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The Two-Hundred-Fifteenth (The End Revisited Part 4)

Writer's picture: RobRob

We’re continuing with our revisitation of the end this week, and the first thing I want to say is I hope this is all making sense!  I know there’s a lot of “tentacles” to the topic of the end because there are passages all throughout scripture related to it.  Sometimes it’s hard not only to identify what all those passages are, but also keep track of where they all fit in.    

 

We ended last week saying we’re going to go through what seems like two different comings of Yeshua.  We also said it’s almost like they fall into the same sort of categories that we see in the types of death we know occur.  As a recap, there is a spiritual death and a physical death.  The spiritual death is something YHWH built into creation and it occurred the moment Adam and Eve disobeyed YHWH.  It was then passed down generationally to all of mankind.  Physical death was imposed as a judgment placed on man due to disobedience (Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden of Eden by YHWH, resulting in them not having access to the Tree of Life).    

 

When Yeshua was sacrificed for our sins, we were afforded the opportunity to be resurrected spiritually and once again have the intimate relationship man had prior to Adam and Eve’s disobedience (we are able to receive the Holy Spirit).  We can take part in this opportunity by believing in Yeshua as our Savior and the Son of YHWH.  Physically, however, we still die, as that judgment has not yet been overturned.  It is the last thing to be defeated (1 Corinthians 15:26).

 

Looking at the verses that talk about Yeshua’s return, some of them seem ambiguous as to whether or not they’re referring to a spiritual event or a physical event.  Some Christians actually believe that His return was never going to be physical, and it was a fully spiritual event that occurred during the events of 70AD in Jerusalem.  There are verses however, that clearly specify a physical event.  For instance, Luke records some messengers telling the disciples right after they watched Yeshua ascend to the sky and disappear, that He would return “in the same way” they just saw Him go to heaven (Acts 1:11).  Well, they were talking with Him physically and then watched Him physically get “taken up” into the sky (Acts 1:9), so I don’t know how you can believe He wouldn’t return from the sky physically unless you say the messengers were lying.

 

The Greek word for Yeshua being “taken up” is epairo.  It is used in scripture to say lift up, raise up, hoist up, exalt.  Yes, there are instances where this word is used figuratively, but that isn’t the context here.  The context is a physical rising up of Yeshua into the sky, and the messengers stated that He would return the same way.

 

So, I think you can agree that there has to be a physical return of Yeshua…and I also think you can agree that it hasn’t happened yet!  There are verses that suggest a purely spiritual return as well, however.  Something that gives us some background on why this is, is what Paul wrote about the different “glories” that there are in creation.  

 

According to Paul, there are two types of glory: heavenly and earthly.  Just like there are different types of flesh on earth, such as man, birds, fish, etc., there is a heavenly glory and an earthly glory (1 Corinthians 15:39-40).  The heavenly glory being a spiritual one and the earthly glory being a physical one.  Interestingly enough, we see this type of language elsewhere in scripture and can connect some dots as far as the type of glory it’s referring to in each verse.  

 

We all know that YHWH is Spirit (John 4:24), and we also know that Yeshua came physically, in the flesh (John 1:14).  Do you notice what John said there about Yeshua’s becoming flesh?  John said that when He was dwelling among man, they saw His “glory.”  That is the same Greek word, doxa, that Paul used when talking about heavenly and earthly glory.    

 

Now, let’s go to the gospels and see if we can find similar wording used for Yeshua’s return.  Not only do we see this same word, doxa, used, it’s Yeshua Himself that uses it.  Starting in Matthew, we see a passage paralleled in Mark where Yeshua is talking about His coming in “His Father’s glory” (Matthew 16:27, Mark 8:38).  The context of which is a coming of judgment to “repay each according to what he has done.”  Even further, this type of return is one specifically directed towards “this adulterous and sinful generation,” meaning Yeshua was talking specifically to the Jews alive during His ministry.  

 

The really interesting part is when you look at Luke’s parallel of this statement by Yeshua (Luke 9:26).  At first glance, it seems the same as Matthew’s and Mark’s, but when you look closer there’s not only an additional glory but also a more general audience that is being addressed.  In this passage, it records Yeshua as saying He will come in “His glory” and in the “glory of the Father.”  Perhaps He means these will occur simultaneously, and we’ll get to that in a moment, but it is clear that these are two separate things: Yeshua’s glory and YHWH’s glory.  

 

Additionally, the wording in this passage is much less specific than in Matthew’s and Mark’s (Luke 9:23-27).  In Matthew, Yeshua’s words include “some who are standing here” (Matthew 16:28) and we already saw that in Mark He talks about “this…generation.”  In Luke however, He says if “anyone” is ashamed, prior to talking about coming in the glory of the Son of Man, and then He talks about “some…standing here” after talking about coming in the glory of the Father.  He even connects the being ashamed of Him with Him being ashamed of them when He comes, which ties this coming in glory with the use of the general "anyone."

 

The last passage to talk about His glory when He returns is when Yeshua is talking about the end with the disciples, following one of the most famous eschatological chapters in scripture, Matthew 24.  In this reference to glory, Yeshua says He will come in His own glory, with His angels, and sit on His throne while He separates the sheep from the goats in all the nations (Matthew 25:31-33).  A key thing to note about this reference is that Yeshua specifically talks about “all the nations” being “gathered before Him,” and as we’ve seen in our past studies, use of the word nations in scripture (Greek ethnos) is a reference to the Gentile nations, meaning non-Jews.

 

That’s not the only place that talks about glory and appearing in glory, though.  When we look elsewhere we can see some verses to back up our view that YHWH’s glory is a spiritual one and Yeshua’s glory is a physical one.  Looking through the Old Testament, we see how YHWH appeared in glory to various people.  During the exodus, YHWH appeared to the Israelites in His glory as a cloud (Exodus 16:10) and when giving Moses the ten commandments, He also appeared as a cloud (Exodus 33:22-23, 34:5).  We already saw from John that Yeshua’s physical form is His glory, but we can also see in Luke that on the mount of transfiguration, Yeshua was met by two men from history, Moses and Elijah.  They both appeared “in glory” (Luke 9:31), and we know that these men were previously physical beings.  We also see that Yeshua’s appearance changed during this event.  While He was still physically there, He became visibly different, including radiant white clothing (Luke 9:29).

 

So, to summarize, we see that there are two glories in which Yeshua will return.  One is physical, and one is spiritual.  His is physical, and will include the separation of sheep and goats, and His Father’s is spiritual, and will include acts of judgment upon the adulterous and sinful generation that Yeshua was ministering to at the time.

 

Why does this matter though?  How does it help us figure things out about the end?  We can tie these two types of returns to another typical phrase used throughout scripture to describe Yeshua’s return.  We alluded to it last week, and it’s the term “coming [on/in] the clouds.”  Whenever we find this phrase, it refers to a spiritual action rather than a physical one, which lines up with what we saw in Exodus with how YHWH appeared to the Israelites.  

 

Let’s review what kinds of things occur during a coming on/in the clouds event.  Looking through the Old Testament, we find that YHWH came on or in the clouds to various people for two reasons: assistance or judgment (for consequences of disobedience).  He provided assistance to the Israelites, as we saw (Deuteronomy 33:26, Exodus 16:10, Nehemiah 9:12, Psalm 99:7), and to David (2 Samuel 22:10, 12, Psalm 18:9, 11), and provides assistance in this form to those who need Him (Psalm 68:4).  He comes in judgment against foes and idol worshipers (Psalm 97:2), came in judgment against Jerusalem (Jeremiah 4:13, Zephaniah 1:15), and was prophesied to come in judgment against Nineveh (Nahum 1:3).  

 

So, is this a connection that we can make?  Can we correlate a coming on the clouds by Yeshua to these same types of events?  In fact, we can!  Yeshua Himself used the term coming in/on the clouds when prophesying His judgment event (Matthew 24:30, 26:64, Mark 13:26, 14:62, Luke 21:27).  We also see it in John’s prophecy about Yeshua’s judgment where the “tribes of the earth” mourn because of Him (Revelation 1:7).  We see a coming of assistance as well, where He harvests the earth prior to the grapes of the earth being crushed in the winepress (Revelation 14:14).  The only reference to Yeshua’s coming with the clouds that doesn’t fall neatly into these two categories is when Daniel sees His vision of when Yeshua is given dominion over everything (Daniel 7:13).  In context of that vision however, it is clearly a spiritual event that fully occurs in heaven, is a representation of Him being given spiritual dominion over everything and is prophesying the culmination of that giving of dominion when all nations and tongues will serve Him.

 

As you can see with our dig into Yeshua’s return, there’s verses referring to a spiritual event and some referring to a physical event.  They’re delineated by a reference to two different types of glory: the Father’s glory (spiritual) and Yeshua’s glory (physical).  Next week, we’ll see if we can get into a little bit of some of the imagery of Revelation to try and bring some clarity to these two types of returns and if, perhaps, one has been fulfilled already!  I hope you have a wonderful week!  Shabbat shalom!  

  

-Rob and Sara Gene

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