Answer
Revelation 1:7 says, “‘Look, he is coming with the clouds,’ and ‘every eye will see him, even those who pierced him’; and all peoples on earth ‘will mourn because of him.’ So shall it be! Amen.” This verse brings together two other passages: Matthew 26:64, in which Jesus tells the Sanhedrin they will see the Son “coming on the clouds of heaven”; and Zechariah 12:10, which says that Jerusalem’s inhabitants will mourn when they see “the one they have pierced.”
Some have tried to allegorize Revelation 1:7 by assigning various figurative meanings to the “clouds.” But there is no need to look for hidden meanings here, for the passage means just what it says, as do the two passages it quotes. There is nothing more to make of the statement that “He comes with the clouds.” It simply means that Jesus will appear to all people as He comes to earth out of the heavens.
After Jesus gave His disciples the Great Commission, “he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight” (Acts 1:9). As the disciples stood there, gazing after the Lord, two angels appeared and told them, “This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven” (verse 11). A cloud is mentioned at His ascension, and the clouds are mentioned at His return.
