was a general belief of the Jews that the messiah would rule from Jerusalem, and many Christians have believed that after the Second Coming Jesus will rule the world from Jerusalem. Many Christians have seen this as a prediction of Roman tyranny being overcome by Christianity, as Jerusalem, then "Babylon" (Rome), then all the unrighteous nations will be replaced by the Son of Man's coming. The Roman Catholic Church has always seen itself as partly the kingdom of God on Earth and some have thought the coming of the Christian Church is what is predicted here. The Son of Man coming in clouds is from Daniel 7:13. This is from a prophetic dream of Daniel about a kingdom that would "devour" the whole world and how it would be replaced by the Son of Man's "everlasting kingdom". "The elect" will be "gathered" from every part of the world and "unto Heaven", a reversal of Zechariah 2:10 where God would come and live among his chosen. God rounding up his chosen people is found in many Old Testament books, but none have the Son of Man doing this, showing how Jesus had altered the prophecies about the Messiah. Just before Stephen is stoned in Acts, he says "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." (7:56), perhaps showing the Son of Man's coming means Heaven. In John 12:23 Jesus speaks of the Son of Man's glory as his death: "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." He predicted the coming of God's kingdom in Mark 9:1 in this generation followed by the Transfiguration, perhaps showing God's kingdom is already here because of Jesus' coming. What exactly Jesus is predicting here is vague. Paul, in 1 Thessalonians, probably the earliest surviving Christian document, speaks of how Jesus rescues us from the coming "wrath" or "anger" in 1:10. He also says that "we", Paul and the other Christians, would see Jesus return to raise the dead in their lifetime in 4:13-18, but not exactly when, saying immediately after in chapter 5:2 that it will come like "a thief in the night". However, in Philippians 1:23 he speaks of going to