Maybe a couple guys came close. Sometimes these forums can be virtual idea factories. A connection with the sign of Jonah sounds right. And a big cross in the sky, that's close enough and related to what it really is. And the Judgement of the church. Really the culmination of the judgement of the living just prior to Christ's appearance. Because when He appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. It's all happening fast when we meet the Lord in the air.
If we did know what this sign is, would we accept it if it challenges our current views of eschatology?
But we don't know what it is. Yet. Why don't you tell us? I'm still trying to pin down not what it is, but when it is. Sir, you know. “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. It's the same sign that the Son of Man's enemies saw in the first century. The Resurrection. Jesus became the Sign for that. The historicity of the Resurrection is unimpeachable. It's unique in time. It's uniquely Jesus. Jesus has the patent for it. It is the Sign of the Son of Man.
Or, a better question might be, how it will look from the vantage point of the tribes remaining on the earth when the sign happens? When they see from the wrong end, the ones coming out of the great tribulum illuminating the sky. How will it look to pregnant women? Those nursing new babies? These people are going to mourn with an unfortunate, and an unparalleled remorse, a mourning no one else will ever experience in time. Comparable with the "gnashing of teeth" a thousand years from now.
Maybe a better question would even be if we did know what this sign is, should we even be talking about it now. I think we're late into the equivalent of the third day, the last day, in the belly of the great fish. I think we're close enough just to sit back and see it, or be it, in real time. This is a case where the price action makes for market commentary. In my view there are too many other disciplines involved first in understanding this, not the least of which is the state of the earth during the millennium.
"Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, 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. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. - Mathew 24: 30-31
So first they see the Sign of the Son of Man,
Then all of the tribes mourn,
Then they will see the Son of Man coming,
Then they will see Him send His angels,
Then they will see the elect gathered from the heavens.
That's bad news.
For some. You don't want to see the elect gathered from the heavens. This is not something you want to see, this is something that you want to be. It would mean to be on the wrong end of the equation. We don't mourn as others do, as the tribes of the earth do, who have no hope. We don't see the sign of the Son of Man. Because we ARE the sign of the Son of Man.
"So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. - John 2: 18-22
This alone is a tough understanding. Someone could probably write a wall of text on it. Lol. It ends up with half the people arguing that Jesus was Crucified on Wednesday. "And in three days I will raise it up. Temple, House, Body. But did Jesus raise Himself up after three days? Or was it His Father in heaven that raised Him? Paul went on to pen a phrase, the "body of Christ". Is this maybe where Paul got it from?. Built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. The temple of His Body.
But was He speaking about the temple of his own personal body? Was Jesus talking just about raising his own body up, I will raise it up, after three days? Just prior to Jesus saying these things, He had gotten more angry than I have ever imagined seeing Him. Making a whip of cords, driving the merchants out of the temple, with sheep and oxen on the run. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” But was it "zeal" for His own physical "body", or is this zeal for something else Jesus is to raise up? If this "zeal" for His Father's House is just that physical temple, why would He switch the narrative to destroying it, and then He will raise a new one up in three days? Also note the language: "raise a new one up". Raise it up. I will raise it up.
The idea that Jesus' own body is the temple is just not Biblical. And in this case Jesus saying He will raise it up Himself; "I will raise it up, I [JESUS] WILL RAISE IT UP. The Bible doesn't say Jesus raised Himself from the dead. It says He was raised from the dead, "When therefore He was raised from the dead… When Jesus was raised".
In Mark 14 there's an enlargement of the idea when Jesus' accusers claimed “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’” Not made with hands. Here the House Temple Body concept is made more clear.
I will raise it up.
"And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. - John 6:39
"For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” - John 6:40
"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. - John 6:44
"Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. - John 6:54
I will raise him up.
On the last day.
The historicity of the resurrection is unimpeachable. If the Old Time Jews could have produced a body, a physical body of Christ in the first century, there would be no Christianity now. Jesus's resurrection, and our resurrection, is connected.
"For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. - Matthew 12:40
When Jonah came back from the dead after three days lost in the depths of the sea, he himself had become a sign. He also became a precursor, a sign of resurrection, of restoration.
Jonah didn’t work a miracle. He was a miracle.
Likewise, after Jesus' capture, suffering, brutal death, three days and nights caught in the depths of the earth, He Himself had become The Sign. He became a precursor, a sign of resurrection, of restoration. The first born of many brethren. Jesus restoreth my soul, He restoreth my life.
The sign of the Son of Man must be the first resurrection from Revelation 20. This is the culmination of the Body of Christ, when the Body of Christ is finally realized and completed on that "last day". Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power. I called it the greatest event in the history of mankind. Another guy told me that the greatest event in the history of mankind was the Cross. But it's all connected. Without Him, I can do nothing. When mankind fell, they required a Saviour. Thinking about it like that, with necessity being the mother of invention, the Woman, God's People, gave birth to the Man Child.
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.
Some are going to shine like the brightness of the sky above, some like the stars of heaven. But those of us who are sleeping, some from all of history, and we here who remain alive, are going to light up the stratosphere in a way that it's never been lit up before. And when the angels are sent to gather us from the heavens, we are already there and waiting to be gathered. At that point the sign of the Son of Man has been seen. And all of the tribes remaining on the earth will mourn.
And, behold, something Greater than Jonah is here.
Peaceful Sabbath.