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Christ’s Appearance at His Second Coming, October 10
We look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our
vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body,
according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things
unto himself.
Philippians 3:20, 21
.
Christ had ascended to heaven in the form of humanity. The disciples
had beheld the cloud receive Him. The same Jesus who had walked and
talked and prayed with them; who had broken bread with them; who had
been with them in their boats on the lake; and who had that very day toiled
with them up the ascent of Olivet—the same Jesus had now gone to share
His Father’s throne. And the angels had assured them that the very One
whom they had seen go up into heaven, would come again even as He had
ascended.
The glory of Christ’s humanity did not appear when He was upon the
earth.... That same humanity now appears as He descends from heaven,
robed in glory, triumphant, exalted.
Christ will come in His own glory, in the glory of His Father, and in the
glory of the holy angels. Ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands
of thousands of angels, the beautiful, triumphant sons of God, possessing
surpassing loveliness and glory, will escort Him on His way. In the place
of a crown of thorns, He will wear a crown of glory—a crown within a
crown. In the place of that old purple robe, He will be clothed in a garment
of whitest white, “so as no fuller on earth can white” (
Mark 9:3
) it. And on
His vesture and on His thigh a name will be written, “King of Kings, and
Lord of Lords.”
Revelation 19:16
.
All heaven will be emptied of the angels, while the waiting saints will be
looking for Him and gazing into heaven, as were the men of Galilee when
He ascended from the Mount of Olivet. Then only those who are holy, those
who have followed fully the meek Pattern, will with rapturous joy exclaim
as they behold Him, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he
will save us.” And they will be changed “in a moment, in the twinkling of
an eye, at the last trump”—that trump which wakes the sleeping saints, and
calls them forth from their dusty beds, clothed with glorious immortality,
and shouting, “Victory! Victory over death and the grave!”
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