While describing the many signs that will appear before His second coming, Jesus said, “But about that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone,” (Matthew 24:36 NASV).

Incredibly, not even Christ knew the exact day or hour when He would return. Yet over the years Christians have been obsessed with trying to figure out when Christ’s second coming will take place.

One of the earliest recorded predictions was made by Hippolytus the Bishop of Rome (170 AD – 235 AD). In his commentary on the Book of Daniel, he boldly predicted that Christ would return in 500 AD. This was based on two things:

• First, that Jesus would return 6,000 years after Noah’s flood.
• Secondly, that he believed Noah’s flood had taken place 5,500 years earlier.

Note: This prediction was probably connected to Christ’s warning that ”the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah.” (Matthew 24:37 NASV).

More recently, Harold Camping, the founder of Family Radio, predicted that Christ would return on May 21, 2o11. The ministry spent millions of dollars running billboards proclaiming the date. When this didn’t happen as advertised, he revised it to October 21, 2011. A few months after that, Camping confessed his error. He also admitted that the Bible is clear, that no one but the Father knows the date of Christ’s return.

But one of the more interesting predictions involved famed English astronomer, scientist and mathematician, Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727).

He is best known for discovering the theory of gravitation and its effect on planetary movements. Some at the time accused Newton of promoting ‘occult agencies’ because he was describing an invisible force with the power to affect planets.

But Newton was also an active end times enthusiast. He actually wrote a commentary on the Book of Daniel. From his study of the Bible, Newton concluded that Christ would not return before 2060 AD.

His surprising prediction recently made it to the pages of Britain’s Daily Mail. In an article, entitled, Letter from Sir Isaac Newton in 1704 predicts when the world will end, author Ellyn Lapointe reported on several letters that were donated to Israel’s Hebrew University, where Newton outlined his theory.

Like today, many during Newton’s time were predicting the date of Christ’s return. This is connected to the end of Satan’s rule on earth. This would also result in the destruction of the corrupted earth, and the formation of a new heaven and new earth.

“This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, [and] by doing so bring the sacred prophecies into discredit as often as their predictions fail,” Newton wrote.

“Christ comes as a thief in the night, [and] it is not for us to know the times [and] seasons [which] God hath put into his own breast,” Newton added.

Now in his defense, Newton did not predict the actual day that Christ would return. He simply stated that it could not happen before 2060 AD.

‘It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner,’ Newton noted.

So how did Newton come to this conclusion? It is actually based on a verse in the Book of Revelation, the Apostle’s John vision of the end times.

“And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.” (Revelation 11:3 ESV)

While, many have wondered who these two witnesses or end times prophets would be, Newton had a slightly different spin on this verse. Since Revelation uses symbolic language, he believed the 1,260 days, did not stand for actual days, but rather years.

(Note: This would also imply that these two prophets were not actual people, which falls in line with my theory.)

So if this a reference to 1,260 years, then Newton needed a start date for this count down. For that he used the formation of the Holy Roman Empire in 800 AD which merged politics and religion into a dominating superpower.

By adding 1260 to a 800 AD start date, Newton concluded that Christ’s return would take place after 2060 AD.

In his commentary on the Book of Daniel, Newton added that Israel would need to be restored as a nation before Christ’s second coming. Of course, that took place in 1948.