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Where Jesus Will Return

Zechariah 14

One of the saddest days in Israel's history was shown to the prophet Ezekiel—the day the glory of the Lord left the temple in Jerusalem, a sign of God leaving His people and their sins: "And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain, which is on the east side of the city" (Ezekiel 11:23). The mountain east of the city is the Mount of Olives (2 Samuel 15:30). Hundreds of years later, God was leaving Jerusalem again—this time in the person of the resurrected Christ about to ascend into heaven. And this time it was from the Mount of Olives (Acts 1:12). As His disciples stood watching until they lost sight of Jesus in the clouds, two "men" (angels) comforted them by saying Jesus would return in the same manner they had seen Him leave (Acts 1:9-11). But did "like manner" (verse 11) include the same location?

Perhaps the angel wasn't more specific because he assumed the disciples were familiar with Zechariah 14:4: "And in that day [the Lord's] feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east." What day? The day in which "the Lord will go forth and fight against those [rebellious] nations, as He fights in the day of battle" (Zechariah 14:3). This is the same battle described by the apostle John in Revelation 19—when Christ returns with the armies of heaven to judge the nations at the end of the Great Tribulation prior to establishing His millennial kingdom.

Ever since God chose "Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put His name there," (1 Kings 14:21) it has been the most important city in the world. When Christ returns as "KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS" (Revelation 19:16), there is no other city to which He could return except Jerusalem.

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