Every Eye Will See Him

Although Christians are most familiar with the first coming of Christ, it is the Second Coming that gets the most ink in the Bible. References to the Second Coming outnumber references to the first by a factor of eight to one. Scholars count 1,845 biblical references to the Second Coming, including 318 in the New Testament.

While many of the Old Testament prophets wrote concerning the Second Coming of Christ, it is Zechariah who has given us the clearest and most concise prediction of it:

Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations,
as He fights in the day of battle. And in that day His feet
will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem
on the east. (14:3–4)

Centuries later, Jesus was speaking from the Mount of Olives when He affirmed His Second Coming to His disciples in dramatic and cataclysmic terms: “The sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:30).

Immediately following Christ’s ascension into heaven, two angels appeared to the stunned disciples and spoke words of comfort to them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). Jesus ascended to heaven from the Mount of Olives. According to the angels, Christ will return to that very same spot—the Mount of Olives—just as Zechariah foretold.

In the first chapter of Revelation, John records, “Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him” (v. 7). And in the last chapter—indeed, almost the last words of the New Testament—our

Lord emphatically affirms His Second Coming: “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming quickly.’ Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” (22:20).

Obviously, we have excellent reason to anticipate the return of Christ. The Bible affirms it throughout as a certainty, describing it in specific terms and with ample corroboration.

REMEMBER: “And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8).