A fourth feature we learn about the Second Coming is its unspeakable glory. Revelation 1:7–8 says:
“BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen. ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’”
The reference to the “clouds” is making two distinct points. First, it’s emphasizing that Christ will come from heaven. The fact that a cloud received Him in Acts 1 at the ascension into the sky, and that He’ll return with clouds, points out that in the Second Coming Jesus will descend from heaven. Another point is that He will come with power and glory, because whenever the Second Coming appears in other places of Scripture, that phrase is added. Daniel 7:13 reads, “‘I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a Son of Man was coming.’” Matthew 24:30 states, “They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.” Also, Luke 9:26 mentions “Whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”
Not only is Christ coming with glory, but He will also come as God. In the Old Testament, clouds are always associated with the divine presence. For example, God’s visible presence in the wilderness with His people was a cloud. At Sinai, a thick cloud covered the mountain, and that cloud was evidence of God’s presence on top of the mountain. At the tabernacle, clouds symbolized God’s presence. And the same thing was true at the temple as well.
Christ ascended into a cloud in Acts 1:9, and He will return to the earth with clouds. And he is not coming in humiliation and weakness, but surrounded by the cloud of God’s glory. He will come surrounded by the shekinah, the blazing glory of God’s presence.
During the incarnation, the glory of Christ was hidden. But, at the transfiguration, Peter, James, and John caught a passing glimpse of His glory. At the Second Coming, every eye will see Him in all the blinding brilliance of the shekinah of God, brighter than 10,000 suns. The Lord Jesus Christ will return to this earth in triumph. He will return, accompanied by innumerable angels and the redeemed, and He will do so in unspeakable glory. He is coming with the clouds.
The fifth feature of the Second Coming mentioned in Revelations 1:7–8 is its universal appearance: “every eye will see Him”. “BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS,” with the glory of the shekinah around Him, with the greatness of the blazing brilliance of God, “and every eye will see Him.” Jesus will return visibly, not hidden from human view. Matthew 24:27 says, “Just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.” Lightning is like the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, both in its suddenness, but also the blazing brilliance, its visibility. A typical lightning strike is about 3 to 4 miles long. But the longest bolt of lightning ever recorded was in Dallas, 118 miles long. The point is, when lightning travels from east to west, when it travels 118 miles across the sky, nobody misses it. And that’s the point of using lightning as an illustration of the Second Coming. Just as one can’t miss lightning on a stormy night, no human being will fail to see the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, “every eye will see Him.”