LITS,
With regard to an "invisible presence," look again at Acts 1:9-11. Does it say Jesus was invisible or does it say they SAW him until a cloud hid him from view?
Acts 1:9-11 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. 10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two
men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven. 12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day's walk from the city."
"In the same way you have seen him go into heaven": If someone had recorded this on videotape and you played it backwards to simulate Jesus' return, would you conclude that he would return invisibly or that you would see him arrive once he emerged from the clouds?
Compare that to this OT prophecy:
Zechariah 14:3-4: "And Jehovah will certainly go forth and war against those nations, as in the day of his warring, in the day of fight. 4 And his feet will actually stand in that day upon the mountain of the olive trees, which is in front of Jerusaem, on the east; and the mountain of the olive trees must be split at its middle, from the sunrising and to the west. There will be a very great valley; and half of the mountain will actually be moved to the north, and half of it to the south." (NWT)
Is this symbolic? "And his feet will actually stand... upon the mountain of the olive trees."
