Luke 21:25-27 - Exposition

The prophecy of the coming of the Son of man in glory. The signs which shall precede this advent. And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory . The Lord continues his solemn prophecy respecting things to come. Now, the question of the four disciples—to Which this great discourse was the answer—was, When were they to look for that awful ruin of city and temple of which their loved Master spoke? But they, it must be remembered, in their own minds closely connected the temple ' s fall with some glorious epiphany of their Master, in which they should share. He answers generally their formal question as to the temple, describing to them the very signs they are to look for as heralding the temple's fall. He now proceeds to reply to their real query respecting the glorious epiphany. The temple ' s ruin, that belonged to the period in which they were living; but the glorious epiphany, that lay in a far distance. "See," he said, "city and temple will be destroyed; this catastrophe some of you will live to see. The ruin will be irreparable; a new epoch will set in, an epoch I call 'the times of the Gentiles.' These once despised peoples will have their turn, for I shall be their Light. Ages will pass before these 'times of the Gentiles' shall be fulfilled, but the end will come, and then, and not till then, will the Son of man come in glory. Listen; these shall be the signs which shall herald this glorious advent: Signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars. " St. Matthew ( Matthew 24:29 ) supplies more details concerning these "signs." The sun would be darkened, and the moon would not give her light; the stars would fall from heaven. These words are evidently a memory of language used by the Hebrew prophets to express figuratively the downfall of kingdoms. So Isaiah ( Isaiah 13:10 )speaks thus of the destruction of Babylon, and Ezekiel ( Ezekiel 32:7 ) of the fall of Egypt (see too Isaiah 34:4 ). It is, however, probable that our Lord, while using language and figures familiar to Hebrew thought, foreshadowed a literal fulfillment of his words. So Godet, who picturesquely likens our globe just before the second advent to "a ship creaking in every timber at the moment of its going to pieces." He suggests that "our whole solar system shall then undergo unusual commotions. The moving forces ( δυνάμεις ), regular in their action tilt then, shall be, as it were, set free from their laws by an unknown power, and, at the end of this violent but short distress, the world shall see him appear" (see 2 Peter 3:10-12 , where it is plainly foretold that tremendous physical disturbances shall precede the second coming of the Lord). The Son of man coming in a cloud. The same luminous cloud we read of so often in the Pentateuch: the flames of the desert-wanderings; the pillar of cloud and fire; the same bright cloud enveloped the Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration; it received him as he was taken up ( Acts 1:9 ). Nothing is said in this place as to any millennial reign of Christ on earth. The description is that of a transitory appearance destined to effect the work upon quick and dead—an appear-ante defined more particularly by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:23 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16 , 1 Thessalonians 4:17 .