To the best of my knowledge, every Christian church that makes any claim to theological conservatism holds to the belief that Jesus of Nazareth will return. It would appear to be impossible to believe in the inerrancy of the Bible without holding to that belief in the second coming. I couldn't begin to count the sermons and lessons that I've heard which have touched on or totally focused on this belief. But I have just discovered a significant aspect of the Biblical message which I have never heard anyone mention before: the existence among us of living people over two thousand years old.

"The Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels....I tell you the truth, some of you who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." Matthew chapter 16, New International Version.

The implication is clear; a number of those who were there to hear Jesus speak in his time have never died. It may be hard to believe, but it is unquestionably true. Life spans of hundreds of years occured in the Old Testament period, but all fell short of one thousand years.

There have been numerous science fiction treatments of the theme of extreme extended life. As it happens, some of these have reflected the actual experience and problems that the living disciples must face over the passing centuries. Like some of the fictional characters, the disciples have obviously chosen to remain incognito and keep their unique situation a secret. In order to do so, they must have maintained something much like a fugitive existence. If these people have ever shown any of the normal signs of aging, it has to have been at a rate so slow as to become conspicuous to everyone around them within the span of a few years. Time after time it would become necessary to disappear, relocate, and assume a complete new identity.

While the number of these disciples is never given, this has to involve at least several people over the entire intervening period of two thousand years. That none of them has ever been discovered would seem to suggest that their efforts at concealment have been aided by an element of miraculous divine intervention. I can scarcely believe that no one else has ever deduced their presence, but I have never once heard it mentioned before.