Spiritual Reflection, December 2022
A Preview of the Second Coming (Adventus)
In response to his disciples’ question, “What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” Yeshua says: “At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (Luke 21:27).
Among the four Gospels, only Luke records Yeshua saying that he will come in a cloud. The other accounts use the plural, “clouds.” Why does Luke emphasize the singular “cloud”? Luke is preparing his reader for what he writes a few chapters later in Acts 1. We have to remember that Luke’s gospel and Acts are volumes one and two of a single narrative.
In Luke’s gospel, Yeshua says that people will see him coming in a cloud at the end of the age. Four chapters later, in Acts 1, Yeshua gives his apostles a preview of the Second Coming, a sneak peek. Before the eyes of the Eleven, Yeshua ascends higher and higher into the sky. Then, like something out of Star Trek, a single cloud takes him back to heaven: “he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9).
Acts 1:9 presents a preview of what is to come. This cloud was a chariot (Psalm 104:3). Yeshua Anani (the King Messiah who rides on a cloud) ascended into his cloud chariot and then returned to heaven, warp speed. Note that right after the cloud takes Yeshua away, we are told in Acts 1:10-11: “They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. ‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Yeshua, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.’”
In the same way that Yeshua ascended into his cloud chariot and returned to heaven, he will in the future descend from heaven riding in his cloud chariot. And he will return as a Jew (Revelation 22:12, 16). On that day, the Son of David will protect his people, and his feet will once again stand on the Mount of Olives (Zech 14:3-4; Acts 1:12). Marana ta (Our Lord, come)!
David Rudolph