For as the lightning goes forth from the east and shines to the west, so shall be the coming of the Son of man.
Just before this verse, people are saying the Christ is here or there — out in the wilderness, or hidden in an inner room. Here the Lord gives the reason to refuse every such report. His coming carries its own proof, like a flash that crosses the whole sky.
Lightning is not a private event. Nobody has to be told where to look.
The coming of the true Christ of God will be marked by the greatest possible publicity, like the lightning. No one will need to travel to a remote desert or a secret chamber to see Him.
More claims of a secret, unseen arrival are still to come.
Others would claim that He was "in the inner rooms," that is, that He had come in secret, unseen... Other such foolish claims will yet be made. But the Lord is emphatic: the coming of the Son of Man in power and glory will be like the lightning shining from east to west — sudden, bright, and evident to all the world. He does not speak here of His earlier coming for His saints, but that will be just as evident to all who share its great blessing.
Many tie this verse to the Roman armies that destroyed Jerusalem under Titus. One detail rules that out: the direction.
This is not the Roman conquest. The army of Titus did not come out of the east, as the lightning does here, and it did not shine to the west. If the Romans had been meant, the very reverse would be a more fitting figure. So clearly has the Lord Jesus guarded against the misinterpretations of men! The Son of Man's coming will be quite different and will take everyone by surprise, like the lightning. There will be no question of going here or there to seek Him.
The false Christs of the previous verses are lights of a sort, lit to lead people off the path.
They were not to follow any of those false lights that Satan lit to deceive souls. The Lord, the Son of Man, would come as lightning — suddenly, and with a brightness that would leave no doubt about His person when He appeared in this way.
Why must this coming be open rather than quiet? The state of things by then decides it.
He would come openly, not secretly. The need would be so great that it would call for open intervention, not secret help. His coming would be like the lightning lighting up the whole sky — the announcement of swift and unsparing judgment... Long-suffering patience held out no more hope. Judgment itself was now the only mercy.
The Greek word behind "coming" here is parousia. On its own it means someone who was away is now here. It does not say whether that arrival is seen. The context has to settle that.
Its precise use in the Epistles is to set forth the actual presence (and so by implication the coming, if previously absent) of a person or thing. It may or may not be a manifested presence; the context, or the nature of the case, must decide it. So the parousia of Christ as Son of Man is clearly so open that all the tribes of the earth mourn as they see Him.
The same writer makes the figure itself a test. What sort of arrival does lightning picture?
When the Son of Man comes in bodily presence, this is no doubt the fitting comparison. The appearing of the Lord Jesus from heaven will be sudden and bright, like the lightning. Is that our hope? Does Scripture ever present our Lord as the lightning coming to receive the Church? Is that how a bridegroom comes for his bride? On the other hand, if He comes then and in this way to judge... I can understand that the shining of the lightning would be a most fitting figure for such a coming and such dealings. It does not fit the indescribable peace and heavenly joy of the meeting between the Bridegroom and the Bride. It fits exactly His presence in judgment.
- Rumour — No "He is here" report can stand. A coming seen from one horizon to the other needs no messenger.
- Direction — East to west breaks the tie to the Roman armies. Their advance ran the opposite way.
- Brightness — Satan's false lights lead people astray. The lightning leaves no doubt whose person the world is seeing.
- Openness — By then the need calls for open intervention, not secret help. Judgment is the only mercy left.
- Fitness — The figure sorts the two hopes. Lightning suits a coming in judgment, not a bridegroom coming for his bride.
[For] wherever the carcase is, there will be gathered the eagles.
The Lord has just described His coming as lightning across the sky. He then adds a short proverb about a dead body and the birds that gather to it. Who is the corpse? Who are the birds? And why does this grim picture belong in a description of the Son of man's return?
The saying works like a law of nature: birds of prey do not need directions to a body. One writer points to a line in Job behind the image, and reads the saying as a rule about how judgment works.
The words mean that where the object of judgment is, there the executioners will do their work. The Scripture which our Lord probably had in view is Job 39:30. I believe the prophecy applies to the apostate part of the Jewish nation. That part of the nation will be like a lifeless carcase when divine vengeance falls on it at the end of the age.
Older translations read "eagles" where the ESV has "vultures." The bird in view is a scavenger, not the solitary hunter we usually picture.
This is supposed to be the bird known as the Griffon Vulture or Great Vulture... No sooner does an animal fall than these birds congregate in numbers on its carcase, according to Job 9:26; Matt. 24:28. The true eagle is a solitary bird, but vultures are seldom found alone.
The body is not named. One writer takes that silence as deliberate.
Where then, in what the Lord says here, is positive judgment found? It is contained, almost concealed, in these words: "For wherever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered." I think that passage alludes to an expression in the book of Job 39:30. It treats the Jews, who have united themselves with the enemies of God, as lost and dead, without wishing to name them again.
One short comment names the same body and its end:
The carcase is the apostate part of the Jewish nation, that which is most offensive to God — only a carcase! lifeless, fit only for judgment, and the judgment will fall on them, and there will be no escaping it.
If armies do the work, is the judgment merely human politics?
The moment you refer "His carcase" to the Jewish people, it becomes strikingly true. The mass of the Jews then will be apostate. The eagles or vultures that flock there are figures of God's judgments on the guilty people, carried out by the hostile nations of the earth. Whatever may be the instruments, they are judgments of God executed at this time.
Commentators differ on how wide the corpse reaches. One takes in more than Israel:
This coming of verse 27 is plainly in judgment, as verse 26 confirms. "The carcass," the corrupt condition of both Israel and the nations, will draw "the eagles," the executors of a well deserved judgment.
Some have applied the verse to the church: the church is the body, or Christ is the body and believers are the birds. One writer tests each picture.
Apply this to the Church or to the Christian, and what can you make of it? Is the Church "the carcase"? The Church united to Christ by the Holy Spirit is His body: it is a wonderful privilege and a blessed truth, but is the Church a carcase? Surely not: it is His living body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Nor is the Lord ever regarded as a body dead or merely alive, but as the risen and glorified Head.
The same writer offers a test that reaches past this one verse: a wrong reading of one passage throws the rest of Scripture out of joint.
If the Christians were the carcase, they must be the object of the judgment... But this is not the relation of the Lord's coming to the Christian. Nor can any Christians be the eagles or instruments of divine vengeance, any more than the carcase, without abandoning all the truth and character of their calling.
The disciples once asked the Lord where this would happen. One writer draws out His answer.
But when the Lord had given this solemn warning, the disciples exclaimed, "Where, Lord?"... As if the Lord had said, "Where?" — what a strange question! When the eagles seek their prey, where do they go? Wherever there is a carcase to be found. When these eagle-judgments are abroad in search of the wicked, where will they rest? Of course, wherever any wicked one is to be found. If he is in bed, or at the mill, or in the field, whatever righteous ones may be his companions, even there shall those judgments go.
- Corpse — the figure stands for the apostate part of the nation, lifeless before God and named only as a body.
- Corruption draws — no one calls the vultures to a fallen animal. Moral decay draws its own judgment.
- Executioners — where the object of judgment lies, those who carry it out will do their work. Nations may be the instruments. The judgment is God's.
- No hiding place — the answer to "Where?" is simple: wherever the guilty are — in bed, at the mill, in the field.
- Not the church — readings that make Christ the body, or believers the birds, collapse. The church is His living body, and He is the risen Head.
But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened, and the moon not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.
The Lord has just spoken of a tribulation like no other. Now He tells the disciples what follows the moment it ends. The lights in the sky fail, and the settled order of the heavens gives way. Two questions run through this verse. When does it happen? And are the darkened sun, moon and stars real events, or pictures of something else?
The word "immediately" ties this collapse to the tribulation just described. Writers hold that this tribulation is still ahead. One commentator compares how Matthew, Mark and Luke each report the Lord's words:
Notice how Matthew and Mark dwell on the troubles tied to the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place. They tell us that no trouble like it had ever been known, and none like it would ever come after… They also speak of the Lord's coming as following close on those days of fierce trial (Matt. 24:29; Mark 13:24). Luke mentions neither those days nor the abomination of desolation. His gospel teaches plainly that a period of unmeasured length would come between Jerusalem's capture and the Lord's return (Luke 21:24).
One writer rejects a popular reading of the verse:
A popular view makes this verse the point where the Lord starts speaking about His own return. That destroys the force of "immediately after the tribulation of those days" and breaks the connection with the true transition to the last days in verse 15.
Many read the three lights by a pattern Scripture itself sets, starting in Genesis:
This is the symbolic language of prophecy. But how should we read it?… In Genesis the greater light, the lesser light and the stars rule the day and the night. Throughout Revelation and prophecy generally, the heavenly bodies stand for rule: the sun for supreme authority, the moon for reflected authority, while the stars represent the minor and lower vessels of rule. So verse 29 is a symbolic picture of all government being completely overturned as soon as Daniel's seventieth week ends.
Read that way, the verse says where human history is headed:
Supreme power, pictured by the sun, goes dark. Derived authority, pictured by the moon, stops having any influence. Subordinate authorities, likened to the stars, lose their place and power. This age, despite all that men boast about progress, will end in tribulation, confusion and anarchy like nothing before it.
Commentators differ on how far the symbolism goes. One points out that these words of the Lord do not lean on symbols the way Revelation does:
Still, the Lord does not use many symbols in this talk, as the book of Revelation does. So we think we must not rule out real upheavals in the heavenly bodies. We know the sun really did go dark when Jesus died. The darkness of that day will make the brightness of His shining forth stand out all the more, when He comes in the clouds with great power and glory.
The last clause reaches past the visible sky. One writer says what is certain about it:
It is clear that the whole stability of government will be shaken. The general sense is plain. God's hand and will touch not only the earth, but the sources of power: "I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens."… The rulers and authorities in heavenly places stop acting as God's agents, and they shake under this great act, which hands that rule to the Son of man.
Some ask whether this shaking is the same event as Satan being thrown out of heaven in Revelation 12. One writer answers by looking at the timing:
In Revelation 12 Satan is cast down clearly before the last great tribulation. He is furious, because he knows he has only a short time… In the gospels, where the mark of time seems precise (Matt. 24, Mark 13), the shaking of the powers of the heavens comes after the tribulation… So, as events, the two have nothing to do with one another.
One writer marks off this coming from the church's hope:
Here in Matthew 24 there is no gathering of saints to Christ in heavenly glory. This is the coming of the Son of man, to whom all judgment is committed… While He is hidden, they are hidden too. When He appears, they appear too, having been caught up beforehand.
- Order — the sequence is fixed. Tribulation first, then the lights fail, then He comes in the clouds. The whole verse turns on "immediately after."
- Rule — in Scripture the sun, moon and stars stand for supreme, derived and subordinate authority. Their darkening pictures every level of government collapsing at once.
- Reach — the shaking reaches the sources of power, not just the earth: "I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens."
- Reading — commentators differ on whether the darkness is only symbolic. Some point to the sun going dark when Jesus died as a reason to expect real upheavals too.
- Result — that darkness is the backdrop for His glory. His heavenly saints appear with Him, not after Him, because they were caught up beforehand.
And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the land lament, and they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
The disciples had asked what the sign of His coming would be, and here is the Lord's answer: a sign in heaven, mourning on earth, His own arrival on the clouds. But what is that sign, and who are the tribes that mourn?
Earlier in Matthew, religious leaders pressed Jesus for a sign from heaven. He refused them. One writer ties that refusal to this verse:
The Sadducees and the Pharisees together demanded a sign from heaven from Him. Their hatred of Him was strong enough to join two groups that could not stand each other. That sign the Lord did not and could not give. He could not make Himself acceptable to the world, or prove Himself on the world's terms... But in due time, though in a way they did not look for, a sign from heaven will be given to them. They asked for it (Matt. 16:1), and they shall have it (Matt. 24:29-30); but it will be a sign of coming judgment, a sign that the Son of Man is on His way from heaven in the clouds to carry out the vengeance that is written.
Commentators differ. Some argue the wording makes the coming itself the sign, and point to Mark and Luke:
The Lord had already taught them about the end of the age. Now He tells them that the sign of His coming will be the coming itself. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. In the phrase "sign of your coming," the coming is itself the sign. Mark and Luke give that same real coming of the Son of Man without calling it a sign.
Others identify the sign with the cloud of God's presence that marked Israel's history:
What is the sign of the Son of Man? We believe it will be the Shekinah cloud. A cloud covered Him when He stayed with Israel long ago. A cloud took Him out of His disciples' sight, and a cloud must bring Him back. At the bitter end of the great tribulation, when His faithful remnant is hard pressed on all sides... there will be seen, we believe, a bright and shining cloud in the heavens, a cloud from which fire shines out.
The word behind "tribes of the earth" can also be read "tribes of the land." The writer below quotes an older translation that chose "land":
"And then all the tribes of the land will lament." The context seems to favour "land" here rather than "earth"; the word can mean either. Such mourning is never linked with His coming to take us up to Himself.
Not every tear in that mourning is the same. One writer separates the wail of those who rejected Him from the grief of those delivered from unbelief:
They would see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with power and great glory. Then all the tribes of the land — the land of Israel, I think — will wail because of Him. These are the people who had rejected Him, and who now see Him returning in glory. The faithful share the nation's fate in a general way, but God has freed them from their unbelief. We know they will mourn in another way (Zech. 12:10-14), looking on the One whom they had pierced.
One writer marks this public scene off from Christ's coming for the Church:
This is not His coming as Bridegroom for the Church, but His public appearing with His saints, as Col. 3:4 speaks. All who were caught up earlier will come with Him on that solemn day.
Some read this coming as a figure of speech rather than a real arrival. One writer answers from the way Jesus speaks in the rest of the discourse:
Someone may ask, Why may we not take the phrase figuratively in Matt. 24:30 and literally in other parts of the discourse? Here is our reply. Our Lord uses that phrase ten or eleven times in this one discourse, and every time He means it literally. To suppose that He then used it once figuratively, in the same discourse, with no hint of a different sense, is to suppose Him speaking in a way calculated to deceive.
- Asked — Religious leaders demanded a sign from heaven, and Christ refused. Here He gives it — as a sign of coming judgment.
- Shown — Commentators differ on the sign. Some read it as the coming itself; others as the cloud of God's presence.
- Mourned — Two sounds, not one. Those who rejected Him wail; those freed from unbelief look on the One they pierced and grieve.
- Distinguished — This is not Christ coming for the Church. It is His public appearing, and His saints come with Him.
- Literal — Take the words as they stand, like the rest of the discourse: a real Man, in a real coming, in power and great glory.