⁷Behold,He is coming with the clouds, andevery eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth willmourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen (Rev1v7).

Revelation affirms the glorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ to be a literal and physical event. So one is bound to wonder, how is it that “every eye shall see Him”. As little as a hundred years ago, the only way such an event could be conceptualized is in terms of some kind of miraculous transmission of the Saviour’s image  to people throughout the world. Now that we have television, but more especially mobile phones and the internet (the cloud?!), that is no longer the case.

As ever, even in Revelation, I am seeking to take Scripture as literally as possible, but refer also to what was relayed by angels to the Lord’s disciples at their Master’s ascension: “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 the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven” (Acts1:11). Apart from our Lord’s defiance of the rules of gravity as He ascended into the sky there was no miraculous relaying of the event to the populous, it was seen only by His disciples. The event took place in one particular time and location,  and such could the case with His return, with modern technology enabling virtually everybody to know about it very quickly.

What happens then?

I am by no means certain of the above scenario, still less the precise detail of what happens immediately after the Lord’s return, other than it is certain to include an element of judgement and separation. I say “separation”  for the wicked are to be “severed from amongst the just” (Mt13:49), remembering also that the elect have already been raptured and shall come with their Lord and His angels to put the world to rights. That infers three categories, and as I hope to show, Revelation will later go on to confirm as much. But even in my featured verse (1:7) it is to be noted that the nations “mourn over Him“.

Yet not every individual shall express sorrow and regret for not having known Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. Some shall stick their fists in the air, hating everything Christ represents and has done on humanity’s behalf, even after the latter is made clear to them. Christians with wisdom should discern that that cannot not be the case for the majority of people. They delight in their inner being in the qualities Christ possesses, even though through the weakness of the flesh they have invariably failed fully to live up to their ideals (cf. Rom7:22-23). They may not have had a knowledge of the Saviour in life, but once He is revealed in all His glory, they shall gladly bow the knee to One so highly exalted, exemplary in character and worthy of their lasting praise and gratitude .

But I say again, that will not be the case for all. That is in view of what they have become or always were (1Jn3:12) – the children of the devil. Such are devoid of compassion, without a functioning conscience, indifferent to truth and with no compulsion to do what is right and just other than for selfish, narcissistic reasons. Three categories of humanity more explicit in an even earlier Jewish apocalypse’s take on final judgement, having been written several centuries before John penned Revelation:

“The righteous shall be victorious in the name of the Lord of Spirits and He will cause the others to witness this that they may repent and forgo the works of their hands. They shall have no honour through the name of the Lord of Spirits yet through His name they shall be saved, and the Lord of Spirits shall have compassion on them, for His compassion is great. And He is righteous also in His judgement, and in the presence of His glory unrighteousness shall also not maintain itself: at His judgement the unrepentant shall perish before Him” [Book of Enoch ch.50:1-4].

I will always place canonical Scripture before the Book of Enoch, but it was regarded as genuine and inspired by the earliest Church Fathers and, as considered a few posts ago, directly quoted in the Book of Jude. I am bound to reference such tripartite soteriology as it is a key component within my biblical synopsis. However as acknowledged a few paragraphs ago, unlike much that precedes it in the Bible that  I have been enabled (I believe with the Spirit’s help) to explain and reconcile with itself, some of the symbolism within Revelation remains a mystery to me. Nevertheless I shall persevere in the hope of  attaining and providing some enlightenment within this book, especially in its prologue: “Blessed is the one who reads, and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things which are written in it; for the time is near” (1:3).

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