CLOUDS OF GLORY

 

When the Saviour came for the first time, He came as the Suffering Servant to ‘justify many’ through His Atonement, meaning He brought back into alignment with the Father many of His children, by bearing their iniquities and declaring them innocent and guiltless (Isaiah 53:11).

“Persecuted and despised, He trod the thorny path of duty, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”; and finally condemned by His people, who clamored to an alien power for authority to execute their own unjust sentence upon their Lord, He went to death by the torturing crucifixion prescribed for malefactors.”  (James E. Talmage, “Jesus the Christ”, p 357)

When He comes again, Christ will come as the King, trading the stench of the stable with the clouds of glory, and the government shall be upon His shoulders to reign on earth a Millenium of days as the Prince of Peace. This prophecy of the Millenial Messiah can be found in the Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price (see Det 18:15-19; Isaiah 9:6,7; Acts 3:22; 3 Nephi 20:23-24; D&C 133:63; JSH 1:40)

What touches my heart the most about the Second Coming is this…when He comes, the Saviour will come to His people Israel first. Unlike the first time, however, when He came to lift them out of apostasy and establish His Church through which all the nations of the earth would be blessed according to the Abrahamic Covenant, His Second Coming will be a jubilation amongst His people, who love Him, serve Him, and have accepted Him as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

This will be the order of His appearances: 1. To priesthood leadership at Adam-ondi-Ahman (Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; D&C 116); 2. To His saints at New Jerusalem in America (3 Nephi 21:23-25; D&C 45:66-67); 3. To the Jews in Jerusalem (D&C 45:48; 51-53; Zechariah 12:10; 14:2-5); 4. Lastly, He will appear in glory to all mankind (D&C 45:44; 101:23; Matt 24:30; Isaiah 40:5; JST, Revelation 1:7) (see also the Institute Manual, Introduction to “The Lord’s Second Coming”, Chapter 36)

In the ‘meridian of time’ Christ was born amid obscurity to all except the faithful few who had been watching for the promised event. It is those few who recognised Him and accepted him. His second advent, however, will outnumber those few by the masses of His faithful saints. It will be a triumphant return.

Modern day revelation tells us that the coming of the Lord will overtake ‘the world’ as a thief in the night (D&C 106:4), meaning those who live in darkness rejecting the spiritual light of day will see the day unprepared and surprised.

But this is not us….as Apostle Paul tells us, that day cannot overtake us as a thief in the night because we are not in darkness…..we are “the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.” (1 Thessalonias 5:2-5). We will be neither unprepared or surprised. We are Israel, children of light. 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Transcendent Glory by Greg Collins)