The Coming of The King

6. The Sign of the Son of Man

That the Scriptures frequently speak of judgment and fiery destruction in the world of men as a feature of the Second Advent is a fact and there is no gainsaying that things worthy of judgment and destruction are, at that time, to go down in a manner fitly symbolised by consuming fire, which is so often a feature of Biblical descriptions. This is not a fiery destruction of men as such nor yet the literal passing away of heaven and earth in the manner suggested by some well‑known hymns. The judgment of men associated with the Second Advent is one which includes provision for reclamation and reconciliation with God for those who will, and is described in much less sombre tones. The many passages which speak of Christ coming as a destroyer rather than a preserver have to do with the destruction of the evil systems and institutions of this world which have defied God and oppressed man, to the overthrow of the "kingdoms of this world" and their succession by the Divine government of Christ, who will reign as Prince of Peace over a world governed by the principles of truth and righteousness.

This final phase of the ages‑long struggle between good and evil is a very real conflict. The powers of evil, of greed, oppression and injustice, have become firmly entrenched during the thousands of years of human history and they will not yield place to the incoming world order of righteousness without protest. The issue is not in doubt; the powers of good will prevail, but vivid pen‑pictures in the Bible describe the intensity of the conflict and the magnitude of that final cataclysm which marks the overthrow of the present world order.

There are many Scriptures which speak prophetically of the time when the greed and selfishness and sin of mankind brings the world into its Armageddon, a time of trouble from which there can be no escape except through the coming of Messiah's kingdom. Many of these passages show clearly that the early period of Christ's Advent, besides being devoted to gathering his saints to their heavenly destiny, also sees the beginning of this work of destruction. That this climax to human misrule is the natural and inevitable result of man's own course of conduct since creation does not make any difference to the fact that a higher Power is now intervening to overrule these events for ultimate good.

The first intimation that Divine judgment is in process of coming upon the world is when observers realise the fulfilment of St. Paul's word to the Thessalonian Christians in 2 Thess.2:8. This particular community seems to have been specially concerned over the possible imminence of the Advent and it was to correct their misapprehension that the Apostle devoted so much time to the subject in his epistle. In this second chapter he explained that the Day of Christ would not come until there had first been a great falling away from the faith (which Jesus also foretold in Matt.24), followed by the development of the "Antichrist", the "man of sin", which development could not commence until "he that now hindereth" should be taken out of the way. Finally there would be a revelation of the Antichrist in full power, and only after that could come the time that he would be "consumed by the spirit of the Lord's mouth and destroyed by the bright shining of his presence". In this short passage. 2 Thess.2:3‑8, the Apostle spans the entire Age from his own day to the Second Advent and pictures two powers, that which is against Christ throughout the Age and that which is of Christ at the age's end.

Many and varied suggestions have been made as to the identity of the Antichrist but the plain fact is that the whole edifice of pseudo‑Christian institutional power throughout the entire Age, claiming to rule men in the name of God—as Paul here puts it, "he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God"—is the Antichrist of 2 Thess.2. From quite an early period in the Age ambitious men began to introduce secular standards and practices into the Christian society with the view of increasing its standing and influence in the affairs of men. A concept took shape that if the Church was destined to reign over the nations then the sooner there was union with the secular power the better. This end could not be attained during the first three centuries; as St. Paul pointed out to the Thessalonians, "he that hindereth" must first be taken out of the way. The "hindering one" was the existing religious‑secular system of Pagan Rome, firmly in the saddle in Paul's day and showing no sign of moving. By the Fourth Century, however, Pagan Rome, in its joint religious and political aspects, had passed away. It might be a fair appraisal of the position to say that when the Emperor Constantine in the early years of that century made Christianity the official State religion of the Roman Empire, and the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the day joined forces with him to create the power which in after centuries perpetrated many atrocities in the name of Christianity, Paul's foreview "he who now hindereth will hinder, until he be taken out of the way, and then shall that Wicked One be revealed" was fulfilled.

For a period of fifteen hundred years this principle of Church‑State union for the rulership of Christendom, and the rest of the earth so far as European influence extended thereto, claiming so to do in the name of Christ but in reality being completely alien from him, had its day. Now it has almost completely dissolved. During the past century and a half such powers have lost or are fast losing their secular influence. No longer regarded as equal partners by the world's political rulers they become almost nonentities in the world's affairs. The increasing force and scope of democratic and communistic forms of government having little or no interest in religious faith and no intention of sharing functions of rulership with representatives of religion is another factor tending towards the destruction of Antichrist "with the bright shining of his presence". The fact that this dissolution is now manifestly in progress is one of the indications that we now live in that time, in the "days of the Son of Man".

This is not the end of Divine judgment upon world evil. Modern as well as ancient paganism may have crumbled into ruins but the political and social institutions of earth remain and these too must give place to the coming King. It is here that visions such as those of Daniel and Joel have their place. The seventh chapter of Daniel pictures the "Ancient of Days", the Most High, presiding over the Last Judgment, the while a series of mythological living creatures representing the empires of the world are brought before him for condemnation. One "like the Son of Man" comes in the clouds to receive the dominion of earth thus relinquished by those creatures; his kingdom, it is said, is to endure for ever. Here is shown the passing of human rule in a time of disruption and disintegration as by a devouring fire. The prophet Joel (chap.3) sees the same thing in the guise of a fierce military battle between the kings of the earth and the forces of the Most High; the outcome is the establishment of the Kingdom of God upon earth and a reign of universal peace. Very similar previews are recounted by Ezekiel and by Zechariah, and all of these are brought to a focus in the most spectacular vision of all, that describing the conflict between the combined forces of this world and the Rider upon the White Horse.

This climax to the whole sequence of prophetic imagery is found in Revelation 19:11‑21. The seer of Patmos tells how he saw heaven opened and the emergence therefrom of a majestic rider mounted upon a white horse, coming forth to "judge and make war". This Rider, John goes on to say, is the King of kings and Lord of lords, his name the Word of God. He wields a sword wherewith to smite the nations and He "treadeth the winepress of the wrath of Almighty God". Behind him stream his followers, the armies of heaven.

Now John turns his eyes to the earth and there he sees the kings of the earth and their armies, drawn up to give battle. With them there are the mystic "beast" and "false prophet", Revelation's symbols of world evil. The opposing forces meet and the powers of Heaven are victorious. The defeat of the coalition is utter and complete and the vultures of the skies are called to feast upon the bodies of the slain. The sequel to this, continuing into the twentieth chapter, is the inauguration of the Millennial reign of Christ, the time of world reconstruction.

There are in the Bible some fifteen detailed descriptions of this aspect of the Second Advent, the direct intervention of the powers of Heaven into human affairs for the purpose of ending the present unsatisfactory rule of man and introducing the Messianic kingdom with its new and better order. All of these are couched in metaphorical language and against the background of current events and the state of society in the days in which they were written. They should not be interpreted in strictly literal fashion as is so often done, for this strikes at the very basis of the prophetic principle. These passages are called "apocalyptic", a term which has been coined to define symbolic literature produced by the ancient writers in deliberately veiled language, using symbols, parables and the like, to describe what they saw of the ultimate end of evil and triumph of righteousness, in such fashion that their message could be received and appreciated by men of any generation familiar with the storehouse of the Old Testament.

In line with this principle, the falling mountains and crashing rocks of so many prophetic utterances stand for the breaking down of political powers, the toppling of kings from their thrones, which is so characteristic of this era. Mountains in this type of literature stand for kingdoms, such as the "stone" of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, which became a "great mountain which filled the whole earth", interpreted by Daniel (2.35) to symbolise the coming Messianic kingdom. This is one of the most obvious "signs of the end" of today, the division of erstwhile great powers into increasingly smaller "independent" nations, and the re‑composition of these into "blocs" of influence which themselves are unstable and easily disrupted. The stars falling from heaven are symbols of the decline of organised religious interests, coming down from their original high estate more and more to an earthly level at which they not only lose the spiritual leadership which alone gives them Divine authority amongst men, but also lose the esteem and support of men so that they finish up having no power at all. This is true not only of many nominally Christian interests but also of the other great world religions such as Islam and Buddhism. The disease is world‑wide and it is another sign of the judgment. The consequence of these developments is an increase of anarchy in world society, both in organised democracy and communism and in individual contempt for law and order, so that crime reaches unprecedented proportions. In parallel with this there is the cumulative effect of human greed and selfishness, particularly in the commercial world, whereby the physique of the human race is being steadily undermined by unnatural ways of living. Medical science is increasing the average life span but there are more diseases to combat and the cost of maintaining that longer life span becomes steadily greater. The stresses of modern "civilisation" and ways of living give the lie to any pretence of improving physique, physical or mental, and with the despoiling of the earth's natural resources and the poisoning of land and sea by man‑made chemical products, reacting upon vegetable and animal life alike, the earth can conceivably be brought to a condition where it will no longer bring forth food for man. The misuse of expanding scientific discovery and the rash experiments men make without knowing what world‑wide disastrous effect may be involved, create an ever increasing risk that unless halted by Divine intervention, there might one day be reached the "point of no return" where the planet itself is rendered uninhabitable and the human race extinct. These are not idle fancies, for they have all been foreseen by far‑seeing men of the world qualified to speak with authority on things of this nature.

This is how the age comes to its end. Before men do reach that point of no return, and with the ruins of this world crashing around them, Divine intervention takes place. The planet itself will not be destroyed; the mountains will still rear their lofty heads into the upper skies; the alternations of day and night, of summer and winter, of seedtime and harvest, will continue as of yore. The sun will still lift the seas into the atmosphere and send them down over the earth as rain, bringing seed to the sower and bread to the eater. The darkening of the sun and moon, the earthquakes and the fire, all are symbolic imagery to be understood as metaphors. That which is destroyed is the sovereignty and the work of man. This is the purpose of the Second Advent, and men will realise the fact of Christ's presence when they begin to accept that the old order has passed irretrievably into the hands of the new.

There has to be a point in the succession of events constituting the Second Advent at which the fact becomes universally recognised and accepted. "Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him" is the Revelator's ecstatic outburst (Rev.1.7) alluding to the visions of Daniel and Zechariah. The significance of world happenings during the early stages of the Advent is known only to those who have correctly related the contemporary scene to the principles of the Divine Plan as laid down in the Scriptures; a time comes in the progress of those happenings when the outward signs and evidences are so pronounced and unmistakable that men generally can no longer deny that the powers of Heaven have taken control of affairs on earth. Those signs and evidences will have to be very conclusive to convince this modern sophisticated world—in olden times the visible appearance of the glorified Lord in the sky, descending to earth with attendant angels, would have been enough, and the poetic language of the Bible is written in terms of such an expectation, but this scientific world will demand much more. It is only when the phenomena associated with the Advent cannot be understood or explained by men or affected by weapons of man's devising that, like Pharaoh's magicians of old, they will say "this is the finger of God".

It is this phase of the Advent to which our Lord referred in Matt.24:30 when He said "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". This is the second coming as it is seen by all the world; Jesus gave no detail or even hint in explanation of his reference to the "sign" but that it indicates something universally seen and acknowledged is beyond dispute.

From this point of view the Messianic prophecy in Isa.11:1‑5 is significant in that here also the entry of Messiah into world affairs is described as a sign. "In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for in ensign" (same word as "sign" in the original) "of the people; to it shall the Gentiles (nations) seek"—"he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel...from the four corners of the earth" (Isa.11:10‑12). The latter quotation is significant in that a final gathering of purified Israel is associated with the "sign", just as in Matt.24 where, upon the appearance of the sign of the Son of Man, the angels "gather his elect from the four winds"; comparison with Matt.24:22 would seem to identify that elect with Israel. Isa.66:19 supports and amplifies Isa.11. "I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations... and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles (nations)."

There is really only one prophetic foreview in Scripture which yields sufficient detail to enable some concrete idea of the "sign" to be formulated. The twelfth to fourteenth chapters of Zechariah present a detailed, although highly metaphorical, picture of the events surrounding the transfer of sovereignty from the present earthly holders to the coming powers of Heaven, particularly as they affect regathered and purified Israel in the Holy Land. That particular piece of the earth's surface, set at the meeting place of three continents, Europe, Asia and Africa, and of the three great divisions of mankind, is peculiarly fitted to be the federal capital of the new order of society which comes in with Christ's Kingdom, especially when it is occupied by a people who will then have achieved their long‑promised destiny, a holy nation, a people for a purpose. That has never been the case in the past and is not so at present, but in the twelfth chapter of Zechariah we are translated into the time when it will be true. The people that will then hold the land of Israel will be in process of repudiating the policies and standards of this world and in fair way of becoming an instrument in God's hand. The nations round about will have lost none of their old enmity and are threatening a mass attack. At that critical pass, the governors of the nation announce their faith and the faith of their people in God, that God will deliver. When the attack takes place God does deliver, and that so mightily that in the outcome the Lord alone is recognised as King over all the earth. These "governors of Judah" are to be "like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about" (Zech.12:6). In other words, they are irresistible, and under their Divinely‑inspired leadership the land of Israel will become the nucleus of the Kingdom of God upon earth.

This then, is the "apokalupsis", the revelation of the Lord from heaven to all the world. The fact of his assumption of power is declared by events; the visible presence of his human representatives ruling in Jerusalem, the "city of the great King", and the obvious hopelessness of any further resistance to their beneficent authority, is the signal to all men that the old evil world has ended and the "new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Pet.3:13) has commenced. This is the time spoken of by Jesus in Matt.24 when the peoples of the earth shall mourn—the mourning is also alluded to in Zech.12 where it is shown to be one of contrition and repentance; the light of the new Day will reveal to many their heedlessness and unbelief and create in them a desire for better things—and from this moment the reconstruction of the world upon a better and an enduring basis will commence.

This is not the end of the Advent. The presence of the King must continue until it becomes true that "all that hath breath shall praise the Lord", and this implies an evangelical work of colossal proportions extending over a considerable span of time. But the bad old days will be days of the past and mankind will look forward to a glorious future. The return of the Lord Jesus Christ to earth, a process involving a number of interrelated events occupying an appreciable period of time, as human beings know time, commencing when He first revealed the fact of his presence to his own watchful ones, will now have become reality to all who dwell upon earth. The execution of judgement upon evil world powers will have commenced and progressed and been completed. The opposition of the enemies of righteousness will have been brought to bear upon the incoming influences for goodness and will have been utterly defeated. The Christian society, the Church of Christ upon earth, will have been completed and taken into eternal association with Christ in the heavens, to rule over earth during the entire period of his Presence. The earthly missionaries of the new Age, stalwart in their loyalty to God, will have been gathered from every corner of the earth and established in the Holy Land, centre of the new Administration. All these things will become evident to the sons of men when at the last, when all things are ready, they perceive, by the stern logic of world events and the visible presence of the ambassadors of Christ in accepted control, the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. Then it is that Isaiah's rhapsody will become a reality "it shall be said in that day. Lo, this is our God, we have waited for him and He will save us. This is the Lord. We will rejoice and be glad in his salvation".

(The End)
AOH
(1987)