Claim. Christ at the Second Advent will return through physical birth on the earth as a child — not literally riding on clouds — and the load-bearing precedent for this is the actual return of Elijah: foretold by Malachi, expected by faithful Jews to descend miraculously from heaven, but in fact fulfilled through the birth of John the Baptist.
Elaboration. Per 2.1. Perspectives on the Bible: God reveals essential matters in parables and symbols; literal-only reading of Bible prophecy has produced the divergent interpretations dividing the churches. The correct perspective is established by re-examining a prior precedent. For two thousand years Christians read passages as supporting the view that John completed his given mission; closer re-examination from a different standpoint shows he in fact did not (see dp-jtb-was-elijah-by-mission-not-soul-transmigration).
The Elijah/Christ structural parallel: Malachi prophesied that Elijah would return before the Messiah. Many Jews expected Elijah, who had ascended to heaven, to descend in the same way. Jesus boldly claimed John the Baptist, the son of Zechariah, was Elijah — meaning the return of Elijah “was never meant to take place in the miraculous manner many Jewish people expected. In fact, it occurred through the birth of a child.”
Application to the Second Advent: “In like manner, many Christians to the present day believe that Jesus will return on the clouds. However, what we have learned about the actual return of Elijah suggests another possibility: that Christ’s return may be fulfilled through the birth of a child, just as at the First Coming.” This is not analogical reasoning alone — Apostle John in 2 John 7 condemned as antichrists those denying Christ “in the flesh,” and Daniel’s “with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man” prophecy was applied by the first-century Jews (rightly per DP) to Jesus’s first physical advent, not to a separate cloud-return.
Hermeneutic principle: the cloud-coming verses cannot be read literally because the modern scientific mind cannot accept it; more important, the cloud-coming reading is defeated by its own Bible once the JtB/Elijah-redux pattern is granted.
See also. dp-jtb-was-elijah-by-mission-not-soul-transmigration · dp-bible-eschatological-imagery-read-symbolically · dp-elijah-mission-incomplete-required-successor