Did you know that every eye of everyone who pierced Jesus has already seen Him because of the clouds He came on … and then they were to become a mourner over the crucifixion?
In order to understand Revelation, we need to understand the two main “speakers” – John to whom the ascended Messiah spoke and Jesus the Messiah, Himself. These are Hebrews, expressing things mainly to Hebrews and those reading the Old Testament Hebrew Bible. It gave the pattern for New Testament events. When we read with a Hebrew mindset, we can see all prophecies perfectly fulfilled with nothing left hanging. That means we have it all now – untold blessings! That’s why I keep saying, the 16th century reformation isn’t over.
After Jesus rose from the dead, He spent 40 days sharing His message by connecting Old Testament blue prints with the events of His coming. This was before He ascended as High Priest to the Father. The knowledge that the apostles and disciples had enabled them to write the New Testament documents. They copied what Jesus Christ had said.
In quoting the ascended Jesus again from His Revelatory vision, John quotes Jesus’ description of His High Priestly return in judgment, saying, “Behold, He is coming with the clouds and every eye will see Him; and they also who pierced Him. And the tribes of the land will mourn because of Him.”
We know this is about those people who crucified Jesus because the tribes of the land (Greek γῆ – gē), means the promised land, otherwise the word “kosmos” would have been used.
But how did they “see” Him? When we look at the Old Testament prophecy that Jesus is quoting, we see an Hebraic description of the Messianic Age (our age, in fact, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear). That is in Zechariah 12:10.
I think this is a most wonderful passage of hope for all people. What we have to understand about the message of Zechariah is that there are two Jerusalems being described. These are the good figs and the bad figs. Again, we must put on our Hebrew thinking caps and see that people are not figs – but Hebrew speaks commonly of abstract concepts in concrete terms – in metaphors. So, we have those who will be faithful in Christ and those who reject Him, even those who plot to kill and crucify Him.
So even though this passage that Jesus says is about the judgment of the bad guys, look and see, at last, they mourn. They weep and gnash their teeth when they “see” what they have done through the terror of Revelation’s judgments. And providentially we can read in plain prose recorded in the details by historian of that day, Josephus. And looking again in Zechariah 12 we see the mourning will draw the Spirit of grace and supplication. Mercy!! The blessing comes when they mourn!
Here’s the passage, that so many mistakenly think is a physical return of Christ to be seen with physical eyes. But Jesus says His kingdom comes not with observation. It’s a heart change that only the corrective judgment can bring to many.
Zechariah 12:10,
“I will pour out on the house of David and on the people of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace (unmerited favour) and supplication. And they will look at Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him as one who weeps bitterly over a firstborn.” Amplified Bible
So often Jesus and the prophets use the Greek verbs like “see”, and “look” (behold) in terms of understanding, and not physically seeing Jesus. It’s a spiritual term that is not just limited to Hebrew expression. Jesus explains its metaphor by saying “eyes to see” in Revelation 3:18.
Also in Isaiah 32:3 “Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will give attention.”
And in Isaiah 33:15 “He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil.”
Again, in Isaiah 43:8 “Bring out the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears!”
The eyes seeing or failing to see – as in seeing eyes being blind, are featured in the Hebrew prophets again and again. This is also how we sometimes talk, saying, “Look here, you don’t understand…” or “I see what you are saying.” And “My eyes were opened to the truth.” These are statements about understanding (an abstract term) and not physical eyes.
So, we see by looking at the old Hebrew text that Jesus is quoting as fulfilled in Revelation – a great set of events that happened just as He said before 66AD – …”must take place shortly” and to “this generation”, which always referred to those hearing and rejecting Him like the rulers in ancient, not modern day, Jerusalem.
And what of the clouds depicted with Jesus riding on? This is the Hebraism for the great High Priestly return in glory to judge as promised. They were to see Him in “houtōs tropos” – often translated “in the same way” so that people in our western culture wouuld think He will ride a cloud – yet the function of the physical cloud in this verse of Acts 1:11 was to obliterate His entering Heaven – they wanted to see, and they were told not to gaze because He would return. The “houtōs tropos” is not in a way that can be “gazed at” but “in the same circumstances” (tropos)– what were the circumstances for the “type” of Jesus as High Priest entering the Holy of Holies / or Old covenant Presence of God? Those circumstances were to bring judgment and payment for sin to bring freedom for all the Israelites. This was the manner in which He would return – as High Priest with the results of the judgment of sin. The ascension and return are the reality of the type which was practised in the annual Day of Atonement celebration.
He left as the actual Day of Atonement High priest to go to the Father having been the sacrifice with His own blood. And He had to return in that manner / role. This is how Hebrews describes His role and speaks of His return to destroy the Old Covenant and the souls (not the spirits) who had clung to it and rejected His fulfilment of it.
The ”clouds” in Hebrew Old Covenant expression were a symbol of the judgment which fell on the apostate peoples of the land in the three and a half years of the Roman Jewish war which followed a time of unprecedented tribulation that the apostles endured and John speaks of in Revelation 1:9.
The clouds of judgment as metaphor that Jesus uses in Matthew 26:27 – in the “Glory of His Father”
“For the Son of Man will come in His FAther’s glory with His angels, and then He will repay each one according to what he has done.” He then said, some standing there would live to see that day. Jesus did not lie.
His glory was the cloud that led them in the wilderness Exodus 13, 14, 16:10 and descended in Solomon’s temple. It was His symbolic feet that stood on the Mount of Olives, a prophecy of the glory departing from the temple before its destruction.
The coming on the clouds that Isaiah and the prophets wrote of (see Isaiah 19 and 30) were also metaphors for judgment of ancient nations, including Israel and Judah – it was always the hand of God through war by other stronger nations – just as happened with the final war of the destruction of the Old Covenant system and those who clung to it for their own glory.
We see these same Hebraisms in Psalm 18 where David tells of God’s judgment on King Saul and David’s saving. None of the geo-physical things are recorded in Kings in the prose account. But the glory cloud is referenced as God’s judgment. Likewise, in the judgment of nations such as ancient Assyria, we see in Isaiah 30: 30
“And the Lord will cause His voice of authority to be heard,
And the descending of His arm to be seen in fierce anger,
And in the flame of a consuming fire
In cloudburst, downpour, and hailstones.
31 For at the voice of the Lord Assyria will be terrified,
When He strikes with the rod.”
These are metaphors of judgment picked up also by Jesus in Revelation to depict – in the apocalyptic genre of the day – the judgment of those who crucified our Lord and all the prophets and martyrs who were under the metaphoric altar, aka, Jesus Christ.
But thanks be to God – He has let us know through the prophet Isaiah, it resulted in them mourning, regretting and “seeing” the truth of Who Jesus was. It was indeed harsh, but corrective punishment. His mercy always endures.
