Testament presents the return of Christ as the personal, visible appearing of the same Jesus who ascended. Yet no one in AD 70 saw the risen Lord descend bodily from heaven. There was no public manifestation of the incarnate Son, no resurrection of the dead, no consummated presence of Christ dwelling bodily with His people forever. If that was the return, what exactly returned? And where is Jesus presently?

The difficulty is not rhetorical. It is biblical.

In Acts 1:9-11, the disciples watched Him ascend. The angels declared, “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (ESV). The emphasis falls on identity and manner. This Jesus. The same one. The embodied, risen Lord. The departure was visible and bodily. The promise of return is framed in those same terms.

Acts 3:21 states that heaven “must receive him until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets” (ESV). Christ is received into heaven. He remains there. There is an “until.” That language presupposes ongoing bodily absence followed by a future appearing.

Jesus Himself structured hope around this reality. “I go to prepare a place for you… I will come again and will take you to myself” (John 14:2-3, ESV). In John 16:7 He said, “It is to your advantage that I go away” (ESV). There is a real going away. The promise of coming again depends on it.

At the same time, He assures His disciples, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20, ESV). How can He both go away and remain with His people? The only coherent answer is the distinction between His natures. According to His humanity, He is absent and in heaven. According to His divinity, He is present everywhere.

Colossians 3:1 directs believers to seek the things above, “where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (ESV). Hebrews 9:24 declares that “Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (ESV). His mediatorial ministry is exercised from heaven. Scripture consistently speaks of His bodily absence.

The Reformed tradition did not invent this distinction. It articulated it faithfully. The Heidelberg Catechism explains:

Question 46

How dost thou understand these words, “he ascended into heaven”?

That Christ, in sight of his disciples, was taken up from earth into heaven; and that he continues there for our interest, until he comes again to judge the quick and the dead.

Question 47

Is not Christ then with us even to the end of the world, as he has promised?

Christ is very man and very God; with respect to his human nature, he is no more on earth; but with respect to his Godhead, majesty, grace and spirit, he is at no time absent from us.

Question 48

But if his human nature is not present, wherever his Godhead is, are not then these two natures in Christ separated from one another?

Not as all, for since the Godhead is illimitable and omnipresent, it must necessarily follow that the same is beyond the limits of the human nature he assumed, and yet is nevertheless in this human nature, and remains personally united to it.¹

This is nothing more than careful biblical theology. Christ continues in heaven according to His human nature. He is never absent according to His Godhead. The natures are neither confused nor separated.

Once that framework is in place, the meaning of “return” becomes clear. To return is to go back to a place that was left. The divine nature never left. God is omnipresent. There can be no “return” of deity in a spatial sense. If someone speaks of Christ’s return as a non-bodily event, what exactly is returning? His divine essence? That would imply prior absence and movement, which contradicts the very nature of God.

A meaningful return must concern the incarnate person according to His human nature.

This is where the significance of the name “Jesus” becomes unavoidable. The angel declared, “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21, ESV). The name belongs to the incarnate Son, the one born of Mary. It is the name of the God-man.

After the resurrection and ascension, Scripture continues to use that name. Peter proclaims, “God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36, ESV). Paul writes long after the ascension, “There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5, ESV). Not was. Is. He remains man.

The incarnation was not temporary. Hebrews 7:24-25 teaches that He holds His priesthood permanently and always lives to make intercession (ESV). His ongoing mediatorial work presupposes His continuing humanity. The one who intercedes is still the God-man.

To deny a future bodily return inevitably pressures this doctrine. If Christ’s humanity does not return, if there is no future visible appearing of the incarnate Son, then what has become of the man Christ Jesus? If His deity never departed and cannot return, and His humanity does not return, the word return becomes meaningless.

More seriously, the permanence of the incarnation is undermined. To confess that Jesus Christ remains very man and very God is not optional or secondary. It is essential to the Christian faith. It safeguards the gospel itself. If the incarnation is treated as a temporary phase rather than an abiding reality, then the identity of Jesus is altered.

The New Testament holds these truths together with clarity. The one who ascended is the one who will come again. The one who was taken up will return in the same way. He continues in heaven for our interest until He comes to judge the living and the dead. His deity is omnipresent. His humanity is exalted and located. His person is one.

So the question remains simple and decisive. If Jesus “returned” in AD 70, where is He now? Scripture says He is in heaven according to His human nature, awaiting the appointed day of His appearing. Any system that cannot account for that absence and that promised bodily return is not merely adjusting eschatology. It is tampering with the identity of Jesus Himself.

1. Historic Creeds and Confessions. 1997. Electronic ed. Oak Harbor: Lexham Press.