Jesus Isn’t Coming Back

A knock came to our cottage door yesterday. I opened it and there stood two young, well-dressed women. I didn’t recognize them. We stood looking at each other for what seemed a long moment before they introduced themselves with a question:

“Do you think there can be an end to war?”

Without hesitation, I said, “Yes.”

They introduced themselves as Jehovah’s Witnesses. I invited them to come in, but they declined. Whenever evangelists—Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses—arrive at my doorstep, I usually invite them in. I’m curious about what they have to say. Most times, we share a cup of tea and a gentle conversation. But this time, they remained standing on the doorstep.

They told me that the way to end war was to read the Bible. We agreed—though not in the way they meant. The mystic poet William Blake once said, “They read their Bible day and night; where they read black, I read white.”

Over the years, I’ve met more than enough Bible readers to know that for many, scripture becomes a cause of division rather than union. Consider how many denominations exist within the body of the Christian Church, all reading the same book but through different translations and interpretations—some now even waving the so-called “Trump Bible,” which symbolically and literally turns the teachings of the Master upside down.

When I lived in Leeds, I would often be visited by young men travelling in pairs, able to recite their Bibles chapter and verse. I would ask them to put their Bibles down and share their direct experience beyond the words. None ever could. Without the ability to quote scripture, they were lost. They could recite the menu, but had never tasted the banquet.

There will be no end to the horror of war through reading holy books alone—whether the Bible, the Qur’an, or any other scripture. More wars have been fought over sacred words than for any other reason. In my own homeland of Northern Ireland, Protestants have fought Catholics. Across the Middle East, Shia and Sunni Muslims fight one another.

It seems the fiercest conflicts arise from the Abrahamic religions—those that most emphasize belief in words rather than direct experience of the Divine. The very founders of these faiths pointed beyond words, toward revelation within.

The way to end war is indeed pointed to in the Bible, but most Christians overlook it—and many institutions discourage its realization. The end of war comes through knowing Heaven within. This KNOWING is not knowledge or belief; it is the living experience of God’s presence.

When enough people live from this inner knowing, Heaven moves upon the earth. That is the Second Coming of Christ—not the return of Jesus in physical form, not the apocalyptic “Rapture” proclaimed by fundamentalists. Such notions are born of misunderstanding and fear.

The institutional Church, for the most part, teaches not the living way of Jesus, but interpretations derived from Saint Paul’s visions. Yet even Paul glimpsed the truth when he said, “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” — Galatians 2:20 (KJV)

He did not say “Jesus liveth in me,” but Christ—the eternal Light within all.

To put on the mind that was in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5) is to awaken from the illusion of separation. It is to live from the inner stillness where “I of myself can do nothing” (John 5:30).

You won’t find that mind through reading alone. That is reading the menu but avoiding the banquet. The direct experience of the Christ within is the banquet. It is the KNOWING that you are not separate from God but an emanation of the One Light—like a sunbeam from the sun, a wave upon the ocean, a spark from the eternal flame.

To end war, one must move from belief to KNOWING—from outer religion to inner revelation. Only then can you abide “in the secret place of the Most High” (Psalm 91:1).

The poet Goethe expressed it beautifully in The Holy Longing, translated by Robert Bly:

Until you know what is pointed to by the word Christ—the indwelling Presence—you remain identified with the small self, imprisoned by the illusion of separation. Such separation has never truly happened except in the mind of man, never in the Mind of God.

Jesus isn’t coming back to save you. What saves you is the awakening of the Christ within. From that KNOWING, Heaven flows through you into the world.