Will Jesus Return? Where Did the Belief in Jesus's Return Come From?
Around 2.4 billion Christians and 2 billion Muslims believe that Jesus will one day come back. Most people assume the religion has always taught this doctrine. To help better understand this matter, the table below lists a series of historical events that may help us understand where it all began.
| Book of Daniel | 165 BC |
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Long before Jesus, a Jewish book called Daniel described a vision of "one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven" who is given an everlasting kingdom. Jews were waiting for a Messiah to come.
I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.
DANIEL 7:13-14 |
| Paul's Letters | 50 AD |
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About twenty years after Jesus, his followers began saying he would return. The earliest written record we have is a letter from Paul, who wrote that the Lord himself would come down from heaven (1 Thessalonians 4:16). This is the first time the idea of a "return" appears in writing.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first
1 THESSALONIANS 4:16 |
| Gospels, Acts and Revelation | 70-100 AD |
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The Gospels take Daniel's picture and apply it directly to Jesus, saying people will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds (Mark 13:26). The Book of Acts adds that angels told the disciples Jesus would come back the same way they saw him go (Acts 1:11). The Book of Revelation ends with Jesus returning to defeat evil.
And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
MARK 13:26 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
ACTS 1:11 |
| Nicene Creed | 325-381 AD |
| The Church wrote the belief into its official creed, which says Jesus "will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead." From here on, it becomes a core Christian belief almost everywhere. |
| The Quran | 610-632 AD |
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Then Islam arrives. The Qur'an honours Jesus deeply. It says he was not killed on the cross and that God raised him (4:157–158). But it never says plainly, "Jesus will come back." The verse most often used is this one:
وَإِنَّهُ لَعِلْمٌ لِّلسَّاعَةِ
"And indeed, it is a sign of the Hour." (43:61)
Many scholars say "it" means Jesus. Others, from the earliest times, said "it" means the Qur'an itself. The verse does not decide the matter by itself.
The Qur'an also uses words that sound like death:
إِنِّي مُتَوَفِّيكَ وَرَافِعُكَ إِلَيَّ
"I will take you in death and raise you to Myself." (3:55)
QURAN 4:157-158 QURAN 43:61 QURAN 3:55
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| The Hadith | 700-875 AD |
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The clear and detailed Muslim story of Jesus's return comes from the hadith, which were written down in collections over the next two centuries. Al-Bukhārī (died 870) and Muslim (died 875) record the Prophet ﷺ saying:
وَالَّذِي نَفْسِي بِيَدِهِ، لَيُوشِكَنَّ أَنْ يَنْزِلَ فِيكُمُ ابْنُ مَرْيَمَ حَكَمًا عَدْلًا
"By the One in whose hand my soul is, the son of Maryam will soon descend among you as a just judge." (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3448)
Other hadith add the details. Jesus comes down at a white minaret east of Damascus, he kills the Dajjāl (الدَّجَّال) at the gate of Lod near Jerusalem, and later he dies and is buried. Notice where the story takes place: Syria and Palestine. These were Christian lands that Muslims had only recently entered. Historians such as David Cook have shown that early Muslim end-of-times stories grew up in this region and share a lot with the Christian end-times stories that were already told there. The Christian Antichrist and the Muslim Dajjāl look very much alike. |
| Sunni Creed | 850-930 AD |
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Next, the belief moved from hadith books into official Sunni creeds. Imam Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (died 855) listed Jesus killing the Dajjāl among the things a Muslim must believe.
Then Imam al-Ṭaḥāwī (died 933) wrote in his famous creed: وَنُؤْمِنُ بِأَشْرَاطِ السَّاعَةِ: مِنْ خُرُوجِ الدَّجَّالِ، وَنُزُولِ عِيسَى ابْنِ مَرْيَمَ عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ "We believe in the signs of the Hour, including the coming of the Dajjāl and the descent of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, peace be upon him, from the sky." At this point, the belief became part of mainstream Sunni theology. |
| Twelver Shia | 900 AD |
| Twelver Shia Muslims believe their twelfth Imam went into hiding in the late 800s and will return as the Mahdi. They fit Jesus into this picture. In their account, Jesus comes back as a helper who prays behind the Mahdi. |
| New Movements | 1800 |
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The river kept growing. In America, new Christian groups such as the Latter-day Saints, the Seventh-day Adventists and the Jehovah's Witnesses made Jesus's return the centre of their message, some even setting dates for it.
In Iran, Bahāʾuʾllāh (1863) claimed to be the return of Christ. In India, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1891) claimed that Jesus had died and that he himself was the "Promised Messiah" who fulfilled Jesus's return. |
| Quran-Only Movement | 1900 |
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Finally, some Muslim scholars walked back up the river and asked what the Qur'an itself says. Muḥammad ʿAbduh and Rashīd Riḍā leaned towards the view that Jesus had died.
Then, in the early 1940s, Shaykh Maḥmūd Shaltūt, who later became Grand Imam of al-Azhar, gave a famous fatwa. He argued that the natural reading of the Qur'an is that Jesus died. Jesus himself says to God: فَلَمَّا تَوَفَّيْتَنِي كُنتَ أَنتَ الرَّقِيبَ عَلَيْهِمْ "When You took me, You were the One watching over them." (5:117) Even Ibn ʿAbbās, the Prophet's cousin and the great early interpreter of the Qur'an, explained the word this way, as al-Bukhārī records: مُتَوَفِّيكَ: مُمِيتُكَ "Mutawaffīka means: I will cause you to die." Shaltūt read the "raising" as God raising Jesus in honour and rank. He also said the descent hadith come through individual chains of narrators. In his view, reports like these are not strong enough to build a core belief on, so a Muslim who does not believe in the return has not left Islam. Many scholars pushed back, including Muḥammad Zāhid al-Kawtharī, and most Muslim scholars still hold that Jesus will return. They argue that the descent hadith are so many that, together, they reach certainty. |
| Summary |
| The belief in Jesus's return began as a spring in Jewish visions and early Christian letters. It became a Christian creed. It flowed into Islam mainly through the hadith and later the creeds, not explicitly through the Qur'an. And in modern times, some Muslim scholars went back to the Qur'an and asked whether this water really came from our own spring. You can agree with Shaltūt or with his critics. But knowing where a belief came from is the first step to understanding it, and asking that question is part of our tradition. |
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| Author: Guest • Updated: 18 Oct 2026 • 9 views | 5 mins ago |
