Who Are These That Fly as a Cloud?

In my daily devotions, I sometimes come across a topic that jiggles my spirit into taking a deeper dive to gain further understanding. Today was one of those days.

I am reading through the New Testament of the Bible using Chuck Smith’s Verse by Verse Study on the Blue Letter Bible website. I have reached the book of Revelation, and today specifically Revelation 1:7 “Behold, he cometh with clouds and every eye shall see him”. This is in reference to Jesus returning from heaven to earth to exercise his birth-right of King and begin his reign over all the earth, also known as the ‘Second Coming’. It’s not the rapture. That has already taken place by this time.

All my life I assumed that this ‘clouds’ term was actually just that; those white puffy things in the sky. Then I read that Chuck Smith felt that the clouds were actually people – the Church. The Church made up of those people who believed and accepted Jesus Christ as Messiah; therefore receiving forgiveness of sins and were allowed to live forever in heaven.

He backed up his thought with the scripture verse of Hebrews 12:1; “Seeing we are encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses” which was speaking of people who had kept their faith in the midst of great trials. This verse intimates that a cloud can also be considered as a large group of people whose purpose is to act as a witness to an event.

So, taking all that into consideration, I decided to explore the word cloud. The word cloud in Koine Greek, the language Revelation was written in, defines clouds as: νεφελῶν (nephelōn) Noun – Genitive Feminine Plural Strong’s 3507: A cloud. From nephos; properly, cloudiness, i.e. a cloud. (Biblehub.org) .

With the help of AI, I looked up the definitions to gain more insight on the terms:

So putting this together in my mind, this is what I came up with; the clouds (noun) that come with Jesus when he returns to Earth are the saved multitudes of people, they are with Jesus as His witnesses, a testimony of who He is and what He has provided to believers. This cloud word is of the female category and plural indicating that there is more than one; the multitudes that are in a possessive (in a good way) relationship with Jesus and that make up the church; also known as the Bride (feminine genitive) of Christ.

This makes much more sense than an actual cloud, which can also obscure one’s vision via fog. Why would Jesus be obscured in a fog cloud on his return when the scripture also says that every eye shall see him? Can’t see him if it’s foggy.

After Jesus resurrected and went back to heaven, he was received into a cloud and out of the sight of the disciples who were watching Jesus ascend. Was this also a cloud of witnesses he went back to? Did they welcome Him into their company? Could that cloud be the believers that had arrived in heaven through death, or maybe it even included the raptured saints of the future since there is no time in heaven.

If I did a more deeper dive, I’d probably find more instances of people clouds. Maybe there is another day for that.