There's new details within Revelation, such as the mark of the beast, just as throughout the bible, since Genesis 3, more and more details about the Messiah are revealed.
You can go back to Genesis 3 and see that this is the first mention of Jesus... but you can't deny that we get a clearer and clearer picture of who Jesus is through the bible as it progresses, and ultimately, Revelation is the clearest picture of who Jesus is that we get in scripture, Amen?
I disagree. The gospels, as well as the other NT books, give a very clear picture of who Jesus is. I don't see that the book of Revelation gives a clearer picture of who Jesus is than the rest of the NT.
You believe the wrath of God is a single day
I believe that about the final wrath of God, such as is mentioned in passages like Matthew 24:37-39, 1 Thess 5:2-3, 2 Thess 1:7-10, 2 Peter 3:10-12, Revelation 6:12-17, Revelation 14:18-20, Revelation 16:17-21, Revelation 19:11-21 and Revelation 20:9.
Revelation seems to teach that somehow, Jesus comes both before the wrath of God, and at the end of the wrath of God. Again, clearer picture.
No, it does not seem to teach that. And I don't accept this idea that the book of Revelation is supposed to give us a clearer picture of that than the rest of the NT at all.
The first and second coming were not clear in books like Isaiah. You can find it perhaps, but it's kind of veiled, scholars assumed a single coming of Messiah based on Messianic prophecy in the Old Testament.
That is completely irrelevant. Your argument here is that the book of Revelation gives a clearer picture about the second coming than the rest of the New Testament does, is it not? I completely disagree with that. The NT as a whole gives a clearer picture than the Old Testament did, but there is no reason to think that the book of Revelation gives a clearer picture than the rest of the New Testament.
Now I'm not sure if Jesus descends, takes us with Him to heaven, then returns, as pretrib, mid trib, and most pre-wrath would believe
or if I believe He just hangs out on the clouds for years as you're saying, I mean .. maybe? But not necessarily what I believe.
Where is the scripture which indicates that He takes us with Him to heaven after meeting Him in the air? What would be the point of meeting Him in the air in that case? Why not just meet Him in heaven?
As for the possibility of Him just hanging out on the clouds for years. Get serious. That is ridiculous and I can't take that seriously at all.
The other option is that He does touch down after the rapture after appearing in the clouds, and Joel Richardson has an interesting take where there's a "second exodus" of Jews that fled into the wilderness when the Great Tribulation began, some are in captivity, and others in hiding, and Jesus leads them back to Zion. The compelling piece of evidence for this is Isaiah 63, where Isaiah sees Jesus coming FROM Bozrah already with His clothes stained in blood.
It's one of the compelling sections of scripture for timing as well as Jesus uses both day and year interchangably.
I don't find this to be compelling at all. Very farfetched. And there's no other scripture that can be used to support that idea.
So yeah.. I find these details compelling... that Jesus is on the ground coming from the direction of Jordan, His clothes already stained in blood as they are in Revelation 19, and most curious and most compelling.... He is alone. The saints are not with Him. This is a strange detail in that most second coming mentions involve Jesus arriving with angels and all the saints.
I find that to be completely ridiculous and not compelling even a tiny bit. That's my opinion. His clothes being stained in blood figuratively represents the bloodshed He is about to deliver on the earth when He returns and has nothing to do with a battle He was involved in previous to what is described in Revelation 19. It's symbolic language. He's not going to be literally riding a horse or literally wearing a robe covered in blood or literally slaying people with a sword coming out of His mouth at that time.
I guess if I were to really piece together what I believe....
6th seal return in the clouds of Jesus, the rapture of the saints to heaven, and then Jesus is on the ground, splits the Mount of Olives, and then, while the saints are in Heaven, the wrath of God is poured out as Jesus Himself goes on a campaign to liberate and lead back the Remnant of Israel back from captivity/hiding across Jordan. Then when He reaches Armageddon, at the end of the wrath of God, the saints come back down from Heaven and are with Jesus.. He defeats all His enemies gathered against Him , and then begins ruling in Jerusalem.
This would mean it is a single second coming, but there is both Jesus appearing at the 6th seal before the wrath of God, and returning to Jerusalem at the end of the wrath of God, with Jesus being on the ground alone treading the winepress along the way in between.
Where is there any support for your theory in scripture, though? That's all speculation and nothing more. Can you show me where any of this is actually taught in the New Testament? Do you find anything like that in the Olivet Discourse or in any of Paul or Peter's teachings regarding the second coming?
I'm not holding that as dogma though.
What I do hold as dogma is that Jesus is both shown before the wrath of God, and at the end of the wrath of God, in 2 different events. The first being the rapture, the second being Armageddon.
Yet, scripture never teaches that. Instead, passages like 1 Thess 4:13-5:6 and 2 Thess 1:7-10 teach that Jesus returns, His people are gathered to Him and then He takes vengeance on His enemies. There's no indication anywhere of Him coming to gather His people to Himself, followed by a bunch of other stuff and then years later finally destroying His enemies.
