In that Day, the LORD shall be King over all the earth,
and it shall be the LORD one, and His name one.Zechariah 14:9
In the LORD’s day, at the “last trumpet,” God shall become king over all the earth. This is vividly described in Revelation 11:15: “Then the seventh angel sounded . . . The kingdoms of the world have become the kingdoms of our LORD and His Christ.”
Contents
The meaning of “the LORD’s Day”
When we enter this day, God will become the LORD again. He will be “the King over all the earth,” as prophesied by Zechariah.
The Spirit of Christ, and the invisible God, will again speak as one, just as they did in the Old Testament. Paul wrote, “when all things have been submitted to Christ then Christ shall submit to God, that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28).
God will be the LORD Again
I am the First and the Last
The first Chapter of Revelation is filled with the imagery of the LORD’s Day.
Beginning in verse 7, we see Jesus appearing on the clouds:
Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him,
even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will
mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.
Christ used these words to describe His return in Matthew 24:30–31.
Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
The appearance of the Son of Man on the clouds is also found in Daniel 7:13-14, where we see Him coming on the clouds, to give a kingdom to God.
But when we read Daniel 7:13–14, it is a bit ambiguous as to who is receiving the Kingdom; is it Christ or God?
I kept looking in the night visions,
And behold, with the clouds of heaven
One like a Son of Man was coming,
And He came up to the Ancient of Days
And was presented before Him.And to Him was given dominion,
Glory and a kingdom,
That all the peoples, nations and men of every language
Might serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
Which will not pass away;
And His kingdom is one
Which will not be destroyed.
Who is “Him” in verse 14?
Of course, we know that the everlasting kingdom is the kingdom of God. God’s “dominion is an everlasting dominion.”
In Daniel 7:27, this vision was explained by the Angel. He told us again that God’s kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom. And he explained that when the kingdom is given over to God, the saints will no longer be ruled by men.
Then the sovereignty, the dominion and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the Highest One; His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions will serve and obey Him.
The meaning of Daniel 7:13-14, and Daniel 7:27 was summarized by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:24: “then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power.”
The scene, in Revelation 1, intensifies when John hears the voice of the Almighty in verse 8:
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,
the Beginning and the end,”
says the LORD God.
This is the first time we have heard the voice of God since Jesus’ resurrection, and most significantly it is the first time that God was called the LORD, since Jesus resurrected.
We are now in the LORD’s Day, as John tells us in verse 10: “I was in ἐν spirit in ἐν the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet.”
The voice as a trumpet also tells us we are in the Lord’s Day when Jesus will return. Jesus said, “the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice” (John 5:28). 1 Thessalonians 4:16 reads, “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice the Archangel and with the trumpet of God.”
We actually hear the voice of the Archangel, as “a loud voice,” three times in the Book of Revelation. We hear “a loud voice” when we return to the LORD’s Day, in Revelation 16:17 and 21:3. This loud voice of the Archangel, from the throne, is of course the Spirit of Christ, who appears on the throne as the image of the invisible God, and the Word, the speaker for the invisible God.
In Revelation 1:12–18, John turns to see the Spirit of Christ, who is manifest as the Word, the Archangel, the Son of Man, the Image of the invisible God (the Ancient of Days), and the Body of Christ, the Redeemed Sanctified Church, being the five main roles that the Spirit of Christ plays in the Bible, and all of the symbols of the LORD’s Day.
The LORD’s Day is really the theme of the Book of Revelation. It begins in the LORD’s Day and ends in the LORD’s day, and several times during the course of the Book it jumps back into the LORD’s day, as if to remind the saints of their final hope and destiny.
Are you sure the LORD’s Day is not a Sunday?
The English language itself and English translations have created a lot of confusion.
In Greek, one is in a day, and not on a day. John was not on a particular weekday; he was “in the Lord’s Day.”
“I was in ἐν spirit in ἐν the Lord’s Day,
and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet.”
The early Church understood John’s meaning, which is clear from the Epistle of Barnabas. In fact, the Epistle of Barnabas made an eschatological comparison of the LORD’s Day, or Day of the Lord, to the Sabbath Day.
Why did John use the expression “the LORD’s Day” and not “Day of the Lord”?
The Day of the Lord
In the New Testament, the expression “Day of the Lord” always referred to the Day of Christ. Christ will be our Lord until He returns. But on the Day He returns, God will become our Lord. So the Apostle John never called Christ the Lord, in the LORD’s Day, or thereafter. We can see this first in Revelation 1:8. In the Appendix, we detail all of the uses of the expression Lord by John in the Book of Revelation, and all the uses of this phrase throughout the New Testament.
Below are all the uses of “Day of the Lord” by the Apostles. Other than quotations of the Old Testament, which speak of the LORD God, you can see that “Day of Lord,” in the New Testament, always refers to the Day of Christ.
| 1 Corinthians 1:8; 5:5; 2 Corinthians 1:14 | “Keep you blameless in the Day of our Lord Jesus Christ; that his spirit may be saved in the Day of the Lord Jesus (when we resurrect); that we can boast about you in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ” |
| Philippians 1:6; 10; 2:16 | “He who began a good work will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus; blameless until the day of Christ; that I may boast in the day of Christ” |
| 1 Thessalonians 5:2, 4
2 Thessalonians 2:2 |
“The Day of the Lord will come as a thief” (referencing coming of Christ as “a thief”) |
| 2 Peter 3:10 | The Day of the Lord will come as a thief |
The LORD’s Day
John wanted to emphasize the Day of the LORD God, which Peter called “the day of God” (2 Peter 3:12). John used the expression “Lord’s Day” so that it would not be confused with “the Day of Christ.”
Joel called this the “great and notable Day” or “great and fearful Day.” Peter quoted Joel in Acts 2:20. Of course, he had to use Lord for God, in this case, as God was the LORD in the Old Testament.
The sun shall be turned into darkness,
And the moon into blood,
Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.
The LORD’s Day was called “the Great Day” by Jude (v. 6), and refers to “the Day” when the fire comes down.
John used the adjective “LORD’s” to emphasize the Great Day of God. The Day when He receives the Kingdom from Christ.
And it shall be the LORD one and His name one
The oneness of Christ and God in the LORD’s Day is demonstrated through several passages in Revelation. This oneness is as it was in the Old Testament, when God was the Lord.
We can really understand the meaning of “it shall be the LORD one and His Name one” in the last Chapter of Revelation. The Spirit of Christ, speaking for God, as the Word, actually called Himself Jesus!
Let us see the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy in the LORD’s Day.
Revelation 1:17-18 and 2:8
In Revelation 1:17-18 and 2:8, the Spirit of Christ spoke as God, and as the risen man Christ Jesus.
Here, we really gain the understanding that God and Christ have become one, again:
“Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One;
I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever!”“Thus says, the First and the Last,
He who was dead, and came to life . . . ”
In Chapters 10, and 13 we discussed the meaning of “I am the First and Last” in Isaiah, and the meaning of “ECHAD” in the Old Testament.
Revelation 22:12–13 and 16
In Revelation 22:6, the Spirit of Christ, the Angel, told us that “God sent His Angel” to John.
In verses 12 to 13, the Spirit of Christ, the Angel, spoke as the returning Son of Man (Luke 18:8; Matthew 25:31) and as God:
“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me,
and I will give to each person according to what they have done.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last (besides Me there is no God), the Beginning and the End.”Revelation 22:13
Then, in verse 16, the Angel spoke as God again, and said, “I, Jesus, have sent My Angel to testify to you these things for the churches . . .”
As Zechariah told us, “in that Day, it shall be the LORD one, and His name one.”
In the next Chapter, we will prove that the Angel who guided John throughout the Book of Revelation was the Angel of God, the Spirit of Christ, and “the Word” whom we met in the Old Testament.