s dead, and is alive forevermore. The
same symbol repeated, must here also be a representative of Christ.

His position on a cloud, indicates the arrival of the period when he is to
be manifested in mid-heaven: "Behold he cometh with clouds; and every eye
shall see him," 1:7. "One like the Son of man came with the clouds of
heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before
him. And there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all
people, nations, and languages should serve him," Dan. 7:13, 14. "And they
shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and
great glory. And he shall send his angels, with a great sound of a
trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds,
from one end of heaven to the other," Matt. 24:30, 31.

The epoch of this manifestation, according to the above, is that of the
last trump, the second advent, and the first resurrection. "At the last
trump ... the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be
changed," 1 Cor. 15:52. "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God;
and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and
remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the
Lord in the air," 1 Thess. 4:16, 17.

His "golden crown" indicates that he is now to take to himself his great
power, and to reign, "when the kingdoms of this world become our Lord's
and his Christ's," 11:15, 17. Crowns are symbols of sovereignty. As such,
they respectively denoted the periods, when the forms of government,
symbolized by the heads of the beast (12:3) and its horns (13:1), bore
rule. Now the diadem is to be transferred from them, to encircle the brow
of earth's rightful Sovereign.

The sharp sickle in his hand, indicates that the time of harvest has
arrived; and the act of reaping, the gathering of the harvest. There are
two gatherings symbolized, corresponding to the two classes of persons who
are to be gathered. "The dead in Christ shall rise first," and will be
"caught up to meet the Lord in the air," before the wicked are gathered, 1
Thess. 4:16, 17. "I will come again, and receive you unto myself," said
the Saviour, John 14:5. The Lord of the harvest directs its gathering, but
effects it by the instrumentality of angels: "He shall send his angels,
and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the