What does it mean that Jesus will come in the clouds (Revelation 1:7)?

4 Verse 7. "Behold, he cometh with clouds." This verse passes on to that which establishes His relation with the world the Jews included. That is the principal thought, the great subject of revelation here. The present dispensation is a dispensation of faith. The church has not seen Jesus risen; she has only seen the witnesses of His resurrection, and she must believe it on their testimony. "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed," John 20:29. Such is the principle on which the believer walks in the present dispensation. "Every eye shall see him" (not those only who believe); that is the character of the coming dispensation.

These two aspects of the Lord's appearing must be carefully observed in order to distinguish it from His coming for His Church, a truth not revealed in the Old Testament, because the Church never comes into view in the prophetic writings. (See, for example, Eph. 3) When He returns to claim His Bride, it is in pure unmingled blessing, and has for its object only His own people. (John 14:1-3; 1 Thess. 4:14-18.) The world will not even be aware of the event, save, perchance, from the unwilling recognition of the absence of so large a number with whom they had been conversant The shout, the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God are exclusively for the saints, and will not even be heard by the world around; or if they are heard, like the companions of Saul of Tarsus, when the Lord met him on the way to Damascus, they will not understand the significance of such unwonted sounds. The language will be incomprehensible to their ears, as it will come from a land to which they do not belong, and which they have never visited. No; when the Lord fulfils His promise to His waiting Church, "Surely, I come quickly," He has regard to it alone; and none but the saints will be caught up in the clouds to meet Him in the air, to be for ever with Him. But "the day" of which our passage treats will be public; it will be introduced when the Lord returns with His saints. It is of this John speaks when he says, "Behold, He cometh with clouds: and every eye shall see Him, and they which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him." (Rev. 1:7.) Our Lord Himself also describes it in Matthew's gospel: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man, in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory." (Matt. 24:29-30.) And in the same chapter we find the same two aspects — judgment and blessing — linked together. We thus read, "Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left." (vv. 40, 41.) And be it noticed that those "taken" here are taken for judgment, while those "left" are left for blessing in the kingdom which will then be established. This conclusively shows the difference between the Lord's return for His Church and His appearing, because when He comes for His people they, unlike these in Matthew, are taken away for blessing — to be with Himself; while those who are left are left for judgment.

Verse 7 refers to Christ's coming in great power and glory at the end of the Tribulation Period. This is not the rapture of the Church, which takes place at least seven years previously (1 Thess. 4:13-18), yet the Church bears witness to the world about this great coming of the Lord in power that all the world will have to face. Enoch bore witness to the Lord's coming in great glory (Jude 14), yet he himself was taken to heaven without dying before the flood of Noah came (Gen. 5:23-24). The flood of Noah is typical of the coming Tribulation. At the end of this awesome Tribulation period the Lord Jesus will be manifested and His saints manifested with Him (Col. 3:4; Rev. 19:11-16). Every eye will see Him. Gentiles will be awestruck, many with abject terror because of their callous unbelief. Those also who pierced Him, the tribe of Judah (Zech. 12:10-11), and all the tribes of the land of Israel will wail in broken humiliation because of their former unbelief toward Him. The book of Revelation centers around the truth of verse 7, but the blessing of the Church, of ourselves, is established (vv. 5-6) before this great event is mentioned.

Verse 7 gives us in very small compass the main theme of the book. The consummation is announced before we see the steps that lead up to it. The same feature characterizes many of the Psalms in the Old Testament. The public and glorious appearing of Christ will bring everything to a head. Every eye shall see Him in surroundings that indicate His Deity, for it is Jehovah, "who makes the clouds His chariot: who walks upon the wings of the wind" (Ps. 104:3). Zechariah had declared, "They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced" (Zech. 12:10), and this shall be fulfilled. He had also declared that there should be those of Israel who should see then the enormity of their national sin in His rejection, and mourn for it in deep repentance. Our verse here announces that all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him; not in repentance evidently, but because it seals their doom, and they realize it. Plain proof, this that the world is not going to be converted as the preparation for His coming.

This is the tribute of the redeemed to their Redeemer, and now we have their testimony also: "Behold, He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and such as pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth shall wail because of Him." This, it is plain, is not the coming of the Lord to take us to Himself. It is a coming to the earth when the heavens give back Him whom they have so long concealed, except to faith — when "every eye shall see Him." And here we are carried back at once to Zechariah to find Israel brought fully to repentance at the sight of Him who was wounded in the house of His friends. "They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born. In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem" and "in that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness." Thus early the Jew takes his place in the prophecy of Revelation, while it is true that what is here may contemplate a wail wider than that of Israel's repentance. The word both in Greek and Hebrew for "earth" is the same as "land," and "all the tribes of the earth" (or land) make us necessarily find Israel here as in Zechariah. Nevertheless, the outlook in Revelation is naturally wider here, and there may be a wail, too, which is not that of repentance, but the wail of awful fear, when men cry to the rocks to fall on them and the mountains to cover them, to hide them from the face of the Lamb they have despised. Here is the Christian's testimony, and it has naturally to do not with Israel only, but with all the earth.

That when the Lord comes again in the clouds of heaven it will be in visible glory, so that "every eye shall see him," is pressed too far when it is taken to mean that He will then be visible to all the world. This the Lord Himself, by Isaiah, assures us: for after He has said that "the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire," and "it shall come that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see my glory"; yet the prophecy goes on immediately to add, "And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, … to the isles afar off that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles." (Isa. 66:15-19.) Thus we find that "every eye shall see Him" only intimates (what in connection with any other event it would be taken to intimate) a visible personal appearing of Christ, and not that the whole world will at that time see Him.

Christ is nowhere said to come with the clouds to gather His own. On the contrary, they go up in the clouds (1 Thess. 4:17). These are the royal carriages provided to convey us from earth to meet the Lord. The cloud of old was the well-known symbol of Jehovah’s presence with His people (Ex. 13:21; 40:34-38; Luke 9:35). But observe, Christ is not only said to come in the clouds (Mark 13:26), but with them (Rev. 1:7), and on them (Matt. 24:30). The clouds which attend His Coming are symbols of His majesty (Ps. 18:9-12). He sits on them as on His throne (Matt. 24:30). We are caught up in the clouds (1 Thess. 4:17). He ascended in a cloud (Acts 1:9), and shall come in a cloud (Luke 21:27). Such minute distinctions are interesting.

The Coming of the Lord to break the manifested power of evil on earth, to scatter the combined forces marshalled under the leadership of Satan, to grind to atoms every hostile power, will be an event of so public and overwhelming a character that it is added, “Every eye shall see Him.” What a sight in the heavens! The descending Lord with many diadems on His head, clad in the insignia of royalty, saints and angels swelling His triumph, clouds around and beneath, will then appear in a manner befitting His majesty.

As to others, all must be told. The next point, the first announced, is His appearing to the world. No direct communication to the assembly for its own sake — the book is not that. Here the assembly has that in its own consciousness only, as we have seen. Behold! He cometh with clouds; every eye shall see Him, the Jews too who pierced Him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. His appearing is in judgment.

It is in the New Testament that we learn: 'Behold He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him' (Revelation 1:7). It is the Lord Jesus whom every eye shall see! Even unbelievers will see Him, but it will be as Judge.