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Signs of Christ’s Return—Part 5: Celestial Signs of the Coming Savior
(Luke 21:25–28)
There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (21:25–28)
The second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ will not only be the most significant event in history, but also the most widely viewed one. His birth was witnessed by only a few people: Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and perhaps a few others in Bethlehem. But when Christ returns, the whole world will see Him. “Behold, He is coming with the clouds,” John wrote, “and every eye will see Him” (Rev. 1:7).
Five key words aid in summarizing our Lord’s teaching in this section regarding His second coming: sequence, staging, shock, sign, and saints.
There will be (21:25a)
The Greek word kai (left untranslated by the New American Standard) at the beginning of verse 25 connects this passage with what the Lord had already taught the disciples. Jesus gave this discourse in response to their question about the signs of His coming (v. 7). He replied by describing the period between His first and second comings. That long era would be characterized first of all by a proliferation of deceiving, lying false teachers claiming to be Christ (v. 8). Those false messiahs and the specious misrepresentations of Christianity they spawn and spew will lead millions astray from the truth, so that false believers will always outnumber true ones (cf. Matt. 7:13–14).
There will also be disasters in the natural world. Wars on a scale without precedent in human history will cause widespread death and destruction (vv. 9–10). Powerful earthquakes, deadly plagues and desperate famines, destructive fires, terrifying signs from the sky (possibly comet or meteor impacts), violent hurricanes, tornadoes, torrential rains that produce floods, and blizzards will ravage the planet (v. 11). Those deadly catastrophes, unparalleled in scope, will escalate as the time of Christ’s return draws near. But long centuries before all those things even start, His followers would face persecution, soon from the Jews, and later from the Gentiles, beginning with the Romans (vv. 12–17). That persecution will preview on a small scale the zenith of persecution during the tribulation.
In addition to those general characteristics of the period between Christ’s two comings, there will be two specific sign events that will declare the second coming is finally at hand: First, Jerusalem will be surrounded by the world’s armies under the leadership of Antichrist (v. 20), and second, the final Antichrist will set up the “abomination of desolation” in the temple (Matt. 24:15). Those events take place during the last three and one half years of the tribulation judgments, called the “great tribulation” (Matt. 24:21; Rev. 7:14). As this passage opens in verse 25, those are all past, and the sequence of events advances to the final signs of the Lord’s return at the end of the tribulation (Matt. 24:29; Mark 13:24).
There will be signs in sun and moon and stars … the roaring of the sea and the waves … the powers of the heavens will be shaken. (21:25a, c, 26b)
History’s most momentous and widely viewed event demands a correspondingly dramatic backdrop. God will set the stage for Christ’s return by extinguishing all the celestial lights (Matt. 24:29; cf. Zech. 14:6–7), plunging the heavens into total darkness. With all of the world’s attention focused on the blackness, Jesus will descend out of the darkened sky in blazing glory. His return to this earth will be like His departure. As the disciples stared transfixed into the sky watching Him ascend to heaven in a cloud (Acts 1:9), two angels said to them, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven” (v. 11). Revelation 1:7, as noted above, also reveals that Jesus will come in the clouds, which the Old Testament describes as God’s chariots (Ps. 104:3; Isa. 19:1). Daniel “kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, and He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him” (Dan. 7:13). Clouds are also associated with Christ’s gathering up His church in the rapture (1 Thess. 4:17).
Adding to the glory and majesty of the dramatic scene, “the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thess. 1:7–8). In addition to bringing fiery judgment on unbelievers, Jesus “comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed” (v. 10).
Immediately preceding Christ’s arrival there will be vast cosmic catastrophes that will cause unimaginable destruction. There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, the roaring of the sea and the waves, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. In his book Earth in Upheaval, Immanuel Velikovsky speculated as to what might happen if the approach of a heavenly body toward the earth caused it to tilt on its axis:
At that moment an earthquake would make the globe shudder. Air and water would continue to move through inertia; hurricanes would sweep the earth and the seas would rush over continents, carrying gravel and sand and marine animals, and casting them on the land. Heat would be developed, rocks would melt, volcanoes would erupt, lava would flow from fissures in the ruptured ground and cover vast areas. Mountains would spring up from the plains and would travel and climb on the shoulders of other mountains, causing faults and rifts. Lakes would be tilted and emptied, rivers would change their beds; large land areas with all their inhabitants would slip under the sea. Forests would burn and the hurricanes and wild seas would wrest them from the ground on which they grew and pile them, branch and root, in huge heaps. Seas would turn into deserts, their waters rolling away. ([Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955], 136)
The Lord did not explain these signs and the disciples did not ask Him about them, because they understood them from the Old Testament. The judgment on Babylon predicted in Isaiah 13 provides an illustration of the final divine reckoning that will come on the whole earth:
Wail, for the day of the Lord is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. Therefore all hands will fall limp, and every man’s heart will melt [cf. Luke 21:26]. They will be terrified, pains and anguish will take hold of them; they will writhe like a woman in labor, they will look at one another in astonishment, their faces aflame. Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, cruel, with fury and burning anger, to make the land a desolation; and He will exterminate its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not flash forth their light; the sun will be dark when it rises and the moon will not shed its light. Thus I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud and abase the haughtiness of the ruthless. I will make mortal man scarcer than pure gold and mankind than the gold of Ophir. Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken from its place at the fury of the Lord of hosts in the day of His burning anger. (Isa. 13:6–13)
The twenty-fourth chapter of Isaiah further describes God’s future retribution:
Behold, the Lord lays the earth waste, devastates it, distorts its surface and scatters its inhabitants. And the people will be like the priest, the servant like his master, the maid like her mistress, the buyer like the seller, the lender like the borrower, the creditor like the debtor. The earth will be completely laid waste and completely despoiled, for the Lord has spoken this word. The earth mourns and withers, the world fades and withers, the exalted of the people of the earth fade away. The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they transgressed laws, violated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant. Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and those who live in it are held guilty. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left. … Then it will be that he who flees the report of disaster will fall into the pit, and he who climbs out of the pit will be caught in the snare; for the windows above are opened, and the foundations of the earth shake. The earth is broken asunder, the earth is split through, the earth is shaken violently. The earth reels to and fro like a drunkard and it totters like a shack, for its transgression is heavy upon it, and it will fall, never to rise again. So it will happen in that day, that the Lord will punish the host of heaven on high, and the kings of the earth on earth. They will be gathered together like prisoners in the dungeon, and will be confined in prison; and after many days they will be punished. Then the moon will be abashed and the sun ashamed, for the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and His glory will be before His elders. (vv. 1–6, 18–23)
The prophet Joel adds more.
Blow a trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm on My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; surely it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn is spread over the mountains, so there is a great and mighty people; there has never been anything like it, nor will there be again after it to the years of many generations. … Before them the earth quakes, the heavens tremble, the sun and the moon grow dark and the stars lose their brightness. … I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth, blood, fire and columns of smoke. … For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. Then I will enter into judgment with them there on behalf of My people and My inheritance, Israel. … Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and moon grow dark and the stars lose their brightness. The Lord roars from Zion and utters His voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth tremble. But the Lord is a refuge for His people and a stronghold to the sons of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain. So Jerusalem will be holy, and strangers will pass through it no more. And it will come about in that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine, and the hills will flow with milk, and all the brooks of Judah will flow with water; and a spring will go out from the house of the Lord to water the valley of Shittim. (2:1–2, 10, 30; 3:1–2, 14–18)
Judgments described in Ezekiel 38:19–23 are identical to those that will take place during the last half of the tribulation (Rev. 6:12–17; 11:19; 16:17–21; 19:11–21). Haggai (2:6–7) and Zephaniah (1:14–18) also predict God’s final temporal fury.
SHOCK
on the earth dismay among nations … perplexity … men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world (21:25b, 26a)
The devastating judgments that come on the earth will inflict incredible trauma on the unbelieving nations. Sunochē (dismay) appears only here and in 2 Corinthians 2:4, where it describes Paul’s anguish and consternation over the troubled church at Corinth. The word refers to severe emotional stress; an overwhelming, overpowering sense of acute, unrelieved fear and torment.
Aporia (perplexity) appears only here in the New Testament. It has connotations of distress, dismay, discomfort, being at a loss, uncertainty. For example, the related verb aporeō is used to describe Herod’s bewilderment regarding John the Baptist (Mark 6:20), the women’s perplexity at finding the empty tomb after the resurrection (Luke 24:4), the disciples’ being at a loss as to who would betray Jesus (John 13:22), Festus’s uncertainty of how to handle the Jews’ charges against Paul (Acts 25:20), and Paul’s being at his wit’s end over the Galatians (Gal. 4:20).
Apopsuchō (fainting) also appears only here in the New Testament. It literally means “to breathe out,” “to stop breathing,” and hence “to expire.” People will literally be scared to death; they will be frightened to death because of what is happening around them. The radical alteration of the world and its environment at the end of the tribulation will be the culmination and climax of all the terrifying events of that period. Isaiah 13:8 says humanity “will be terrified, pains and anguish will take hold of them; they will writhe like a woman in labor, they will look at one another in astonishment, their faces aflame.” Reacting to the sixth seal judgment,
the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (Rev. 6:15–17)
Revelation 9:6 warns that “in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them.” When
the fourth angel poured out his bowl upon the sun … it was given to it to scorch men with fire. Men were scorched with fierce heat; and they blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues, and they did not repent so as to give Him glory. Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became darkened; and they gnawed their tongues because of pain, and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores; and they did not repent of their deeds. (Rev. 16:8–11)
The eighteenth chapter of Revelation describes the disintegration of life in the final days:
“For this reason in one day [Babylon’s] plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong. And the kings of the earth, who committed acts of immorality and lived sensuously with her, will weep and lament over her when they see the smoke of her burning, standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’ And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargoes any more—cargoes of gold and silver and precious stones and pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet, and every kind of citron wood and every article of ivory and every article made from very costly wood and bronze and iron and marble, and cinnamon and spice and incense and perfume and frankincense and wine and olive oil and fine flour and wheat and cattle and sheep, and cargoes of horses and chariots and slaves and human lives. The fruit you long for has gone from you, and all things that were luxurious and splendid have passed away from you and men will no longer find them. The merchants of these things, who became rich from her, will stand at a distance because of the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, she who was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls; for in one hour such great wealth has been laid waste!’ And every shipmaster and every passenger and sailor, and as many as make their living by the sea, stood at a distance, and were crying out as they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What city is like the great city?’ And they threw dust on their heads and were crying out, weeping and mourning, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, in which all who had ships at sea became rich by her wealth, for in one hour she has been laid waste!’ Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced judgment for you against her.” Then a strong angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “So will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence, and will not be found any longer. And the sound of harpists and musicians and flute-players and trumpeters will not be heard in you any longer; and no craftsman of any craft will be found in you any longer; and the sound of a mill will not be heard in you any longer; and the light of a lamp will not shine in you any longer; and the voice of the bridegroom and bride will not be heard in you any longer; for your merchants were the great men of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery.” (vv. 8–23)
The catastrophic end of human history will shock the unbelieving world. People will understand that what is happening is the wrath of God, due to hearing the preaching of the 144,000 Jewish evangelists (Rev. 7:2–8), the two witnesses (Rev. 11:3), testimony of those saved in that time, and even flying angels (Rev. 14:6–8). Some will believe, but most will refuse to repent, and blaspheme God (Rev. 16:11, 21). Many who reject the truth will die; the others will wish they were dead; those who survive the succession of judgments will be killed by the Lord Jesus Christ when He arrives (Rev. 19:11–15).
SIGN
Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. (21:27)
The final sign of Christ’s arrival is not another event that points to the Son of Man; it is the Son of Man Himself. The subjective genitive in Matthew’s parallel account could be translated, “The sign which is the Son of Man” (Matt. 24:30). The ultimate sign will not be a blazing cross, or a visible manifestation of God’s Shekinah glory, but the Lord Jesus Christ, bodily returning in a cloud of blazing divine glory (see the discussion above), previewed in His transfiguration (Matt. 17:1–2).
The most detailed description of His appearance, His unveiling, and His apocalypse is recorded in Revelation 19:11–15:
And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.
The “white horse” symbolizes power and authority; victorious Roman generals rode on white horses through the streets of Rome in their triumphal processions. White also symbolizes the spotless, unblemished, absolutely holy nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because He is “Faithful and True,” He keeps His word and must act against sin; therefore “in righteousness He judges and wages war.” His judgment is absolutely accurate, because “His eyes are a flame of fire,” a reference to His omniscience. “On His head are many diadems,” because He is the sole ruler; the “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev. 19:16). He has a unique “name written on Him which no one knows except Himself.” This name (representing all that He is) transcends human comprehension as the nature of God transcends all ideas. No one can fully understand Christ’s majesty, authority, glory, power, or the fullness of His other attributes. That “He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood” signifies that this will not be His first battle. His robe bears the blood of enemies whom He has already conquered, and it will shortly bear the blood of those He is about to destroy.
Accompanying “the Word of God,” the Son who existed from all eternity (John 1:1) and “became flesh, and dwelt among us” (v. 14), will be the “armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean … following Him on white horses.” This heavenly force includes the believers from the church age (Rev. 19:7–8), believers from the Old Testament (Jude 14–15), and those martyred earlier in the tribulation (Rev. 7:9, 13–14), as well as the holy angels (Matt. 25:31).
Christ’s judgment will be instantaneous and accurate. “From His mouth comes a sharp sword,” symbolizing the death-dealing power of His word (cf. 1:16; Isa. 11:4), “so that with it He may strike down the nations.” Having done so, Jesus “will rule them with a rod of iron” (cf. Ps. 2:8–9; Rev. 12:5). The vivid imagery of Christ treading “the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty” pictures Him crushing sinful humanity like one would crush grapes to make wine (cf. Isa. 63:1–4).
Unlike His first coming, when He came in humility to die as a sacrifice for sin, Jesus will come again to kill with power and great glory (cf. Matt. 26:64). He will manifest His power by both destroying and renewing the world; defeating and judging Satan, the demons, Antichrist, and his forces; and eliminating all the unregenerate, at the same time establishing His kingdom for those who belong to Him (Matt. 25:34).
SAINTS
But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (21:28)
When the signs that indicate that the Lord’s return is near (cf. chapter 20 of this volume) begin to take place, the believers alive at that time are to straighten up and lift up their heads. Although they cannot know the exact day Jesus will arrive, the events indicate their redemption is drawing near and that “He is near, right at the door” (Matt. 24:33).
How extensive will this coming of the Son of God be? Every person who has ever lived will play a role in history’s most dramatic event. Believers from the Old Testament and church eras and those martyred during the tribulation will participate with joy in the glory and bliss of heaven. They will return with Christ to His earthly kingdom, along with those believers who survive the tribulation. On the other hand, those alive who refuse to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will face temporal death followed immediately by eternal hell.
The urgent message to unbelievers then and now is, “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isa. 55:6–7; cf. 2 Cor. 6:2; Heb. 3:7–13; 4:7). Delaying a response to God’s call to repent and be saved risks the missed opportunity that results in eternal tragedy (cf. Luke 13:24–27; 17:26–33; Acts 24:25).