Mark 13:24-31 But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,… I. THE GREATNESS OF THE EVENT. Whether our Lord's coming shall be pro-millennial or post-millennial we stay not to inquire. The great importance attaches to the fact of the second coming of the Son of man, which this section describes and which all Christians believe. The future coming of the Son of man naturally leads us back in thought to his first coming. The world had waited long for that blessed day. Patriarchs had looked forward to it, but it was in faith; prophets saw it, but it was in vision; saints sighed for its approach, but it was still a great way off - they hoped for its arrival, but they died before the promise was fulfilled; servants of God longed for its coming, and when it at length arrived they felt so satisfied that there seemed nothing further for them to desire - the language of Simeon expressed their thoughts, "Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." Angels celebrated it on the plains of Bethlehem, and sang in heavenly carol, "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good will to men." The people of God look forward with equal longing and equal eagerness to the day of Christ's second coming. They look and long for it as the period of complete redemption; they expect it as the time of home-gathering of all their brethren in the Lord; in anticipation of that great deliverance and of that blessed reunion they cry, "Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly." II. THE GLORY OF HIS COMING. He will come, we are taught to believe, personally, visibly, and gloriously. He will come "in the clouds. The clouds of heaven serve many important purposes; they screen from the heat of the sun by day, and moderate the radiation of the earth by night. Sometimes they supply from their contents moisture to plants, and bring gladness to the thirsty ground; sometimes they pour down the water that originates springs or swells rivers; sometimes they cover with snow the polar regions. Those cloud-masses, as they float in the atmosphere, now approach within a mile of the earth, again ascend to the distance of five or six miles above its surface. Sometimes they curl in thin, parallel, silvery streaks; sometimes they form dense conical or convex heaps; sometimes, at the approach of night, they spread out in wide low-lying horizontal sheets; sometimes, fraught with storm, they move like a dark canopy overhead; again they unite and form various combinations. At all times they claim our attention, and commend themselves to our admiration by their fantastic forms, their changing colors, their varying density, and their strange combinations. The views of a kaleidoscope are nothing compared with the manifold aspects of the clouds. The clouds of heaven, then, are objects of great beauty, grandeur, and glory. The ancient heathens had a just appreciation of the magnificence of the clouds, and accordingly associated them with their highest conceptions of majesty. They represented their deities as clothed with clouds, or seated on clouds, or surrounded with clouds, as if to hide from mortal gaze their excessive splendor. In Scripture, also, the true God is represented as making the clouds his chariot, and walking upon the wings of the wind; and, again, we read that his pavilion round about him were dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies." When Isaiah predicts the destruction of Egypt and the confusion of its idols from the hand of the Lord, he uses the sublime representation, "Behold, the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt." Daniel employs similar language in relation to the Son of man: "Behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him." The representation before us here is in accordance also with our Lord's reply, when, in answer to his question about his Messiahship, he directed their attention from the humility of his first to the honor of his second coming, saying, "Ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." So also, when he was going to part from his disciples, when he was going to leave our world, when his feet last stood on Olivet, when he was about to ascend to his Father and our Father, to his God and our God, the cloud became his vehicle, and coming under him received (ὑπέλαβεν) him out of the disciples' sight; and in that car of cloud he rose onward, and mounted upward to the right hand of the Father everlasting. Thence he shall come again with glorious majesty, according to the promise, "This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." Further, in the Apocalypse, the Apostle John's representation of Christ's coming with clouds is designed and calculated to signify the grandeur and the glory, the solemnity and the sublimity of his second advent: "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen." III. THE GLORY AND POWER WITH WHICH HE COMES. Every manifestation of glory shall attend him; every symbol of unspeakable splendor shall accompany him; every token of dignity shall signalize him; every adjunct of might and magnificence shall mark his advent. The Son of man shall come with great power and glory; all the holy angels shall swell his train. The dead in Christ shall rise first, and swell that assemblage; they that are still alive, and remain till that dread day, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Can anything be grander than this? Can anything be more august? Can anything be more solemn? Can anything be more awe-inspiring? Is there anything more calculated to overwhelm with consternation the wicked? Is there anything more fitted to create deep and universal alarm among the ungodly? What, on the other hand, can be more inspiriting to the believer? What more encouraging and comforting to the child of God? What more suitable to nerve to high effort and holy purpose than the prospect of being presented faultless in that day, and amid that assembly, and before the presence of his glory, with exceeding joy? "A hope so great and so Divine May trials well endure, And purge the soul from sense and sin, As Christ himself is pure." IV. THE OBJECT or his coming. We may now reflect for a moment on the great purposes for which Christ shall come the second time. At first he came in weakness, but at his next coming he will take to him his great power and reign. At first he came in dishonor, born in a stable, cradled in a manger, being "despised and rejected of men;" but then he shall come in dignity, and so that "every eye shall see him," every tongue confess him, and every knee bow before him. At first he came in a servile, suffering state; but then in awful majesty and glory everlasting - in his own glory, and in the glory of his Father. At first he came to call sinners to repentance; but then to summon each to his reward, be it recompense or retribution, and "to give every man according as his work shall be." It is true that the coming of the Son of man described in the verses immediately before us has for its specific object the grand assemblage of his saints to meet him; the accessories of the resurrection, the transformation of the living, and the general judgment are left out of sight. From the tribulation connected with the fall of Jerusalem the Savior had looked far forward into other days, when great changes, whether literal and cosmical, or figurative and political, shall precede and serve as precursors of the second coming of the Son of man. If the language is understood figuratively, the darkening of the sun may denote the eclipse of ecclesiastical authority; that of the moon, the collapse of civil polity; while the stars or potentates shall be falling or waning (the form of the future made up of substantive verb and participle, implying a more durable effect than the simple future). In the parable of the fig tree, however, he reverts to the precursors of the dissolution of the jewish state and the destruction of its capital; and affirms that, as the tender leaf-buds of the fig tree signified the near approach of harvest-time (θέρος), so the signs already specified in an early part of this chapter indicated the fast-approaching destruction of the sanctuary and city of Jerusalem. If, then, the statement of ver. 30, "that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done," be referred to the end of the Jewish state, the word γενεὰ retains its ordinary sense of generation or contemporary race, which some insist on. If, on the other hand, the end of the age or world be referred to, whether the coming of the Son of man be for the purpose of ushering in the millennium, that is, pre-millennial, or for the final winding up of all things, the word γενεὰ must be understood as equivalent γένος, race, that is, the people or nation of the Jews, or, according to some, the race of men in general, more especially the generation of the faithful. V. THE DIFFERENT FEELINGS WITH WHICH HIS COMING IS REGARDED, The visit of some distinguished person to our neighborhood or to our habitation may, according to circumstances, awaken emotions of a very different or even diverse character. Our feelings in view of the expected visit will be either pleasant or painful, according to the character of the visitor or the object of his coming. If he comes as a friend to further our interests, to favor our fondly cherished hopes, and to confer on us certain benefits, we naturally hail his coming with delight and rejoice at the prospect of his speedy advent. If, on the contrary, we have reason to believe that his intentions are hostile, that he means to oppose our plans, that he has some unpleasant measure to enforce or some punishment to inflict, we just as naturally dread his arrival and recoil from his approach. With similarly opposite views and feelings, saints and sinners, believers and unbelievers, look forward to the coming of him to whom this passage refers. - J.J.G. Parallel Verses KJV: But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, |
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