The disciples asked the Lord an intriguing question: "Tell us . . . What shall be the sign of thy coming, and the end of the world?" (Matt. 24:3).  Due to their Jewish heritage, a sign was more than essential to the disciples. Indeed, to them, a sign authenticated an event to be of God (Isa. 7:14; Luke 2:12). For which reason, Satan will seek to counterfeit signs through the Antichrist to deceive the Jews: "Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders" (1 Thess. 2:9). Despite Satan’s fraudulent signs in the Great Tribulation, there will be one sign that will stop every one of His lying wonders: the sign of the Son of man coming in the heavens.

The opening of Revelation 12 pictures a woman in Heaven clothed with the sun: "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars" (Rev. 12:1). Distinctively, this great wonder embodying a woman is also a sign, for the words "sign" and "wonder" are synonymous in the Greek, and fully interchangeable. To that end, the armies of God are very much a part of the coming sign of the Son of man at the Second Coming (Rev. 19:8, 14).

It is the Church that is in Christ’s presence as He walks among the candlesticks in Revelation 1:13-16 (Rev. 1:20). There, on the commencement of the Lord’s Day, the countenance of Christ is as "the sun shining in his strength." Therefore, it only stands to reason that once the Church becomes fully redeemed, She also is in the heavens clothed with the "Sun of Righteousness." For the "Sun of Righteousness" is none other than "the bright and Morning Star," Jesus Christ. For it is Christ who breaks through the heavens with great power and glory at the Second Advent, being the first light after the night—the sign of the Son of man.

Besides the fact that most of the woman is in Heaven, two reasons dictate why the Heavenly Woman in Revelation 12:1 can also be understood comprehensively as all of God’s people. First, it was the lineage of Israel (the woman) which brought forth the man child, Christ Jesus (Rev. 12:5). Second, the moon under her feet represents the lesser light of Israel that remains here on Earth, that is, once the Church is totally redeemed and in Heaven. These, then, are the saved of Israel who remain behind, and are better known biblically as the remnant of her seed (Matt. 24:32-33; Rev. 12:17).

Broadly speaking, the lesser light of the moon also encompasses the future (deep) Great Tribulation converts of spiritual Smyrna. Historical Smyrna, an early Church, was mostly decimated by her persecutors as will this future segment of the Church: "be thou faithful unto death." Corresponding with that fact, Christ in Smyrna’s Salutation is the one who "was dead, and is alive," the first and the last. Fittingly, Smyrna of tomorrow is a branch of the future Church presently dead to the Gospel, who will come alive in their Great Tribulation conversion.

To these, however, Paul does give an encouraging word: "Behold, I show [Greek: tell] you a mystery; we shall not all sleep [die], but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed" (1 Cor. 15:51-52).

Upon Christ's Quick Coming the wise will instantly be like him worldwide, seeing Him as he is (1 John 3:2; Col. 3:4). And this fact leaves the deduction that if the world does see Christ's initial return, being unsaved, they won't recognize the Lord as He is. Consider, then, how different Christ described the slower traditional Second Coming: "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."