THE TIME OF THE END QUESTIONS, Part V
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Question: Consider Daniel’s prophecy in his Chapter 7 where the Stone cut out of the mountain without hands falls and crushes the feet of the giant image representing the four world temporal powers, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. After the smiting Stone falls, “one like the Son of man” appears in “the clouds of heaven” with “the Ancient of days.” What happened immediately after the Stone fell?
Answer continues from Blog 53, January, 2026:
CLOUD = GOD’S PRESENCE
According to The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, the word cloud (and also clouds, as in Jeremiah 4:13) is a visible symbol of God’s presence, as in Exodus 16:10; 20:21; Leviticus 16:2; I Kings 8:10; Ezekiel 10:4; and Matthew 17:5. R. B. Y. Scott wrote in that dictionary that “to come with clouds” in Revelation 1:7 is correlated with Mark 13:26, which refers back to Daniel 7:13 (v.1: p.655).
AT-ONE-MENT
Instead of movement in Daniel 7:13, there is a sense of the inseparable presence of “one like the Son of man” with the Almighty, a sense of at-one-ment, or oneness. In other words, the identity of the “one like the Son of man” is at-one with God at the Second Advent as is the identity of Christ Jesus at-one with God at the First Advent, two witnesses standing on opposite shores of Hiddekel conversing with the everpresent Tsedeq (the impersonal Christ)standing on the waters of Hiddekel (the Word of God) (Daniel 12:5-13).
Since “one like the Son of man” appears in the clouds of heaven, this unveiling is occurring in the ever presence of divine Providence where the Ancient of days is already present. This point further substantiates the idea, not of movement, either ascending or descending, but of the oneness, by togetherness of the “one like” the Son with the Father, God.
In addition, since the word man in “one like the Son of man” represents a higher sense of man than an ordinary person (implied by similarity to the phraseology), but not as high as “the man clothed in linen,” which is the personification of absolute Purity or Righteousness, or the Christ, this “one like the Son of man” appears to be a human of the highest order.