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“What does it mean that Jesus will return like a thief in the night?”

Some Christians have a difficult time with the way the writers of scripture consistently and flagrantly compare the timing of our Lord’s second coming to the unexpected entrance of a thief operating in the dark. Perhaps they feel it’s undignified for God to do anything less than appear in blazing glory, defying evil and routing all opposition before the splendor of his appearing. Perhaps they feel he should announce himself with trumpets.

They need not be troubled. He will, and he will. We’ll get to that shortly.

Laying a Misconception to Rest

Let me lay one very popular misconception to rest. When scripture compares the Lord’s return to the stealthy entrance of a thief, it is not a reflection on his character. The image is not comparing the Lord himself to a thief, imputing to him greed, criminality, antisocial tendencies, sneakiness or any of the other unsavory associations we might make with the criminal element. Nor does it mean the Lord must return under cover of darkness. Rather, it is a figure of speech intended to draw attention to the fact that nobody but the Father knows the timing of our Lord’s return. Humanity is too dull, too unbelieving, too complacent, too uniformitarian and too willing to accept lies and misdirection to spend much time thinking about the prospect of judgment. Alternatively, those who might contemplate the possibility imagine themselves too clever to fool, thus guaranteeing they will be entirely self-bamboozled. The timing of the return of the Lord is a secret, and it’s going to stay a secret.

We may dislike the figure of speech and call it unflattering, but the thief image is repeated so often that we would be foolish, even unbelieving, to pretend it doesn’t say what it says, though not all uses of the thief image in the New Testament refer to precisely the same momentous event.

Sleeping and Fully Aware

Concerning the day when Jesus will come to judge an unbelieving world in righteousness, Paul wrote in one of his earliest letters: “You yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” Of course the believers in Thessalonica were aware. Paul had told them this is how the day of the Lord would come upon the world. It was part of their basic training. Again, he writes, “But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief.” The world is blind to his return, Paul says. Sinners are asleep. They will not see their judgment coming until it arrives. Believers are not like that. We have the inside scoop, and we should be anticipating the Lord’s return and preparing for it with joy. Peter says the same: the day of the Lord will come like a thief.

John quotes the Lord Jesus using the image of a thief’s arrival a little differently in Revelation. In addressing the church in Sardis, he warns them to “wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die”. If not, he says, “I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour.” Here the subject is not the day of the Lord, but the end of a local testimony for Christ because those who took his name conducted themselves in an unworthy manner. Having soiled their garments, compromised their testimony to the world, and lost all sense of concern about pleasing their Master, the Lord would come and shut down their operation, while rewarding the few among them who had proven themselves worthy. Again, the comparison is not to the character, motives or techniques of a thief, but to the unexpectedness of his arrival.

As far as I can tell, this is the only time the Lord uses the thief imagery in association with the church, and it’s a church that is quite degraded.

I am Coming Like a Thief!

Finally, back on the subject of the day of the Lord, later in Revelation John quotes the Lord Jesus saying, “Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!” This line is manifestly not addressed to Christians, who will be coming with the Lord Jesus when he returns in glory, but rather to those who have believed on his name after the church is taken out of the world.

One further thought: in every case, the writers of the New Testament use the thief metaphor in association with the Lord Jesus coming in judgment of one sort or another. “Coming like a thief” has nothing to do with the rapture. It’s never used that way once. It’s never positive.

We should also note that while the timing of our Lord’s return in judgment will catch the world by surprise as a thief arriving in the early hours of morning might surprise a sleeping homeowner, nothing else about his coming will be clandestine in any way. Nobody will expect it; equally, once underway, not one functioning eyeball on the planet will miss it. Imagine the panic that will ensue!

Here He Is …

Heaven will open, and the one called Faithful and True will appear to the world riding a white horse, clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and surrounded by the armies of heaven. He is coming to tread the winepress of the wrath of God, strike down the nations and rule them with a rod of iron. Every eye will see him, and all the tribes of the earth will wail on his account. He will bring the lawless one — then ruler of the world — to absolute nothingness by the appearance of his coming. The mere breath of his mouth will destroy his enemies.

That’s how the Christ will re-enter this sphere to claim his kingdom and redeem his earthly people. Yes, there will even be a trumpet blast. Does this sound like some kind of half-baked burglary to you? Does this sound like an event about which anyone will have the slightest doubt what’s going on?

A House Waiting to be Broken Into

In short, then, the thief image tells us less about the character of Jesus Christ than it tells us about the condition of the world when he comes. Our sad, fallen planet will be a house just waiting to be broken into. Those under Satan’s dominion will be thoroughly unprepared for the Lord’s second coming, notwithstanding the fact that the sure promise of his return and the manner in which he will accomplish it has been known, studied, read and exposited in churches everywhere, week after week, for most of the last two millennia.