1. “He Is Coming”
“Behold he is coming with the clouds, and every eye shall see him, and whosoever pierced him; and all the tribes of the earth shall wail before him. Yea, verily; so let it be”—Apoc. i. 7.
In these words is an exclamation which is designed to direct the reader’s attention to Jesus and the Saints, as the ὁ ερχομενος, ho Erchomenos, the One Yahweh who is coming as the anointed with the Seven Spirits—“Behold, he is coming with the clouds.”
The Apocalypse begins immediately after the salutation with the announcement of the coming of Deity in Spirit, and concludes with the declaration, that “He who testifies these things (written in the Apocalypse) says, Verily, I come quickly;” and it points us also to the time when that coming may be expected, and in what sense “quickly” is to be understood in the warning recorded in ch. xvi. 15, beginning, “Behold, I come as a thief! Blessed is he that watcheth,” and so forth.
No event is more prominently set forth in the apostolic writings than the coming of the Lord Jesus in power and great glory. The prediction is not peculiar to the Apocalypse, though it is made one of its most glorious themes, or rather the most glorious of all.
Thus, when Jesus was preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, he said, “The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his messengers; and THEN he shall reward every man according to his works”—Matt. xvi. 27. And again, “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy messengers with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory”—ch. xxv. 31. And referring to this time, he also said, “I, Amen, say to you, that ye (my apostles) who followed me, in the Regeneration when the Son of man shall sit upon the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, ruling the Twelve Tribes of Israel; * * * ye shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit Life Aionian”—ch. xix. 28. In these three testimonies, Jesus plainly teaches,
1. That the Son will come in glory and power;
2. That He will come with Holy Ones;
3. That He comes to ascend and sit upon the throne of His glory; p. 135 4. That the Regeneration shall be at this epoch;
5. That the time for rewarding men according to their works is in this Regeneration Era; and,
6. That in this Regeneration Era the thrones of the house of Israel will exist again, and be occupied by the Twelve Apostles, then possessed of the life pertaining to the Aion of the Son.
Such are the points inculcated in the teaching of the Seven Spirits, or Logos, with which the Son of David’s daughter was anointed without measure. It is in strict accordance also with the teaching of the same Spirit in the prophets. Thus, Jude testifies that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, Yahweh cometh in his holy myriads (εν μυριασιν ἁγιαις αυτου) to execute judgment upon all”—ver. 14. This is precisely what Jesus taught. Yahweh, the Eternal Spirit, in Holy Myriads, in clouds of Holy Ones, constituting “One Yahweh and One Name,” cometh to execute judgment upon all; and in so doing, to reward every man according to his works. Yahweh in his Holy Myriads is the Son of man—Daniel’s אישׁ־אחד ish-echād, MAN OF ONE—ch. x. 5, referred to by Jesus in the remarkable testimonies already adduced.
Moses, also, referring to the apocalypse of Yahweh, says, in Deut. xxxiii. 26: “There is none like the AIL of Yeshurun, riding heavens in thy help, and in his Majesty of Clouds. Mighty Ones of the East is the refuge, even beneath the Powers of Olahm: and he shall drive out the enemy from before thy faces, and shall say, Destroy. Israel then shall dwell safely: the fountain of Jacob (shall be) alone upon a land of corn and wine; also his heavens shall distil dew. Thy blessings, O Israel (are these:) who is like thee, O people saved by Yahweh, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy splendor? And thine enemies shall waste away because of thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places.”
This testimony of Moses is symbolized in the Apocalypse. Hence the apocalyptic coming of Eternal Power manifested in Spirit-flesh, is the AIL of Yeshurun riding heavens in his clouds of majesty to help Daniel’s people scattered among all nations. His clouds are the Mighty Ones of the East, the Powers of the Millennium, or Age to Come, styled in Rev. xvi. 12, “the Kings from a Sun’s risings.” These are Israel’s refuge, who shall expel the enemy from the covenant land, and cause them to dwell in it safely. They are the shield and sword of Israel, who shall make them a glorious nation, and subject all the nations to the majesty of Jacob.
I do not propose to adduce all that might be quoted from the prophets concerning the coming of Messiah in his glory and power, but p. 136 simply a specimen, to show upon what the sayings of the Apocalypse are founded. I shall therefore only add one or two more.
Thus, in Isaiah xxviii. 16, it is written, “Behold, saith Adonai Yahweh, I lay in Zion for a foundation a Stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation.” Now this stone has been tried, but it has not yet been laid in Zion; for when laid, it is a foundation that will not be removed. Jesus is this stone; but hitherto he has proved only “a Stone of stumbling and a Rock of offence” to Israel, as the same prophet predicted in ch. viii. 14. It is necessary, therefore, that he return to Jerusalem, as he himself predicted in Matt. xxiii. 39, that his power may be established there, and not be plucked up; and that it may be proclaimed to the cities of Judah, saying, “Behold your Elohim.” Hence, because of this necessity, the same prophet has said, in ch. xl. 10; “Behold, Adonai YAHWEH will come in might, and his power (shall be) a ruler for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him;” or, as Jesus taught, “when he comes, then he shall reward every man according to his work.” His work has to be performed after he comes. Hitherto, he has only been making preparation; when this is complete, then “Behold, he comes with the clouds!” And having accomplished the work he comes to do, then, as Jesus taught, “the Son of man will sit upon the throne of his glory;” or, as Isaiah expresses it in ch. xxiv. 23, “Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when YAHWEH of armies shall reign on Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem; and in the presence of his Ancients (there shall be) glory.” “And in this mountain, YAHWEH of armies shall make unto all the peoples a feast of fat things. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all the peoples, and the veil that is spread over all the nations. And he will swallow up death in victory; and Adonai YAHWEH will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth”—xxv. 6-8.
Such is the work to be accomplished when he comes with the clouds; a work which will constitute Zion a saved city, and the worker her salvation; hence the prophet speaks on this wise: “Say ye to the Daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him”—ch. lxii. 11.
But, not only did Enoch, Moses, Isaiah, and indeed all the prophets, predict the coming of Messiah in power and great glory, according to the teaching also of Jesus himself before his ascension; but the apostles also, after that remarkable event, dwelt often and fondly upon it, as the great theme of hope and expectation. Thus, after they had been assured by angelic personages that “the same Jesus who had been p. 137 taken up from them into the heaven should so come in like manner as they had seen him go into the heaven” (Acts i. 11), they went forth and proclaimed it in all the habitable. On the day of Pentecost, Peter declared that he who had ascended, even Jesus whom they had crucified, had been raised from the dead, for the future purpose of sitting upon the throne of David his ancestor, which every Jew present knew could only be fulfilled by Jesus coming back to Jerusalem in power; for to no other locality did the throne, or seat, of David’s kingdom belong—Acts ii. 30. And not long after this, he told the Israelites in the temple, that the absence of Jesus from Palestine was only temporary. “The Lord,” said he, “shall send the Anointed Jesus (who was before preached) unto you, whom heaven indeed must retain until times of restoration of all things, of which the Deity hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets, απ ἀιωνος, from the Aion’s beginning.” In other words, when “the times and seasons” apocalypsed shall arrive, the era of Israel’s national regeneration will have come. It will then be time to restore the kingdom again to Israel, which implies the ingathering of all the tribes of that race, from the outlying countries of the earth; the conquest of the Holy Land from “the powers that be,” and the moral purification of the nation, upon the principle of faith in Jesus as Son of Deity, and King of the Jews, and obedience to whatever form of truth he may be pleased to prescribe.
Afterwards Paul announced to the learned and polite Athenians, that the Deity purposed to rule the inhabited earth by the Anointed Jesus, whom he had raised from the dead for this intent; and in all the cities he visited, he proclaimed Jesus as the future king of all nations, by which he turned the habitable upside down—Acts xvii. 7, 31. This was in effect preaching the coming of the Lord in power; for unless he returned, and that with power, he could not do the things declared.
This being the tenor of Paul’s teaching, when he wrote letters to the ecclesias he had gathered, he addressed them as “waiting for the Apocalypse (or revelation) of our Lord Jesus Anointed;” and concerning certain things affecting himself, he exhorted them to “judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come * * * when every man shall have recompence from the Deity”—1 Cor. i. 7; iv. 5: and in ch. xv. 22, 23, he told them, that “they which are Christ’s, shall be made alive at his coming.”
In writing to the saints of Philippi, he is very explicit. “Our πολιτευμα, or commonwealth,” says he, “subsists in heavens; out of which we look for the deliverer, the Lord Jesus Anointed, who shall transform the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of this glory”—ch. iii. 20: and to the Colossian believers, he p. 138 says, “Your life is hid with the Anointed One in the Deity. When the Anointed, our life, shall appear, then shall ye also be manifested with him in glory”—ch. iii. 3, 4. The citizenship of the saints “subsists in heavens”—in the holy, and most holy states. They put on Christ in the obedience of faith, and are then “in him;” and through him have access to the Divine Father. In putting him on, their names are engraven on his breastplate, and their citizenship begins. Their names are with him within the veil, while they are in the heavenly state, the ecclesia, upon the earth, where, as members of his body, having their hearts sprinkled with the blood of sprinkling from an evil conscience, and the body washed with pure water (Heb. x. 22), they are waiting for his Apocalypse; and “by them who are looking for him,” says Paul, “he shall be seen of a second time without sin for salvation”—Heb. ix. 28.
Of this manifestation upon earth “a second time,” he writes copiously in his letters to the saints in Thessalonica. He mentions it five times in his first epistle; and three times in his second. “You turned from the idols to the Deity, to serve the living and true Deity, and to wait for his Son from the heavens, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath which is coming.” And in relation to them, he says, “What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye before our Lord Jesus Anointed in his presence?” “The Lord stablish your hearts unblamable in holiness before the Deity and our Father, in the presence of our Lord Jesus Anointed, with all his holy ones.”
And when some of them were sorrowing for the loss of brethren who had died, he exhorted them not to grieve as the heathen who have no hope. “For,” says he, “if we (the saints) believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also them who have been sleeping, the Deity through that Jesus, will lead out with him. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we, the living, who are surviving unto the presence of the Lord, shall not precede them who have been sleeping. For the Lord himself in command, with a voice of an archangel, and with a trumpet of Deity, shall descend from heaven, and the dead in the Anointed shall arise first; afterwards, we, the living, who are surviving, together with them, shall be hurried off in clouds unto a meeting of the Lord in air; and thus we shall be at all times with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words”—1 Thess. i. 9, 10; ii. 19; iii. 13; iv. 14-17.
Such is the manifestation of the Lord to his saints. But while he appears thus to their joy and glorification, he is apocalypsed as a consuming flame upon the enemy. “For you who are being afflicted,” p. 139 says he, (there shall be) “rest with us in the apocalypse of the Lord Jesus from heaven with angels of his power, in a fire of flame, inflicting vengeance upon them who know not Deity, and who obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Anointed; who shall pay justice, Aion-destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his might, when he shall come to be glorified with his holy ones, and to be admired with all who believe in that day.” Those who know not Deity, and obey not the gospel of the Lord Jesus Anointed, are of the Apostasy; whose Prince is the Lawless One, called by Paul “the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition,” “whom,” says he, “the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and annihilate in the manifestation of his presence”—2 Epist. i. 7-10; ii. 8.
Lastly, upon this point, we remark, that Paul instructed his contemporaries who looked for the presence of the Lord Jesus Anointed, and their gathering together around him, that the day of that apocalypse should be preceded by an apostasy from the truth, which should attain great and powerful development. This Apostasy exists in what is called “Christendom,” in all its “Names and Denominations;” and is largely treated of in the Apocalypse. It will shortly attain that maturity which precedes annihilation. The coming is for this purpose, that when abolished, “the knowledge of the glory of YAHWEH may cover the earth as the waters cover the sea”—Numb. xiv. 21; Isaiah xi. 9; Hab. ii. 14; Rev. xviii. 1. The Day of Christ is now at hand; the signs of his coming are abroad in the earth; and blessed will they be who are watching and prepared.
2. “He is Coming with the Clouds”
In the system of nature whence the symbol before us is taken, clouds are opaque congeries of aqueous particles, exhaled from the waters of the earth into the air by the electricity of the expanse. This being their nature and origin, they furnish a beautiful and expressive symbol representative of those who are present with the Lord in his apocalypse. In the revelation given to John, the inhabitants of the earth, in their various subdivisions, are styled “many waters;” as, “the waters which thou sawest, upon which the Harlot sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and languages”—ch. xvii. 1, 15. From these waters have been exhaled by “the Spirit, which is the truth,” from the generations of the past, particles which, when viewed in mass, constitute, as Paul terms them, “a great cloud of witnesses.” But this cloud is only seen as a matter of testimony. The subjects of it are in the earth; and perceived p. 140 only as particles to be exhaled, or drawn out, by the power of those beams, soon to irradiate from the Sun of Righteousness. When He shall “arise with healing in his rays,” they will come forth from the womb of the dawn as dew. Every resurrected saint will be a dewdrop, sparkling in the star-like glory of a divine refraction. The appearance of dew from the womb of dawn, as representative of the resurrection of the saints, is the most beautiful of scripture similitudes. Before the sun rises, all nature is concealed in the womb of night; and although the herbage is wet with dew, yet is it invisible by reason of the darkness. The dew is, as it were, in Hades, waiting for the birth to be given it by the rising of the sun. As soon as the eastern portals of the sky begin to open to the light, which is the life of dew, its drops begin to sparkle with the prismatic glory of its refraction. The apocalypse, or appearing of the dew, is its birth from the womb of dawn; and, however clear the air may be at its birth, oftentimes the heat of the sun’s rays exhales it from the herbage, and it becomes invisible until it reappears at the atmospheric dew point in the form of clouds. If the reader understand this he will be enabled to discern the relations of the saints to Jesus, as the Dew and Clouds of the Millennial Dawn to the Sun of the New Heavens, prepared “as a Bridegroom emerging from his canopy, and rejoicing as a Conqueror for the running of a course”—Psal. xix. 5. The following testimonies will present the matter in a still clearer light.
That dew is sometimes used for people, appears from Mic. v. 7, as, “the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples AS DEW from Yahweh, as showers upon the grass; which shall not wait for man, nor delay for the sons of Adam.” Mankind cannot control the dew nor clouds, so that the one should remain, and the other not pour down their torrents of rain and hail till they were ready. In what sense the remnant is a dew that will not tarry, appears from the next verse; as, “the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations in the midst of many peoples, as a lion among the beasts of the forest, and as a young lion among flocks of sheep; who, if he pass through both treadeth down and teareth, and there is no deliverer.”
Besides this dewy-remnant, we have holy ones who are compared to newly born dew in Psal. cx. 3. This is a psalm of David, which he commences by declaring that YAHWEH, the Eternal, had decreed concerning his (David’s) Son and Lord, that he should sit at His right hand until his enemies should be subjected to him reigning in Zion in their midst. The enemies of David’s Son and Lord are well known to be the Jews, who are not willing to acknowledge him as King of Israel. But in the third verse, the Spirit declares to the Son, saying, “Thy nation p. 141 shall be willing in the Day of thy Might; in the splendors of holiness the Dew of thy Birth (shall be) to thee from the womb of the dawn.” The Son’s Dew, born from the womb of the Dawn, are his brethren, the saints; born of the Spirit from the invisible at the dawn of Messiah’s Day—the day of a thousand years. The resurrection is styled “thy birth,” because “He, the Deity, who raised up the Lord Jesus, will raise us up also by Jesus”—2 Cor. iv. 14; and “He that raised up the Anointed One from among the dead, shall also make alive your mortal bodies through his Spirit”—Rom. viii. 11. Hence, the birth given to the saints from the grave will be BY Jesus THROUGH the Spirit; and therefore the birth, in the psalm, is styled “thy birth”—the birth developed by David’s Son and Lord; the subjects of which will be Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the prophets, and among them David himself, the apostles, and all that believe into Jesus through their word.
In reference to this wonderful birth of the “Holy Nation” (1 Pet. ii. 9) at the epoch of Israel’s national regeneration, the Eternal Spirit says, in Isai. lxvi. 5, “Hear the word of YAHWEH, ye that tremble at his word: your brethren that hated you, and cast you out for my name’s sake, said, Let YAHWEH be glorified! But he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed.
“A noise of tumult from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of YAHWEH that rendereth recompense to his enemies,” as in the destruction of Jerusalem.
Then afterwards, “Before she travailed, she (Zion) brought forth; before her pain came she was delivered of a son. Who hath heard such a thing? Who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? Shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith YAHWEH. Shall I cause to bring forth, and hold back? saith thine Eloah.”
The resurrection, then, is emphatically “thy birth,” O YAHWEH, Son and Lord of David! Begotten of the Spirit, the subjects of it are as dew from the womb of the dawn. This beautiful figure has also been employed to illustrate the same subject in Isaiah xxvi. 19: it is there written, “Thy dead shall live, (as,) my dead body they shall arise. Awake, and sing; ye that dwell in the dust: for the dew of lights is thy dew, and the earth shall cast forth the dead:”—“the earth shall disclose her bloods, and shall no more cover her slain.” This Dew of Lights is YAHWEH’S dew. In the English version, it is “thy dew is as the dew of herbs.” There are only two places in the holy writings where אורת ohroth is rendered herbs; once in 2 Kin. iv. 39; and once p. 142 in the text before us. It is used once also in the singular in Deut. xviii. 4; but over a hundred times in the singular, and twice in the plural, it is rendered light. In Kings herbs are figuratively styled lights, because of their appearance when loaded with dew. Hence the light belongs to the dew, and therefore the propriety of the rendering, and the fitness of the expression as a similitude for the resurrected saints in the star-like splendor of holy spirit nature.
The saints in the resurrection-state being thus indisputably likened to sparkling dew drops, the reader will, we apprehend, have no difficulty in regarding clouds as their representatives when with the Lord in the apocalyptic firmament, or expanse, styled in Dan. vii. 27, “the whole heaven;” under which “the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom” they are to possess for the Aions of the Aions,” are alone to be obtained.
The clouds of this Millennial Expanse are the sparkling dew drops of YAHWEH exalted by his energy to place and power; and gathered together about him as glorious and towering masses, pregnant with “lightnings, and thunderings, and voices, and great hail”—Rev. iv. 5; xi. 19; xvi. 18-21. The power of Deity in every particle of these clouds is the omnipotence of the apocalypse. Eternal Power invested with clouds of virtuous and heroic immortals, constituted in the aggregate, Ezekiel’s “Whirlwind out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself; and round about it brightness, and out of the midst thereof as the color of amber even out of the midst of the fire; whence proceeded the likeness of four living creatures.”
If this be apparent to the reader, the following testimonies will present themselves with great force and beauty to his mind. Thus, “In the heavens, O YAHWEH, thy mercy; thy truth is to the clouds”—Psal. xxxvi. 5; that is, his promised kindness is manifested in the New Heavens; and his truth is for those clouds of witnesses who shall compose them.
Again, “Ye kingdoms of the earth sing ye to the Elohim; sing the praises of Adonai, Selah; to Him who rides upon heavens of the heavens of old. Behold, with his voice he will give forth a voice of strength. Give ye strength to the Elohim, his excellency over Israel, and his strength in Clouds. Terrible, O Elohim, out of thy sanctuaries, the AIL of Israel (art thou:) He that giveth strength and powers to the nation, Blessed be the Elohim”—Psal. lxviii. 33-36. In this text, the AIL, Adonai, and Elohim are presented as One in Many and Many in One—AIL, the Eternal Spirit, or Theos; ADONAI, Lords, the Devar of Ail, or Logos, become Flesh, or Messiah, the Word; and ELOHIM, the Eternal Spirit incarnate in the Saints, each of whom is a p. 143 sanctuary, or temple, of Eternal Power, out of which collectively is “the AIL of Israel,” in the Aions of the Aions. With his voice, the Eternal will give strength to the Elohim, whom he will bring forth as sparkling dew; and will establish them as His excellency over Israel; so that his omnipotence will be in the Clouds of Elohim, by and through whom he will do terrible deeds throughout the earth. “He makes thick clouds his chariot; and goes on the wings of the spirit.”
A destroyer going up against a nation with great forces, is thus referred to by Jeremiah, “Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots as a whirlwind”—ch. iv. 13. This was spoken of Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion of Judea. Ezekiel also speaks of Nebuchadnezzar’s last successor and representative ascending and coming like a storm against the same country in the latter days, “like a cloud to cover the land”—ch. xxxviii. 9.
The apocalyptic “coming with the clouds” is the same as that described in Dan. vii. 13: “I was seeing,” says the prophet, “in the vision of the night, and behold, there was coming with clouds of heavens like a Son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before Him.” These Clouds of Heavens were the “thousand thousands serving the Ancient of Days; and the myriad myriads that stood before him”—the flames of his fiery throne, his wheels of burning fire, and the stream of flowing fire that issues from before him. Collectively a Son of man in whom the Ancient of Days, or Eternal Spirit, comes to execute the judgment written; and to set up and possess the kingdom—ver. 22.
The apocalyptic clouds with which the Anointed comes are the same as those referred to by Moses in the passage already quoted from Deut. xxxiii. 26. Here, the Ho Erchomenos anointed with the Seven Spirits, and styled Yahoshaia Mashiahk, or He shall be Deliverer Anointed, that is, Jesus Christ—is styled AIL OF YESHURAN:—the “Who is Who was and Who is Coming.” Moses says, that, when he comes to help Israel, “he rides heavens in his majesty of clouds. Heavens is used for the constituents of governments, or administrations; as the sun, moon, constellations, and individual stars, in the celestial universe, constitute the heavens, because they are high. The Hebrew word שׁמִים shahmuyim, “heavens,” comes from שׁמא shahmah “to be high.” Hence, a body of persons exalted to a high position over “kindreds, tongues, peoples, and nations” are heavens which rule. Thus the Spirit in speaking of the overthrow of the political system in Idumea, says in Isai. xxxiv. 4, “All the host of the heavens shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a p. 144 falling from the fig tree; for my sword shall be bathed in the heavens; behold it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse to judgment.” In this the phrase “the heavens” is interpreted to signify “the people of Yahweh’s curse” who rule Idumea, and destined for a great slaughter in Botzra of that land—Isai. lxiii. 1; Rev. xix. 17-21.
Again in Isai. xiii. in predicting the overthrow of the Babylonish empire the Spirit saith, “the stars of the heavens and their constellations shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine—ver. 10. The meaning of this is explained in the succeeding verses, as the punishing of the taivail of Babylon, made up of its wicked, proud, and terrible, civil, idolatrous, and military peoples. Read the whole chapter. As to the Sun of Babylon being darkened in his going forth, the fourteenth chapter exhibits it in beautiful style in the “proverb taken up against the king of Babylon,” Belshatzar, in which he is apostrophized as the Day Star of the system, saying, “How art thou fallen from the heavens, O Day Star, son of the morning; thou art cut down to the earth, who didst weaken the nations!” And the reason of his fall is predicted in the next verse, “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend the heavens, I will exalt my throne above the stars of AIL; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation on the sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the cloud; I will be like the Most High.” Read in connexion with this Dan. v. 22-30, where this predicted impiety is forcibly depicted, as the cause of Nebuchadnezzar’s Dynasty being cast out of the Babylonish heavens. When Isaiah wrote this prophecy, Babylon had only just began to appear as a speck upon the political horizon of Judea: but in considering its development, he predicted that its government would aim to overshadow YAHWEH’S kingdom of Judah; and to establish its dominion above “the Stars” of Aaron and David’s houses, and over “the heights” of Moriah and Zion, which were “the heights of the cloud” that rested upon the Wings of the Cherubim in the Most Holy Place.
What has here been adduced will be sufficient to illustrate the scripture use of the word heavens, in a multitude of instances. In the same sense it is representative of the members of the divine administration of mankind’s affairs in the Millennial Cycle, or World to Come. The Ail of Yeshurun rides these heavens, his eternal omnipotence being incarnated in each of them; so that, as Ezekiel says, “whither the Spirit is to go, they go;” or as John expresses it, “these are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth;” and “the body guards in the heaven follow Him upon white horses, clothed in fine p. 145 linen, white and clean”—“which is the righteousness of the saints”—clouds of cavalry making war in righteousness; or carrying on a just, righteous, and necessary war—Ezek. i. 12; Rev. xiv. 4; xix. 14, 8. The Eternal Spirit rides these, whose Head, or Commander-in-Chief, is the Great Prince Michael, or “Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews.” They are the Eternal Majesty in Clouds, or “the Mighty Ones of the East, the Powers of Olahm,” who will be Israel’s refuge in the terrible affliction that impends.
“Whosoever boasteth himself in a gift of falsehood is as clouds and wind without rain.” Such, Jude describes those men to be, who had crept into the ecclesias at unawares, speaking evil of the apostles’ teaching, which they did not understand: “they are clouds without water carried about of winds—wandering stars.” This is what the saints of the right stamp are not. On the contrary, they are clouds with water, whose doctrine drops as the rain, and their speech distils as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass: because they proclaim the NAME OF YAHWEH—Deut. xxxii. 2.
Finally upon this point, it is worthy of remark, that the rendering of Paul’s words in 1 Thes. iv. 17, “shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air,” is objectionable. This is one of those things of Paul’s writings, which Peter said were hard to be understood by the unlearned and unstable. These suppose, that Paul taught that the resurrected and changed should be carried up like Elijah to the dew-point of our atmosphere, the region of the clouds, there to remain for ever with the Lord. But, I object that Paul had no reference to either the clouds of our atmosphere, or to the air itself; and for these reasons.
In the first place, αρπαγησομεθα, rendered “we shall be caught up,” neither expresses the idea of up nor down; but signifies “to snatch, to seize, to take hold of forcibly, as a wild beast doth its prey;” and hence, the idea of hurrying off by any kind of force or power.
In the next place, Paul does not say in the clouds, but simply, εν νεφελαις, in clouds; instead therefore of “caught up in the clouds,” we read “hurried off in clouds:” so that clouds of saints, by almighty power, will be removed from the east, west, north, and south, where they have been resurrected, “for a meeting of the Lord” in the territory of his kingdom, the Holy Land—Luke xiii. 28, 29.
p. 1463. The Aerial
Thirdly, εις ἀερα[?], rendered “in the air,” is devoid of “the” in the Greek. It may be rendered in various ways, according to the preposition used, and with or without an indefinite article. I prefer that which may be found in harmony with Paul’s use of the word elsewhere, when speaking of the administration of the existing order, commonly styled “world.” Thus in Eph. ii. 2, where he reminds the saints of what they were as pagans before they obeyed the truth, he says, “in which sins formerly ye walked about according to the course of this order (κατα τον αιωνα του κοσμου τουτον) according to the ruling of the authority OF THE AIR; of the Spirit which now works in the sons of disobedience: among whom also we all were conversant in times past in the lusts of our flesh.” Here “the course of the order” is parallel with “the ruling of the authority of the Air;” which is based upon and nurtured by that flesh-and-blood “spirit” which rules in all sinners, and is essentially rebellious against God. In these phrases “the Air” and “the Spirit” are parallel. The ruling of the authority of the existing course of things in the Air or Spirit working. It is the Spirit of disobedience incarnate in the authorities exercising dominion and power over the nations, with whom Paul and his co-laborers “wrestled.” Thus he says in ch. vi. 12, “the contest for us is not against blood and flesh, but with the sovereignties, with the authorities, with the world-rulers of the darkness of this Course (αιωνος) with the spirituals of the wickedness, in the upper regions.” These uppers (επουρανιοι) are “the Air,” which by metonomy is put for all politically contained.
The Air, in apostolic times, which penetrated everywhere, was the power of the Fourth Beast. This Aerial Power, or Spirit, encountered Paul wherever he went proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and assailed him through the constituted authorities, Jewish and Gentile. He contended against them, endeavoring to open men’s eyes, and to turn them from the darkness of the existing course, in which the spirituals of the system, the Chief Priests and Rabbis of Israel, and the Imperial Pontifex Maximus, and all the priests of his idolatrous worship, flourished to their heart’s content. The Chief Priests, Pharisees, and kings of Judah, Cæsar, and all the civil and ecclesiastical or spiritual, authorities of the Roman empire, were the sovereignties, authorities, and world rulers of the darkness—all of them the spirituals of the wickedness, constituting, in the aggregate, the Uppers; or, as it is expressed among us, “the Uppertendom” of the order of things at that p. 147 time extant. This was the Devil and Satan in the apocalyptic heaven before he was cast out into the earth—Rev. xii. 9 In turning men from the dark superstition of his times, Paul turned them from “the power of Satan unto God”—Acts xxvi. 18; and if any of them happened to be spirituals of the wickedness in the uppers, or Air,—that is, officials in Church or State, they were cast out into the earth, and had to eke out an existence among the undistinguished multitude, the best way they could.
The Great Teacher, the Spirit in Jesus, uses “the Air” in this sense, in one of the parables illustrating the kingdom of the heavens. In Matt. xiii. 31, he likens this monarchy to a tree, the greatest among herbs, in whose branches the birds of the air come and lodge. The birds of the political aerial, that come and lodge in this tree, are clouds of saints, who are “for an air,” and in the air, millennial.
The Air is twice mentioned in the Apocalypse, where it has no reference to the natural atmosphere; first, in Rev. ix. 2; and afterwards, in Rev. xvi. 17. In both these places, it stands for the same thing as in the epistle to the Ephesians, only at widely remote epochs of the times of the Gentiles; the former being the political air, contemporary with the invasion of the Roman empire by the Saracens; the latter, the same Air, only contemporary with the coming of Jesus Anointed with the clouds.
Now the revealed purpose of the Deity is to change “the Air”—to ‘hurl the mighty from their thrones; exalt them of low degree, and to send the rich empty away—Luke i. 52-55. When this is accomplished, the kingdoms of this world will have become those of YAHWEH, and his Anointed, according to Rev. xi. 15. The political air, in which the sun, moon, and stars of the nations now shine, will then be abolished, and a new order be substituted in their stead. This new order is styled in the prophets, “a New Heavens, and a New Earth, in which dwelleth righteousness.” The course of this order, the ruling of the authority of this air, will be the Spirit that works in the sons of obedience. Instead of the apostles, or others like them, contending against, or wrestling with, the sovereignties, authorities, and world-rulers, of those upper regions of society, they will themselves be those rulers—the spirituals of righteousness in high places. The spirituals of wickedness, such as the Pope, and locust-clouds of ecclesiastics, of which he is the acknowledged chief, with all other clergies of every “Name and Denomination” of the dominion of Antichrist, together with all the secular officials in place and power, will all be cast out, and punished by the Saints for their iniquity. This honor is assigned to them; as it is written, “The Saints shall be joyful in glory; they shall shout with joy p. 148 upon their couches. The high things of AIL shall be in their mouth, and a devouring sword in their hand, to execute vengeance upon the Gentiles, and punishments upon the peoples: to bind their kings with chains, and their honorables with fetters of iron: to execute upon them the judgment written; this honor is for all his Saints: Praise ye YAH”—Psalm cxlix. 5. To “an air,” such as this, the Saints are conducted in clouds, for a meeting of the Lord, that henceforth they may be with him thus for evermore.
4. “Every Eye shall see Him”
The personage to be seen, is indicated in the next sentence as he who was “pierced.” Every eye shall see him whom they pierced; as saith the Spirit in Zech. xii. 10, “I will pour upon the House of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn before him as mourning on account of the Only Begotten, and be in bitterness before him as in bitterness on account of the Firstborn. In that day, great shall be the mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon, in the valley of Megiddon. And the land shall mourn; families apart from families; the family of the house of David, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart. All the families that remain; families apart from families, and their wives apart.”
The passage in the Apocalypse has reference to this. Its language is a condensation of Zechariah’s—“Every eye shall see Him, and they who pierced him, and all the tribes of the land shall mourn before him.” But the “every eye” comprehends more than “all the families that remain.” The resurrection of certain of the dead is also implied. For, as the reader will remember, Jesus said to the Pharisees and others, in the days of his flesh, “Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer, and say unto you, I know ye not whence ye are. Then will ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me all workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of p. 149 teeth when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of the Deity, and you yourselves thrust out. And they shall come (to where Jesus then was) from the east and west, and from the north and the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of the Deity. And behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last”—Luke xiii. 24.
Jesus spoke these things to persons then living, and while the genealogies of the families of the land were in existence, which is not now the case. The families and houses named by Zechariah cannot now be defined, hence the resurrection of the dead belonging to those houses is implied. To some of these families it was said by apostles, “to this end the Anointed One both died, and rose, and lived again, that he might rule over both dead and living ones. For we shall all stand before the tribunal of the Anointed One. For it is written, “As I live, saith YAHWEH, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to the Deity,” “that Jesus Anointed is Lord, to the glory of Deity the Father.” (Phil. ii. 11.) So then every one of us shall give account of himself to the Deity”—Rom. xiv. 9-12; “that we may receive again through the body the things according to which he practised, whether good or bad”—2 Cor. v. 10.
“Every eye,” then, is comprehensive of classes of Israelites and Gentiles according to flesh and spirit. The eyes of the latter who shall see him in joy and peace, are the eyes of the Four Cherubic Living Ones, which are “full of eyes” before, behind, and within—Rev. iv. 6, 8. These eyes will not weep and mourn, for they will see the King, YAHWEH of armies, whose “Eyes of Glory” they will be—Isa. vi. 5. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see the Deity—Matt. v. 8—the Deity manifested in spirit-flesh, and of which manifestation they shall be the hypostasis, or substratum.
But “every eye” will be directed towards the Lord, as the great object of absorbing interest for weal or woe to all mankind; for “the glory of YAHWEH shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see together”—Isa. xl. 5. Again, “it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory—ch. lxvi. 18. The glory which they are to come and see, is stated in verses 15 and 16, where it is testified, that “YAHWEH will come with fire and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire; for by fire, and by his sword, will YAHWEH plead with all flesh; and the slain of YAHWEH shall be many.” This is his coming with the clouds, at the time that “He has gathered all nations against Jerusalem to war;” for “then shall he go forth and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And his p. 150 feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east.” “Then,” says the prophet, “YAHWEH my Elohim shall come in—all the holy ones with thee”—Zech. xiv. 2-5. In this fight against the nations, Gog is overthrown “with pestilence and blood; and, saith Adonai YAHWEH, I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone; thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am YAHWEH,” or He that shall be—Ezek. xxxvii. 22, 23.
But while the armies of the nations subjected to this terrible overthrow upon the mountains of Israel see the glory that defeats them, the multitudes of the nations themselves in their several lands are not eyewitnesses. To these, therefore, it is made known by proclamation through certain who have witnessed it. Hence, speaking of the remnant of Israel in Jerusalem, the Spirit saith, “I will set an Ensign among them; and I will send of those that escape unto the nations, Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, sounders of the truth, to Tubal and Javan, the isles afar off, which have not heard my fame, nor seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations”—Isa. lxvi. 19; Rev. xiv. 6, 7.
When “every eye shall see him” upon these principles, it will be manifestly a time of great trouble. It is, in fact, the “time of trouble,” both of Jacob and the Gentiles, out of which, however, “Jacob shall be delivered”—Jer. xxx. 7. Daniel declares it to be “a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation to that same time”—xii. 1. Israel’s hopes will be at the lowest ebb; and unless another Joseph appear as in Egypt, for the salvation of his father’s house, they must perish. But the Eternal Power has provided for them a Deliverer after the type of Joseph, who at his second interview with the nation, his brethren after the flesh, will reveal himself to them in the day of affliction; and when they shall discover, as Zechariah teaches, by the wounds in his hands, that he is Yahoshaia, or Jesus, who was wounded in the house of his kindred (ch. xiii. 6; xii. 10); and that it is to him they are indebted for deliverance from the enemy, they will mourn and be in bitterness before him, as their fathers were in Joseph’s presence, whom, as they had served Jesus, they sold for a few pieces of silver. All the tribes of the earth will howl, for the anguish of the times will be great—Israel among the nations, as a lion among flocks of sheep; YAHWEH’S battle-axe and weapons of war to break in pieces the nations, and destroy the kingdoms; his new sharp threshing instrument to beat the mountains small, and to make the hills as chaff; his fan to fan p. 151 them; a whirling wind to scatter them as thistle down—Jer. l. 20; Isa. xli. 15, 16; xvii. 13. “Even so, Amen.”
5. Annunciation
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, beginning and ending, saith the Lord, the Who is, and Who was, and Who is coming, the Omnipotent”—Apoc. i, 8.
These words announce to us that He who is coming is “The Almighty;” also that this almighty one pertains to the past, the present, and the future; that he has a “beginning” and also “an ending,” as symbolized by the first letter of the Greek alphabet “το Α,” and by the last, or “το Ω”—“the Alpha and the Omega.”
But let the reader understand, that this annunciation is not an announcement that the Eternal Theos, styled “the Father,” had a beginning. If he had not always existed without beginning, there would have been no creation. To imagine a time, or point of past eternity, when Theos or Ail, commonly styled “God,” did not exist, would be to suppose an epoch when there was nothing—no existing thing; and this supposition would be to make nothing the intelligent and wise creator of something, which is palpably absurd.
No; the annunciation before us carries us back no further than that “beginning” to which John had already introduced his readers, in the book he had already written, to convince men that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Son of the Deity; and that believing they might have life through his name—Jno. xx. 31—the beginning of the preëxistent Deity, by his Spirit-Effluence, or Logos, becoming Flesh; the beginning of the “Great Mystery, Deity manifested in Flesh”—1 Tim. iii. 16.
This manifestation, then, as we have shown, had its beginning. It began in Jesus, Son of David and Son of Deity. Of him it was prophesied, “they pierced my hands and my feet.” He was cut off, or covenanted; and afterwards removed by Eternal Power from this sublunary field of blood. But Jesus, though the Head, was not the Body. He had suffered, but his sufferings did not complete the sufferings of “His Body, which is the Ecclesia.” Hence Paul says, “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the affliction of the Anointed One in my flesh for His Body’s sake, which is the Ecclesia—Col. i. 24. But Paul did not consider that his sufferings, added to those of Jesus, would fill up the measure; for, in writing to the saints in Corinth he associates them with himself in the work “As the sufferings of the Anointed One,” says he, “abound in us, so our p. 152 consolation also aboundeth through the Anointed One. But whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is operative in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. And our hope of you is steadfast, knowing that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so ye shall be also of the consolation—2 Cor. i. 5-7. “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him—2 Tim. ii. 12.
Thus the Body is pierced with suffering as well as its Head; and as Jesus, “though a son, learned obedience by the things which he suffered,” so all his brethren must. It will be seen, then, that when the One Body is complete in all its elements, it will have been a suffering community. This is its Alpha, its Beginning, its ὁ ων[?], or present condition. Most of its members are in the womb of death, shut up within “the gates of the invisible,” which are so securely locked that no power can open them save that which is eternal. The key or power, is with Jesus, through whom it will operate as it did upon him when the power or spirit of the Father raised him from the dead.
At present, the Saints sleeping in the dust, and the few that are living in this generation, are all waiting for “The Adoption;” for living or dead, they were all immersed in hope of being planted in the likeness of the resurrection of their Elder Brother. Being thus “baptized for the dead,” they suffer with him, that they may be glorified together in the manifestation of the Sons of the Deity, who shall then “with him freely give us all things”—Rom. vi. 5; viii. 23, 17, 19, 32. As the brain in the head has property in the body, and calls it his; so the Logos in Jesus has property in him and his brethren, and styles them members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones; so that they all become one flesh; “which is a great mystery,” says Paul; “but I speak concerning the Anointed One and the Ecclesia”—Eph. v. 22-32.
When this great mystery shall be consummated in the resurrection and the subsequent anointing of the One Body, “the Omega,” “the Ending,” and “the Who is coming,” will be manifested. The whole multitude will be “DEITY MANIFESTED IN FLESH”—glorified flesh, which is Holy Spirit, or πνευμα ἁγιωσυνης[?], the divine nature at present common to Jesus and the angels; and then participated in by all the Saints; all of which is the development of the principle affirmed by him to Nicodemus, that “that which has been born of the Spirit is Spirit.”
Here, then, is “a multitude which no man can number,” every individual of which is Holy Spirit Flesh, glorified substance, “equal to the angels;” the ONE YAHWEH and the ONE NAME. When they all attain to this Omega state, there will be nothing lacking. The Ending will p. 153 be manifest. There will be no further proclamation inviting Jews and Gentiles to the kingdom and glory of the Deity. The Body will be complete, and have attained through much tribulation to a high estate. Whatever may be the destiny of the earthborns of the Millennial nations in relation to the post-millennial cycle, they will not be ranked with the Alpha and the Omega of this annunciation. The Second Adam and his Bride will be the embodiment of Eternal Power—the Almighty inheritor of the earth and all that it contains; for “it is his and the fulness thereof.”
The symbol in the text is very expressive. It is the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Between these two are twenty-two other letters, which, with the first and last, make one alphabet—twenty-four in one; an idea still further elucidated in the “twenty-four elders,” who are representative of the Almighty Alpha and Omega manifestation of Deity.
In connection with this annunciation, I would recall the attention of the reader to Isai. xli. 4, where the Eternal Spirit says, “I, YAHWEH the First One and the Last Ones, I—HE; the isles saw and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came.” I have supplied the words one and ones to mark the singular and plural of the original. In this, “the Last Ones” are “the Omega,” and “the Ending,” and the “He who is coming,” of the apocalypse.