The angelic symbol is peribeblemenon nephelen, one who hath been clothed with a cloud. Hence, there was a time when this clothing had not been developed. Understanding that the nucleus of the symbol is "the Lord the Spirit," who is "the resurrection and the life," we may perceive, that there is an epoch, or point of time, when the Spirit had not as yet clothed himself with the cloud. In symbolic language, cloud is representative of a mighty host. Thus, in addressing Gog, the Spirit saith: "Thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many peoples with thee" (Ezek. xxxviii. 9). This is a very ample cloud, widespread as the Holy Land; and composed of "a great company, and a mighty host" (verse 15). So also, in Jer. iv. 7,13, speaking of the lion of Babylon, the destroyer of the Gentiles, he says, he should come against Judah "as clouds, and his chariots as a whirlwind." Cloud signifies the same sort of thing in the scene before us; that is, a host or multitude. The point of time when the Spirit is not clothed with this multitudinous cloud, is from his first touching ground at his coming to the completion of the judgment of his household. How many months may be occupied in this judicial cleansing of the house, I am not prepared to say. In ch. xi. 18, it is styled, "the time of the dead that they should be judged;" but how long the time of their judgment may be, is not revealed. It will not be the work of an instant; for the dead in Christ have first to be brought out of their graves; and then gathered by angelic agency from one end of heaven to the other (Matt. xxiv. 31). After this "gathering together unto the Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thess. ii. 1); the risen dead, and the contemporary living, of the household, have all to give account of themselves to the Deity (Rom. xiv. 12). This is "the dead, small and great, standing before the Deity; and being judged out of those things written in the books, according to their works" (Apoc. xx. 12). Whosoever of them cannot give a scripturally good account of themselves, are rejected, and expelled into the darkness of the outer world of "the earth" and "the sea," where they will in body receive things evil (2 Cor. v. 10); and "of the flesh reap corruption" (Gal. vi. 8); but, on the other hand, those whose account of themselves is deemed good, they will receive in body things which are good, and "of the Spirit reap life everlasting." This is their quickening, transformation, or change, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump;" that is, the seventh, to which the rainbowed angel belongs (1 Cor. xv. 52). This is their being "clothed upon with their house which is from heaven," not from the grave; a clothing in which, in relation to each one so clothed, "mortality is swallowed up of life" (2 Cor. v. 2-4).

Here, then, is work for an epoch, but of how long a duration, I cannot tell. This, however, we may know, that the accepted will be a host "a great multitude which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, who stand before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands" (vii. 9). This is the host symbolized by the cloud. The Spirit clothes himself with them all, when, by their quickening, they become spirit, on the principle, that they who have been born of the spirit are spirit (John iii. 6). And how could we better symbolize this Spirit-Host than by "a powerful angel clothed with a cloud" -- a great cloud of witnesses, of whom, in the days of their flesh, "the world was not worthy?"