Will Jesus come back to Earth?

The Apostle Paul promised the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians ) that Jesus would return within the within his own lifetime. Paul said that the Thessalonians could be ready for the return of Jesus by being vigilant (1 Thess 5:6): "Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober."

We switch to Mark, the first of the New Testament gospels to be written, around 70 CE and so still within the lifetimes of many alive when Paul wrote his epistles. The author of Markheld the same belief as Paul had, believing there would be signs - earthquakes, civil war, destruction and many calamities, after which the stars would fall from heaven and they would see the Son of man descend on clouds of glory. He warned them to flee into the hills, not stopping to collect anything.

Mark's expectation of the imminent return of Jesus, within the lifetime of his generation, did not come about and so the authors of Matthew and Luke began to realise that the return of Jesus Christ was not imminent after all, and so began to tone down the prophecies, placing it in the indefinite future. Their readers did not really need to be ready for Jesus' return.

Since the apostolic times, there have been hundreds of documented prophecies of Jesus' imminent return, and with each one there is less and less chance that the next prophecy will be any more true than the one before. There is no reason to believe that Jesus is ever coming back.