Alf Cengia does not understand the prewrath view nor the meaning of parousia. He writes:
“Charles Cooper (taking Van Kampen’s view) speaks of multiple comings in his prewrath view. But he refuses to acknowledge the case while insisting that it is a single parousia coming.” Source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/scripturally.speaking/
The second coming (parousia; the plural in Greek is parousiai) is an extended event when God will fulfill various purposes through his Son. Jesus’s first coming lasted over thirty years, beginning with his arrival of his birth and ending with his ascension.
Likewise, when Jesus returns for a second time, he will fulfill many purposes, the major events, including the rapture and resurrection and then the pouring out of God’s wrath, the deliverance of Israel, and the culmination of his rule in the millennial kingdom.
One of the many events during the second coming is depicted in Revelation 19 where after Jesus having been involved with the earthly judgments, he will retrieve his heavenly armies for the battle of Armageddon. Alf Cengia misunderstands this as a completely different Parousia in itself! Instead, it is only one event of many within the larger, extended second coming of Jesus.
I suspect Cengia is under the mistaken understanding that if Jesus removes his feet from earth for a particular purpose (such as retrieving his heavenly army) then that must somehow terminate his current parousia. That is where his literalistic claim—and misunderstanding of the use of the Greek word parousia—fails.
First, if Jesus must be physically on earth alive to be considered a Parousia, then that contradicts Paul’s teaching in 1 Thess 4:15–17 where Paul explicitly states that his parousia begins in the air—not the earth. Not to mention, just after the second coming (parousia) begins, he will escort the church to heaven before the his Father.
Second, applying Cengia’s logic, when Jesus came back to life after his death during his resurrection, the time between his resurrection and the ascension initiated a second coming!
Third, to use an absurd illustration to make the point: if Jesus exercised by jump roping one hundred times by lifting his feet off the ground, then there must have been one hundred comings (parousiai) of Jesus.
Fourth, it is Cengia who actually believes in two future comings (parousiai) of Christ.
He believes that Paul’s mention of parousia occurs before the seven year period:
“For we tell you this by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming [parousia] of the Lord, will surely not go ahead of those who have fallen asleep.” (1 Thess 4:15)
And he believes that Jesus’s mention of parousia begins at the end of the seven year period:
“For just like the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so the coming [parousia] of the Son of Man will be. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. Immediately after the suffering of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man arriving on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet blast, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” (Matt 24:27–31)
Prewrath, on the other hand, rightly believes that Paul and Jesus are speaking of the same, single future coming (parousia), an extended, complex-whole event where God will fulfill many purposes—the same idea with Jesus’s first parousia during his earthly ministry. It is therefore pretribulationists who wrongly believe in future multiple parousiai of Jesus.
