This is the 10th in a series of excerpts from What Every Christian Should Know About the Return of Jesus, released by High Street Press and available at Amazon.com. 

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Angels proclaim the return of Jesus in at least two New Testament passages. In the first, “two men in white clothes” tell the apostles Christ’s return is to be a mirror image of his ascension, which they have just witnessed. In the second, an angel flies high overhead, announcing to the earth’s inhabitants that God’s hour of judgment has come.

Acts 1:10-11 – While he was going, they were gazing into heaven, and suddenly two men in white clothes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you have seen him going into heaven.”

Jesus has instructed his apostles to remain in Jerusalem until they receive the Father’s promise of the Holy Spirit. Thus empowered, they are to be Christ’s witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Then, Jesus ascends into heaven with a cloud taking him out of their sight (Acts 1:4-9). 

In the apostles’ minds, this may harken back to the ascension of Elijah in 2 Kings 2. After the prophet’s dramatic exit in a whirlwind, accompanied by blazing horses and a chariot of fire, Elisha receives a double portion of Elijah’s spirit to carry on the prophetic ministry. 

In a similar manner, the ascending Jesus passes the torch to his apostles. The coming Holy Spirit will enable them to perform “even greater works” than the works of Jesus – that is, greater in number and geographical reach – as they carry on the gospel ministry in the wake of Christ’s return to his Father (John 14:12-14).

So now, with Jesus ascending to the Father’s right hand, “two men in white clothes” – clearly angelic beings – urge the eyewitnesses to take on the mantle of their apostolic calling. Equally important, the angels remind the apostles that Christ’s absence from the earth is temporary. 

The Lord is returning one day. This “same Jesus” – the resurrected and glorified God-Man – is coming back to set things right. Further, he is coming back in the “same way” – personally, physically, visibly, with the clouds of heaven.  

Followers of Jesus are not to stand idly, gazing into the heavens and watching for his return. We are to be busy, engaging in the gospel ministry he has entrusted to us.

Revelation 14:6-7 – Then I saw another angel flying high overhead, with the eternal gospel to announce to the inhabitants of the earth ​— ​to every nation, tribe, language, and people. He spoke with a loud voice: “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”

Three angels appear in succession in Revelation 14:6-12. They proclaim the vindication of God’s people and the judgment of the wicked. Our primary interest is in the first angel, who flies high overhead and announces “the eternal gospel” to the earth’s inhabitants. 

The eternal gospel is the “euangelion,” the good news of Jesus Christ: his eternal existence, incarnation, sinless life, sacrificial death, resurrection, and ascension; his position today in heaven at the Father’s right hand; his imminent return in glory; and his gracious offer of eternal life through faith in him. 

The gospel is eternal in that it is in the mind of the Father from the beginning. Further, Jesus is the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). And the eternal Spirit bears testimony of the risen Savior, drawing unbelievers to faith in Christ (Heb. 9:14; cf. John 16:8-11). 

The eternal gospel first touches human life at the moment of Adam’s fall. The promise of a coming seed is made as God clothes Adam and Eve in the animal skins of the inaugural atoning sacrifice. 

The gospel continues through God’s gracious sparing of Noah and his family in the days of the deluge; his promises to Abraham of land, a people, and blessings to all through Abraham’s offspring; his deliverance of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt; the types and shadows of the sacrificial system; the throne upon which King David sits, promising a coming redeemer; and the miraculous conception of the eternal Son of God in the womb of a teenage girl.

Salvation always has been the good news. It always comes at God’s initiative and Christ’s expense; it always has been offered in grace and received by faith. Every drop of sacrificial blood, from the Garden of Eden to Golgotha, points to the redeemer whose sinless life is poured out for our sins. 

No longer do sinful people take a spotless lamb and spill its blood, trusting in faith that the death of the innocent substitute has temporarily covered their sins. Now, they look in faith upon the Lamb of God, whose blood once and for all takes away their sin.

The fact that the angel proclaims the eternal gospel to every nation, tribe, language, and people means God graciously excludes no one who receives his Son in faith. It also means the objects of his judgment have no excuse for rejecting their creator. 

Grace and judgment are two sides of the same coin. God’s holiness demands death to the sinner, while his love compels him to offer his own Son to pay the penalty on our behalf. Those who receive the gospel are the objects of his special grace, while those who reject it have willfully passed through the portals of hell and locked the door behind them. 

Next: He will judge the nations