Matthew 24

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Chapter S TWENTY-FOUR AND TWENTY-FIVE SECTION 60 JESUS DESCRIBES THE LAST DAYS OF THE JEWISH STATE AND HIS SECOND COMING

(24:1-25:46)

STUDY OUTLINE: CHRIST’S PROPHETIC DISCOURSE

OCCASION (Matthew 24:1-3)

Disciples Marvel At the Magnificence of Jerusalem’s Temple (Matthew 24:1)

Jesus Predicts the Temple’s Destruction (Matthew 24:2)

Disciples Ask For Clarification (Matthew 24:3)

Jesus-’ answers: His prophetic discourse.

II.

THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM AND ITS TEMPLE (Matthew 24:4-35)

General Warning Against Misleading Signs Not Related to the End (Matthew 24:4-13)

False Christs are not the signal (Matthew 24:4-5)

International war is not the signal (Matthew 24:6-7 a)

Disturbances in nature are not the signal (Matthew 24:7 b, 8)

Troubles inside the Church and out are not the signal (Matthew 24:9-13)

Persecution of the Church (Matthew 24:9)

Religious confusion and widespread faithlessness (Matthew 24:10-12)

Individual perseverance one’s only hope (Matthew 24:13)

Specific, True Information About Jerusalem’s Destruction (Matthew 24:14-28)

The true signals of the nearness of Jerusalem’s fall (Matthew 24:14-15)

World-wide Gospel proclamation signals the approximate approach of the end (Matthew 24:14)

Jerusalem besieged is the precise, decisive signal of the end (Matthew 24:15)

Urgent, practical instructions for rapid escape (Matthew 24:16-20)

Motivation: great, unprecedented tribulation (Matthew 24:21)

Duration: short but terrible (Matthew 24:22)

Warning: No hope of Christ’s personal coming during the siege (Matthew 24:23-28)

Despite apparently miraculous signs, all false hopes of deliverance raised by false prophets must unswervingly be disregarded (Matthew 24:23-26)

Christ’s true coming will be too obvious to require prophetic announcement (Matthew 24:27)

Israel’s hopeless deadness cannot but attract scavengers: no hope of deliverance, just punishment. (Matthew 24:28)

The Theological Result of Jerusalem’s Fall (Matthew 24:29-31)

The time connection: Immediately after Jerusalem’s great tribulation (Matthew 24:29)

The collapse and removal of the old, established luminaries (Matthew 24:29)

The Messiah’s victorious, heavenly reign vindicated (Matthew 24:30)

Worldwide proclamation of the Gospel and its resultsthe beginning of the Gospel year of Jubilee(?) (Matthew 24:31)

Encouragement to Believe Jesus (Matthew 24:32-35)

Leaves are a signal of summer’s approach (Matthew 24:32)

Similarly, the foregoing clues signal the arrival of God’s Kingdom (Matthew 24:33)

All these events must occur in Jesus-’ generation (Matthew 24:34)

The certainty of the predicted events (Matthew 24:35)

III.

CHRIST’S SECOND COMING (Matthew 24:36 to Matthew 25:46)

The Date Known But to God (Matthew 24:36)

Stories Illustrating Important Features of the Final End-Times (Matthew 24:37 to Matthew 25:46)

Illustration from life before the flood: Business as usual (Matthew 24:37-42)

Illustration of the burglar: The time is unpredictable, so be always ready! (Matthew 24:43 f.)

Illustration of the Conscientious and the Hypocritical Servant (Matthew 24:45-51) Jesus-’ Return may be delayed.

Illustration of the Ten Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids: Adequate preparation must be made in time! (Matthew 25:1-13) The fate of the unprepared

Illustration of the Wise and Foolish Stewards: The present is a stewardship of God’s goods entrusted to us according to our individual ability, to be invested for His advantage, because an accounting will be given. (Matthew 25:14-30)

Illustration of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46)

The Second Coming and the judgment will be contemporaneous (Matthew 25:31)

The judgment will be universal (Matthew 25:32-33)

The basis of judgment will be our everyday usefulness and service to others (Matthew 25:34-46)

The results of the judgment will be permanent (Matthew 25:46)

JESUS-’ ESCHATOLOGICAL DISCOURSE VISUALIZED BY CONTRASTS

Marcellus Kik (Matthew XXIV) suggests the following helpful outline of Matthew 24, 25 :

**FIRST SECTION Matthew 24:1-35

CONNECTING LINKS Matthew 24:34-36

SECOND SECTION Matthew 24:36 to Matthew 25:46

THE FALL OF JERUSALEM DESCRIBED

THE END OF THE WORLD DESCRIBED

TIME**

Definite description of the period preceding the judgment on Israel. Disturbing events are just false alarms typical of this period.

**TIME TEXT

Matthew 24:34**

This generation will not pass away till all these things take place.

TIME

The time of the world’s end known only to the Father, therefore, no precise signs of the time given.

SIGNS GIVEN:

General sign of the approximate approach of Jerusalem’s end: worldwide Gospel proclamation (Matthew 24:14)

Precise sign of Jerusalem’s death-date: abomination of desolation, Jerusalem surrounded by armies (Matthew 24:15)

**TRANSITION TEXT:

Matthew 24:36**

But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels, nor the Son, but the Father only.

NO SIGNS TO BE GIVEN:

Life going on as usual (Matthew 24:37-42)

A thief gives no warning (Matthew 24:43-44)

Jesus-’ coming will be delayed; hence, cannot be expected with certainty (Matthew 24:48; Matthew 25:5; Matthew 25:19). The only possible preparation must be constant vigilance.

SCOPE

Prophecies limited to a geographically specific locality: Palestine. (Matthew 24:16-28)

Destruction of Temple (Matthew 24:1)

People in Judea must flee (Matthew 24:16)

Only the land of the Sabbath is involved (Matthew 24:20)

Events would not affect the nearby mountains (Matthew 24:16)

SCOPE

Prophecies universal in scope that concern the entire world. (Matthew 25:32; cf. Luke 21:34-36)

Judgment of all men, not just Jews (Matthew 25:32)

No warnings to flee as all escape now impossible.

Final judgment not located on earth but in heaven.

ABNORMAL TIMES

those days (plural) Jerusalem died slowly, foreseeably

QUITE NORMAL TIMES

That Day (singular) Judgment to come rapidly, quite unexpectedly

In light of these significant differences between the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the world, it is unjustifiable to assert with many that the destruction of Jerusalem serves as a predictive type of the final judgment, so that what is affirmed of the one must also be precisely true of the other. How could one event which, in important details, is so radically different from another event be thought to fore picture the latter? By His clarity of language, Jesus separated the two events. The only true similarity between them is the astounding triumph in each case whereby the glory of Jesus shall be definitely revealed.

THE AUTHENTICITY OF JESUS-’ PROPHECIES

Christian apologetic interest in this chapter can shout to the world, See? Jesus-’ prophecies concerning the fall of Jerusalem came true, just as He said. We should believe His promises to come again, judge the world and bring victory to His followers, because of His reliability. Therefore, we must ask whether these predictions were truly uttered before the fact, or, as some claim, a clever rewriting of history to give Jesus undeserved credibility. Our Lord’s language is not perfectly free from some vagueness, as even modern Christian commentaries thereon illustrate by their difficulties in identifying precisely His allusions and references. But these very obscurities serve to guarantee the prophetic genuineness of His words. These Chapter s are not history penned after the fact and counterfeited as real prediction by its supposedly unknown authors. In fact, a forger, inventing this prophecy after Jerusalem’s fall, would more probably have sidestepped all unclarity to exalt how precisely Jesus foresaw the events forty years earlier and how this prediction validates His prophetic claims.

Further, if these prophecies had been recorded following the events, the silence of the Synoptic Gospels themselves is without explanation, since none mention the fulfilment of Jesus-’ prophecies. Luke, for example, is not averse to recording fulfilments (Acts 11:28). Why not here too? Because the events predicted had not yet occurred.

THE PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THIS DISCOURSE

Jesus-’ purpose from first to last is practical. A detailed schedule of Last Days Events was not even a consideration for Him. Rather, the counsel of prudence with which He begins (Matthew 24:4), aims to take our eyes off speculation about future events and put our feet on solid ground to prepare ourselves and others in the Present in which we find ourselves. His goals for preaching this sermon touch the lives of His disciples immediately, not merely some yet unborn, future generation. Foster lists five important targets this message aims to hit:

This message unmounts every goal the nationalistic movement of the Zealots and their sympathizers dreamed to realize. The worldwide proclamation of the Gospel was to substitute for materialistic materialism as the divine means of victory. In the program of God with regard to national Israel, Rome was to conquer, but the final Kingdom would be of God, not Caesar’S.

Only the Word of Christ is permanent. Nothing men have thought, done or builtnot even the Temple of God in Jerusalemis permanent.

Jesus proclaimed His own certainty that His fiercest enemies would go down in shame and defeat, even though they condemn Him to death and execute that sentence. Disciples, shaken by His death, could take heart and believe that unlimited victory would not belong to Caiaphas, Annas, Herod or Pilate, or to anyone else but to Jesus!

This message furnishes proof of the validity of Christ’s prophetic authority. Although the suffering and death of the persecuted Christians would strain their confidence to the utmost, this prophetic declaration of Jerusalem’s doom, when vindicated by its historical realization, would prove Jesus correct and validate the believers-’ confidence in everything else He taught.

The priorities obvious in this discourse are two: to furnish His disciples with critical information whereby they could foresee and elude Jerusalem’s downfall, and at the same time be ever prepared for Jesus-’ return to earth.

Matthew 24:1-3

SECTION 60 JESUS DESCRIBES THE LAST DAYS OF THE JEWISH STATE AND HIS SECOND COMING I. THE OCCASION (24:1-3)

(Parallels: Mark 13:1-4; Luke 21:5-7)

1 And Jesus went out from the temple, and was going on his way; and his disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple. 2 But he answered and said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. 3 And as he sat on the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

Why do you suppose the disciples wanted to show Jesus the Temple buildings? Had He not seen them before? Did they think He was not sufficiently impressed with the Temple’s magnificence? Why did Jesus redirect their thinking?

What characteristic of true discipleship comes to light in the fact that the four fishermen-disciples came to Jesus privately for explanations?

Mark and Luke quote the disciples as asking, When will this be? What will be the sign when this is about to take place? Matthew quotes them as adding, What will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age? To what extent are the disciples-’ questions a key to the true interpretation of Jesus-’ answer?

Do you think Jesus answered their question as asked, or did He need to furnish further information before it could begin to be treated?

How could the disciples have ever arrived at the conclusion that the predicted destruction of the Temple had anything to do with Jesus-’ coming and the close of the age?

Since your coming (Greek: tês sês parousìas) is the ordinary expression for Jesus-’ great Second Coming, (1) where did they get the idea He was going to be absent for a time, after which He would come? and (2) did they understand at that time all that we learn about this event from great texts like 1 Corinthians 1:7; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 2 Thessalonians 1:7 ff.; John 14:3; 1 Timothy 4:1, etc.?

On what reasonable basis did the disciples expect some sign to be given near the time of Christ’s coming which would signal its arrival?

Some believe that Jesus describes the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the world, making the former a symbol of the latter, so that the signs which precede the former become, even if on grander scale, signs that herald the latter. What is the basis of this contention? Is it a correct view of what Jesus actually did in His discourse? If so, why? If not, why not?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

As Jesus abandoned the Temple and was going away, His disciples came up to call His attention to the temple buildings. One of them exclaimed, Master, look with what magnificent stonework and votive offerings the Temple is decorated! What magnificent buildings! But Jesus answered him, You see all these grandiose buildings? I can tell you for sure that the time will come when there will not be left here one stone on top of the other. Everything you are now gazing at will be demolished! Later, as He was sitting on the Mount of Olives on the side facing the Temple, the disciples, Peter, James, John and Andrew, approached Him privately with this question: Teacher, when are these things going to happen? And what will be the signal when all these things are about to take place, that is, your second coming and the close of the present period of time?

SUMMARY

Marveling disciples are awed by the beauty and apparent permanence of Jerusalem’s Temple, but Jesus foretells its destruction. Later, some of them request an explanation: When **will **this happen and what will be the signal?

NOTES A. Disciples Marvel at the Temple

Matthew 24:1 Jesus went out from the temple and was going on his way. Several reasons suggest that this is no mere change of scenery on the part of Jesus. While it is true that the long day of discussions is over which began the morning after the Triumphal Entry (cf. Matthew 21:23 to Matthew 23:39; Mark 11:20; Mark 11:27; Mark 13:1), something else has happened, something evidenced by Matthew’s two distinct verbs: Jesus left the Temple and was walking away (exelthòn apò toû hieroû eporeùeto). In this simple redundancy? In fact, to exit through the gates of this practically fortified citadel is to leave the Temple, as there was no surrounding campus, parking lot or terraced lawn. Thus, Matthew’s verbs suggest that Jesus-’ move is deliberate, specific and prophetic:

This verse concludes Jesus-’ stunning, final message to Jerusalem in which He summed up Israel’s evil and pronounced her doom due to occur in that generation. There He threatened the desolation of Israel’s famous House, because of the nation’s bitter, bloody antagonism to God’s prophets and Jesus-’ representatives (Matthew 23:29-39). Three elements in chapter 24 find their roots in chapter 23, a fact which suggests their connection in the mind of Jesus:

this generation (Matthew 23:36; Matthew 24:34)

the desolation of the Temple (Matthew 23:38; Matthew 24:15; cf. Luke 21:20)

persecution of Jesus-’ disciples (Matthew 23:34; Matthew 24:9)

Even before leaving Galilee, Jesus astounded His followers with dire comments about the dark fate of unbelieving Jerusalem and its Temple (Luke 11:50; Luke 13:35). Amid the joy of His Messianic Entry into the city, He wept over its terrible destiny (Luke 19:41 ff.).

Now his disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple. This reaction reflects their natural, even if wrong-headed, response in these circumstances. They animatedly express their shock at His startling announcement of the final abandonment of Israel’s House (Matthew 23:34-39). They struggle for adequate descriptives to picture the beauty of the edifice (Mark 13:1; Luke 21:5; cf. 1Ma 3:2-7). Their excited words are not simply the awed exclamations of reverent Galilean pilgrims in from the provinces upon first visiting the Holy City. It is not likely that this is the first time these Apostles have admired the Jerusalem sanctuary, when every Hebrew is required by law to worship there three times EVERY YEAR (Deuteronomy 16:16). Rather, their wistful comments draw His attention to the magnificent permanence of this construction, in order to lodge a low-key appeal against His previous, ominous predictions of its overthrow. Because of the important role this Temple played in the plan of God and in the history of Israel, it not unlikely appeared to them well-nigh incredible that this historic place of communion with God could be left desolate in their own lifetime. Thus, even the disciples-’ naiveté required that Jesus act decisively.

So, when Jesus left the temple, this was the moment He decisively abandoned that sanctuary. This prophetic act prefigured God’s final departure therefrom and sealed the doom of that ill-fated capital and its people. Not only is the long day of discussions over, ALL discussion with Jerusalem, Israel and the Temple is over, as far as Jesus personally is concerned. His mission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel is terminated, so He left the city, having done all He could to save it. There came a time when further pleading became useless. The testimony is now complete and satisfactory. Now the responsibility lies with those who must decide. From this moment forward Jesus would not speak personally to Israel. If they would believe His later witnesses, they could yet be saved (John 15:26 f.; Luke 24:45-49; Acts 1:8).

In retrospect, therefore, there is discernible here the repetition of a historical, prophetic symbol. Just as the glory of God departed from the Temple during the Babylonian exile (cf. Ezekiel 11:23; Ezekiel 1:28; Ezekiel 8:2-4; Ezekiel 9:3; Ezekiel 10:1; Ezekiel 10:4; Ezekiel 10:18 f.; Zechariah 14:3 f.), so when Jesus of Nazareth strode out of the Temple, the true glory of God abandoned it. The true Temple of God, the glorious dwelling place of God in the Spirit, would always, and as truly as ever, be in Jesus Christ and in His people (Colossians 1:19; Colossians 2:9; 1 Corinthians 3:16 f.; 1 Corinthians 6:19 f.; Ephesians 2:22). That which had already served its purpose would soon become obsolete and disappear altogether with its covenant, its priesthood, its ceremonials and its sacrifices (Hebrews 8:13). Further, how could Jesus become greatly excited over a mere stone building, when He Himself was the highest expression of the dwelling of God on earth?

B. Jesus Predicts the Temple’s Destruction

Matthew 24:2 **But **he **answered and **said **unto them. **Clearly Jesus-’ attitude toward the Temple and City clashes with their enthusiasm. See ye not all these things? What a contrast between what Jesus saw in the Temple and what drew the reverent attention of His followers! While they admire the superficial, He looks below the surface. They reminisce over noble stones and votive gifts that bespeak a glorious national past, but He contemplates the long history during which these sacred precincts were polluted by the sins of this very nation. The majestic structure of the present occupies their mind, but He perceives the approaching disaster that must obliterate this temple profaned by greed, ostentation and other sins of the spirit. He had wept over souls of inestimable value doomed to eternal loss, whereas they are ready to mourn over STONES doomed to a dubious future on a rubbish heap! As He brooded over His last great invitation to an unrepentant nation (Matthew 23:34-39), these things not unlikely refers to more than mere holy buildings. He refers also to what the Temple stood for. These things must also include a corrupt, ungodly traditionalism that blindly could not discern the voice of God in His prophets. Jesus challenges His men, As you look at the Temple, do you not also see the sins of its people, the corruption of its priesthood and their indifference toward God and His Messiah, which require its judicial desolution*do you not see all these things?!

There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.* The only Savior and rightful King of Jerusalem foresees the imminent divine judgment brewing over His City and His Sanctuary, because its people had not recognized what elements contributed to the true Peace of Jerusalem (Luke 19:41 ff.; Matthew 21:12 ff.). His response cancels all hope that the City and Temple can be saved.

The Jewish Temple is one of history’s ironies. Not even completed in Jesus-’ day, the construction had already taken 46 years (John 2:20). Begun in the eighteenth year of Herod the Great (19 B.C.; Wars, I, 21, 1), the entire complex was terminated about 86 years later in the days of the procurator Albinus, 62-64 A.D., just a few years before the outbreak of the ill-starred Jewish war against Rome. (Cf. Ant. XV, 11, 1; XX, 9, 7.) Unblessed by God, this sanctuary was destined to be demolished only six years after its completion. (Cf. Psalms 127:1.) Jesus had just prophesied the desolation of Israel’s famous Temple and all it stood for (Matthew 23:38). Now He clarifies that desolation means destruction.

Not one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. The City and its Sanctuary had been carefully constructed one stone upon another (cf. Haggai 2:15). Now it is to be dismantled, not by the gradual dilapidation of time’s ravages, but by the savage anger and fierce hatred of its enemies bent on its violent overthrow, (kataluthésetai, break down into its component parts; dissolve; destroy, demolish, overthrow; throw down). Some of the Temple’s foundation stones were massive, weighing above 100 tons. Josephus adds that these enormous stones were plainly visible on the outside of the Temple. Some he measures as 12.5 meters long, 4 meters high and 6 meters wide, representing a mass of 300 cubic meters (roughly 900 cubic feet). For full descriptions of Herod’s Temple, consult Josephus-’ Ant. XV, 11, 3-5; XX, 9, 7; Wars, V, 5, 1-8.

In the fulfilment not only was the Temple burned despite Titus-’ efforts to save it, but it was so demolished that, according to the Talmudists, Terentius (Turnus) Rufus, left in command of the Roman occupation army at Jerusalem, plowed up Sion as a field, and made Jerusalem become as heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest as foretold by Micah 3:12 and cited in Jeremiah 26:18. Not unlikely this commander of occupation was the same who executed Titus-’ order to raze most of the wall to the foundation and demolish what remained of the Temple and City, leaving three major towers and the western wall to show the greatness of the city subjugated by Roman valor. (Cf. Wars, VII, 2, 1 with 1, 1.) The fact that these stone constructions were allowed to remain does not nullify Jesus-’ prediction, since His graphic expression, not one stone upon another, need not be pushed to a literal extreme. Rather, Jesus pictures here what Josephus later described: Jerusalem’s complete destruction as a city (Wars, VII, 1, 1).

But for the rest of the wall, it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those who dug it up at the foundation, that there was nothing left to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited. This was the end which Jerusalem came to by the madness of those that were for innovations; a city otherwise of great magnificence, and of mighty fame among all mankind.

With His brief prophecy, Jesus dropped the subject. Astonished silence intervened as the small company wound its way eastward out of the City and across the Kedron Valley.

C. Disciples Ask for Clarification

Matthew 24:3 **And **as **he sat on the mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. **Silent, dumbfounded, this small cluster of disciples climbed the Mount of Olives (to the Garden of Gethsemane? cf. John 18:1-2), overlooking the Temple area on the opposite hill to the west. Their vantage point offered them a panoramic view of the main features of the entire City. At one sweep of their gaze they could see immediately in front of them the glorious Temple (Mark 13:3). To the left, on the right and behind it lay Jerusalem’s walls and towers, its palaces and streets, its theater and gymnasium. From Olivet’s summit to Jerusalem’s east gate was less than a kilometer (1/2 mile) by the direct path. The city’s magnificence, viewed from up there must have made it more incredible and heart-breaking to accept Jesus-’ stunning prediction. This site for the discourse that follows is highly significant, because they sat discussing, not some vision of a future Jerusalem and Temple, but the desolation of a literal, material city and temple right before them (Matthew 23:38; Matthew 24:2 f.,Matthew 24:15). Had Jesus intended the former, He should have said so in this discourse, especially since every word describing the suffering of Jerusalem’s inhabitants, its desolation and desecration would most naturally have been interpreted literally by His first interpreters, unless He furnished those listening disciples some clear indication that He did not refer to the literal city in full view there before them. But this He did not do.

**The disciples came to him privately, **straining to know more. That they approached Him privately for further instruction on a difficult-to-accept subject measures the depth of their discipleship. They do trust Him to teach them, even if what He says must run counter to their best understanding of the subject, even if His doctrine is at first incomprehensible or unacceptable. Sketching in scene after scene, Jesus related the prophecies to their personal needs, fears and future ministry. He furnished practical information they needed for giving proper leadership to the Church. No interpretation of this chapter can call itself sound that lays great stress on future eschatology and ignores this practical concern for Christians of the first century, as if Jesus were more concerned about predicting the end of the world than about helping His own dear disciples to face their own near future with understanding.

**Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? **These things, contextually, are the events just predicted: the fall of Jerusalem’s temple (Matthew 24:2). If, on the sole basis of His prophecy, they could formulate questions that involve even His Coming and the close of the age as well, they obviously assumed that these three events are in some way connected, if not contemporaneous. It is not fruitless to ask in what sense the Twelve understood their questions, for two reasons:

Such an examination will help us to understand how Jesus treated their curiosity. This should cure us of that obstinate curiosity and sign-seeking sensationalism that has marred the history of prophecy studies, especially that fanatical exegesis connected with this chapter.

It will also lead us to learn whether He answered their questions as asked or not.

Does it really matter what the disciples meant? Objectively, no, except insofar as their questions introduce the subject, since what really counts is Jesus-’ teaching which actually corrects any misconceptions their questions reveal. Subjectively, with respect to the interpreters, however, their questions must be analyzed carefully, since so much weight has been placed on them. In fact, in these questions expositors today seek an outline of Jesus-’ discourse and expect His answers to match that outline. However, if the disciples framed a misguided question, then their queries are irrelevant as an indicative outline, and we must not only see this, but also discern how the Lord corrected their misinformation. To accomplish this, we must ask what meanings they could have intended by the words they used.

Thy coming (tês sês parousìas; see Arndt-Gingrich, 635; Kittel TWNT, V, article parousìa) could refer to three things:

Presence, unlikely, because He was already present. Hence, it could have no meaning here, unless His absence were specified in the context, implying the return of His presence, in which case the meaning coming would be required, not presence.

Coming meant the coming of an invisible deity who revealed his presence by some expression of his power.

Coming also referred to the personal arrival of a high-ranking official, such as kings or emperors, during visits of state to a province under their rule.

The end of the world (sunteleìas toû aiônos), since aiòn may signify a time, an age; a very long time, eternity; the material universe, may picture at least two distinct concepts:

The end of an epoch, the winding down of a given era.

(1)

The end of the JEWISH world. Jesus Himself died at the end of the world (Hebrews 9:26). The Christian age of the Holy Spirit began at the end of God’s former revelations (Hebrews 1:2: ep-’eschàtou tôn hçmerôn toùtôn; Acts 2:17; 1 Corinthians 10:11; 1 Peter 1:20). The end of the Jewish world only meant the conclusion of exclusively Jewish privilege and the offering of the Gospel and Kingdom privileges to the Gentiles (Matthew 21:41; Matthew 21:43; Matthew 22:10).

(2)

The end of the CHRISTIAN era (Matthew 28:20). The end of OUR world, however, is not unlikely contemporaneous with the following sense.

The end of the material universe with its dissolution of the present world system, the end of time as well as final judgment and the beginning of eternity for man. (Cf. 2 Peter 3:3-13; Matthew 7:22; Matthew 13:39 f., Matthew 13:49; John 6:39; John 11:24.)

What is important to discover is the disciples-’ mentality at the moment, not their understanding after Jesus-’ revelations given here or further instruction by the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:6). The only reason they mention the end of the world and thy coming in context with a question about Jerusalem’s end is that by mentioning these other events, they wrongly think they are asking something significant about the latter.

Further, not without justification the disciples expected God to furnish some great sign from heaven that would warn of the near approach of the world’s end, Jerusalem’s destruction and of Christ’s coming. After all, had not God’s past dealings with His people taught them to expect that events of such immensity and significance as these be foretold by heavenly wonders that signal their immediate arrival so that appropriate preparation could be made? But, in this, as are so many curious Christians, they were mistaken, as Jesus will show.

So what did the disciples ask Jesus?

If they ask Him: What shall be the sign of your invisible coming which reveals your presence by some expression of your power over Jerusalem that has rejected you, that sign which, at the same time, marks the end of the Jewish dispensation? then Jesus answered this question. Even though it does not exhaust His eschatological concept, it is correctly framed and expresses a true grasp of at least part of Jesus-’ intentions regarding the nation of Israel.

If they mean, What shall be the sign of your personal coming in glory to visit your people, that sign that marks the end of the Jewish dispensation? they were mistaken to connect His final parousìa with the end of the Judaism that had existed until 70 A.D., as He will show.

If they mean, What shall be the sign of your personal coming in glory and of the dissolution of the material universe? then they were mistaken to expect forewarning of an event for which God would give no signs. Further, to connect these events with the conclusion of the Jewish national economy in Jesus-’ generation is to confuse two widely separated events.

Some suppose that the disciples could not have spoken of Jesus-’ coming (parousìa).

Some see parousìa as a technical concept belonging to the apostolic age after Pentecost, hence a concept too advanced for them at that stage of their maturity. But the fact that Matthew uses a later technical term does not mean the disciples could not have used a paraphrase for it at the moment, meaning precisely what the later technical term signifies for Matthew’s readers. (Cf. Expositor’s Greek Testament, 289.)

While it is true, with Morgan (Matthew, 282) to assert that the second advent must be prepared for fundamentally by the Cross and the Resurrection; and they had no apprehension of the Resurrection.. They were in revolt against the idea of the Cross and blind to the fact of the Resurrection, it does not follow that they had no conception of the Second Coming. Their mind was open to this glorious prospect. (See below.)

Plummer (Matthew, 239), too, simply misinterprets the evidence. It is not Matthew who mistakenly rewords a question the disciples did not ask, whereas Mark supposedly reports it correctly. Rather, Matthew’s is the objective reporting of the more fully worded statement of the disciples-’ complete question. Even though it is based on wrong presuppositions, Jesus does in fact deal with it in the course of His answer, even if to correct their misunderstanding.

Jesus had already taught these men much that would lead them to formulate reasonably intelligent questions on these subjects, even if their grasp of the true connections was far from perfect. They knew He had declared that.

He would leave the earth to return to His Father (Matthew 19:28; John 7:33; John 8:21; John 8:28).

He would come again after a long time (Luke 18:8; Luke 19:11-15) at the close of the age (Matthew 13:40; Matthew 13:49) in glory (Matthew 16:27).

It would be to resurrect the dead and give life (John 5:28 f; John 6:39; John 6:44; John 6:54; John 11:24-26).

He would preside over the judgment (John 5:22; John 5:27; John 5:29; Luke 19:15-27; Matthew 7:21 f; Matthew 16:27; Matthew 13:41).

That Jesus should pronounce judgment against cities or people highly favored by their abundant opportunities and magnanimous grace of God, would not surprise the Twelve (Matthew 10:15; Matthew 11:20-24; Matthew 12:36-45). So, for Him to pronounce judiciary destruction for Jerusalem and its Temple would suggest to the Twelve an immediate association with the Final Judgment concerning which he had already revealed much.

He had just connected Jerusalem’s destruction with His own mysterious absence (Matthew 23:37-39). At the Triumphal Entry He had predicted the City’s death-hour in war and desolation (Luke 19:41-44).

The true problem is not: How could the disciples to whom Christ’s repeated predictions of His coming death and resurrection meant so little,. ask about his (second) coming? (Hendriksen, Matthew, 851), but, rather, how these disciples could disconnect the necessity for Jesus-’ death, burial and resurrection from His glorification and return to bring judgment on sinners and victory for His saints, a rule in which the Twelve themselves would share (Matthew 19:28). Intellectually, they knew Jesus had spoken of His passion, but were emotionally blind to it. However, because their emotional framework welcomed His revelations of victory and future glory, they could ask questions openly about these concepts.

One reason they confused the Fall of Jerusalem for the End of the World and Jesus-’ coming is psychological. Bruce (Training, 323) observed that local and partial judgments are wont to be thus mixed up with the universal one in men’s imaginations; and hence almost every great calamity which inspires awe leads to anticipations of the last day.

Another reason for their confusion is theological. Old Testament prophecies seemed to justify the belief that the material Temple and its City would last forever. (Cf. Psalms 78:68 f.; 2 Chronicles 7:16 and Zechariah’s Jerusalem prophecies; Zechariah 1:12 ff.; Zechariah 2:1 ff.; Zechariah 8:3-4; Zechariah 8:22; Zechariah 9:8 f.; Zechariah 12:3 to Zechariah 13:1; Zechariah 14:1-21.) The mistake involved in their interpretation of these prophecies lay in the assumption that God’s plan cannot be realized in its fullest, truest sense in the unquestionably real but spiritual temple of God, Jesus His Son in whom all the fullness of the Deity dwelt bodily (Colossians 2:9) and in His Church (Ephesians 2:22). The exquisitely spiritual character of God’s true dwelling placeeven in the Mosaic economy (Isaiah 57:15; Isaiah 66:1 f.)escaped them, so they, like too many interpreters, expected a stone edifice in a material city to serve the purpose of God until the Last Day. The Twelve should not have tried to establish a close connection between the Temple’s destruction, the Lord’s Second Coming and the world’s end. This, because He had just said, You shall not see me until you say, Blessed. (Matthew 23:38 f.), which establishes an indefinite interval between the desolation of Jerusalem’s Temple and Jesus-’ own reappearance to Israel. Due to their misunderstanding, the Twelve garbled these events, whereas Jesus Himself clearly separated them.

As we shall see, it was the Lord’s way, when someone approached Him with an irrelevant or badly-put question, not simply to rebuke their ignorance, but to place the question at issue in its proper perspective before answering it. (See Matthew 21, 22; cf. Luke 11:27 f; Luke 13:23 f; Luke 17:5 f.) So, just because the disciples ask for the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world, does not obligate Jesus to answer their question as asked. A question wrongly framed does not force the one questioned to deal with it in that form. Rather, the question must be reformed by correcting the misconception(s) on which it is based. Concerning the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the Jewish age, the Lord will furnish two clear signs that it is about to occur. So doing, He met their basic desire to know (1) When? (the time); and (2) the sign. But when He treated His Second Coming and the end of the world (Matthew 24:36 to Matthew 25:46), He was not at all obligated by their question to indicate ANY sign whatever of these latter events. Rather, in no uncertain terms, He will deny that any warning will be given. (See notes on Matthew 24:27; Matthew 24:36-39; Matthew 24:42; Matthew 24:44; Matthew 24:50; Matthew 25:13.) It is futile to seek such a sign in Jesus-’ words, merely because the disciples asked for one. Thus, the disciples-’ questions are no final or definitive key to interpreting Matthew 24.

FACT QUESTIONS

From what major event was Jesus just coming when He went out from the Temple and was going on His way?

What particular features of the Temple buildings captured the interest of the disciples, according to Mark and Luke?

Quote Jesus-’ reaction to the disciples-’ enthusiasm over the wonders of the sacred buildings.

Where was Jesus when He gave His answer to the disciples-’ questions? Why is this site significant?

Quote the questions His disciples formulated and explain the connection between their questions and the circumstances that gave rise to them.

According to Mark, who were the four disciples who sought further information about Jesus-’ terrible prophecy?

What did the disciples mean by the end of the age?

Explain the disciples-’ theology or view of eschatology that caused them to ask the questions they did.

On what other occasions had Jesus taught His disciples about the following?

The fall of Jerusalem

The Second Coming

The end of the world and its concomitant events

What predictions had He made before, which His disciples could have taken into consideration to formulate their questions about these events?

Matthew 24:4-13

II. THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM AND ITS TEMPLE (24:4-35) GENERAL WARNING AGAINST MISLEADING SIGNS NOT RELATED TO THE END (24:4-13)

TEXT: 24:4-13

(Parallels: Mark 13:5-13; Luke 21:8-19)

4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man lead you astray. 5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am the Christ; and shall lead many astray. 6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled: for these things must needs come to pass; but the end is not yet. 7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines and earthquakes in divers places. 8 But all these things are the beginning of travail. 9 Then shall they deliver you up unto tribulation, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all the nations for my name’s sake. 10 And then shall many stumble, and shall deliver up one another, and shall hate one another. 11 And many false prophets shall arise, and shall lead many astray. 12 And because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love of the many shall wax cold. 13 But he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

What is important about warning the disciples against being misled?

How could anyone living in Jesus-’ generation, many of whom knew Him personally, be fooled by false Christs and led astray?

What image would the claim, I am the Christ, conjure up in the mind of the Hebrew listener? Did pretenders to this title appear in the first century?

Although the events predicted would be deeply alarming, there is a certain comfort in knowing that they were certain to occur. What significant kind of comfort are these predictions calculated to inspire?

Jesus said: These things must come to pass. Do you think He approves of bloody revolutions, destructive earthquakes and helplessly hungry people? If not, what does He mean?

Popularizers of pet theories of prophecy often point to these great world disasters as signs of the near approaching end of the world. What are the specific phrases Jesus used in this context to convince everyone that these disasters are not signs of anything?

Jesus affirmed that war, famine, pestilence and earthquakes are but the beginning of sufferings. How does this help everyone form a correct concept of world history and a sound eschatology?

To what kind of tribulation would the disciples of Jesus be delivered up? What details do Mark and Luke make specific? What kind of a Messianic Kingdom would the disciples have been expecting, if this warning is thought to be a corrective to their view?

What kind of a Kingdom does Jesus represent, if only the hardiest believers endure to the end and are saved?

Could not Jesus have broken the bad news to His disciples more gently? What is the advantage to His followers in His using such plain speech? How would you have reacted to such a bleak outlook, if you had known what you know now about martyrdom in Church history?

What does this blunt speech predicting a horrible future for the disciples tell you about Jesus as a leader? Can He be a loving Lord, if He talks like that?

What does His blunt speech tell you about Jesus as a Prophet?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

Jesus began His answer to them by saying, Watch out that no one mislead you about this. In fact, many imposters will come using my title, claiming, -I am the Christ!-’ and saying, -The time of the end is close at hand!-’ They will fool many people, but you must not follow their leadership. You will be hearing of wars going on and rumors about wars and revolutions being planned. So, when you do, do not panic or be overly alarmed. These are things that must happen first, but the end is still to come. The end will not occur immediately, because one nation will go to war with another; one kingdom will declare war on another. There will be severe earthquakes in various localities, as well as famines and epidemics. There will be fearful events and great portents in the skies. All this, however, is but the early pains of childbirth. Be on your guard, because, PREVIOUS TO ALL THIS, they will arrest you and hand you over to Sanhedrins to persecute you. You will be flogged in synagogues and cast into prison. You will be summoned to appear before governors and kings on my account. This will furnish you an opportunity to bear testimony before them. In fact, the gospel must first be proclaimed to all peoples. However, when they lead you away to hand you over, make up your minds not to worry ahead of time or meditate how to defend yourselves or what to say. When that time comes, just say what is given you, because I will provide you such eloquence and such logic that none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute you. This is because it will not merely be you doing the talking, but the Holy Spirit. One brother will betray another to death. A father will turn his child in to the authorities. Children will rebel against their parents. People will put some of you to death. You will be universally hated because of your allegiance to me. At that time many will be so stunned as to lose their faith. They will betray each other and hate one another. Numerous false prophets will come on the scene and deceive many people. Because of the spread of lawlessness, the fervency of most people’s love will cool off. However, the disciple who never gives up until it is all over is the one who will be saved. You will not suffer the slightest damagenot even a hair of your head! By standing firm under fire you will gain your lives.

SUMMARY

Jesus warns against all misleading signs of the approaching end, such as false messiahs, wars, natural upheavals, persecutions, apostacy and indifference. However, the period will be marked by victorious gospel proclamation, even if individual Christians must personally endure great difficulties, even martyrdom.

**A. Practical Warnings Against Misleading Signs Not Related to the End

False Christs are not the signal (24:4, 5)**

Matthew 24:4 **Take heed that no man lead you astray. **Jesus-’ opening sentence forms the ethical and intensely practical backbone of everything else He shall teach. His goal was not to gratify men’s curiosity about the end of time, but to protect believers against deception by unscrupulous pretenders as much as by sincere, but misguided, prophecy enthusiasts. He is not interested in furnishing His people with a printed program of Last Days Events. More practical than this, He emphasizes the attitudes they must have on ANY day, for it may be their last.

Because the disciples had connected Jerusalem’s fall with Christ’s return to earth, as if they were one momentous event, Jesus must first place them on their guard against deceivers who would lure people into concluding that frightening episodes surrounding the decline and fall of Israel should be interpreted as heralding the grand intervention of God. They were not to be deceived into supposing that His personal, visible Second Coming were near in the context of these events. Any rumor to the contrary must automatically be branded false. In fact, the only absolutely certain information concerning the time of His return is that it would take place when no one could expect it (Matthew 24:39; Matthew 24:42-44; Matthew 24:50; Matthew 25:13). Thus, there would be no sign, no warning. Consequently, any human calculation or announcement is an attempt to lead you astray, or tending to that result.

In times of severe suffering, nothing is so diabolically deceptive or so productive of unreasoning illusions and of such heated debate as fanatical eschatological prejudice that spawns ungrounded, self-deceptive expectations and even enflames racial hatred. And yet the Israel of Jesus-’ day was impregnated with just such a volatile mixture of Messianic hope and nationalistic prejudice that, among other things, laid the groundwork for its destruction. Dana (New Testament World, 135ff.) lists three elements which, in the final days of Jerusalem, would explain Israel’s tragic blindness and vindicate our Lord’s counsel of caution. They believed.

that God would manifest a special interposition of divine power, either directly or through the Messiah.

that the nation of Israel would be supremely elevated and all other peoples humiliated.

that the absolute subjection of the world to the rule of Jahweh and of His Anointed must necessarily and deterministically eliminate human free will in order to inaugurate an era of endless righteousness where God’s sovereignty could no longer be challenged.

How significant this warning today! The very events which prophecy popularizers cite today as signs of the end of the world were rejected by our Lord as indicative of anything. Interpreters have penned volumes for centuries to point them out in their own era. But Jesus could well foresee how easily false messiahs and teachers could utilize questionable methods of exegesis to mislead disciples, not only in that age, but perpetually. Even to consider the dreadful list of natural and political upheavals as antecedents of the final death-day of the world is to be misled, because Jesus denied these are mysterious indicators of anything special in God’s program.

Note how practically Jesus ministers to His followers-’ needs: He distracts them from an over-interest in future events, emphasizing what kind of people they must be as His servants. (Cf. Peter’s method, 2 Peter 3:11; 2 Peter 3:14.) Even as He lets them into His secret, He puts brakes on their curiosity. He is not content to furnish them a plan for the future so they can manipulate it for their own purposes. Rather, He pushes them back to common duty and discipleship.

Political Messianic Fanaticism

Matthew 24:5 **For many shall come in my name, saying, I am the Christ; and shall lead many astray. The **name which impostors would apply illegitimately to themselves is not Jesus, His personal name, but Christ, His rightful title. There were hundreds of men in His day named Jesus. (Cf. Colossians 4:11; Acts 13:6; Luke 3:29; Matthew 27:17 margin Jesus Barabbas.) What distinguished THIS Jesus from every other was His well-founded claim to be THE CHRIST. The unsubstantiated claim of the false messiahs was not that they were a reincarnation of Jesus of Nazareth, but that they were attempting to cash in on that title for which He was justly famous.

What special image would the claim, I am the Christ, have conjured up in the mind of the unbelieving Jewish community? For us, to be the Christ is to be that particular Anointed of God authorized to speak in God’s Name. But for anyone who rejected Jesus-’ claims and clung to his own misdirected messianic fantasies, the appearance of ANYONE answering to the popular Messianic dream of an earthly, material kingship would certainly deceive and gather a massive following. Consider the much vaster multitudes Jesus could have commanded, had He but conceded to say, I am the Christ, in the grossly materialistic sense hoped for by His contemporaries. (Cf. John 6:14 f. in contrast with John 18:36; see notes on Matthew 8:4; Matthew 9:30; Matthew 12:16; Matthew 12:19.) Thus, Jesus warns against those who claimed His rightful title and authority, but with totally other motivations, intentions and concepts of Messiahship.

Just how real this danger was is documented by Josephus who reports (Ant. XX, 5, 1).

Now it came to pass, that while Fadus was procurator of Judea (i.e. 44-46 A.D.), that a certain magician, whose name was Theudas, persuaded a great part of the people to take their effects with them, and follow him to the river Jordan; for he was a prophet, and that he would, by his own command, divide the river, and afford them an easy passage over it; and many were deluded by his words. However, Fadus did not permit them to make any advantage of his wild attempt, but sent a troop of horsemen out against them; who falling upon them unexpectedly, slew many of them, and took many of them alive. They also took Theudas alive, and cut off his head, and carried it to Jerusalem.

Concerning the time of Felix (A.D. 52-61; cf. Acts 24), Josephus (Wars, II, 13, 4-5) writes that Jewish affairs were gradually degenerating, not only because of terrorists who used robbery to finance their program but also because of impostors who deceived the multitude:

There was also another body of wicked men gotten together, not so impure in their actions, but more wicked in their intentions who laid waste the happy state of the city no less than did these murderers. These were such men as deceived and deluded the people under pretense of divine inspiration, but were for procuring innovations and changes of government; and these prevailed with the multitude to act like madmen and went before them into the wilderness, as pretending that God would show them the signal of liberty. But Felix thought this procedure was to be the beginning of a revolt; so he sent some horsemen and footmen, both armed, who destroyed a great number of them. But there was an Egyptian false prophet that did the Jews more mischief than the former; for he was a cheat, and pretended to be a prophet also, and got together thirty thousand men that were deluded by him; these he led round about from the wilderness to the mount which is called the Mount of Olives and was ready to break into Jerusalem by force..

The Egyptian promised his victims that he would show them from hence how, at his command, the walls of Jerusalem would fall down; and he promised them that he would procure them an entrance into the city through those walls, when they were fallen down (Ant. XX, 8, 5-6). Felix took a dim view of this, attacked first, slaughtered four hundred of his followers and captured two hundred prisoners. But the Egyptian himself escaped! Again, in the procuratorship of Festus (A.D. 61), Josephus (Ant. XX, 8, 10; cf. Wars, II, 13, 5) documented how

Festus sent forces, both horsemen and footmen to fall upon those that had been seduced by a certain impostor, who promised them deliverance and freedom from the miseries they were under, if they would but follow him as far as the wilderness. Accordingly those forces that were sent destroyed both him that had deluded them and those that were his followers also.

THESE were the kind of Christ that made sense to the first century Jews. So, it was against this kind of false messiah that Jesus alerted His followers.

2. International war is not the signal (24:6, 7a)

Matthew 24:6 **Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. **In Israel’s history, wars and rumors of wars were not always bad news, since they offered hope of freedom. (Cf. Jeremiah 51:45 f.) However, wars of liberation were the exciting logic of misdirected, fanatic Messianism too. Remember: the first-century Palestine Liberation Organization was JEWISH. But Hebrew Christians in every part of the Roman Empire could not but be affected by the unsettling rumors that foreshadow the coming of war. So, the emotional involvement of the Christians must be defused, lest they too be swept up in the political turbulence such rumors must foment.

National upheavals were the order of the day for the entire Roman Empire. Tacitus (Histories, I, §2, 189) sighs dismally,

I am entering on the history of a period rich in disasters, frightful in its wars, torn by civil strife, and even in peace full of horrors. Four emperors perished by the sword. There were three civil wars; there were more with foreign enemies; there were often wars that had both characters at once. There was success in the East and disaster in the West. There were disturbances in Illyricum; Gaul wavered in its allegiance; Britain was thoroughly subdued and immediately abandoned; the tribes of the Suevi and the Sarmatae rose in concert against us; the Dacians had the glory of inflicting as well as suffering defeat; the armies of Parthia were all but set in motion by the cheat of a counterfeit Nero.

Rumors of war were heard as Tiberius (A.D. 14-37) ordered Vitellius to attack Aretas of Arabia (Ant. XVIII, 5, 1-3) and started to march across Palestine with his Roman eagles. Just ten years after Jesus began His ministry, war rumors raced through Jewish cities as Caligula ordered an army to march on Jerusalem to place his statues in the Temple or massacre anyone who attempted to stop the attempt. This abomination of desolation was averted by the heroic Jewish plea at Ptolemais and at Tiberias made to the Roman commander, Petronius (Wars, II, 10, 1-5), as also by Herod Agrippa’s timely intercession (Ant. XVIII, 8, 1-9).

Under Cumanus (48 A.D.), during a Passover feast a tumult in the temple cost 10,000 lives trampled to death, because of the presence of Roman soldiers in and around the Temple (Ant. XX, 5, 3; Wars II, 12, 1). In the same period a fierce war was barely averted between Jews and Samaritans (Wars, II, 12, 3-7). Gessius Florus (65 A.D.), whose rapacious administration made his corrupt predecessors appear almost righteous by comparison (Wars, II, 14, 2), deliberately provoked the Jews to war (Wars, II, 17, 4). The eloquent Agrippa II formerly pleaded with the Jews not to declare war against Rome solely due to Florus-’ abuses (Wars, II, 16). Nonetheless, Zealot agitation continued and finally forced the suspension of regular sacrifices for the Roman emperor. Since this was a direct repudiation of loyalty to Rome, it marks the true beginning of the Jewish war with Rome (Wars, II, 17, 2). From then on, it was one fierce, almost continuous, civil war between revolutionary terrorists and a determined peace party (Wars, IV, 3, 2); a war, however, wherein Jewish terrorists murdered the high priest and unarmed Romans on the Sabbath (Wars, II, 17)! In a one-hour massacre, 20,000 Jews were butchered by their pagan fellow-citizens at Caesarea (Wars, II, 18, 1), 10,000 at Damascus died (Wars, II, 20, 2). Civil war in Scythopolis left 13,000 corpses (Wars, II, 18, 3). Anti-Jewish bloodbaths accounted for 2,500 dead in Askelon. At Ptolemais 2,000 were killed and many in Tyre. 50,000 died in Alexandria (ibid., §7, 8).

Wars and rumors of wars streamed incessantly from Rome upon the death of Nero (68 A.D.) as three emperors contended for the throne, slaying and being slain in turn: Galba, Otho and Vitellius (68, 69 A.D.). This unsettling news of chaos at the head of the world empire would create tensions everywhere. (See Wars IV*, 9,* 1-2, 9-10.)

**See that ye be not troubled. **In light of the historical reality meant, the disciples must have grasped with astonishment at Jesus-’ inconceivably calm order not to be alarmed. These conditions would try the strongest faith and determination to hold firm in the face of temptations to surrender to fear or flee prematurely before the Gospel testimony could be given, and still He expects people not to get excited or worry?!

Jack Lewis (Matthew, II, 122) quotes Genesis Rabbah 42:4: When thou seest the kingdoms fighting against one another, look and expect the foot of the Messiah. Our Master sharply repudiated this apocalyptic eschatology based on wishful thinking. Since wars are a part of the negative destiny of sinful men, Jesus is concerned that Christians not throw themselves into some ill-omened political venture under the leadership of self-styled prophets who promise messianic significance for their program.

**These things must needs come to pass. **God is not the Author of war or human disaster. The direct causes are human selfishness, greed and ambition. Nevertheless, in the purpose of God, these human ingredients, especially human free choice inspired by Satan, will be permitted free rein until Final Judgment. In such a case, these things compose the kind of world in which the Christian will find himself. This assurance of God’s foreknowledge of world history is intended to calm the disciples-’ fears and induce him to reasonableness in the face of these terrors. (Cf. John 16:1 ff.) By announcing God’s intention to permit this frightful state of affairs to continue, Jesus aimed to debunk a Messianic utopia on earth. Jesus the true Messiah came not to bring peace on earth. but a sword and a cross (Matthew 10:34-39). Thus, He diverts His follower’s attention from popular Messianism to the eternal purposes of God and restores his perspective. God has in mind, not the peace of an earthly Jerusalem, but its desolation.

**But the end is not **yet. The end of what? That end about which the disciples had inquired, i.e. the Temple’s destruction and anything else actually involved in that event. (See on Matthew 24:3.) He refers, therefore, not to the destruction of the universe, but to the end of the exclusively Jewish age, their world, not ours; the world as they had known it heretofore, not as it became thereafter. Jesus-’ prophetic realism stands out in sharp contrast to those of His age who embraced a view of history that promised Jewish political vindication by God. But history vindicated Jesus, not His contemporaries.

**But the end is not **yet. To appreciate Jesus-’ meaning, we must feel His points of emphasis, so as not to be misled by some prophecy preaching that blatantly misappropriates the very features just mentioned by Jesus, as if they were signs of His Second Coming. Ironically, such teaching unconscionably contradicts our Lord Himself. Here is what HE said:

Do not go after them (the deceivers) (Luke 21:8).

See that you are not alarmed; for this must first take place, but the end will not be at once (Matthew 24:6; Mark 13:7; Luke 21:9).

All this is but the beginning of sufferings (Matthew 24:8; Mark 13:8 b).

But before all this they will lay their hands on you. (Luke 21:12).

And the gospel must first be preached to all nations (Mark 13:10; cf. Matthew 24:14).

This gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come (Matthew 24:14).

When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near (Luke 21:20).

This generation will not pass away till all these things take place (Matthew 24:34; Mark 13:30; Luke 21:32).

No signs will precede the Second Coming to give warning to anyone (Matthew 24:37 to Matthew 25:30).

There is no intention here to say that wars, famines and pestilences on earth and horrors in space have only occurred in the past or shall not do so in the future. Rather, what is acid-clear is that Jesus emphatically denies that these are prophetic indicators that His Second Coming is imminent. This harmonizes with His equally emphatic declarations that deal directly with this subject (Matthew 24:42-44; Mark 13:33; Mark 13:35; Luke 21:34; Matthew 24:50; Matthew 25:13).

Matthew 24:7 **For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. **For: his verse explains the foregoing assertion on wars and rumors of wars. Note His parallelisms:

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars.
For nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.

All this is but the beginning of the sufferings.

Amplifying His thought in language reminiscent of 2 Chronicles 15:6 and Isaiah 19:2, Jesus not only depicts the human distress of wartorn countries, but prepares those, who recognize these allusions to Old Testament language and situations, for His later revelation of the coming divine judgment on Israel.

3. Disturbances in nature are not the signal (24:7b, 24:8)

Next, He names the awful fruits of war: there shall be famines and pestilences (Luke 21:11). In wartime, uncertain living and working conditions hinder the normal production and marketing of food, leading to shortages and famines. These lead to uneven diets, vitamin deficiencies and sickness. Where normal hygiene is interrupted by civil chaos, pestilences fester and spread.

One famine occurred during the reign of Claudius when Fadus was procurator (45:46 A.D. See Ant. III, 15, 3.). Queen Helena of Adiabene bought corn in Egypt and a cargo of dried figs from Cyprus at great expense and distributed it in Judea. Her proselyte son, Isates, furnished money to Jerusalem’s leaders too (Ant. XX, 2, 1-5). This is the same famine predicted by Agabus, for which the Christians sent disaster relief (Acts 11:28 f.). Other historians characterize the reign of Claudius as a period hard-hit by famine conditions, one famine in Greece, mentioned by Eusebius, and two in Rome, according to Dion Cassius and Tacitus (Annals, XII 43; Expositor’s Greek Testament, II, 270).

Not only would crops fail, but the earth itself would seem out of joint with itself: earthquakes in divers places: here, there, anywhere, not more specifically located. Just a few years after the Church began, the Mediterranean world was rocked by disturbances in nature and terrors in the supernatural realm (Luke 21:11). There will be terrors and great signs from heaven. Alford (I, 236) listed five principle earthquakes within the period 46-63 A.D. Tacitus (Annals, XII, 43) describes 51 A.D. as one such ill-omened year:

Several prodigies occurred that year. Birds of evil omen perched on the Capitol; houses were thrown down by frequent shocks of earthquake, and as the panic spread, all the weak were trodden down in the hurry and confusion of the crowd. Scanty crops too, and consequent famine were regarded as a token of calamity.

Concerning the year 62 A.D. Tacitus wrote (XV, 22):

During the same consulship a gymnasium was wholly consumed by a stroke of lightning, and a statue of Nero within it was melted down to a shapeless mass of bronze. An earthquake too demolished a large part of Pompeii, a populous town in Campania.

Near the end of 65 or 66 he relates (XV, 47):

At the close of the year people talked much about prodigies, presaging impending evils. Never was lightning flashes more frequent, and a comet too appeared, for which Nero always made propitiation with noble blood.

According to Tacitus (XVI, 13), the years 65 and 66 encompassed much that chills the blood:

A year of shame and of so many evil deeds heaven was also marked by storms and pestilence. Campania was devastated by a hurricane, which destroyed everywhere country houses, plantations and crops, and carried its fury to the neighborhood of Rome, where a terrible plague was sweeping away all classes of human beings without any derangement of the atmosphere as to be visibly apparent,

Earlier (Histories, I, 2), Tacitus had written:

Now too Italy was prostrated by disasters either entirely novel, or that recurred only after a long succession of ages; cities in Campania’s richest plains were swallowed up and overwhelmed; Rome was wasted by conflagrations, its oldest temples consumed, and the Capitol was fired by the hands of citizens. Sacred rites were profaned; there was profligacy in the highest ranks; the sea was crowded with exiles, and its rocks polluted with bloody deeds.

Josephus (Wars, IV, 4, 5) recounts that when an army of Idumeans, sent for by the Zealots, arrived at Jerusalem, they were shut out of the city by Ananus the high priest. That night over Jerusalem broke a terribly violent storm of strong winds with the largest showers of rain and continual lightnings, terrible thunderings and amazing concussions and the bellowing of the earth, that was in an earthquake. Note Josephus-’ personal deduction:

These things were a manifest indication that some destruction was coming upon men, when the system of the world was put into this disorder; and any one would guess that these wonders foreshowed some great calamities were coming.

Josephus-’ personal opinion is remarkable, because it is precisely the sort of guesswork that Jesus warns His followers against: such disasters must not be considered a critical sign of anything special in the plan of God. Close attention is not to be dedicated to these physical disturbances in nature that understandably capture the imagination and demand some theory of their cause. However great and fearful they be, they are emphatically NOT the heaven-sent signal.

Matthew 24:8 **But all these things are the beginning of travail. **This statement completes Jesus-’ parenthetical amplification of Mat 24:6 begun in Matthew 24:7, and is parallel to the last half of Mat 24:6. The basic message of these verses is, whatever you do, DO NOT CONSIDER THESE DISASTERS AS SIGNS OF ANYTHING! They are not indications of the end, but of the beginning! He would rescue His people from that apocalyptist’s eschatological fever that fondly and confidently points to wars and natural catastrophes as unequivocal cues to the end of the age. These are to be seen, instead, as just so many episodes in the common history of man.

Travail (ôdìnôn, pangs of childbirth, birth-pangs), according to some, suggests that, because birth-throes lead to the birth of a child, therefore the travail in question here must lead to a happy outcome, i.e. His return in victory over the world. Several responses are possible.

Granted that the birth of a child follows the travail, it does not follow that the happy event here (supposedly) intended is the Second Coming or Judgment. Rather, the almost unbearable calamities pictured here could be the birthpangs of the new epoch in God’s dealing with man. And, contrary to Jewish expectations, the new era dawning would not be characteristicly Jewish or limited to Hebrew rites and customs, but truly universal, a Kingdom of God open to all men, not Mosaic but Christian. Lenski (Matthew, 931) believes that Jesus adopts the term which was used by the rabbis to designate the sufferings and woes which they thought were to precede the Messiah’s coming: cheble hammashiach, dolores Messiae. All these tribulations would bring forth the new era. If He deliberately utilized this language common to earlier Jewish thought (cf. Jubilees 23:18-24; IV Ezra 5:1-12; 6:14-24; 8:63-9:12; Sibyl. Orac. III, 796-807; II Baruch chaps. 27-30; 70-72), it would be to correct its mistaken notions. The era to follow this travail would not glorify national Israel nor justify popular concepts thereof, but offer hope and blessing to all the world through the proclamation of the Gospel by a truly universal Church. Could the travail signal the dawn of the regeneration (palingenesìa) of Matthew 19:28, when the Apostles-’ reign with Christ would occur, i.e. during the Kingdom, now?

However suggestive the foregoing theory may be, the element of PAIN stands foremost in Jesus-’ mind, as everything He says next will show, especially in Mark 13:9 ff. and Luke 21:12 ff. Travail, here, foreshadows those more severe troubles that excite horror preliminary to the full maturing of the catastrophe. Odînes (travail) may be utilized for the pains of death, without implying passage to a happier life by birth. (Cf. Acts 2:24; Psalms 18:5 [LXX Psalms 17:6;] Psalms 116:3 [LXX Psalms 114:3]; see also Luke 2:48 odunòmenoi.)

Because these things are the beginning, Jesus would forestall the error that the Second Coming should be expected early in the first century. In the same way He warns that the breaking up of the Jewish State must await the maturing of events. These things are the beginning; the rest He proceeds to sketch in detail clear down to Matthew 24:13 (see also parallels), moving from the general to the specific, from general world conditions to the specific situation, life and problems of the Church. Immediately on the heels of His exposure of the false alarms, Jesus proceeds to sound a warning that was to be more personal, more directly related to the early Christians than the preceding perils. With the ax of confident prediction and with His call to trust His word on good evidence, He effectively severs the roots of fears that could cloud men’s minds, especially of those very people upon whom the propagation of His Gospel would depend. This quiet, steady faith and witnessing, not fear of world events, is to be their main concern. Thus, Jesus set the gyro-compass that would hold the Church steady and on course, flying into the teeth of the devil’s worst.

4. Troubles inside the Church and out are not the signal (24:9-13) a. Persecution of the Church (24:9)

Matthew 24:9 Then, as a word in this context, is ambiguous, in that it has two meanings:

At that time, i.e. during the period just described;

Thereupon, next in order of events or time, because very often in Matthew tòte represents the Hebrew wâw consecutive, and is thus simply continuing the narrative (Souter, Pocket Lexicon, 263).

However, if taken in this second sense, Matthew would appear to contradict Luke, as Matthew seems to affirm that the tribulation suffered by Christians would follow the alarming world events, whereas Luke has But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you. (Luke 21:12). However, as pointed out at Matthew 24:7, Matthew’s Matthew 24:7-8 are amplificatory in that they furnish further information concerning His prediction of wars and their sociological and economic results. Now in Matthew 24:9 Jesus returns to His original outline which had been interrupted by that parenthetical explanation and takes up the next characteristic of that same troubled time, persecution of the Christians. This, as Luke says, shall occur prior to the end of the epoch torn by mind-boggling tragedies. So, Luke’s before all these things aims only at greater chronological precision without controverting His colleagues, Matthew and Mark who merely identify the character of the period without establishing a tight chronology. So, the first definition of then is preferable: during the time just described, then, in those days.

**The Choice Between Death and Loyalty to Jesus

They shall deliver you up to tribulation, and shall kill you. **Here Matthew briefly summarizes material that Mark and Luke record in considerable detail (Mark 13:9-13 = Luke 21:12-19). These warnings addressed to the disciples concerning their future labors include information our Apostle had already recorded in his version of their ordination sermon. (See on Matthew 10:16-22.) This is not new revelation. Rather, it clarifies to what period Jesus-’ earlier words actually apply, i.e. to those years just before the Jewish war with Rome. (See Introductory Notes on Matthew 10, Vol. II, 248-255.)

Tribulation (thlìpsis) is pressure, hence the suffering caused by pressure: persecution, affliction, distress. Here the pressure is the persecution of Christians who suffer because of their devotion of Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah. This cannot be a general expression for, or type of, the great tribulation mentioned in Matthew 24:21, because there the malevolence is directed at unbelieving Jews, not Christians. (This does not deny attribution of this phrase great tribulation in Revelation 7:14 to Christian suffering, which may well include some of the wretchedness indicated here in Matthew 24:9.) As the Jews are to have their great tribulation, so the Christians are to be subjected to tremendous pressures which find their origin in the clash that must come when the believers-’ new allegiance, his new norms and his wholly new world-view clash with those of everyone and everything else that finds itself in diametric opposition to all that Christ stands for. This tribulation would be characterized in various ways:

JEWISH PERSECUTION. Jesus refers to a time when the Church was considered a Jewish sect and prosecutable as such by Jewish authorities (synagogues and councils cf. Acts 22:19). It was also a time when the Jews themselves did not possess the authority to prosecute capital crimes, hence their accused must be brought before governors and kings for judgment (Mark 13:9; Luke 21:12). The fulfilment of Jesus-’ prediction is documented in pain and blood. (Acts 4:3-7; Acts 5:18; Acts 8:1-4; Acts 11:19; Acts 12:1 ff; Acts 13:50; Acts 14:5; Acts 28:22; 2 Corinthians 6:4-10; 2 Corinthians 4:7-12; 2 Corinthians 8:2; 2 Corinthians 11:23-29; 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16; 2 Thessalonians 1:4; 2 Timothy 3:12; Hebrews 10:32 ff.; Revelation 2:9 ff; Revelation 3:9 f.) No less than Stephen, James, the Apostle, and James the Lord’s brother were executed or assassinated before 70 A.D. (Acts 7; Acts 12:1 ff.; Ant. XX, 9, 1; Eusebius, Eccl. History II, 23-25.)

FAMILY HATRED TOWARD CHRISTIANS (Mark 13:12; Luke 21:16; cf. Matthew 10:21). Terrible persecutions are in store not merely as torture for the body, but also those crushing torments of the heart when one’s own family and friends turn against him. Pagan family members feel betrayed by the conversion of one of their own, but this is acutely felt among Jewish families. Tragically, such hatred was not even entirely anti-Christian sentiment. The entire nation would be torn by internecine strife that became virtually a civil war, ripping apart even private families (Wars, IV, 3, 2). Such betrayals were typical of the closing years of the Jewish war.

UNIVERSAL HATRED FOR CHRISTIANS. (Cf. Matthew 12:22.) Ye shall be hated of all the nations for my name’s sake. Not only hounded and branded by antagonists of their own race (Acts 28:22), early Hebrew Christians would be subjected to pagan molestations wherever the Gospel advanced. All nations confidently envisions the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19) as a foregone conclusion: Christ’s victorious influence is assured, even in the face of seeming defeat!

One sample of these ordeals occurred when Nero burned Rome, leaving many citizens burned to death. Read Tacitus (Annals XV, 44) whose own antipathy toward Christians is ill-disguised. Schaff (History of the Christian Church, I, 381) summarizes the Roman historian’s documentation of Nero’s attack on Christians:

Their Jewish origin, their indifference to politics and public affairs, their abhorrence of heathen customs, were construed into an odium generis humani (hated against mankind) and this made an attempt on their part to destroy the city sufficiently plausible to justify a verdict of guilty.

Tacitus reports a vast multitude of Christians that died in the Neronian persecution of 64 A.D. It was for this that Peter prepared his readers (1 Peter 1:6; 1 Peter 2:12; 1 Peter 3:13-18; 1 Peter 4:12-19; 1 Peter 5:10; cf. Revelation 6:9 f; Revelation 7:14). Later, the apostles, Peter and Paul, experienced death as martyrs.

But these tribulations must be suffered for my name’s sake, i.e. for all that Jesus stands for as this is revealed in His message. But it must be for Jesus, not our own pride, ignorance or folly, that we suffer (Matthew 5:11 f.; Matthew 10:22; Matthew 10:32 f.; 1 Peter 4:14 ff.). However painful these tortures might be, none of these tribulations mean the end of history for the Christians, because the disciple trusts Jesus to conquer.

b. Religious confusion and widespread faithlessness (24:10-12)

APOSTASY AND BETRAYAL. Matthew 24:10 **And then shall many stumble, and shall deliver one another, and shall hate one another. **Then, see on v. 9. Here is a practical warning: times of suffering produce quite opposite effects! While undergirding the hope and determination of some, such times weaken and break others. Jesus predicts a gradual but serious deterioration in Christian faith and practice.

Many shall stumble (skandalisthésontai, lit. be entrapped, see notes on Matthew 18:6 f.). True to His understanding of human psychology which He expressed in the Parable of the Soils (Matthew 13:3-9; Matthew 13:18-23), the Lord discerns how many will be entrapped by their (often unconscious) lingering attachments to the world. They will walk right into the trap, because they desire the bait! (Cf. James 1:14; contrast 2 Peter 1:4!) Others, seeing that God fails to act decisively by setting up His Kingdom on earth, are shocked and quit. Christ delays His coming, so still others drop their discipleship and turn apostates. Pliny, governor of Bythinia (c. 109-111 A.D.), described in his letter to Trajan (Ep. X, 97) some former Christians who willingly repeated after him

… an invocation to the gods, and offered adoration, with wine and frankincense to Caesar’s image. together with those of the gods, and who finally cursed Christ, none of which acts, it is said, those who are really Christians can be forced into performing.. Others who were named by that informer at first confessed themselves Christians, and then denied it; true, they had been of that persuasion but they had quitted it, some three years, some many years, and a few as much as twenty-five years ago. They all worshiped your statue and the images of the gods, and cursed Christ.

Many shall deliver up one another. This they did in different ways:

(1)

An apostate, by virtue of his inside information and former connections as well as by his abandonment of Christianity, psychologically motivated to turn over to the authorities those whom he has abandoned. Sometimes he could diminish his personal torture by turning traitor to expose his former fellow-Christians.

(2)

Warring Christian sects might justify to themselves the betrayal of those whom they refuse to recognize as Christian brethren. (Cf. Philippians 1:15-18.)

(3)

Tacitus (Annals, XV, 44) recorded that such betrayals occurred: Several Christians at first were apprehended, and then, by their discovery, **a **multitude of others were convicted and cruelly put to death, with derision and insult.

Many shall hate one another. Hate is a cover-word Jesus utilized to express, for example, the jealousy and suspicion that animated the false brethren who endangered Paul’s ministry (2 Corinthians 11:26), allured converts away from the truth (Galatians 1:6-9; Galatians 2:4; Galatians 3:1; Galatians 4:16 ff; Galatians 5:7-12; Galatians 6:12) and attempted to discredit him (2 Corinthians 10:1 f., 2 Corinthians 10:10; chap. 11).

FALSE TEACHERS: Matthew 24:11 **And many false prophets shall arise, and shall lead many astray. That false teachers and doctrine abounded even in the apostolic age before Jerusalem’s fall is amply attested by New Testament illustrations and warnings: Matthew 7:15 ff.; Acts 20:29 f.; Romans 3:8; Romans 16:17 f.; 1 Corinthians 15:12; 2 Corinthians 11:1 to 2 Corinthians 13:10; Galatians 1:6-9 etc., 1 Timothy 1:3-7; 1 Timothy 1:19 f.; 2 Timothy 2:17 f; 2 Timothy 3:8 f.; Titus 1:10-16; 2 Peter 2:1; 1 John 2:18-26; 1 John 4:1; 1 John 4:3; 2 John 1:7; all of Jude. False prophets and teachers would be harder to deal with than overt persecution from outside the Church, because these arose within the ranks of the believers. Motivated by personal animosities, selfish ambition and erroneous convictions, these schismatics would allure earnest disciples to swerve from truth in order to follow their teachers.

History of the Christian Church, Schaff (ibid., I, 564ff.) distinguishes three types of heretical perversions of the Christian message in the first century: the Judaizing tendency, the paganizing tendency of the Gnostics, and the syncretistic tendency to blend Christianity with pagan thought. Each arose as a caricature, respectively, of Jewish Christianity, Gentile Christianity and of the truly universal Christianity that reconciled the genius and truth of both these conceptions.

In every age we must beware of even one, single false notion that distorts Christ’s teaching. Every heresy has a grain of truth that renders its error palatable to the uncritical. Do not think that a false prophet is exclusively someone who twists the entire body of Christian doctrine or who never says something true.

WIDESPREAD FAITHLESSNESS. Matthew 24:12 **And because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love of the many shall wax cold. **Iniquity (anomìa; lit. lawlessness) expresses itself in rebellion against restraints of any kind whether inside the Church or without. The first step in Gospel proclamation is the often painful awakening of man’s consciousness of his guilt. Preaching this unwelcome truth invites rejection by the majority that refuses it, dampening enthusiasm for righteousness. Further, when the hypocrisy of some insincere Christians is discovered, the sincerity of the honest ones becomes suspect. Disciples become mutually suspicious and dare no longer believe in each other. The unfortunate, natural consequence is the cooling in the intensity of their love for one another. The custom of abandoning the common Christian assembly was already growing in the first century, making mutual encouragement vital even then (Hebrews 10:25).

Although He means essentially the same thing, Jesus did not say, The faith of the many shall grow cold, but The love.. Here is the real distinction between a shallow, formalistic faith and one that is deeply felt, real and living. Is your faith a love that seizes the imagination, warms the heart, informs the intellect, reinforces the conscience, empowers the will, causing you to love God and people as Jesus did? The kind of love Jesus has in mind is the true definition of spirituality, not, as some hold, the abstinence from a certain list of worldly pleasures. This fervor will show itself in earnest, active, brotherly concern for one’s fellows (Matthew 25:34-40; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 Peter 2:17; 1 Peter 4:8; 1 Peter 5:14).

Does this lawlessness (anomìa) forepicture that libertinism or antinomianism that began cropping up in early Christianity by turning the grace of God into lasciviousness? (Cf. Jude 1:4; Romans 3:7 f; Romans 6:1 to Romans 7:6; 2 Peter 2:1 ff.) Further, laxity in doctrine cannot help but involve moral laxity. What one believes does affect how he acts, since the same authority governs both doctrinal correctness and moral practice.

c. Individual perseverance one’s only hope (24:13)

INDIVIDUAL PERSEVERANCE. Matthew 24:13 **But he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. **Potentially, Jesus-’ subtle proverb embraces an (perhaps deliberate?) ambiguity: two ends and two salvations: (1) the salvation of the individual’s soul at the conclusion of his life of faithfulness, either at his death or at the world’s end, whichever comes first, and (2) the preservation of the Christian’s physical life at the end of Jerusalem.

It may be objected that Jesus cannot have three separate ends in view contemporaneously: (1) life; (2) Jerusalem; (3) the world. Further, could the salvation promised be so ambiguous as potentially to involve both physical liberation from the destiny of Jerusalem and spiritual salvation from sin and death contemporaneously? What, too, of those disciples who died a natural death or were martyred for Christ before Jerusalem’s fall? Surely, early martyrs would not be lost merely because they died before 70 A.D. Would it not also be a senseless truism to argue that the life would be spared of him who endured to the end of his life? So, it is argued that He means, not Jerusalem’s end, but only the believer’s death, hence the salvation involved is entirely spiritual.

However, since the believer’s salvation at the conclusion of his life of obedience and the early Jewish Christian’s physical preservation beyond the death of Jerusalem are both true to the context, must we choose between them? In the near context (Matthew 24:9), Jesus had predicted martyrdom for some of His people. (Cf. Luke 21:16.) In this case, those who died would have endured to the end of their life testimony for Christ and so would be saved spiritually. Earlier, Jesus linked fearless testimony during persecution with spiritual salvation and with being acknowledged before the Father (Matthew 10:32 f.). Those who, under fire, denied their faith in Him would not be recognized as His and they would be lost spiritually, even though they live to a ripe old age and die in bed.

Nonetheless, because the Lord proceeds immediately to describe how Christians could avoid the holocaust destined for Jerusalem, it is also conceivable that, for a large sector of the early Church, the end and the being saved would vitally concern their own earth-life quite as really as that to come. The end is the same referred to by the expression, these things (Matthew 24:3; Matthew 24:34 and parallels) and those days (Matthew 24:19; Matthew 24:22 and par.), i.e. the period when Israel would be ruined nationally. It is the same end heralded by the proclamation of the Gospel throughout the whole world for a testimony (Matthew 24:14). Accordingly, the salvation intended refers also to physical escape by precipitate flight to the mountains when Jerusalem would have been surrounded by enemy troops (Luke 21:20 f.). By believing Jesus to the very last, the believer would escape the doom of the city. Even if some individuals would be martyred, the Church as a whole would elude the bloody end scheduled for the unbelieving Jewish people.

Here, then, is His justification for deliberately speaking ambiguously: The person who believes that I know what I am talking about and trusts me right on past the complete fulfilment of these predictions, is the person who will really save his life. Lifeboth temporal and eternalwill not be the conquest of the wayward doubter who casts in his lot with the unbelieving and the fearful of this nation for whom God has prepared the furious punishment I describe. So, to learn to trust Jesus in the midst of fire and cruel tests of endurance would provide a double benefit for those Christians yet living in Palestine during the last hours of Israel’s national existence. Their lives would be spared and their souls saved. In those crude, brutal days when human flesh was cheap and the skin of a Christian was worth nothing, many believers would doubt that they could endure. In fact, he that endures to the end is really what will be left of the Church after the defections, the betrayals and apostacies, no less than the staunch believer who outlives the Palestinean tribulation! Hence, the Lord holds out concrete hope for those embattled saints, motivating them to hold firm in holding off false teachers, enduring taunts and keeping enthusiastic for Jesus, even while their entire country was flying apart,

FACT QUESTIONS

Quote the various expressions Jesus used to indicate that disturbing world and local events were not to be considered signals of the approaching end.

List the various events that are not to be interpreted as signaling anything special in God’s plan, but must be considered as merely the beginning of sufferings.

Does history record the appearance of pretenders who claimed, I am Christ? What would Christ have meant to the Jew who did not believe in Jesus?

List some of the wars and rumors of wars that characterized the period prior to 70 A.D.

What must the disciples-’ attitude be toward the world-shaking events surrounding them?

Explain how Jesus means the expression, this must take place: has the purpose of God foreseen or planned wars and tumults? In what sense must they take place?

According to Mark and Luke, what is the tribulation into which men would deliver Jesus-’ disciples? In what chapter of Matthew has Jesus already described these troubled before?

What other characteristics of the period are listed exclusively in Matthew?

According to Jesus, what is the beginning point of this period and what the end point?

DOES 24:4-14 SURVEY CHRISTIAN HISTORY TO THE WORLD’S END?

Some would not confine their interpretation of Mat 24:4-14 to a specially Jewish situation or era limited to the decline and fall of the Jewish state. Rather, say they, these verses depict the chief features of the Christian era down to its end. Even if they involve the nearer history of the great catastrophe of 66-70 A.D., they project a decisive, prophetic shadow on the farther future end, as a sign or foretaste of that chain of events from the time of the Church to the final event that summarizes them all in Christ’s Return. What happens to Jerusalem is seen as typical of general human conduct. Hence, the events preceding the Jerusalem debacle are to be conceived of as signs typical of the final world disaster. Is this analysis correct? Farrar (Life of Christ, 544) argues,

As we learn from many other passages of Scripture, these signs, as they did usher in the destruction of Jerusalem, so shall reappear on a larger scale before the end of all things is at hand. (See 1 Thessalonians 5:3; 2 Thessalonians 2:2, etc.)

However, the conviction that the end is at hand on the basis of other texts which mention world conditions similar to those mentioned in Matthew 24:4-14 does not require us to consider this paragraph as general or capable of referring both to Jerusalem’s end and to that of the world as well. Similarity suggests, but does not prove, identity.

Further, while it is true that spiritual decline, international war, political intrigue and world catastrophes may characterize the Christian dispensation with increasing intensity right down to the end, this does not permit us to dismiss lightly the four decades between Jesus-’ prophecy and its fulfillment in that period.

The disciples-’ expression, the sign of your coming and of the end of the world, (Matthew 24:3) does not justify the unfounded conclusions drawn from this chapter, since their question was wrongly framed and needed correction before it could be properly answered. What many interpreters mistake for signs of the end in Matthew 24:4-14, Jesus flatly terms a mistaken clue about which nothing at all should be made. Rather, the painful commonness of such phenomena proves they could never constitute a sign in the normal, specialized sense of the word.

Matthew 24:14-28

B. Specific, True Information About Jerusalem’s Destruction (24:14-28)

TEXT: 24:14-28

(Parallels: Mark 13:14-20; Luke 21:20-24)

14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations and then shall the end come. 15 When therefore ye see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let him that readeth understand), 16 then let them that are in Judaea flee unto the mountains: 17 let him that is on the housetop not go down to take out the things that are in his house: 18 and let him that is in the field not return back to take his cloak. 19 But woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days! 20 And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on a sabbath: 21 for then shall be great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever shall be. 22 And except those days had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened. 23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is the Christ, or, Here; believe it not. 24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. 25 Behold, I have told you beforehand. 26 If therefore they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the wilderness; go not forth: Behold, he is in the inner chambers; believe it not. 27 For as the lightning cometh forth from the east, and is seen even unto the west; so shall be the coming of the Son of man. 28 Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

On what basis can a great Teacher, who is about to be brutalized and crucified by His religious competitors, assert so confidently that this gospel that I teach you shall be preached in the whole world? Wishful thinking and ungrounded optimism?

Did Jesus assert that the entire earth would have been evangelized, i.e. every single human being would have heard the gospel before the end should come? Further, shall all be converted?

How could the proclamation of the Kingdom Gospel to every nation become a signal of the near approach of the end of the period in question? Could every Christian in first-century Palestine, without the benefit of mass communications, have known about the world-wide outreach of the Gospel, and recognized therein the proof that the end was nearing? What evidences does the New Testament give to prove that Christians everywhere indeed COULD have known this?

Why do you think Matthew (or Jesus) resorted to a form of code to render the specific, true signal that Jerusalem was about to fall, warning believers to flee from it? What would this Jewish double-talk tell us about the date of the final form of Matthew’s manuscript? After all, Luke (Luke 21:20) decodifies the desolating sacrilege phrase to mean, when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies. If Matthew wrote long after the fall of Jerusalem, would he have needed to point out to the reader (let the reader understand) that there is something about the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel that is not to be understood literally, but to be taken symbolically?

What is so important about the detailed escape instructions Jesus gave? What would the people concerned have been tempted to do, had He not given precisely this information?

How does the detailed escape information help us to determine the historic period to which Jesus refers? That is, when Jesus shall come again to take His own with Him, would it be essential, for example, for those who are in Judea to flee to the mountains? Why not just go with Jesus in heaven instead? And what about pregnant women or nursing mothers: do they need flight certification to be caught up in the air? (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Or is He even talking about the Second Coming?

Why does Jesus direct His disciples to flee to the mountains? Would not escape to the desert accomplish the same thing? If not, why not?

Why do you think Jesus delayed the judgment of Israel until the Kingdom Gospel could be proclaimed everywhere? Who would benefit from this delay?

What must have been the-’ force of the evidence, which this chapter furnishes of Jesus-’ divine foreknowledge, upon the minds of those who stood in the midst of the earth-shaking events themselves with Matthew’s Gospel open before them?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

Further, this good news about God’s Kingdom will be proclaimed all over the entire inhabited earth as a witness to all nations. THEN shall the end come. So, when you see -the desolating sacrilege-’ (spoken of by the prophet Daniel) standing -in the holy place-’ where it does not belong,let the reader understand that this means -when you see Jerusalem surrounded by camps of enemy armies-’then recognize that its devastation is about to take place. At that time those who live in Judea must take refuge in the mountains. Those who are inside the city of Jerusalem must get out. Anyone who is up on the rooftop terrace must not take time to go down into his house to get things out of it. Those who are in the country districts or out in the fields must not enter the city or return back to pick up even an overcoat! Those will be -days of vengeance-’ that make all that the Scriptures said come true. How dreadful for expectant mothers and for those nursing a baby during that time! Pray that you do not have to escape in the wintertime or on a Sabbath, because there will be such great -tribulation-’ and such severe misery in the land and such fury unleashed on this people -that it has been unequalled since God created the world until now,-’ and is never to be repeated again. Further, if the Lord had not abbreviated those days, nobody could survive. However, for the sake of God’s special people, He will put a limit on those days. People will either be killed outright with the sword or deported as prisoners of war into other countries. -Jerusalem will be trampled on by the pagans-’ until -the times of the pagans-’ be completed. At that time, if someone says to you, -Look, here is the Messiah!-’ or -Look, there he is!-’ you must not believe it. This is because false christs and false prophets will make their appearance, performing great confirmatory signs and wonderful deeds so that, wherever possible, even God’s special people could be deceived by them. So, be on your guard, because I am warning you about everything in advance. So, if anyone tells you, -Look, he is out in the wilds,-’ do not go out there. Or, if they say, -Look, he is hiding in some secret place,-’ you dare not believe it. The Second Coming of the Messiah will be as obvious as lightning when it lights up the whole sky from east to west! Wherever the carcass is, there the vultures will flock!

SUMMARY

The true signal of Jerusalem’s impending doom is the appearance of an enemy army at its gates. The only safety is in undelayed escape because of the greatness of the disaster that is to occur shortly thereafter. False hopes of the Messiah’s personal coming during the siege must be unswervingly ignored, because Jerusalem must be destroyed. On the other hand, when Christ really returns, He will need no prophets to herald His coming, because it will be so evident to everyone that none could ever miss it.

**NOTES

The true signals of the nearness of Jerusalem’s fall (24:14ff.) a. Worldwide Gospel proclamation signals the approximate approach of the end (24:14)**

Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come. Shall be preached: this simple future quietly but confidently predicts the triumph of the Crucified in that His message would enjoy a world-wide hearing. Note how deliberately our Lord turns His disciples-’ attention away from the soul-crippling dangers to occur during what would appear to them to be the climax of a great eschatological event. In the midst of a world coming apart, the Christians-’ main concern was to be their dedication to proclaiming Christ’s Gospel throughout the whole world. Persecution could not defeat the Gospel. Irrepressibly vocal witnesses of Christ would flee from one city or country to another, reaching otherwise inaccessible audiences. Victory is assured: nothing can stop the program of God. In fact, the end shall not come until His testimony is given to all nations! It is entirely appropriate that Jerusalem and its Temple, the heart and home of the Mosaic era, not be eliminated until the Church, the new Israel of God, had been well established throughout the Roman Empire. When the Gospel shall have triumphed, the curtain can fall: what soul-stirring encouragement!

This highly significant verse interprets truly the mission of the early disciples. Rather than sit around idly waiting for Jerusalem to fall, as if their life could be lived in a vacuum, they were to accept the meaningful challenge to evangelize the world. Out of this we too may understand that our participation in Christian eschatology is not a question of merely gazing at heaven and waiting for Jesus to return. This moment is the hour to commit ourselves wholly, not to an obsession with prophecies of the end, but to the world mission of the Church and to our present opportunities to preach the Gospel to every creature!

The end in question is still the end of the age concerning which the Apostles had asked on the basis of Jesus-’ prediction of the Temple’s destruction (Matthew 24:2 f.). Further indication of the specific period in which the end in question shall come is derived from the Marcan parallel which more precisely delimits the era in which this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached. As noted at Matthew 10:17-22 which contains material identical to Mark and Luke’s parallel paragraphs (Mark 13:9-13 = Luke 21:12-19), the period in question is to be characterized by the special, divine guidance and miraculous power of the Holy Spirit (Mark 13:11). This is not the usual indwelling of the Spirit promised every Christian, but that special inspiration to speak infallibly for God, granted to those on whom the Spirit’s power was poured out. Hence, this occurred within the lifetime of the Apostles to whom Jesus was talking, i.e. during the period between Pentecost and the death of the last of those on whom they laid their hands. (Cf. Acts 8:17 ff.) Jesus is not discussing some future end to occur some 2000 years or more after the first century. Further, the immediate context discusses escape from Jerusalem, hence is related to that event.

Logically, however, this verse belongs to the paragraph which follows it, as it furnishes the sign of the approximate approach of the end of the time in question. While some pronounce it impossible to know when this worldwide Gospel testimony would be complete, the New Testament writers speak otherwise:

The first Gospel proclamation ever given was sounded forth to Godfearing Jews from every nation under heaven (Acts 2:5). This laid appropriate groundwork for the potential fulfilment of Jesus-’ prediction.

The very existence of our New Testament Epistles, addressed to widely separated congregations, attest the presence of important Christian centers around the Mediterranean world. Further, there lived a generation of non-Apostolic men, who lived in widely scattered parts of the Roman Empire shortly after, if not contemporary with, the Apostles, who also testify to the existence and wide-acceptance of our Apostolic Epistles.

Romans 10:18. Although the words cited from Psalms 19:4 referred originally to God’s revelations in nature, Paul legitimately borrowed the poetic expression to picture the wide diffusion of the Gospel among the Diaspora. In fact, he had already affirmed that the faith believed by the Roman Christians is proclaimed in all the world (Romans 1:8).

In a letter dated between 59 and 63 A.D. Paul announced that the Gospel had already been proclaimed to every creature under heaven and that all over the world this gospel is producing fruit and growing (Colossians 1:6; Colossians 1:23). Paul does not say it IS BEING proclaimed (toû kçrùssoménou),but it HAS BEEN preached (toû kçruchthéntos en pàsç ktìsei hupò tòn ouranòn). His wording is too clear for misconception: Jesus-’ goal has been reached in Paul’s day. (Cf. Preach the Gospel to every creature kçrùxate tò euangélion pàsç tê ktìsei, Mark 16:15, with Paul’s above-cited language in Colossians. The obedience matches the order!)

Care must be exercised in defining the extent of Jesus-’ meaning here. While, to us, in the whole world and unto all the nations, as phrases, have a ring of absolute universality about them, this would not necessarily have been so for Jesus nor for His first century hearers. The whole world (hòlç tê oikouménç) need not include much more than all the nations involved in the Roman empire. (Cf. oikouménç in Luke 2:1.) Josephus (Ant. XV, 11, 1; XIX, 2, 4; 3, 1), quoting Romans and Herod the Great, asserts that all the inhabitable world is subject to Rome.

Just as God had not left Himself without a providential witness of all His goodness and care for all the nations (cf. Acts 14:15-17), a witness which many misinterpreted or rejected (cf. Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:4), so now the Gospel witness is to be offered to all the nations on the same take-it-or-leave-it basis. Nothing is here affirmed of the mass conversion of any nation, much less, of all. Just as the healed leper’s presenting himself to the priests must serve for a testimony to them, whether they were ever convinced of Jesus-’ authority or not (Matthew 8:4), just so would the persecuted Christians stand before governors and kings for a testimony to them and to the nations (Matthew 10:18) with no guarantee that these would be converted. The Greek phrase (eis martùrion autoîs) is the same in both texts as here (Matthew 24:14). This witness aims to furnish everyone a solid basis for believing the Gospel and acting on it with confidence. However, where its well-grounded evidence is scorned, the Gospel becomes a witness before God and man against anyone who turns it down. Sooner or later, everyone must deal with it. When they resist it, deny it, doubt it and finally refuse it as false or insignificant, they sentence themselves and stand self-judged.

Nevertheless, laden with far-reaching implications, Paul’s victorious shout (Colossians 1:6; Colossians 1:23) rippled the grim silence of the persecuted Christian world of A.D. 60-62. Although his own ministry had been harassed by perils and endless anxieties, Paul could affirm that Jesus-’ Great Commission was being accomplished. What Paul mentioned in passing to one congregation at Colossae, the whole Judean Christian community could also sense, as reports of the Church’s worldwide progress filtered back to Jerusalem on the lips of worshipers from the Diaspora who filed into the Holy City for the yearly festivals. Peter, too, urged the brethren to stedfast resistance in the confidence that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings (1 Peter 5:9). So, the time is almost right. Whereas, before, all had seemed to be a jumble of unrelated pieces, the puzzle is beginning to fit together. Christians could begin to steel themselves for the final crisis. While the worldwide proclamation of the Gospel, as a clue to the death-day of Jerusalem, is not very precise, nevertheless, before Jesus concluded His message, He would clearly limit the extent of the period in question to His own contemporary generation. (See on Matthew 24:34; cf. Matthew 23:36-39.)

Then shall the end come for what? Certainly, it was not the end of the Jewish race nor even of their national existence per sè, because, though they lost the latter for 1900 years, they are today beginning to re-establish this in the modern state of Israel. What they really lost and, to date, have not regained, is their sole possession of the Kingdom of God, their unique hope of the Messiah, the most significant and real symbols of God’s reconciliation of man with Himself in the Levitical priesthood, the sacrificial system, the wonderful typology of the Tabernacle and Temple plan. These were all brought to final completion once for all in our Lord Jesus Christ. These were theologically lost to Israel at the cross. (Cf. Romans, Galatians and Hebrews.) What followed until 70 A.D. was merely the foredoomed struggle between the Judaism of Jesus-’ day and death.

If only then shall the end come after the completion of all the aforementioned events, if Jewish history must grind on until that date, before which the tragic end could not occur, then certainty the Second Coming must wait no less time. So, how can it be so confidently affirmed that well-informed first-century Christians held to the unsupported belief that Jesus must soon return? If so, they deduced this on some basis other than Jesus-’ eschatological discourse, because in it He leaves every clue to indicate the groundlessness of such a hope (Matthew 24:48; Matthew 25:5; Matthew 25:19).

b. The precise, decisive signal of the end (24:15)

Matthew 24:15 **When therefore ye see the abomination of desolation, which **was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let him that readeth understand). . Here is the crucial signal, but its formulation is most remarkable. For, if Matthew intended to prepare first century readers for an event so critical as this, an event which would require attentiveness and instant flight at the appearance of the first signal, he could scarcely have expressed himself more ambiguously, unless, in the very nature of this vital clue is a truth of tremendous significance that would require its expression in precisely these words. What does the codification of the decisive key have to say about the date of Matthew’s quotation of Jesus-’ words? In fact, Luke, presumably writing for a non-Jewish readership, simply deciphers the coded part into literal language: When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near (Luke 21:20). What factors could have induced Matthew not to decodify Jesus-’ expression, leaving it unintelligible for readers unfamiliar with Daniel’s prophecy?

Presumably only Jewish readers would know the meaning of abomination of desolation, since the fulfilment of Daniel’s prophecy was a sad chapter in their own history (Daniel 11:31; Daniel 12:11; cf. 1Ma. 1:10-64; 1Ma. 6:7). This gave the expression its particular usefulness for describing a future event similar in import to the past one.

Presumably only Jesus-’ disciples, among all Hebrew readers of this text, would trust Him to know that this cryptic reference to Daniel has anything to do with life and freedom in the later national emergency. But even if unbelievers learned this password, making the code-word an open secret among Hebrews generally, it is less likely that Jewish unbelievers would reveal to Romans a secret so potentially useful to themselves. (Study Josephus-’ intriguing note: Wars, II, 20, 1: were those fugitives only Christians, only unbelievers, or both?)

Presumably, then, this code-word for Jerusalem’s H-hour would remain unintelligible for heathen readers. But why should Jesus, or Matthew, wish to hide vital truth from Gentiles, if this could mean their physical safety? Simply because these instructions are not needed by non-Christian Gentiles living anywhere in the world, but by those Christian Jews yet dwelling in Jerusalem during the critical period in question. Any pagans antagonistic to Jews generally or who would sympathize with Roman policy, if aware of a fantastic plan whereby many eminent Jews (Christians) could escape the Roman grip on Jerusalem, could have hindered Christians-’ flight and thwarted Jesus-’ warning, by simply reporting His plan to Roman authorities. These, in turn, could have taken countermeasures to expose and capture even Christian Jews along with their unbelieving brethren. Unquestionably, any Gentile Christians resident in Judea would receive explanations from their Jewish Christian brethren.

If these considerations have worth, then not only Jesus-’ original statement, but also Matthew’s record thereof antedate the fall of Jerusalem. Matthew penned his document at a time when the critical code-word still had practical usefulness in its undecodified form, i.e. before 70 A.D. Composition after this date would more likely have eliminated this vagueness and not called attention to critical signs which, because documented after the fact, would be outrageous hypocrisy and more highly suspect as a forgery. As it stands, however, the cryptic word is evidence of an early date.

(Let him that readeth understand.) This parenthetical remark is either Jesus-’ words or Matthew’s urgent note:

If Jesus said it, He meant, When you read Daniel, grasp what he meant by this cryptic phrase, abomination of desolation. Even Daniel was told to know and understand, since the revelation was not easy to understand. One needs a mind experienced in dealing with God’s past revelations. However, Mark does not even mention Daniel, so the primary emphasis is on the critical clue itself, more than on its literary origin. Even without reference to Daniel, any patriotic Jew who ever attended the Dedication Feast knows what Daniel meant by desolating sacrilege (1Ma. 4:36-59; 2Ma. 10:1-8; Josephus-’ Ant. XII, 7, 7; John 10:22 ff.).

Rather, this parenthetical exhortation is addressed by the Evangelists to their readers: Dear reader, fix this unique, final signal firmly in mind, so that you will remember it and escape at the time indicated. This warning argues that the Gospel was written prior to the first march of the Romans on Jerusalem under Cestius Gallus, A.D. 66.

So, why affirm that the abomination of desolation was spoken of by the prophet Daniel? Does Jesus intend to identify the fulfilment of Daniel’s famous prophecy of the Seventy Weeks (Daniel 9:20-27)? Opinion is greatly varied on this point, simply because it is difficult to give a conclusive beginning or ending date satisfactory to all, without ignoring some important data. Unfortunately, Daniel 9:24-27 is not the only possible source of the expression quoted by Jesus, since abomination of desolation appears also in Daniel 11:31; Daniel 12:11 in undoubted reference to Antiochus Epiphanes. Because this pagan brute had taken Jerusalem and in 168 B.C. outraged Jewish religious feeling by erecting an altar to Zeus in the Temple thus profaning it, the Jews since that time feared that an analogous sacrilege could be repeated. What happens once can happen again. This realization loaded the expression with the tremendous emotional force it possessed as a sign of an approaching disaster for Jerusalem and its Temple. Clearly understood by the Jews of the Greek period, this stereotyped phrase was already applied by the author of 1Ma. 1:54 to the outrage perpetrated by Antiochus IV. (Cf. also 1Ma. 6:7.) Thus, without intending to indicate the fulfilment of a specific prophecy, Jesus could still have utilized this historico-literary allusion, since this unforgettable point of reference evoked a horrifying image and created an emotional impact something like Remember Pearl Harbor! to the Americans after December 7, 1941.

It is unquestionably tempting to believe, with Kik (Matthew XXIV, 26) that our Lord quotes from the prophecy of Dan 9:24-27. But while it may be sure that the prophecy of Dan 9:24-27 finds its fulfillment in the atoning sacrifice of Christ and the destruction of Jerusalem (ibid., 51), is it likely that Jesus would have risked the clarity of the all-important signal whereby Christians could escape the impending wrath upon Jerusalem, by basing it on a prophecy which itself depends upon critical calculations for the clarity of its undoubted fulfillment? Consider these questions:

Are the seventy sevens to be considered 490 literal years or symbolic periods?

Are these solar or lunar years?

Is the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem from which calculations are to begin:

The decree of CYRUS (B.C. 536; Ezra 1:1 ff.)? If so, 483 (=7 + 62 heptads) years end in 53 B.C. in no apparent connection with Christ.

The decree of DARIUS I (B.C. 519; Ezra 4:24; Ezra 6:1)? If so, 483 years end in 36 B.C.

The decree of ARTAXERXES I (B.C. 457; Ezra 7:7-28)? If so, 483 years end in 26 A.D. and the 490 years (70 heptads) end in 33 A.D.

Thus, while it is conceivable that Jesus could point to Daniel 9:24 ff. which would be completely fulfilled in His generation, the above-mentioned uncertainties render it less likely that He would pinpoint the critical signal by linking it with the interpretation of a prophecy like that of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks, because it was too complicated for the common people.

If we presuppose that Jesus is thinking in terms of the LXX and no other version, the expression, desolating sacrilege (tò bdélugma tês erçmòseôs), appears as such only at Daniel 12:11 in the LXX, a reference to Daniel 11:31, but not to Daniel 9:26 where a plural form is used. This distinction is important beyond simple linguistics. Daniel makes three uses of expression, abomination of desolation or its equivalent, but they do not refer to the same object. In fact, in Daniel 9:26 he speaks of events leading up to and contemporaneous with the Messiah, but in Daniel 11:31 and Daniel 12:1 he forepictures events during the Maccabean era. This makes the abomination of desolation in Daniel 9:26 ROMAN, and that referred to in Daniel 11:31 and Daniel 12:11 GREEK. Taken together, these literary allusions furnish a grisly foreshadowing of the final desolating sacrilege accomplished by the Zealots, Idumeans, Assassins and other terrorists and finally by the Roman army in 66-70 A.D. But, to establish the literal fulfillment on Daniel 9:24-27, one must begin from the correct starting point in order correctly to calculate the events down to the coming of Christ and the establishing of the Church. However, because the definite date for the conclusion of the Seventy Weeks of Daniel is not specified in the prophecy itself, readers from 33 A.D. onward would still need to trust Jesus to know when the abomination of desolation predicted in Daniel 9:24-27 must occur. Thus, the Christians-’ comprehension of the complete fulfillment of Dan 9:24-27 would have to await the events themselves. For this, Jesus provided a signal based on a historico-literary allusion too painfully clear for misconception, based not on Daniel 9:27, but on Daniel 11:31; Daniel 12:1.

So, because Jesus-’ warning would be perfectly valid without it, it is unnecessary to affirm that He intended hereby to interpret Daniel’s prophecy as an ancient prediction of the Roman invasion of His own times. Rather, for His own purpose He apparently borrows Daniel’s expression because of its vivid historical connotations. He intimates that what Antiochus Epiphanes did against Jerusalem would find tragic repetition in what the Romans would do, even though not literally predicted by Daniel in Daniel 11:31 or Matthew 12:11. He means, then, When you see the slightest suggestion that the agonizing history of Jerusalem’s pollution and desolation by Antiochus Epiphanes is about to be repeated, escape before you are trapped in the doomed city. One of the incredible sidelights of the final siege was the presence of a Greek general who, with Titus-’ ungrudging permission, led his Macedonian troops in an unspectacular assault on Jerusalem’s wall. His name? Antiochus Epiphanes! (Wars, V, 11, 3).

Another important conclusion may be drawn from Jesus-’ wording: our Lord considers the author of the wording in question to be Daniel the prophet himself, not some unknown understudy or later disciple who supposedly edited Daniel’s work. Nor is he some unknown Jew of Maccabean times who foisted off his own reading of history down to his own times, as if it were actually a prophecy by the ancient Jewish hero of Babylonian and Persian times. (Cf. critical introductions to the book of Daniel.)

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE FULFILLMENT OF DANIEL’S WORDS

If the abomination of desolation is to be a precise, decisive signal to warn believers of Jerusalem’s imminent downfall, the following conditions must be met:

The signal must involve an abomination, i.e. an outrage of Jewish religious sentiments. The sacrilege can be accomplished by anything God has taught His people to regard as idolatrous. (Cf. the bronze serpent, 2 Kings 18:4; Jeremiah 4:1; Jeremiah 7:30; Ezekiel 5:9; Ezekiel 5:11, esp. Ezekiel 5:14; also Molech the abomination of Moab, Chemosh the abomination of Ammon 1 Kings 11:5 ff.; 2 Kings 23:13.) Josephus terms the Roman ensigns images because of Caesar’s image thereon and because of the worship offered them (Ant. XVIII, 3, 1; War, VI, 6, 1). Various near-sacrileges occurred before 70 A.D. When Pilate stubbornly insisted on introducing Roman standards bearing Caesar’s effigy into Jerusalem, he faced so resolute a resistance he was compelled to concede and remove them (Ant. XVIII, 3, 1). Vitellius, Pilate’s contemporary and president of Syria, was persuaded by Jewish leaders not to march his armies across Jewish territory, because of the idolatrous insignias on Roman banners (Ant. XVIII, 5, 3). While these abominations brought no desolation, because each respective crisis was averted, yet they reveal the depth and intensity of Jewish aversion to the Roman banners, due to the abomination involved.

The sacrilege must also threaten desolation, i.e. it must be a religious outrage that brings desolation in its wake. This code word is no merely stereotyped phrase, since the event portended was life-menacing. When in 168 B.C. Antiochus Epiphanes took Jerusalem by treachery and committed sacrilege by building an idol altar dedicated to Olympian Zeus upon God’s altar, slew swine upon it and compelled Hebrews upon pain of death to forsake God’s worship, he desolated the religious basis of Israel’s national existence (Ant. XII, 5, 4; 1Ma. 1:41 ff; 1Ma. 6:7; 2Ma. 6:1-5). So, the original abomination of desolation was instigated by a foreign conqueror, the result of a disastrous war in which the City and Sanctuary were desecrated, ending sacrifice and offering. (Cf. Daniel 11:31; Daniel 12:11.) This suggests that pagan armies would perpetuate the sacrilege. (Cf. Luke 21:20.)

The signal must be standing in the holy place where it ought not to be set up (Mark 13:14). Where, however, or what is this holy place?The Temple? Jerusalem? the Holy Land itself? To be an effective signal, it must be visible, obvious to all, unmistakable: when you see. Hence, it cannot be half-hidden in the interior of the Temple house where presumably no eyes, but those of a few priests or the desecrators of the holy place, could penetrate. So, the holy place need not mean even the Temple’s grounds, consecrated to God but desecrated in some way by pagan armies. Rather, because He had made it His dwelling place, the entire Holy City belonged to God, and even to threaten its holiness by idolatrous banners is to desecrate it. (Cf. Matthew 5:35.) So reasoned the Jews (Ant. XVIII, 3, 1).

The signal must occur at a time when Christians would be in a condition of real liberty to flee from Jerusalem despite the City’s encirclement by foreign troops (Matthew 24:16; Luke 21:21). This could occur under the following conditions:

Roman armies could flood across Palestine, taking city after city, moving ever closer to the capital. However, their troop movements and the establishment of Roman garrisons of occupation do not close up all escape routes whereby Christians could escape, although Jerusalem is virtually surrounded, even if not totally besieged. (Cf. Wars, IV, 9, 1.)

Jerusalem itself is totally surrounded by Roman troops in siege positions, rendering escape virtually impossible, but, for some incredible and unexplained reason, the siege is suddenly lifted and the Roman legions unexpectedly retreat, granting a moment for Christians to evacuate the City. Thus, the sign cannot occur during or after the final Roman siege has begun.

But it must also occur before Jerusalem’s sectarian defenders render all escape impossible by considering it a desertion of their cause to abandon the City and tantamount to joining the Romans. Hence, it cannot have occurred after the Zealots locked Jerusalem’s gates against the possibility of escape or desertion by its inhabitants.

Any reference to events that do not meet these requirements must be judged mistaken, because Jesus intended this critical signal to function successfully and be of practical help to His people. If, for example, the abomination of desolation must be thought of as (1) the desecration of the Temple by the outrages committed in the Temple by Jewish terrorists themselves (Wars, IV, 6, 3) of (2) the erection of the Roman standards within the Temple (Wars, VI, 6, 1), then, where is the Christians-’ freedom to escape the City?

One thing this sign cannot mean, knowledgeable sources might confidently assert, is an army besieging Jerusalem, since escape from the city would be impossible once the siege began! Who but Jesus could be trusted to know that, even though Jerusalem were surrounded by a formidable military power, escape would still be incredibly possible by a totally improbable lifting of that siege? Who but a true Prophet could foresee with unerring certainty that a well-armed, well-disciplined army would inexplicably lift a successful siege from a desperate city and simply march away without any reason in the world (Wars, II, 19, 4-7). Who could predict this with such confidence as to make this obviously improbable event the very sign which would permit His followers to discern the critical moment to escape? And yet, this is the interpretation given by Luke (Luke 21:20). The abomination of desolation, then, is to be a pagan army planting its idolatrous banners on soil that belongs to God’s people within His Holy City.

The fact that vile abominations were imported by the Roman conquerors AFTER the city’s desolation is no argument against this interpretation. Rather, the appearance of these outrages against God occurred too late to save any lives. The common sense of Jesus implies that the critical signal be given in time for Christians to escape BEFORE the final siege began, whereas both in the case of Antiochus Epiphanes (Wars, I, 1, 1-2; Ant. XII, 5, 3f.) and in that of Titus-’ conquest, the abomination connected with its permanent desecration occurred AFTER the city was taken,

THE FULFILLMENT OF JESUS-’ PROPHECY

Although the Jews were not by any means united in their attitude toward Rome, they still longed for a political Messiah as a solution to their national situation increasingly infected with the disease of creeping revolt. Many vindictive blood baths and retaliatory measures took place in which hundreds of Romans, Samaritans and Jews were slain or severely wounded. The most significant took place in November of 66 A.D., convincing a vast group of eminent Jews to flee the City. Other Jews, when they saw the war approaching to their metropolis [i.e. Jerusalem], left the feast, and betook themselves to their arms. (Wars, II, 19, 2). In concept, this closely parallels Jesus-’ warning: When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, know that its desolation has come near. The unbelieving Jews saw it and armed themselves to fight Cestius Gallus and the Romans; the Christians saw it and abandoned the city. Josephus describes the daring escape mechanism thus (§§4-7):

Cestius, observing that the disturbances that were begun among the Jews afforded him a proper opportunity to attack them, took his whole army along with him, and put the Jews to flight, and pursued them to Jerusalem. He then pitched his camp upon the elevation called Scopus.. But when Cestius was come into the city, he set the part called Bezetha. on fire; as he did also to the timber-market; after which he came into the upper city, and pitched his camp over against the royal palace; and had he but at this very time attempted to get within the walls by force, he had won the city presently, and the war had been put an end to at once; but Tyrannius Priscus, the muster-master of the army, and a great number of the officers of the horse had been corrupted by Florus, and diverted him from that his attempt; and that was the occasion that this war lasted so very long.. Thus did the Romans make their attack against the wall for five days but to no purpose. And now it was that a horrid fear seized upon the seditious, insomuch that many of them ran out of the city, as though it were to be taken immediately; but the people upon this took courage, and where the wicked part of the city gave ground, thither did they come, in order to set open the gates, and to admit Cestius as their benefactor, who had he but continued the siege a little longer, had certainly taken the city; but it was, I suppose, owing to the aversion God had already at the city and the sanctuary, that he was hindered from putting an end to the war that very day. It then happened that Cestius was not conscious either how the besieged despaired of success, nor how courageous the people were for him; and so he recalled his soldiers from the place, and by despairing of any expectation of taking it, without having received any disgrace, he retired from the city, without any reason in the world.

Cestius-’ mode of retreating practically invited the Jewish insurrectionists in Jerusalem to follow him away from the City in hope of galling him at every opportunity. Rather than take decisive action by marching to Antipatris directly, he kept stalling his departure at each encampment until so many Jews surrounded him that the Roman troops were outnumbered (Wars, II, 19, 9).

So the Jews went on pursuing the Romans as far as Antipatris; after which, seeing they could not overtake them, they came back and took the engines [of war, i.e., catapults, etc.], and spoiled the dead bodies; and gathered the prey together which the Romans had left behind them, and came back running and singing to their metropolis; when they had themselves lost a few only, but had slain of the Romans five thousand and three hundred footmen and three hundred and eighty horsemen.

It was at this critical moment, while the terrorists pursued the retreating Romans, Josephus (Wars, II, 20, 1) remembers, After this calamity had befallen Cestius, many of the most eminent Jews swam away from the city, as from a ship when it was going to sink. Who were these people? While the Jewish historian names a few, were there no Christians in that mass exodus?

Further, that the time factor was critically limited is evident in a further note by Josephus (Wars, II, 20, 3): But as to those who had pursued after Cestius, when they were returned back to Jerusalem, they overbore some of those that favoured the Romans by violence, and some they pursuaded by entreaties to join with them. Later, even the slightest intimation that someone was making plans to leave Jerusalem was justification for the insurrectionists to slit his throat (Wars, V, 10, 1)! How important it was to believe Jesus and abandon the City on time! The opportunity for escape was fearfully limited. The door was left open when the terrorists and others rushed out of Jerusalem in pursuit of the Romans, but the door slammed shut as they returned. The time to go had comeand GONE. Those who saw that Cestius Gallus had entered an important suburb of Jerusalem, Bezetha, and visibly pitched his camp opposite the royal palace just outside the inner wall, proudly displaying his idolatrous Roman standards in his camp, recognized the sign of which Jesus had spoken years before. So while the pagan army retreated, the Christians fled. Unquestionably Cestius Gallus had planted Roman insignias within the city of Jerusalem in 66 A.D. Although his camp was situated outside an older wall, the site on which he chose to erect his camp was the New Town, or Bezetha suburb. This addition to Jerusalem was surrounded by a wall that linked it to the capital proper. So, a desolating sacrilege had appeared at Jerusalem and gone, leaving an escape route open for God’s people. (See Wars, V, 7, 2.)

It should be noticed that Cestius-’ retreat was not the only opportunity for Christians to flee the City. It was merely the best one. There was temporary respite from the Roman advance on Jerusalem, when Vespasian suspended operations against it due to the death of Nero in A.D. 68-70 (Wars, IV, 9, 2). During the short reigns of Galba, Otho and Vitellius (A.D. 68, 69), Vespasian and Titus simply waited due to the tension mounting in the Roman Empire. This afforded little opportunity for many to escape from Jerusalem, however, since the Zealots in Jerusalem and the Romans encompassing the city on all sides practically deprived them of this liberty (ibid., §1). Some even managed to escape the City’s fate after the Zealot-Idumean pollution of the Temple (ibid.,7, 1; see also on Matthew 24:24).

2. Urgent, practical instructions for rapid escape (24:16-20)

Matthew 24:16 **Then let them that are in Judea flee unto the mountains. **Up to this point the Lord was advising disciples not to panic in the presence of misleading signs by acting hastily on the basis of superficial judgments about the times. Now He must protect them against the ill-advised fanaticism of the rebels who would hope that God would miraculously deliver Jerusalem from its assigned destiny. (Cf. Wars, V, 11, 2.) This error compounded their confusion and funneled them all right into the Roman meat grinder. Here, too, the ancient observation would find another appropriate application: Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will (Daniel 12:10).

Those that are in Judaea are those who believe Jesus enough to act on the signal He gives. Judea may or may not include all of Jewish-controlled Palestine. Luke often uses this geographic term in this sense, but Matthew seems to use it here in the more limited, provincial sense, i.e. only the area south of Samaria, not all of Jewish territory. Certainly, Judea involves Jerusalem directly, as Luke adds: Let those who are inside the city depart and let not those who are out in the country enter it (Luke 21:21). Christians who would actually be dwelling in the target area at the moment by the warning, who would see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, would otherwise think to take refuge in the City as a place of perfect security. There would have been no reason whatever to urge believers to attempt a physical escape, if Jesus had in mind His own Second Coming when we will no longer need to escape, but shall finally rise to meet Him in the air. The keyword is flee from the would-be disaster zone, *Judea.

Flee unto the mountains.* Is it not most singular that anyone should advise leaving a city as well-fortified as Jerusalem which could withstand a long siege and enjoyed a superior military advantage over its attackers? To the common-sense observer of the day, the question was, Why should these otherwise sensible people become fools for sake of their Christ? But the true wisdom of the Christians was amply justified by its results. In fact, if God Almighty is planning to rain down judgment on a city and warns His people to abandon that locality, it is the height of folly NOT to leave! (Cf. Jeremiah 51:45 f.; Genesis 19:14-22.)

Part of the cause of the magnitude of the tragedy surrounding Jerusalem’s death lay in the fact that, shortly before the final siege-works closed the city, on the feast of unleavened bread, which was not come. Eleazar and his party opened the gates of this. temple, and admitted such of the people as were desirous to worship God into it (Wars, V, 3, 1). Vast multitudes of Jews and proselytes poured into Jerusalem despite the war-time conditions, to worship at the Passover (Wars, VI, 9, 3). Confident of God’s protection, they crowded into what, ironically, would prove to be their grave, sealed in by their own people (Wars, V, 1, 5). Jesus ordered His people, Flee! (See also Eusebius, Ecclestical History, III, 5.)

To the mountains. Because Jerusalem itself is located on a ridge in the hill country of Judah, hills surround it both on the north and south. Even though these hills themselves are not high, still, in contrast to the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea far below them, they would seem mountains by contrast. So, where are the mountains to which Christians must flee? Eusebius (Eccl. Hist., III, 5) reports:

The whole body, however, of the church at Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine revelation, given to men of approved piety there before the war, removed from the city, and dwelt at a certain town beyond the Jordan, called Pella.

Pella is located east of the Jordan River in the edge of the hill country of Perea between the Jabbok and Jarmuk Rivers, south of Gadara, southeast of Scythopolis (Bethshean) northwest of Gerasa. This city of the Decapolis lies about 4 km (2.5 mi.) from the Jordan. This location so near the river is not yet well into the higher hills of Perea farther east. So, in what sense would an escape to Pella be tantamount to flight to the mountains?Josephus (Wars, IV, 8, 2) contrasts the hill country of Cisjordan with that of Transjordan thus:

[Jericho] is situated in a plain; but a naked and barren mountain of a great length, hangs over it, which extends itself to the land about Scythopolis [Bethshean] northward, but as far as the country of Sodom and the utmost limits of the lake Asphaltitis [Dead Sea] southward.. There is an opposite mountain that is situated over against it, on the other side of the Jordan; this last begins at Julias [Bethsaida Julias, see Luke 9:10; Mark 8:22; John 6:1] and the northern quarters, and extends itself southward as far as Somorrhon, which is the bounds of Petra in Arabia.

So, Jesus could speak of the mountains and be understood by others as referring to what we might call hills in contrast to the Alps or the Rockies. In fact, at some point in their eastward rush, Christian refugees must cross the Jordan River. Were they to cross opposite Pella from the valley of Bethshean, they must descend to the river’s level at - 259 m (- 850 ft.) below sea level. Coming out on the other side, they must climb out of the inner Jordan Valley (Zôr) onto the wider Jordan plateau only - 137 m (- 450 ft.) below sea level. Then they would begin the real climb to the 874 m (2868 ft.) above sea level in the first 10 km (6.2 mi.). This represents a total gain of over 1134 m (300 ft.). Although such tall hills, of course, do not compare with Mount Hermon to the north, anyone walking that particular stretch of country would be ready to call those hills mountains. Regardless of which route Christians took to arrive at Pella, they would be moving from the level of the Jordan River at whatever crossing they chose, toward the Gilead mountain range that arises to an average height of 1220 m (4000 ft.) above the Jordan Valley, or to about 915 m (3000 ft.) above sea level.

Hendriksen (Matthew, 858) offers four arguments for rejecting the fourth century assertion that the Christians went to Pella: Scholars who have made a special study of the early history of the Jerusalem church doubt this fourth century A.D. report. They tell us that a. in order at this time to get to Pella, believers would have had to break their way through lines of Roman soldiers; b. the people left in Pella were filled with bitter hatred against all Jews, including Christian Jews; c. Pella could not have provided housing for all the refugees; and d. if the escape had been attempted at a slightly earlier date, the Christians would have fallen into the hostile hands of the fanatical Jewish freedom-fighters.

Unhappily, these arguments ignore several important points and contain several false assumptions involving both the geography of Palestine and the chronology of the Roman occupation of Palestine.

Certainly, if the fleeing Christians took the Jericho road and either of the two roads flanking the Jordan River for easier travel north to Pella, they might have encountered Romans. The same could be affirmed of travel straight north to Bethel, Shechem, Scythopolis and Pella. However, if they entered the hilly country northeast of Jerusalem, bypassing any towns garrisoned by the Romans or occupied by Zealot sympathizers, it is far less likely that they would have encountered enemy troops. Engines of war could not be hauled over those hills with ease, and the infantry would be worn out by the constant climbing and descents. The same is also true for the refugees themselves, but they have at least gained the advantage of staying away from the main-travelled routes leading to Jerusalem.

What inhabitants of Pella would not receive the fleeing Jewish Christians? Pella was one of the cities whose population has been DESTROYED by Jews in retaliation for the anti-Jewish massacres in Caesarea (Wars, II, 18, 1). Thus, along with other abandoned cities of the Decapolis, Pella could well have been settled by Jewish Christians fleeing from Jerusalem. Josephus specifically states: some cities they destroyed there and some they set on fire. some they burned to the ground entirely demolished. But he is silent about the fate of Pella and other Decapolis cities, limiting himself to say they laid waste the villages of the Syrians and their neighboring cities, which perhaps refers only to their inhabitants. It was shortly after the above-mentioned massacres that Cestius Gallus encircled Jerusalem (Wars, II, 19, 1, 8). Then he retreated, leaving the way for Christians to flee from the capital to these abandoned cities of Decapolis.

Although we may presume that, despite persecutions, the Jerusalem Church remained of significant size even to the times of Paul’s great, final visit (cf. Acts 21:17-22), for how many refugees must lodging be found in Pella? Because of the earlier massacre of its inhabitants, the Christians would become the majority, if not the exclusive population, to take possession of the property of the former inhabitants of the now practically empty city.

While it is true that after Vespasian swarmed into Palestine, there were Roman garrisons in Bethel and Ephraim, blocking that route (Wars, IV, 9, 9), earlier, however, immediately after the disastrous retreat of Cestius Gallus (Wars II, 19, 1-8; 20, 1), that route would have been relatively open. In fact, both Jewish insurgents and Roman troops together were moving northwest away from Jerusalem toward Antipatris. The fanatics, thus, were led AWAY from the Christians-’ escape route by the retreating Romans, leaving even the critical well-travelled highways to the northeast quite free.

EASE OF ESCAPE DEPENDS ON TIMING. If the signal came before Vespasian arrived in Palestine after the debacle of Cestius Gallus at Jerusalem, then Christians would have been quite free to desert the capital and travel to Pella and other cities.

The Hindrances of Possessions (24:17f.)

Matthew 24:17 **Let him that is on the housetop not go down to take out the things that are in his house. **On the housetop pictures the flat-roofed constructions so common around the Mediterranean. The limited, and in some areas almost non-existent, snowfall permits builders to create a roof terrace to gain further living space and storage. In Scripture, the paved, flat roof was a place for drying flax (Joshua 2:6), for privacy and rest (1 Samuel 9:25 f.), for prayer (Acts 10:9), as an observation post (Isaiah 22:1) or a place from which to make public announcements (Matthew 10:27). Jesus does not order His followers to escape by jumping from rooftop to rooftop until they could reach the city wall and let themselves down nor does He order them not to descend from their own rooftop in an orderly manner. Rather, they are not to go down to take out the things that are in the house. Life preserved is more than possessions conserved. Anyone who has ever moved his possessions from one town to another and must decide which items were absolutely essential and which things might be abandoned without loss, understands the time-consuming, decision-making process that would hinder the instant flight of the householder. Further, transporting cumbersome household goods would require further precious time to secure the necessary transport. Speedy removal of a house full of goods collected over a lifetime was out of the question, but the temptation would arise to try it anyway. Therefore, Jesus enjoins instant, unencumbered escape while there was still time.

Matthew 24:18 **And let him that is in the field not return back to take his cloak. **Here is a Christian farmer working his ground near Jerusalem, lightly dressed only for sweaty field work. The warning signal to flee catches him at work, without his long robe that serves as an overcoat and, in the case of the poor, also doubles as a blanket at night (Deuteronomy 24:12 f.; Exodus 22:26 f.). But even this vital item of clothing is to be abandoned in favor of departure without delay. Jesus is emphasizing an exodus so hasty that people would be evacuated with just the shirt on their back!

Unavoidable Personal Hindrances (24:19)

Matthew 24:19 **But woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days! **This woe depicts the plight of both believing and unbelieving mothers alike in those fateful days (Luke 23:28 f.). Any mother would suffer. Due to excruciating hunger during the famine of the siege of Jerusalem, Jewish mothers devoured their own children, just as God said they would (Deuteronomy 28:49-57; cf. Wars V, 10, 3; VI, 3, 4f.). Contextually, however, Jesus-’ reference is to the Christian mothers who, because pregnant, or because nursing children, would not be able to travel rapidly for long, forced marches plunging through rough country without provisions or adequate shelter,

Hindrances Beyond Christians-’ Control (24:20)

Matthew 24:20 And pray ye that your flight be not in winter, neither on a sabbath. Pray means that God is not unaware of your plight nor unconcerned about you in those terrible uncertainties nor are those trials an evidence He had abandoned His people. Rather, even though your escape cannot be avoided, your suffering may be alleviated. You should continue to beseech Him for what might seem to be trivial blessings, but which could make all the difference between succumbing and survival.

Your flight: what is contemplated is the believers-’ escape, hopefully not during certain periods. Obviously, none of these directions concern Christ’s Second Coming, because under what conditions may the believer’s rising to meet the Lord in the air be considered an escape from dangers of earth, a flight not to be conditioned by winters or sabbaths?Must God be besought to send Jesus back to earth on the off-season, but not on the weekend?

Travel in civil-war conditions would not be safe in the best of weather. (Cf. 2 Chronicles 15:5 f.) But in the winter, cold, rainy weather, shorter daylight hours, bad or non-existent roads and unfordable, swollen rivers would all contribute to limit freedom of travel. Worse, camping out in such weather would be prohibitive, except for the most desperate fugitives. Winter might even bring snowfall (1Ma. 13:22). Further, the fields through which the Christians must pass would not furnish any but the crudest emergency food.

The total rout of Cestius Gallus occurred on the eighth day of the month of Dius, or Marchesvan, in the twelfth year of Nero (A.D. 54-68). This would be late October or early November of A.D. 66. So, these prayers were essential, because, although their flight occurred about three weeks after the Feast of Tabernacles in which people had been camping out in and around Jerusalem (Wars, II, 19, 1ff.), the early rains would normally begin in that period (Deuteronomy 11:14). Their prayers should be addressed therefore to Him who controls the rain.

Neither on a sabbath. Never would this warning have any worldwide significance, except in that country where strict, superstitious reverence for the Sabbath would have prohibited long-distance travel on Saturday, i.e. in Palestine. (Cf. Ant. XVIII, 8, 4; XIV, 4, 2f.) That Mark does not mention the sabbath is not so much out of regard for his Gentile readers, as that this detail would not affect them outside of Palestine, whereas Matthew’s inclusion of this detail would be extremely pertinent in Israel. There a centuries-old tradition, coupled with proud patriotism, had taken root, which refused to take offensive action against one’s national enemies on the Sabbath. Even if Christians themselves might with justification describe their fleeing from the Roman horror as defensive action, zealous bigots might quarrel with their interpretation and impede their escape. Further, if city gates were locked (cf. Nehemiah 13:19 ff.) or Sabbath closing of stores made the purchase of food for the journey or the hiring of lodging impossible among the orthodox (cf. Nehemiah 13:15 ff.), dangerous delays would mount up.

And what of those Jewish Christians whose ingrained habit continued to hold one day above another (Romans 14:5 f.)? Their cultural orientation might still cause them to think of the Sabbath as a day on which no work might be done. (Study Acts 21:20b-26.) Because Jewish believers still observed many cultural mores, perhaps many in Jerusalem still acted on Saturday as they always had, even though they knew it had been surpassed by Christ. Nevertheless, even though Jesus-’ sabbath doctrine (cf. Matthew 12:8-11) was elastic enough to permit life-saving escape, yet those who would not travel more than a sabbath-day’s journey would travel no more than a kilometer away from the danger zone.

3. Motivation: great, unprecedented tribulation (24:21)

Matthew 24:21 for then shall be great tribulation. For connects this great tribulation with the hasty escape just mentioned to avoid the punishment of Jerusalem (Matthew 24:20). That this cannot be the great tribulation of Revelation 7 is evident because the sufferings of Matthew 24 are punitive justice poured out by God on an unbelieving Israel and from which the Christians could escape alive on earth by following Jesus-’ instructions. They would actually avoid this great tribulation meant here, whereas those who must suffer it and die in it were the wicked of Israel who had crucified their Messiah, persecuted His Church and filled up the measure of their fathers (Matthew 23:23 ff.). Contrarily, those who come out of great tribulation in Revelation 7 are the victorious from every nation, tribe, people and tongue who have been purified by the blood of Christ (Revelation 7:14 ff.). There are simply TWO great tribulations, one through which the unbelieving in Israel passed, and the other which Christians must endure. The fact that they were sometimes contemporaneous must not confuse us regarding their perpetrators, their intentions nor their victims. The Jewish great tribulation of 66-70 A.D. must not be confused for the trials suffered by Christians during the present age down to Christ’s coming (Revelation 7:14).

**Great tribulation such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no and never will be. **This language appears to depict an event so horrible that Jerusalem’s demolishment must be sought by relating the prophecy to some later, even future temple. But three motives induce us to conclude otherwise:

God had already used this kind of language before: How awful that day will be! None will be like it. It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved out of it (Jeremiah 30:7). Uniquely grand and terrible would be that later day intended, but Jeremiah proceeds to explain that its occurrence would be completely earthly as the events in world politics would permit God’s people to return to their homeland. (See Jeremiah’s context.) Further, Daniel too wrote: There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then (Daniel 12:1). And yet, despite the horrors of that distress, the deliverance of God’s people was guaranteed, because at that time your peopleeveryone whose name is found written in the bookwill be delivered.

This same thought form was considered appropriate by Jesus-’ contemporary, the Pharisean(?) author of Assumption of Moses Matthew 8:1, to describe the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes:

And there shall come upon them a second visitation and wrath, such as has not befallen them from the beginning until that time, in which He will stir up against them the king of the kings of the earth and one that ruleth with great power who shall crucify those who confess to their circumcision..

Josephus (Wars, Preface, 4) lamented:

Accordingly it appears to me, that the misfortunes of all men, from the beginning of the world, if they be compared to these of the Jews, are not so considerable as they were.

Josephus (Wars, V, 10, 5) further noted:

Neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from the beginning of the world.

After tallying the number of captives of 97,000 and those who perished during the entire siege at 1,100,000, whether by pestilence, famine or murder, Josephus then concludes in highly wrought, emotional language: The multitude of those that therein perished exceeded all the destructions that either men or God ever brought upon the world. While it is fashionable to dismiss Josephus for exaggeration, one must consider his lament in the light of its theological and spiritual significance, evident even to this Jewish observer.

Now, if it be thought that Jews are given to hyperbole when describing monstrously horrible facts, should not Jesus prepare His disciples to face this particular disaster by using language appropriate to the terrible grandeur and spiritual significance of the events portrayed? If it be argued that the fall of Jerusalem, however indescribable its horrors, is nevertheless beggared by comparison with the Nazi holocaust that wiped out a greater number of Hebrews, let it be recalled that the magnitude of what Jesus predicts is not to be evaluated merely in terms of the number of lives or the value of the property lost. Rather, its meaning lies in the kind or quality of the catastrophe.

This great tribulation must be adjudged such in light of the sentence Jesus had just pronounced upon Israel (Matthew 23:29-36, esp. Matthew 23:35). If the punishment of that nation was to be the proper judicial climax to a process of rejecting God’s witnesses from the beginning of the world until now, from the blood of the righteous Abel to the death of Zachariah, consummating in the crucifixion of Israel’s Messiah, then it should not be surprising that unparalleled privations, torture and slaughter should accompany this terrible visitation of God’s wrath so horrible as to defy description. (Cf. Luke 21:23 and similar language used by the author of 1Ma. 1:64 to describe the original abomination of desolation. See also 1Ma. 9:27.)

One of the significant differences between the great tribulation suffered by the Christians (Revelation 7:14) and that endured by the Jews (Matthew 24:21) is that to a significant degree the latter was self-inflicted. Without diminishing the seriousness of the heartless slaughters of Jewish people by Syrians and others (Wars, II, 18), the most damage to Hebrew people during the final hours of their Holy City came from their own countrymen, not so much from the Romans (Wars, IV, 5, 3-5). In fact, Vespasian astutely refused to seek military advantage in the civil war raging inside the city, lest he thereby instantly unite the Jews against the Romans. So he determined to let his enemies destroy each other with their own hands (Wars, IV, 6, 2). The degree of barbarity rose to such heights that Jews considered the dead most happy (ibid,, 6, 3). Josephus (Wars, V, 6, 1) chronicled:

For they never suffered anything that was worse from the Romans than they made each other suffer; nor was there any misery endured by the city after these men’s actions that could be esteemed new. But it was most of all unhappy before it was overthrown, while those that took it did it a greater kindness; for I venture to affirm, that the sedition destroyed the city, and the Romans destroyed the sedition, which was a much harder thing to do than to destroy the walls; so that we may justly ascribe our misfortunes to our own people and the just vengeance taken on them by the Romans.

Not least among the miseries was the entire absence of any mercy shown fellow Jews who happened by the evil destiny of war to be on the wrong side, or in possession of food or valuables sought by Jewish plunderers who went from house to house, assaulting, robbing and killing. No moral law, no honor, no mercy! Where was that superior righteousness that Israel had flaunted before the benighted pagans?

Not least among the agonies was the soul-wrenching anguish of doubt, Why does not God save us, His people, racked and wretched as we are? To be abandoned by God must be the most heart-rending tragedy imaginable for anyone, and it was theirs in that dark hour. This was literally the end of an era (suntélia toû aiônos, Matthew 24:3).

So, this great tribulation is, for us, now past, because the destruction of Jerusalem was the gruesome climax of that period. This is not to say, unfortunately, that all, or even any, tribulation is over for the Christians, since, in fact, Jesus was not even discussing this latter issue. After 70 A.D. John still considered himself a sharer in the Christian tribulation (thlìpsis, Revelation 1:9). Temptations and crises of every kind will plague us down ,to the last minute before our Lord’s return, simply because evil shall be left in the world until that time. (See notes on Matthew 13:24-30; Matthew 13:36-43; cf. Acts 14:22; 1 Thessalonians 3:3 f.; 2 Thessalonians 1:4 f.; Revelation 7:14.) However, the horror-filled death-throes of Jerusalem and its Temple are past.

But what is there to fear, then, if this all be over? What encouragement to righteousness is there, if modern man must contemplate this event as all but forgotten in the dust of history? Much every way! Jesus has been proved true as an authentic spokesman for God. All that He foretold about OUR future may be studied with far more serious reflection, and all that He commands must be obeyed with greater promptness and eagerness. We may trust Him for leadership during our trials.

4. Duration: short but terrible (24:22)

Matthew 24:22 And except those days had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened. Those days are the ruthless bloodbath just described (Matthew 24:21), identified as those days in which Christians must flee from Judea (Matthew 24:19) at the time of the desolating sacrilege standing in the holy place (Matthew 24:15). See also Mark 13:17; Mark 13:19 and Luke 21:23 which use in those days to identify this period. No flesh: Jesus is discussing only Hebrew flesh, i.e. the entire Jewish people, not all of humanity. Everyone in Israel would have been wiped out in the Roman malestrom that would take the nation and all its people with it. Jesus uses saved here, not of spiritual salvation, but in the sense of avoidance of death. (Cf. Matthew 8:25; Matthew 27:40; Matthew 27:42; Matthew 27:49.)

A remarkable series of events contributed to the abbreviation of the sufferings:

The earlier emperor Claudius had forbidden Agrippa to complete significant fortifications that would have rendered Jerusalem’s northern flank virtually unimpregnable (Ant. XIX, 7, 2), Consequently, both Cestius Gallus (Wars, II, 19, 4) and Titus (Wars, V, 6, 2; Matthew 7:3) found the wall around the New City (Bezetha) easier to demolish. This tightened his vice-like grip on the capital sooner.

Shortly before Titus arrived at Jerusalem, the three-way civil war within the city shortened those days in a surprising manner (Wars, V, 1, 4). One of the terrorists

… set on fire those houses that were full of corn, and of all other provisions. as if they had, on purpose, done it to serve the Romans, by destroying what the city had laid up against the siege, and by thus cutting off the nerves of their own power. almost all of the corn was burnt, which would have been sufficient for a siege of many years. So they were taken by the means of famine, which it was impossible they should have been, unless they had thus prepared the way for it by this procedure.

Internal dissension divided and seriously undermined Israel’s defenders.

Due to battle fatigue and fear compounded by emotional stress caused by desertions and their own physical distress, the Jewish terrorists-’ nerve was broken to the point they even abandoned unassailable bulwarks. Josephus (Wars, VI, 8, 4f.) reflects,

Here one may chiefly reflect on the power of God exercised upon those wicked wretches, and on the good fortune of the Romans; for these tyrants did now wholly deprive themselves of the security they had in their own power, and came down from those very towers of their own accord, wherein they could have never been taken by force, nor indeed by any other way than by famine. And thus did the Romans, when they had taken such great pains about weaker walls, get by good fortune what they could never have gotten by their engines; for three of these towers were too strong for all mechanical engines whatsoever.. So they now left these towers of themselves, or rather they were ejected out of them by God himself, and fled.. So the Romans being now become masters of the walls, they both placed their ensigns upon the towers, and made joyful acclamations for the victory they had gained, as having found the end of the war much lighter than its beginning; for when they had gotten upon the last wall without any bloodshed, they could hardly believe what they found to be true..

After inspecting this fortification, the Roman general himself could not but confess, We have certainly had God for our assistant in this war, and it was no other than God that ejected the Jews out of those fortifications; for what could the hands of men, or any machines, do towards overthrowing those towers (ibid., 9, 1)!

Crowded conditions were created by the Paschal crowds that had poured into the Holy City just prior to its encirclement by the Romans. Because of the scanty provisions, the pestilence created by festering corpses and the hideous brutality, survival of anyone became a debatable question.

These factors, taken together, facilitated the Roman victory, took off the pressure against Rome and essentially shortened those days. The Roman siege of Jerusalem lasted from shortly before the Passover on the fourteenth of Nisan until the eighth of Elul in Vespasian’s second year (Wars, V, 3, 1; 13, 7; VI, 10, 1). Thus, from April to September, Jerusalem’s capture was completed in the relatively brief span of five months. By contrast, it had taken Nebuchadnezzar over a year and five months to bring the city to its knees (Jeremiah 52:4-7; Jeremiah 52:12).

**But for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened. **Even the abbreviation of the time allotted for the troubling of God’s people was a concept in vogue in Jewish apocalyptic literature. (Cf. 2 Baruch 20:1f.; 83:1.) There, however, the elect are the righteous in Israel and the days of judgment would punish the Gentiles, the apostates and glorify the proselytes to Judaism. But here, according to Jesus, who are the elect?

The elect, in Scripture, is a term always to be understood from God’s point of view, ideally referring to those whom He chooses to be His people. But His election is not unconditional, for His choice presupposes their free choice to be His by loving, obedient faith. Hence, here, the elect are those Jewish Christians who as the remnant of visible, national Israel, formed the nucleus of the new Israel of God (Romans 11:5-7; Galatians 3:7-9; Galatians 3:26-29; Galatians 6:16; Ephesians 1:4; Philippians 3:3) as well as converted Gentiles (Romans 11:11-32). To affirm that the elect must refer exclusively to God’s former people, national Israel, is to forget that Matthew, though himself a Jew, has already taught that true participation in God’s program is not a question of parentage (Matthew 3:8-10) personal power (Matthew 7:22 f.), pampering and past privileges (Matthew 8:10 ff.; Matthew 11:20-24; Matthew 21:33 to Matthew 22:14), or perspiration (Matthew 20:1-16), but a question of proper priorities and appropriate openness with God. No unbelieving Hebrew could be described as elect in this definitive sense.

So, because it is exegetically impossible that Jesus could have spoken so ambiguously as to embrace both the converted and the unconvertible of Israel under the term, the elect, He refers here, as also in Matthew 24:31, to the people of the Messiah, the free citizens of the Kingdom (Matthew 17:26), who lived to see and hear the very things for which the fathers had long waited (Matthew 13:17) and enjoyed the personal knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom (Matthew 13:11). In short, the elect are those fortunate (from the Jewish standpoint: Luke 14:15) people who lived in the days of the Messiah and served Him, the Christians. For them the critical days shall be shortened, for although they fled from Jerusalem in time and were relatively safe from immediate danger, they could not avoid other privations elsewhere in Palestine spawned by the war: famine, pestilences, shortages and other break-downs in every area of civil life wrecked by the war,

To know that those days shall be shortened brings comforting assurance and hope. This affirmation fairly sings its confidence, infusing its certainty into believing hearts:

God’s true Prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, knows that the terrible days just described will not go on forever. They will end. This fact convinces believers that it is worth it to hold on patiently till the end.

Neither Satan, nor Rome nor the evil men in the land are either final or omnipotent. The duration of the suffering has already been established by the determinate planning of Almighty God who is in full control, notwithstanding the soul-crushing terror stalking the land.

This shortening is even a decree of mercy for Jerusalem, for if it blesses Christians, it also gives respite to the tormented survivors of Jerusalem’s siege because the terrors would be over for them too, since even Roman treatment of captives would be merciful by comparison to the barbarities suffered from their own people.

This hope confirms another conclusion by evidencing how misguided is any rapture theory that imagines God’s people to be caught up out of this world before the great terrible tribulation. If our text is thought to be evidence of the final great tribulation (Revelation 7:14), and not merely of the Jewish sufferings at Jerusalem in 70 A.D., then what are the elect doing present in the tribulation? If they were all previously caught up to heaven, according to the rapture theory, then why must the days of the tribulation be shortened for the elect’s sake?

Ulterior confirmation of the correctness of the view that the great tribulation here pictured by Matthew refers to the shocking debacle of 70 A.D. comes from Luke 21:23 f. where this same period is thus summarized: For great distress shall be upon the earth (land?) and wrath upon this people. 24 They will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led captive among the nations; and Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Avoiding all the Jewish rhetoric of Matthew and Mark to describe these dramatic events, Luke furnishes important interpretative details:

Great distress upon the earth (anàgkç megàlç epì tês gês). Gê, here rendered earth, can also refer to a land, a district, a region or country. (Cf. Arndt-Gingrich, 156.) So, Jesus may be discussing merely the land par excellence highest in the Hebrew mind, Palestine. His parallel phrase, wrath upon this people, confirms this view, because this people, contextually, refers to Jerusalem and the dwellers of Judea (Luke 21:20 f.; cf. Matthew 24:24).

What would happen to Israel could only be termed wrath, probably of both God and men. Although Titus himself was mild and conciliatory to the end (Wars, VI, 2, 1-4; 4:3-7; esp. 6:2; 8, 2), the Roman legions were the appropriate rod of God’s wrath. (Cf. Wars, V, 1, 3; 8, 2; 9, 3f.; 13, 5; VI, 1, 5; 9, 1.) Roman vengeance simply punished Israel’s violations of the Old Covenant (Deuteronomy 32:35; Deuteronomy 28:15-68; cf. Hosea 9:7; Jeremiah 5:29), not to mention their refusal of God’s Son and His messengers (Matthew 23:34-39). Jerusalem well deserved both the Roman and the Divine wrath.

Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles. (Cf. Matthew 24:2; Wars, VII, 1, 1.) This city has literally gone under the heel of Gentiles from A.D. 70 onward, as Romans and a host of other Gentiles dominated it down to the time of the Arabs. Rather than promise the fondly hoped-for restoration of God’s kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:6), the Lord revealed that Israel’s fate would be dispersion and disintegration and the City’s destiny is desolation.

The effect of this disaster would be lasting, but not necessarily eternal; simply until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

The simplest interpretation of this key time-limitation is that the desolation would last until the Gentiles, as instruments of God’s government of the world, had completed this punitive judgment on the City and its people, the Jewish nation itself.

However, because the expression, the times of the Gentiles (kairoi ethnôn), may correctly speak of the opportunity which God grants the Gentiles, not merely to punish Israel, but primarily to enjoy His grace, Jesus means that the aforementioned disaster would continue during the period when the gracious offer of salvation is granted the Gentiles through the Gospel. (Cf. Mark 13:10; Romans 11:25; Matthew 21:43.) Bruce (Training, 327) sees this special period of Gentile opportunity as corresponding to the time of gracious visitation enjoyed by the Jews, referred to by Jesus in His lament over Jerusalem. Then he concludes:

It is incredible that Jesus should speak of a time of the Gentiles analogous to the time of merciful visitation enjoyed by the Jews, and imagine that the time of the Gentiles was to last only some thirty years. The Jewish kairòs lasted thousands of years: it would be only mocking the poor Gentiles to dignify the period of a single generation with the name of a season of gracious visitation.

Alford (I, 637) is probably correct to notice that the times (kairoi) is plural because the gentiles is plural: each Gentile people having in turn its kairòs.

NOTE, however, that nothing is affirmed here about what will occur once the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Jesus does not affirm that the Jews will return to Jerusalem under the same terms they always enjoyed prior to their loss of the Holy City. That Jews have returned to the City is a fact of modern history, but their conversion either to the complete message of the Old Testament or to the Christ of the New Testament is not. Rather, the period in question may end when the Gentile world per sè rejects Christ, just as the Jewish dispensation ended when the Hebrews as a people turned Him down. In fact, after the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, God could bring world history to a complete halt, judge everyone and start eternity rolling for us, without so much as one backward glance at Jerusalem, Palestine or Jews.

Another important observation: contrary to many views of Mat 24:29-31 based on the expression, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled, it may be correctly inferred that an indefinite period of time would follow Jerusalem’s fall, so that Christ’s return to earth could not be expected shortly after the Judean crisis. As will be seen, immediately after the tribulation of those days (Matthew 24:29) may be interpreted in its natural sense, because it is not the Second Coming of Christ that is being announced for the period directly following Jerusalem’s destruction. (See on Matthew 24:29.)

5. Warning: no hope of Christ’s personal coming during the siege (24:23-28) a. Despite apparently miraculous signs, all false hopes of deliverance raised by false prophets must unswervingly be disregarded (24:23-26)

Matthew 24:23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is the Christ, or, Here; believe it or not. Then (tòte), i.e. during the same general period referred to before (in those days, then, Matthew 24:19-22), thus, in the last, distress-filled days prior to the overthrow of Jerusalem. Although the appearance of false hope can plague Christians of any era, the peculiar uncertainties of a war-torn, first-century Palestine could stimulate unwarranted trust in rumors that Christ had returned to earth. This would tempt Jewish believers living in the Diaspora to flock to Palestine because of their love for Jesus and for their religious homeland. But it would also draw them right into the Roman trap just before it would spring shut. Jesus would not have His people lay down their lives unnecessarily for a wrong-headed nationalistic movement with which they should have no true, spiritual affinity or association.

If any man shall say unto you.. Contrary to false rumors, Jesus-’ true appearance will be so obvious and convincing (Matthew 24:27) that there will be no need for false intelligence reports by charlatans! Believe it not: this command is repeated in v. 26 to make its force emphatically clear. Here is a severe test of one’s discipleship: whom shall I believe when my world is falling apart? Jesus would guard His followers from losing Christ while believing themselves about to find Him!

The fact that Jesus reiterates this warning (Matthew 24:4) is thought by some to be a change of subject from the perils surrounding the Jewish War to the Second Coming, for, say they, He could not have desired merely to repeat information already given, unless it related to another subject as, in this case, the Second Coming. On the contrary, the breakdown in communications between Christian groups that could occur in the chaos of the crumbling nation might well entice those congregations to rally behind anyone who held out a glimmer of hope for the doomed nation. This explains why our Lord must make His point emphatically clear by repeating it, especially in connection with the great tribulation of A.D. 66-70.

Matthew 24:24 For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. For: this verse and those following reinforce Matthew 24:23 by way of parenthetical explanation. Jesus will not leave this point until Matthew 24:27. The excited cry, Here is the Christ! or There! (Matthew 24:23) is not to be believed because it involves false claims put forward by imposters, backed by deceptive credentials. Here the Lord returns to an earlier theme (Matthew 24:5) to clarify a particular point. But the fact that He is doing this helps to determine to what time period the information most specifically refers. The contention that history knows little if anything of such false Christs prior to the Destruction of Jerusalem has no validity, because it does not ask the right question. We must ask WHAT KIND of messianic concept moved the masses, and even Jesus-’ disciples, in the first century. Only thus will become clear WHAT KIND of great signs and wonders would have been so appealing as to tempt God’s precious nucleus, the remnant that believed Jesus, into abandoning the true Christ for false christs. (Examine texts like the allurements and challenges Jesus was offered to become a Jewish Messiah: Matthew 4:9; Matthew 11:2; Matthew 16:21 f; Matthew 27:39-43; Luke 22:49; John 6:14 f; John 7:3-4; Acts 1:6.) These texts reveal the basely materialistic, nationalistic messianism of Jesus-’ contemporaries and explain the power of the temptation to all who held such notions. (See notes on Matthew 18:1; Matthew 20:20-28.)

So, a false Christ was not an Antichrist in the Johannine sense (1 John 2:18 ff.; 2 John 1:7) or even one who would necessarily perform lying wonders by Satanic power, in the Pauline sense (2 Thessalonians 2:9), but a demagogue in Israel who pretended to be everything Jesus was not, but who would give Israel the kind of Christ Israel longed for but which Jesus refused even to offer. False prophets, in the Old Testament sense, are men who offered false hopes to a doomed, unrepentant Israel. (Cf. Jeremiah 8:10 f; Jeremiah 14:14-16; Jeremiah 20:1-6; chap. 23; Jeremiah 27:9-21; chaps. 28, 29; Jeremiah 37:19; Ezekiel 13; Ezekiel 14:9-11; Ezekiel 22:28; chap. 34.)

Josephus-’ history documents the appearance of a number of politico-military messiahs who cruelly deceived themselves and the people with unfounded schemes for re-establishing the ancient independence of the theocracy as they conceived it (Wars, II, 13, 4; VI, 5, 2f.). Although the Lord had predicted the appearance of false prophets before the end (Matthew 24:5), there would also be impostors during the Roman siege of Jerusalem too. Josephus (Wars, VI, 5, 2f.) recounts:-'

A false prophet was the occasion of these people’s destruction, who had made a public proclamation in the city that very day, that God commanded them to get up upon the temple, and there they should receive miraculous signs of their deliverance. Now there was then a great number of false prophets suborned by the tyrants to impose upon the people, who denounced this to them, that they should wait for deliverance from God; and this was in order to keep them from deserting, and that they might be buoyed up above fear and care by such hopes. Now, a man that is in adversity does easily comply with such promises; for when such a seducer makes him believe that he shall be delivered from those miseries which oppress him, then it is that the patient is full of hopes of such deliverance.. Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers, and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend, nor give credit, to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future desolation; but, like men infatuated, without either eyes to see the minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them.

Surprisingly, despite guards set to prevent their escape (Wars, V, 1, 5), many succeeded in leaving Jerusalem by one means or another, even after its encirclement by the Romans (Wars, IV, 6, 3; 7, 1; V, 10, 1; 13, 7; VI, 2, 3). Even after that horrible carnage had begun within the city, people could yet be duped by false claims to speak for God and promise Israel’s deliverance, and not even think of abandoning the doomed city. Because eventually 40,000 people were saved, whom Caesar let go whither everyone of them pleased (Wars, VI, 8, 2), even during the worst fighting and with the greatest menace from fiercely suspicious Zealots inside the City, the temptation would still be high to remain in the fortress protected by God. So, Jesus-’ warning is also His attempt to save even beyond the last minute anyone who would believe Him in those horrifying circumstances and flee the City.

McGarvey (Fourfold Gospel, 621) caught the spirit of the times:

Nothing is more natural, however, than that the excitement attendant upon the ministry of Jesus should encourage many to attempt to become such a Christ as the people wanted. The Gospels show so widespread a desire for a political Christ that the law of demand and supply would be sure to make many such.

These all, the false deliverers and those taken in by them, fell for the temptation which Jesus resisted firmly to the end. His polestar was the program of God. Troubled times tempt men to embrace anything that promises relief, and, without anchors, they welcome deceptions, instead of clinging to the help promised by God through the Scripture.

So as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. That ominous condition, if possible, must stir each believer to the core, What kind of Christ-concept do I have, that would expose me to being led astray? What signs would function so effectively as finally to deceive me? The possibility of fatal deception by imposters, in fact, is in direct proportion to the degree each believer uncritically and perhaps unwittingly already accepts the basic presuppositions on which the imposter’s claims are based: desire for national independence from Rome, greed for gold, lust for power, blind commitment to the proposition that God is inextricably bound to bless the nation’s political and economic future. Here is the choice: do we follow the popular theories, or do we trust Jesus instead?

Matthew 24:25 **Behold, I have told you beforehand. **Why foretell these events? (Cf. John 16:1-4.) Three reasons suggest themselves:

Despite the frightening prospects that are enough to paralyze decisive action, remember: you are thoroughly prepared to face this future with information and courage. You are not among the unbelievers who must wring their hands in despair over the dark unknown that looms over them. Rather, you know both the extent and the God-ordained limitations of that period (Matthew 24:34). Further, you now possess directives for your conduct and for Gospel proclamation during the intervening years, and specific instructions about what to do when the final crisis of Jerusalem arrives at last. It is a stabilizing force and comfort to know that I have already clearly foreseen and foretold it forty years before the storm finally breaks, and have given you sound advice.

So, forewarned is forearmed. The very appearance of impostors, since I, the true Christ, have warned you, will actually save you from being deceived. Their coming will prove I was right, justify your faith in me and save you. With these advance warnings that every rumor that Jesus had returned are false, Christians could calmly and without hesitation refute them as they arose. Because signs and wonders could be produced by false prophets (Deuteronomy 13:1 ff.; Acts 8:9 ff.; 2 Thessalonians 2:9 f.; Revelation 13:13 f.), such wonders alone were not a final, definitive test of one’s divine authority. The context of God’s well-authenticated revelations were to serve as a check. (Cf. Isaiah 8:20.) In this case, Jesus offers His own word as that framework with which to test others-’ claims.

Although He does not use the emphatic pronoun, I (egò), in which case His point would be more emphatic, nevertheless, by calling attention to the prediction, He obtains the same result: Notice, I have made you a prediction (idoù proeìrçka humîn). Jesus has just placed His own prophetic ministry to the supreme test. If things do not take place as He predicted, HE TOO IS A FALSE PROPHET. This challenge is but one more way for Him to present His prophetic credentials. (See my notes on prophetic credentials, Vol. III, 377f.) By so doing, He puts everyone’s discipleship to the test: does each believe He knows what He is talking about? Do I trust Jesus that much?

Matthew 24:26 **If, therefore, they shall say unto you. **(See notes on Matthew 24:23.) After furnishing the background for His order not to be duped by anyone who pretends to announce Christ’s return, He amplifies it by listing other situations wherein the deceptive announcement could come.

**Behold, he is in the wilderness. **Not only would the deserted wastes of Palestine furnish an excellent base camp and mustering area for revolutionaries, but also a tempting quiet solitude for monastic contemplation under the leadership of imposters masquerading as ascetics of the old school. For those who rejected John the Baptist (cf. Matthew 11:2-19), a text like Isaiah 40:3-5 could be distorted and pressed into service for sectarian ends. The Qumran sect, for example, chose the wilderness to await the Messiah. Consider the case of Theudas. (See on Matthew 24:5.) Jesus-’ warning against going out into the wilderness is intensely practical, for it happened again under Felix (Ant. XX, 8, 6; cf. Acts 21:38) and again under Festus (ibid., §10).

**Behold, he is in the inner chambers. **The presumably secret return of Christ linked with the claim He was in hiding until the moment of public revelation would entice the ignorant who claimed not to know where Christ should come from. (Cf. John 7:27.) Such secrecy, enforced by the charlatans and accepted by the gullible, would furnish maneuvering room for the pretenders to foment revolt and develop in their followers the psychological dependence essential to create a cohesive movement.

**Go no farther. believing it not. **So saying, Jesus pushes the disciples-’ confidence in His prophetic announcement to its logical conclusion: whose word will you follow? that of these false christs, however attractive, or this order given by me, your Master and Lord? What you do about either will decide your true loyalty. Believe it not means, BELIEVE ME!

b. Christ’s true coming will be too obvious to require prophetic announcement (24:27)

Matthew 24:27 For: what follows explains why none of the above-mentioned false announcements of Christ’s return are to be believed. As the lightning cometh forth from the east, and is seen even unto the west; so shall be the coming of the Son of man. (Cf. Luke 17:23 f.) In contrast to a localized coming marked by gradualism and the concealment and secrecy of the false christs who promise a revelation to a select few, the Second Coming will be so obviously visible as to need absolutely no advance publicity. By calling it the coming (he parousìa), Jesus implies that there would be only one such appearance and no prior secret raptures about which any prophets on earth could make the aforementioned predictions.

There cannot be a supposed double reference in this verse (1) to His coming in providence to destroy Jerusalem, and (2) to His return on the Final Day. His coming in judgment on Jerusalem would be attended by clear signs indicating the approach of the critical hour, permitting Christians to escape the worst. But His final return will give no forewarning, but will strike like lightning, unexpectedly; not locally, but obvious to the entire world; not hidden temporarily only to be revealed by degrees, but everywhere, instantaneously and unmistakably visible; not in shoddy secrecy, but in brilliant, heavenly glory beyond all possibility of imitation. Although the disciples first asked about the coming of the Son of man (Matthew 24:3), this is the first time in this discourse Jesus mentioned His coming (parousìa toû huioû toû anthròpou). By using the word which became one of the usual technical terms for the Second Coming (parousìa), He meant no other than His personal return at the end of the present world age. (Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:23; 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 1 Thessalonians 3:13; 1 Thessalonians 4:15; 2 Thessalonians 2:1; James 5:7 f.; 2 Peter 1:16.) How, then, is it possible for Him to insert information about His final return into a context that unquestionably involves problems connected with the final years of the Jewish state and the fall of Jerusalem? It is because the disciples had wrongly connected Jesus-’ Second Coming with the fall of Jerusalem. Hence, they too would be easily deceived by false announcements in that fateful era (Matthew 24:3). So, He must inform them that the Second Coming shall not require private prophetic preannouncements.

However, just because He has now mentioned His Second Coming does not mean He will continue to elaborate on it at this point. Many have assumed that this is His procedure in Matthew 24:29-31. Instead, it was sufficient for His purpose to assure the disciples that His coming, WHEN IT EVENTUALLY TOOK PLACE, would not be concealed, as preached by imposters, but perfectly evident to everyone. This first glance at His glorious return is inserted here only to illustrate how completely it contrasts with the views thereof preached by the ignorant. Hence, there is no need at this point to ask where Jesus changed over from discussing Jerusalem’s fall to begin answering the disciples-’ question about the Second Coming. This is rather an insertion to clear up a misconception, not evidence of a complete change of subject.

c. Israel’s hopeless deadness cannot but attract scavengers (24:28)

Matthew 24:28 **Wheresoever the carcass **is, **there will the eagles be gathered together. **Eagles (aetoì) would be better translated vultures, because the birds pictured here are carrion-eaters, whereas eagles, for the most part, kill their own food. (Cf. Arndt-Gingrich, 19; I.S.B.E., 885f.; however, see Job 39:30 b.) Further, the figure Jesus uses is not so much that of a swift flight of eagles that plummet on their yet-living prey (cf. Deuteronomy 28:49; Jeremiah 4:13; Jeremiah 48:40; Jeremiah 49:22; Lamentations 4:19; Hosea 8:1; Habakkuk 1:8), as that of the congregation (ekéi sunachthésontai) of vultures around the carcass. While for us, eagles and vultures are two distinct birds, the ancients classified the vulture among the eagles. (Aristotle, Annimal History 9, 32; Pliny, Natural History 10, 3; Hebrew uses nesher indiscriminately for eagle [see the above passages], or vulture, Micah 1:16; Proverbs 30:17.)

Earlier (Luke 17:37), when questioned about WHERE these events would occur, He responded with this proverbial expression. To determine the sense and application of this striking aphorism we must recognize it for what it is, a proverb. Not to be taken literally, it stands symbolically for some other, literal reality. Expanded, Jesus-’ observation, would be, See, you can recognize that the decaying remains of a corpse is lying on the ground, because of the vultures hovering over it. These make it evident to the observer that there is little or no life in what was once alive, only death and corruption. But what, in Jesus-’ allusion, is the carcass and what the vultures?

Because He had just spoken of His Second Coming, some apply His proverb to this event, believing that wheresoever cannot limit His reference exclusively to one place like Jerusalem. Rather, wherever the condition of spiritual deadness is found, the sudden, punitive vengeance of the coming Christ will plummet, like the eagle to seize its prey. Granted, Jesus-’ words have the generalized ring of a proverb with multiple applications. However, to what specific case did He refer it this time? Further, the aforementioned objections to eagle are applicable here.

Contextually, Jesus is returning to His warning about false christs and false prophets whose excited pronouncements about a returned Christ could attract and destroy God’s elect. In this case, the carcass would be the general moral corruption that invested the Jewish nation, while the vultures picture the imposters who profit from this spiritual confusion to serve their own interests.

However, since Jesus-’ larger context includes the destruction of Jerusalem, the carcass could be Jerusalem while the vultures would be the Roman army. Precisely because of the deteriorated political situation in Palestine, Rome had to intervene to bring order out of chaos. (Study Josephus-’ diagnosis of Palestinian politics from 60-70 A.D., Ant. XX, 8, 5; cf. chaps. 5-11, also his Wars, Preface, 2.) There is no necessity to notice the use of eagle symbols on Roman banners, for two reasons: (1) Jesus-’ meaning would be the same without any direct reference to them, and (2) to take eagles literally of the Roman standards but interpret the carcass symbolically is illegitimate hermeneutics. Further, this interpretation is less direct and obvious, since, in this paragraph, Jesus was not discussing Jerusalem’s being surrounded by armies with their eagle banners, His immediate concern being the appearance of imposters raucously gathering around Israel like vultures to fatten themselves on Israel’s moral putrefaction.

Either way, whether He means false prophets or Roman soldiers, Jesus argues that no hope of deliverance from God could be expected, just destruction and elimination of Jerusalem’s glory. There would be no angels to liberate Israel, just vultures to devour the carcass.

FACT QUESTIONS

Cite the New Testament texts that indicate that the Gospel could have been universally proclaimed throughout the entire world in the first century.

What did Jesus mean by the abomination of desolation? Prove your answer by indicating from what source He quoted that phrase or where the reader must go to get an explanation for it.

The words let the reader understand, are inserted in parentheses. Who said them and why?

Explain how believers were to react to the one, clear, final signal that the desolation of Jerusalem was about to occur. What evidence is there that they reacted correctly?

Explain why people in Judea, an already hilly country, are told to flee to the mountains. What mountains are meant? How did the early Christians carry out Jesus-’ directions?

Explain why Jesus thought there would be so many people on the housetop.

Explain why someone out in the country would want to enter Jerusalem to take his mantle. What is this article and why is it important?

Explain why people should not take anything that is in (their) house.

Explain why pregnant women and nursing mothers are singled out for special notice in the escape instructions.

What hindrances to escape are peculiar to winter or to the sabbath in Palestine?

If the great tribulation was to be totally unprecedented since the beginning of the creation of the world (Mark 13:19), how can Luke with propriety summarize Jesus-’ words that identify the particular sufferers as this people will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations; and Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles? In what sense is the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the Jewish state rightly described as great tribulation?

Who are the elect for whose sake the Lord would shorten the days of tribulation: the Jewish people per se, or Jewish Christians alone? Defend your answer.

What are some of the historical factors in the crack of the Jewish commonwealth that not only precipitated its fall but also shortened the length of its tribulation?

How could false christs and false prophets show signs and wonders? Reveal the source(s) of their persuasive power.

Explain the allusion to the carcass and the eagles in context.

Matthew 24:29-31

C. The Theological Results of Jerusalem’s Fall (24:29-31)

TEXT: 24:29-31

(Parallels: Mark 13:24-27; Luke 21:25-28)

29 But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heaven shall be shaken: 30 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 on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he shall send forth his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

Many people who read this paragraph understand it to picture the Second Coming of Christ at the end of the world. But, if the tribulation of those days mentioned in the previous sections concerns the destruction of Jerusalem, with what right can Jesus state that His coming would occur immediately after the tribulation? Or, is He mistaken, since He did not return shortly after 70 A.D.? Or does this paragraph have anything to do with His Second Coming?

Why do you suppose Jesus used this weird imagery to teach us: to make His meaning difficult or to simplify it? For whom would this imagery be particularly clear and communicate thrilling news in majestic concepts? Do you think that we too could understand Him, if we too could become like those who truly understood Him? What would it take to become like them?

Do you seriously believe that stars shall fall from heaven? After all, if stars are heavenly bodies like our sun, even larger and grander, how or where could they fall?

Jesus already talked about earthquakes in various places (Matthew 24:7) as well as terrors and great signs from heaven (Luke 21:11) in connection with the period prior to Jerusalem’s fall. Once again He names what appear to be upheavals in nature (sun, moon, stars and powers of the heavens) in connection with the sign of the Son of man. (1) Is there any connection? If not, why not? (2) If these latter upheavals in nature are not to be considered literal, then, of what are they symbolic?

Did Jesus say that the sign of the Son of man (would) appear in heaven, or that the sign which would appear would be the Son of man in heaven? Is it the sign which is in heaven, or the Son of man? If you decide it is the latter, then, where is the sign located? In what would it consist?

Why do you think all the tribes would mourn when this great sign appears? What will the sign mean to them? What would it mean to the Christians?

Where do you suppose Jesus got all these unusual expressions, such as the sun darkened, the moon not give light, stars fall, or tribes of the earth mourn, or Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven, or with a great trumpet, or gather together from the four winds? Did Hebrews in Jesus-’ time talk that way every day? If not, under what special circumstances did they use such phrases? Where did they get this language?

If someone argued that this paragraph has nothing to do with a literal Second Coming of Jesus, what arguments would you collect right out of the text itself to show his conclusion mistaken? What data would you expect him to use to establish his case?

If someone denies that this paragraph refers to Christ’s Second Coming, has anything been lost for the doctrine of the literal Second Coming? Are there any other New Testament texts that teach this grand truth? If so, what are they?

If there are other New Testament texts that teach the Second Coming, are we free to consider this text in another sense, if this latter interpretation should turn out to be its true meaning rather than the Second Coming?

How could believers of Jesus-’ generation be caused to rejoice when what He meant by His highly figurative language actually began to occur? (Cf. Matthew 24:34; Luke 21:28.)

If Jesus is not talking about the Second Coming at all, but about some quite earthly events in which His believers would be involved, what is to be gained by His using this prophetic jargon?

If the Messiah’s victory is to occur immediately after the tribulation of those days, what kind of Messianic triumph actually took place following the destruction of Jerusalem?

Why do you suppose Luke greatly simplified this section for his readers? Would not they have understood these expressions taken from Jewish literature? What does this tell you about Matthew’s production?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

Nevertheless, IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE TRIBULATION THAT WILL TAKE PLACE IN THE PERIOD JUST DESCRIBED, there shall be portents involving the sun, moon and stars: -the sun shall be darkened. The moon will not give its light. Stars will be falling from the sky. The celestial forces will be shaken.-’ On earth nations will be in anguish, bewildered by the roar of the raging sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive about the events threatening the inhabited earth. At that time you will be able to see what is meant by -the Son of man in heaven.-’ It is then that -all the tribes of the land will mourn.-’ They too will experience what is meant by -the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven-’ with power and great glory. He will then send forth His messengers -with a great trumpet.-’ These will -gather-’ His chosen people -from the four points of the compass, from the farthest horizon where heaven and earth meet.-’ Now when THESE THINGS begin to occur, straighten up and lift your heads, because your emancipation is about to take place!

SUMMARY

In close chronological connection with the fall of Jerusalem, disciples would observe the removal of the old, established luminaries in human (esp. Jewish?) affairs. Christ’s reign would be clearly evident. Worldwide gospel proclamation would successfully save those who accepted to be chosen by God. These events would all be clues of the final emancipation of Christianity from Judaism, establishing the disciples of Christ as an independent people of God.

INTRODUCTION: HOW SHOULD WE INTERPRET THIS LANGUAGE?

Some conclude that Jesus-’ language in this section is too grand to depict an incident so limited as the fall of Jerusalem, or too broad to concern only one of earth’s peoples, the Jews alive in 70 A.D. But before proceeding, we must ask, not modern questions, but ancient ones: what would the original listeners have understood Jesus to mean by the language He used? In fact, as a thorough concordance study of this paragraph will demonstrate, almost every phrase is rich in literary history, having already been utilized by some Old Testament prophet to communicate awe-inspiring messages of both hope and doom to their contemporaries. What, then, would the first-century Hebrew readers of the Gospels have comprehended when Jesus made these statements?

THE PROPHETS-’ USE OF SIMILAR LANGUAGE, to predict the tremendous consequences surrounding the fall of pagan empires, may be thought useful language to describe one of history’s greatest watershed events, the collapse and termination of Israel’s exclusive privilege. If carnal Judaism is finally and publicly to be repudiated by God so that His precious elect remnant in Israel and among the nations can stand free and independent to carry out its world mission, then this event qualifies as one of the world’s most momentous theological events, and should not appropriate language be adopted to portray it?

In the entire paragraph (Matthew 24:29-31) the point to be solved is whether a personal appearance of the Lord is intended. The assumption of many is that the coming is literal, as also every other detail in this passage. However, were they literal when originally coined by the prophets from whom they are borrowed? If not, then by what exegetical rule do they become so in Jesus-’ discourse? If the prophets smoothly blended the literal and the poetic in the same prophecy, why cannot Jesus?

The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. What appears to be a universe gone wild is familiar talk for Hebrews saturated with Old Testament prophets like Isaiah (Isaiah 13:9-13) where similar apocalyptic language was coined to depict quite mundane events such as the destruction of Babylon by the Medes. Now, when an author clearly defines the meaning of his own jargon in the same context, we are not at liberty to require that he mean something else, even though his words seem to communicate much more to us because of the meanings WE associate with his expressions. (Cf. Isaiah 24:18 b - Isaiah 24:23 on the rise and fall of human government without God.) Later, Isaiah (Isaiah 34:4 f.) employed similar poetic language to illustrate the earth-shaking magnitude of divine judgment on the Edomites. Ezekiel (Ezekiel 32:7 f.) does not hesitate to borrow this eloquent speech to threaten Pharaoh and Egypt with heavenly chastisement, not by supernatural miracles, but by the quite earthly sword of the king of Babylon (Ezekiel 32:11 ff.). Joel presses this kind of speech into service to represent a locust invasion (Joe 2:10 f.), the blessing to God’s people (Joe 2:30 f.) and His judgment on their foes (Joe 3:14 ff.). The Apostle Peter gave the inspired interpretation of Joel’s apocalyptic language, by pointing to the events that began on Pentecost as fulfilling Joel’s words: This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. (Acts 2:16-21; cf. Joe 2:28-32; see my notes, Vol. II, 452f.) Haggai uses the shaking of heavens, earth, the sea and the dry land, to unfold images of international war that would turn out to the blessing of God’s people. (Cf. Habakkuk 3:11; Amos 8:9.)

Do the sciences of astronomy, geology or ancient history confirm a literal interpretation on the terrifying cosmic disorder this Old Testament language seems to convey? On the other hand, does ancient history record the actual fulfillment of what these poetic pictures conveyed, by the overthrow of the particular nations indicated? So, what this phraseology sounds like to us does not matter. For if, by the vivid images the prophets wove, God referred to earth-shaking events whereby pyramids of power would be overturned and shattered, THIS IS THE MEANING. The only question now remaining is to what great overthrow or high-level transformation in human affairs resulting from Jerusalem’s fall and the Gospel’s spread does Jesus allude here?

Was this highly symbolic language thought literal by intertestamental apocalyptists? (Cf. Assumption of Moses Matthew 10:4-7; IV Ezra 5:4-13.) And the Apostle John, like Isaiah, Ezekiel and Joel, employed these same apocalyptic concepts to describe God’s judgment on men of earth who seek to escape God’s final punishment (Revelation 6:12-17). His language, as defined by his book’s title is to be understood as highly figurative, not literal: The apocalypse of Jesus Christ (Revelation 1:1). Cannot Jesus Christ Himself use the commonly accepted apocalyptic jargon of His day to convey His meaning to people who were accustomed to it? Milton Terry (Hermeneutics, 466) justly lamented:

We might fill volumes with extracts showing how exegetes and writers on New Testament doctrine assume as a principle not to be questioned that such highly wrought language as Matthew 24:29-31. taken almost verbatim from Old Testament prophecies of judgment on nations and kingdoms which long ago perished, must be literally understood. Too little study of Old Testament ideas of judgment, and apocalyptic language and style, would seem to be the main reason for this one-sided exegesis. It will require more than assertion to convince thoughtful men that the figurative language of Isaiah and Daniel, admitted on all hands to be such in those ancient prophets, is to be literally interpreted when used by Jesus or Paul.

The vocabulary was common to the Hebrew culture and gleaned from the Old Testament literature itself. The people brought up in that culture understood the terms. This explains why this apparently unconventional vocabulary would, in a sense, come to be thought of as the conventional expression for certain types of predictions. This vocabulary consists of vivid images that endeavor to describe the indescribable in human language. The power of such visions lies, not in the details, but in their ability to communicate the inconceivable in word-pictures that men can conceive.

To this some would object that to welcome the spiritual significance of the prophet’s words is to reject the true meaning. But more often than not, in apocalyptic literature, the true meaning is not the literal one at all, but the spiritual one, the actual one, the real one, because for God, WHATEVER IS SPIRITUAL IS REAL TOO, perhaps far more so than what is material, and should not we have the same attitude?

THE THEOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE EVENTS REQUIRES SUCH LANGUAGE. Because God was planning to bring about deep-running changes in the religion and political life of that people which for millennia had been His chosen people, the language used to paint this revolution must be adequate to portray the transformation. The Jewish loss of their exclusive glory, unique privileges and national prerogatives cannot but represent the cruelest blow imaginable to this people. What kind of speech could be thought sufficiently appropriate to articulate such a catastrophe? Kik (Matthew XXIV, 79) asked, If the use of such figurative judgment language against pagan nations was justified, how much more fitting would it be to the passing away of Judaism? Bruce (Exp. Gr. Test., 287) saw this:

An old world is going down and a new world is coming into being. Here surely is an occasion to provoke the prophetic mood! At such supreme crises prophetic utterances, apocalyptic forecasts, are inevitable.

Should such awe-inspiring language be thought too terrible or too broad for the final vanquishing of Israel by the Romans, let its larger context be recalled. God had threatened that the doom of unrepentant Israel was sealed (Deuteronomy 28:15-68; Deuteronomy 29:19-28; Deuteronomy 30:18; Deuteronomy 31:16-21; Deuteronomy 31:27 ff.; Deuteronomy 32:1-43; Malachi 3:2-5; Malachi 4:1 f.; Matthew 3:7-10; Matthew 8:11 f; Matthew 21:31; Matthew 21:41; Matthew 21:43; Matthew 22:7; Matthew 23:29-39). Even as early as His conversation with the Samaritan woman, Jesus affirmed that Jerusalem would not be the center of worship in the Messianic age (John 4:21). So, Jerusalem’s elimination was to be God’s signal to the Judeo-Christian world that the old Mosaic era, with its exclusively Jewish Kingdom of God and its capital at Jerusalem, was terminated. (Cf. Galatians 4:25-31.) The bondage is over, not merely ideally, as when Christ’s death ended the Law theologically, but also practically, in concretely evident fact (Hebrews 12:11; Hebrews 13:14).

**NOTES

The time connection: Immediately after Jerusalem’s great tribulation (24:29a)**

Matthew 24:29 **But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened **… Unquestionably the tribulation of those days is the same sufferings (Matthew 24:8) described earlier as great tribulation. in those days (Matthew 24:19-22), a period that Luke (Luke 21:23 f.) characterizes as great distress upon the earth and wrath upon this people. They shall fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles. Therefore, what is meant by the phraseology of our paragraph (Matthew 24:29-31) must take place immediately after that period of tribulation surrounding the appalling desolation of the Jewish State. (Cf. Mark 13:24.) What is about to be pictured would have a certain immediacy of connection, even if the event itself is not an integral part of that tribulation or its culmination per se. It would express the same sort of relationship that exists between cause and effect, antecedents and consequences.

It is mistaken to affirm, with some, that the glorious signs and predictions here listed hardly appear suited to Jerusalem’s fall. Granted, but these signs and predictions here listed a different, more glorious event portrayed in Matthew 24:30-31. However, the intended event would be not at all distant in time. This is excluded by Jesus-’ insistence that it be immediately after the foregoing catastrophe.

Further, Matthew 24:32-34 speak unquestionably of Jerusalem’s destruction after the great tribulation and other successive events, because all these are scheduled to occur during the lifetime of Jesus-’ contemporaries. (See on Matthew 24:32-34.) Therefore, to think of Mat 24:29-31 as depicting the Second Coming is not only to insert this subject out of place, creating a confused chronological order, but also it makes Christ assert that His own coming was scheduled for a moment immediately after the fall of Jerusalem, although He later denied any definite knowledge of the Father’s scheduling for the Second Coming (Matthew 24:36) and clearly hinted that a long, indefinite period must elapse first (Matthew 24:48; Matthew 25:5; Matthew 25:19). The expression, immediately after, is wrongly taken figuratively while all else is taken literally.

How should we deal with the contention that Luke’s version (Luke 21:23-27) extends the tribulation in question from the fall of Jerusalem and the worldwide Jewish dispersion, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled, i.e. the entire period of Gentile dominance from the end of Israel as a nation until Jesus returns again? According to this view, Jesus-’ return, pictured by Matthew 24:29-31, occurs immediately after the Gentile persecution of the Jews. On the contrary,

Jesus did not imply that the crisis of the great distress itself would last this long, but only that the RESULT of that disaster, the ruin of Jerusalem, would be long-lasting (Luke 21:24).

Further, He is not describing the great (Christian) tribulation, which indeed must last until His Return, but only the Jewish one, from which the early Christians could escape by obeying Jesus. From their own sufferings Christians could not flee without faithlessness to Him. (Cf. Revelation 1:9; Revelation 7:14.)

Some, because they view the Second Coming as scheduled immediately after the tribulation of those days of Jerusalem’s deathblow, assert that the tribulation He means merely COMMENCED with the collapse of the Jewish nation. Further harassment, persecution and dispersion began hard on the heels of that debacle, i.e. immediately after, and have continued down to the present day in which Israel, as a nation, is still subjected to an uncertain future at best and to continual war-time emergencies at worst. However, the Lord divulged that the days are to be shortened, NOT LENGTHENED NEARLY 2000 YEARS (Matthew 24:22).

Further, how should we deal with the contention that Luke’s version (Luke 21:24-28) merely declares what would occur after the Gentiles had had their day, i.e. the signs that would prefigure Christ’s coming? At least two rebuttals are possible:

His Return is not an event subject to prior warning signals, hence whatever is intended cannot be the Second Coming.

Luke is merely returning to the point in Jesus-’ discourse where He left off discussing the fall of Israel to indicate how long its suffering would endure. There is no time connection indicated in Luke’s text, only an and, so who can prove he must be understood to indicate facts to occur at least two millennia later, if not longer? (Cf. Luke 21:24 f.)

So, immediately after cannot be interpreted in some figurative sense that attempts to avoid its normal, obvious sense, while interpreting literally such contextual phenomena as the sun’s darkening and the fall of the stars, etc., language which, in the prophets, had acquired a conventional, hence well-understood, symbolic sense. To affirm the non-literal character of the symbols used in this paragraph detracts nothing from the admittedly literal character of the final world conflagration described elsewhere (2 Peter 3:7-13; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9).

What about PROPHETIC PERSPECTIVE? Some affirm that immediately after expresses the prophet’s perspective in the sense that the Seer conceives of the events as mountain peaks in the distance without being able to discern or reveal the precise distance or relationship of one peak to the other. He can describe them as one in the foreground and the other immediately after, or behind it. The consecutive order of the two key events prophesied is indicated, but not the time intervening between them. However, while prophetic perspective is at times undoubtedly a characteristic of true prophecy, this explanation must be resorted to when the events predicted cannot be considered to be connected directly in time. However, as will be shown, this impossibility does not exist in the relationship between the fall of Jerusalem and the events Jesus proceeds to portray.

If it be asked why immediately after should be understood literally, when everything following it should be considered apocalyptic jargon, hence figuratively, it is because the realities expressed in figurative language actually take place in time sequences and so require time indicators to express these chronological relationships. Hence, Jesus rightly indicated the temporal-’ connection between the foregoing prophecies and what follows.

From thepoint of view of Jewish nationalism, Jesus-’ expression, immediately after, is both incredible and shocking. For, how could a true, competent Christ appear immediately after His own Temple and capital City were demolished and His own people were dragged into captivity? Nothing Jesus promised in the following section (Matthew 24:29-31) established Israel’s priority or justified strictly nationalistic chimeras. Rather, He says much to dash such hopes. For, immediately after means He would come too late to be of any use to the Zealots and all who ultimately subscribed to their understanding of the Messianic Kingdom. It is this very feature, His immediately after, that marks Him as a truly God-sent Christ whose program would shake the earth, rearrange previously well-established powers on earth and accomplish what Judaism never could. From God’s point of view, therefore, Jesus-’ timing, immediately after, would be perfect!

**2. The collapse and removal of the old, established luminaries (24:29b)

The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. **If these phenomena are figurative, as argued earlier, to what, then, do they refer? That heavenly bodies are used in Scripture to signify quite earthly people and events is well-established. Joseph’s dream of the sun, moon and eleven stars referred only to his own family (Genesis 37:9 f.). Nebuchadnezzar is addressed as fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn. cast down to earth, because of his self-exaltation to heaven to raise his throne above the stars of God and make himself like the Most High (Isaiah 14:12 ff.). Compare Daniel’s description of another earthly king (Daniel 8:10; Daniel 8:23 ff.; Daniel 11:36 f.). The logic of this literary phenomenon is understandable because sun, moon, stars and the power of the heavens for the ancient peoples signified everything that speaks to mankind of permanence and stability. Man measured his days by the sun; his seasons by the moon; his trackless path by the stars. Many assumed that life is influenced by the powers of the heavens. Consequently, as Luke puts it (Matthew 21:25 f.), a universe running amok terrifies earth’s people who know nothing of God’s loving dominion. Worlds in chaos is highly suitable metaphorical language to depict the downfall of potentates, the eclipse of nations and the tumult of peoples.

In harmony with the symbolism created by the Old Testament writers, Jesus means that what occurs at the highest levels of government and the international level deeply affects the well-being and tranquility of the people involved. (Cf. 1 Timothy 2:2.) In apocalyptic language the sea (cf. Luke 21:25) symbolizes the world’s peoples. (Cf. Daniel 7:2 f., Daniel 7:17; Revelation 13:1; Revelation 13:11; Revelation 17:1; Revelation 17:15.) Thus, the little people of the world are profoundly shaken as top-level revolutions shake everything loose thought securely nailed down and on which society’s emotional stability depends. So, Jesus is declaring that, immediately after the tribulation of those days surrounding Jerusalem’s fall, believers would witness the breakup of all that had seemed most permanent and durable before. This great Day of the Lord would signal the end of the existing dispensation. But to which specific heaven did Jesus allude?

THE CHRISTIAN FIRMAMENT? What if this language, once used to depict deep-running convulsions in world politics, is now utilized by Jesus to depict the apostasy in the Church’s life history, as some suggest? These see the sun as God’s Son of righteousness, His Son, Jesus. (Cf. Malachi 4:2.) The moon, because it shines by light reflected from the sun, becomes dark when the sun is darkened. If it is the Church that reflects the light of Christ in this dark world, than her influence is eclipsed when men lose respect for the Lordship of Christ, even in the Church. Accordingly, the stars, looked at from the point of view of popular astronomy, are lesser lights in God’s firmament of luminaries. These would symbolize those messengers in the Church whose ability to give men guidance is dimmed by a growing apathy toward God’s Word. (Cf. Revelation 1:16; Revelation 1:20; Revelation 2:5.) In this sense, then, roots of apostasy, already manifest in the apostolic period, would produce a general defection from God’s revelations, faithfulness to the Lord would wane and the Church would truly undergo the Dark Ages. This dimming of the Greater Light and the Lesser Lights actually occurred reasonably immediately after the tribulation of those days in 70 A.D. The farther the Church moved from the revealed truth after the death of the Apostles and early witnesses, the dimmer grew its witness, leaving a distressed world without confident leadership that would preach only God’s Word. But from the standpoint of His Jewish audience, it would seem more probable that Jesus referred to something more in line with the Old Testament revelations to Israel.

THE JEWISH HEAVENS. He meant the Jewish heavens of His own era, the religious and civil powers of that condemned nation. Because the religious authority was of such crucial importance for the supreme uniqueness of Judaism, the tottering and collapse of the Temple, its priesthood and sacrificial system could be considered by the orthodox and reflective among the people as nothing less than the end of an era (sunteleìas toû aiônos; Matthew 24:3). During the first fifty years of the first century, for example, who could have foreseen with certainty that Herod Antipas, Annas, Caiaphas and all they stood for in the world would all be rudely snatched from their Jewish heaven and hurled into political oblivion? And yet those stars fell, that sun and moon shone no more! If these cataclysmic events are correctly interpreted as applying to Israel’s defeat, then it is clear that immediately after their national disaster of 70 A.D., the once-exalted, unique theocracy of Israel went into permanent eclipse as God’s light-bearers before the nations. (Study Hebrews 12:25-29 as commentary on this transition.) Now the Church of Christ occupies this glorious position (Philippians 2:15 f.; John 8:12; Matthew 5:14 ff.; 1 Peter 2:9 f.). Although Christianity would be established at a time when kingdoms, thrones and religious systems would be thoroughly shaken, it would be a Kingdom that shall never be shaken or replaced by anything better this side of glory (Daniel 2:44; Daniel 7:14; Hebrews 12:28). From the viewpoint of Jesus-’ contemporaries, the loss of Judaism’s glory would be a world-shaking tragedy indeed, an eclipse. From God’s point of view; however, the removal of things that can be shaken in order to establish a Kingdom that cannot be shaken is but to treat the former as obsolete. What, for Him, was already growing old was ready to vanish away even in the first century (Hebrews 8:13; Hebrews 12:27 f.).

**3. The Messiah’s victorious, heavenly reign vindicated (24:30)

Matthew 24:30 Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven.** Then, as in Matthew 24:9, may mean (1) during that time just alluded to; or (2) thereafter, after the events just mentioned, next in order. As will be seen, either meaning is applicable here, because in the light of the conflagration that destroyed Jerusalem’s Temple the Jews could see Jesus-’ every warning and prophecy fully justified, and His authority vindicated more and more with the passing of the old order.

Then shall appear the sign, but Jesus does not indicate where it would be seen. He certainly did not affirm that a sign would appear in heaven, because in heaven does not modify sign, but the Son of man. It is not, as many believe, the sign in heaven, but the Son of man in heaven. What does appear will indicate (= signify) the presence of the Son of man in heaven.

But is this a genitive of apposition or a genitive of source?

Genitive of Apposition: the sign which is the Son of man in heaven. Some argue that Christ is His own self-evidencing sign. But, if the appearance of the Son of God in the sky were the sign, then Jesus would be using the word sign in a way foreign to every other normal meaning of this term. Normally, a sign substitutes for the object to which it points, so how could He Himself be the sign, when His own personal appearance is supposedly the reality to be pointed out?

Genitive of Source: the sign comes from, or is given by, the Son of man in heaven, sent by Him to indicate something to men. This is the conventional use of this term and the preferable interpretation.

Jesus furnished His people a sign that would be plainly evident on earth, that would convince thoughtful, informed men that He had indeed been exalted to heavenly power, i.e. that He is truly the Son of man and is in heaven, and that His divine authority, supernatural power and providential influence is at work in all these earthly events. At this point He passes over in silence all the great miracles that He would have been doing for more than forty years previous to this last, great demonstration. Thus, just as He passed over the multiplicity of miracles He was doing during His earthly ministry and pointed to His resurrection as the grand proof of His identity and authority (cf. John 2:19-22; Matthew 12:38-40), Jesus does not mention all the powerful evidences of the Holy Spirit’s activity from Pentecost until 70 A.D., opting to give men as final proof an evidential sign which consisted in the wrecking of the old institutions of Judaism.

So, the sign of the Son of man in heaven has nothing to do with the Second Coming, because, though the disciples had requested the sign of your coming (parousìa) (Matthew 24:3), Jesus declared that His Second Coming would occur with no prior indication of its near approach. No forewarning sign could or would be given (Matthew 24:36, Matthew 24:42 ff., Matthew 24:50; Matthew 25:13). Therefore, what is meant by Matthew 24:30, where a sign is clearly promised, cannot refer to an event which, by divine decree, can have no early warning signal. The sign in question will be further amplified shortly.

**And then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn. **The translation, earth,(gê) is misleading since the Greek gê also means a land, region or country. In the Hebrew mind the land par excellence is the Promised Land, Palestine. Conclusive confirmation of this interpretation comes from Zechariah 12:10 ff., the source of Jesus-’ language. That prophet predicted that, following an unusual out-pouring of grace and supplication on the royal Davidic house and on Jerusalem’s inhabitants, God’s people would look on Him, the One whom they pierced and mourn bitterly as for a firstborn son. The weeping in Jerusalem would be so great as to be reminiscent of the nation’s grief when the good king Josiah fell in battle in the area of Megiddo (2 Chronicles 35:20-25). Rightly did they mourn, for with Josiah’s untimely death religious reform ended and Israel’s final decline accelerated as the nation plunged toward disaster and captivity. The national mourning involved the entire land of Israel (Heb. ha eretz; Gr. he gê). Each tribe of Israel would mourn, tribe by tribe (LXX: katà fulàs fulàs). Then he names the royal and religious authorities of Israel, the house of David and the family of Levi, whose loss is selected for special notice in that their lineal descendants stand for the Messianic line and the Priesthood respectively. Finally, Zechariah affirms that all the tribes remaining would also join in the national grief. Jerusalem particularly but also all of Israel would weep over her King who came to save His people (Zechariah 9:9) but was valued at thirty pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12). Although He was Himself deity, He would be pierced (Zechariah 12:11) and His flock scattered (Zechariah 13:7).

Jesus-’ allusion, then, cannot be to pagan clans scattered throughout the inhabited earth, but specifically to the stricken tribes of the ancient people of God, the Jews who inhabited the land of Israel. Now, while this prophecy would find immediate fulfillment during Jesus-’ own suffering (John 19:37; Luke 23:27 ff., Luke 23:48), He affirms that the time would come when the Jews would once again grieve bitterly.

NOTE: their mourning is not even primarily connected with Jesus-’ Second Coming, as some interpret Revelation 1:7, but must find direct connection with His suffering during His first coming (John 19:37). If John rightly applies Zechariah 12:10 to Christ’s crucifixion, he proves that reference to the Second Coming is not the only appropriate fulfillment and one’s interpretation of Rev 1:7 must take this fact into account.

While some assume that the mourning arises out of all sinners-’ recognition that Jesus has personally returned to be their implacable Judge, this conclusion is less likely than two more probable alternatives, both of which express Zechariah’s full concept:

Godly sorrow leads to genuine repentance (2 Corinthians 7:8-11; Consider Luke 23:48 and John 19:37 in the light of Act 2:37-41). In the fulfillment, those who were deeply convicted of their guilt of rejecting their long-awaited Messiah, turned to the great Sin-bearer, Jesus, mourning their sinfulness and were graciously saved by His Gospel in time. (Cf. Zechariah 12:10; Zechariah 13:1.)

Hopeless mourning is that worldly grief that merely regrets wasted opportunities and bad results but leads to no moral decision to submit to Jesus and ends only in death (2 Corinthians 7:10). In the fulfillment, those Jews who continue obstinately in their unbelief and rejection of Jesus, would shriek with despair, because unwilling to change their past and unable to alter the consequences of their unbelief. It is striking that, in 70 A.D., Israel permanently lost all hope for her royal house (DAVID) and her entire sacrificial system of purification before God (LEVI) in one blow.

Jesus-’ time connection is highly revealing: when the sign of the Son of man in heaven appears, then will Israel mourn, as if the cause of their desperation and sorrow were the appearing of the sign. The connection is clear: those who assassinated God’s Son would live to see the day when He would be gloriously vindicated and the resultant heinousness of their crime against Him appropriately exposed and punished. Further, in Jesus-’ context, their grief may also be occasioned by the shaking of the powers of the heavens (Matthew 24:29). If by that phrase He meant the collapse of their once glorious system whereby Israel bore the light of God in pagan darkness, then the definitive loss of this exalted, unique institution must provoke deep mourning in all those who profoundly felt this grave loss. But Jesus does not leave them in ignorance about the true motive of their grief. This is revealed in further fulfillment of prophecy.

**And they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. **Because Jesus indicated no time sequence between this declaration and the preceding, as if the event involved followed it, we are free to consider this sentence as an expansion of His earlier phrase, the sign of the Son of man in heaven, which, when seen, caused the tribes of the land to mourn. The words, Son of man and heaven, naturally suggest this connection.

When Mark and Luke report only this phrase without mentioning the sign, they are only being less explicit than Matthew. They correctly quoted Jesus-’ words which summarize Daniel 7:13 f., and must not be understood as promising a personal appearance in the skies. Matthew is more precise in that he first indicates that men would behold the appearance of a sign that Jesus Christ now reigns in heaven. Then, in harmony with Mark and Luke, our author quotes the prophetic words that define the content of that sign. So, we interpret the less explicit statements of Mark and Luke in light of the fuller citations of Jesus-’ words by Matthew, not vice versa.

Because the tribes of the earth indicated in the citation from Zechariah are the Jewish people, it is principally, although not exclusively, they who shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven. So, if the primary focus is on carnal Israel’s seeing this reality and mourning because of it, what more significant realization could be imagined in all history than when all of unbelieving Israel gathered together in the land as a nation for one last fatal assembly before its final, millennial dispersion, i.e. at the Passover of 70 A.D.? This restriction of time and place would exclude the Second Coming as its primary fulfillment.

Once again Jesus adopted well-known Old Testament phraseology to express His own concepts (Daniel 7:9-14). Daniel dreamed he saw God as a great, venerable Old Man seated on a throne of judgment. This tribunal was to be held in the era of the fourth great world empire (Daniel 7:15-27). Even though the full implications of what occurred then would not be fully realized until Final Judgment, something began that would transform world history. In fact, onto the stage before the throne there came one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. Observe: the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven WAS NOT APPROACHING EARTH, BUT THE THRONE OF THE ALMIGHTY. In Daniel’s vision, coming on the clouds means that the Son of man was coming onstage, into the scene. It is not a coming toward Daniel or toward earth, but a coming seen from the standpoint of God, since Daniel uses three verbs that all indicate this: coming. approached. was led to the Ancient One. This is no picture of the Second Coming, because the Son of man is going the wrong way for that. His face is turned, not toward earth, but toward God. His goal is not to receive His saints, but to receive His Kingdom. (Cf. 1 Peter 3:22; Luke 19:12; Acts 2:32-36; Acts 3:22; Acts 5:31; Colossians 3:1; Revelation 3:21.) Daniel continued (Matthew 7:14),

He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Jesus summarized this verse by describing the coming of the Son of man with power and great glory.

The TIME indicated by Daniel for this transfer of imperial power from the domain of world monarchs to that of the Kingdom of the Son of man and of the saints of God, was after the rise of the fourth great world empire, Rome. (Cf. Daniel 2:44; Daniel 7:17 f.) This coincides with Jesus-’ other time notices, as His disciples must expect to see the Son of man coming in His kingdom during their lifetime, an appearance which would unquestionably prove the kingdom of God come with power (Matthew 16:28; Mark 9:1). This time-frame is repeated in this discourse too (Matthew 24:34; cf. Matthew 23:36).

So, Jesus-’ use of Daniel’s imagery implies that Israel would see the day when Daniel’s words must apply most clearly and meaningfully to Himself, i.e. when His own divine authority would be vindicated beyond all doubt. But there arises a natural question: how would skeptical Jews be convinced of this conclusion? How could anyone trace a cause/effect relationship between Christ’s invisible, heavenly sentences (cause) and earthly events (effect)? Further, the expression, they shall see, would seem fatal to any INVISIBLE coming of the Son of man on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory! However, three facts must be reckoned with:

Christ’s Kingdom and rule is not some future aspiration, but a present reality.

Christ need not be visible to manifest His authority on earth.

Christians, too, will see and comprehend Christ’s triumph.

CHRIST REIGNS NOW

Indisputably, our participation in the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is yet future (Acts 14:22; 2 Timothy 4:18; 2 Peter 1:11). Nevertheless, His rule is not merely future aspiration, but a present reality. (See my Special Study on the Kingdom, Vol. III, 160ff.) That His rule has already begun and does not await some distant date is fact.

He possessed universal authority even before His ascension (Matthew 11:27; Matthew 12:28; Matthew 28:19; John 5:21-29; John 17:2). Was this merely nominal, unsubstantial, fictitious or true authority?

His coming in His Kingdom occurred in the lifetime of the Apostles (Matthew 16:28; Mark 9:1). On Pentecost men submitted to His Lordship (Acts 2:33-36) and were transferred out of Satan’s realm into the kingdom of His beloved Son (Colossians 1:13). Believers preached (Acts 20:25) and suffered for His Kingdom in the first century (Revelation 1:9).

Christ’s rule is carried on from God’s heavenly throne (Ephesians 1:20 ff.; Hebrews 1:3).

Christ’s Kingdom was given to humble, teachable disciples (Matthew 18:3 f.; Matthew 19:14; Matthew 21:31 f.; Luke 12:32; Luke 22:29 f.). Being not of this world, His Kingdom is no threat to the proper exercise of civil authority (John 18:36).

His Kingdom must continue until every enemy is destroyed (Hebrews 2:14 f; Hebrews 10:12 f.; 1 John 3:8; 1 Corinthians 15:24-28).

His sovereignty is partially expressed in the earthly warfare of His saints against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places, but with spiritual, not material, weapons (Ephesians 6:10 ff.; 2 Corinthians 10:3-6) and with spiritual results (1 John 5:4-5; John 16:33).

That Christ’s Kingdom will become undeniably evident at the Final Judgment is unquestioned and is probably the splendid climax and final fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy. What is here affirmed, rather, is that even now the Son of God rules, judges, raises up and casts down whomever He will, and that this Kingdom, however invisible or intangible, is not unreal, impractical, insignificant or powerless.

CHRIST’S REIGN NEED NOT BE VISIBLE TO BE REAL

Some assume that they shall see …, means that for Jesus to come on the clouds or to reign on earth, He must be visible. If such an invisible Kingdom seem impractical, unreasonable or unworthy of divine government, let God’s mighty, historical judgments on the world’s nations, empire and kings testify. They are not uninstructive (Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 10:11; 2 Timothy 3:14-17).

How has God manifested His presence to men to make His reality recognizable to them? He presented Himself visibly in physical form to Abraham (Genesis 18) or to Moses as the angel of the Lord (Exodus 3:2-5) or to others in vision (Isaiah 6:1; Ezekiel 1:25 ff; Ezekiel 3:23; Ezekiel 10:18 f; Ezekiel 11:23). These unquestionably real self-revelations, however, do not exclude another mode whereby God manifested Himself to men. Is a visible presence essential to fulfill the requirements of the following texts: Genesis 11:5 f.; 1 Samuel 3:10; 1 Samuel 5:1-12; 1 Samuel 6:5? Did the burning bush experience of Moses or the pillar of fire exhaust the meaning of God’s affirmation: I am come down to deliver (Exodus 3:8)? Was He not raining down plagues on Egypt, defeating the cream of Pharaoh’s army and working mighty miracles for Israel, even without a visible, physical presence? The complaining Israelites could still snarl, Is the Lord among us or not (Exodus 17:7)? His was not a material apparition but a nevertheless real leadership by His Holy Spirit (Isaiah 63:10-14). Was His fellowship less real to believers merely because it was spiritual and invisible? (Contrast Isaiah 42:19 f.)

How did God manifest His presence at the national and international level to convict men of His sovereignty? What did man see?

One major prophetic emphasis of Ezekiel’s message is to communicate God’s self-revelation by means of a series of events undeniably evident in world history, whereby all who ever heard of these facts could recognize that these incidents were no mere chance occurrences, but nothing less than the carefully planned activity of a sovereign, living God.

(1)

34 times God concludes a threatened punishment upon Israel, affirming, I will stretch out my hand against them and make the land a desolate waste. Then they will know that I am the Lord. then you will know that it is I the Lord who strikes the blow (Ezekiel 2:5; Ezekiel 5:13 ff.; Ezekiel 6:7; Ezekiel 6:10; Ezekiel 6:13 f.; Ezekiel 7:4; Ezekiel 7:9; Ezekiel 7:27; Ezekiel 11:10; Ezekiel 11:12; Ezekiel 12:15 f., Ezekiel 12:20; Ezekiel 13:9; Ezekiel 13:14; Ezekiel 13:21; Ezekiel 13:23; Ezekiel 14:8; Ezekiel 15:7; Ezekiel 17:21; Ezekiel 17:24; Ezekiel 20:38; Ezekiel 20:44; Ezekiel 20:48; Ezekiel 21:5; Ezekiel 22:16; Ezekiel 22:22; Ezekiel 23:49; Ezekiel 24:24; Ezekiel 24:27; Ezekiel 33:29; Ezekiel 33:33).

(2)

26 times God threatens foreign powers with punishment so that they too will know that I am the Lord (Ezekiel 25:5; Ezekiel 25:7; Ezekiel 25:11; Ezekiel 25:14; Ezekiel 25:17; Ezekiel 26:6; Ezekiel 28:22 ff.; Ezekiel 29:6; Ezekiel 29:9; Ezekiel 29:16; Ezekiel 30:8; Ezekiel 30:19; Ezekiel 30:25 f.; Ezekiel 32:15; Ezekiel 35:4; Ezekiel 35:9; Ezekiel 35:12; Ezekiel 35:15; Ezekiel 38:16; Ezekiel 38:23; Ezekiel 39:6 f., Ezekiel 39:21).

(3)

12 times God concluded a promised blessing of Israel whereby they could easily discern God’s hand in earthly events and know that I am the Lord (Ezekiel 16:62; Ezekiel 17:24; Ezekiel 28:26; Ezekiel 29:21; Ezekiel 34:27; Ezekiel 34:30; Ezekiel 36:11; Ezekiel 36:38; Ezekiel 37:6; Ezekiel 37:13 f.; Ezekiel 39:28).

(4)

God described the Gentile nations-’ punishment so that its realization would convince Israel to know that I the Lord have spoken (Ezekiel 35:11; Ezekiel 39:21 f.).

(5)

God’s restoration of Israel must convince Gentiles that Jahweh is the true God of heaven and Israel’s God (Ezekiel 36:23; Ezekiel 36:36; Ezekiel 36:38).

GOD’S CLEARLY-DEFINED PATTERN OF SELF-REVELATION IN HISTORY’S EVENTS:

(1)

GOD ANNOUNCED HIS PLANS BEFOREHAND as adequate forewarning, so men could look forward to the realization of what was beyond human power to foresee or forestall (Isaiah 14:26 f; Isaiah 19:12; Isaiah 37:20-37; Isaiah 41:20-29; Isaiah 42:9; Isaiah 45:19 ff; Isaiah 48:14 f.).

(2)

THEN GOD DID WHAT HE SAID HE WOULD (Isaiah 30:30 ff; Isaiah 42:23 ff; Isaiah 44:7 f; Isaiah 48:3; Isaiah 64:1-4).

(3)

Because the news was also to be announced to all nations (Isaiah 48:20), men could draw the correct conclusion: what God says, He will do. His rule is real and His will must be obeyed in other areas too (Isaiah 17:7 f; Isaiah 19:19-25; Isaiah 24:14; Isaiah 43:12 f; Isaiah 45:1-6; Isaiah 45:14; Isaiah 48:3-7; Isaiah 48:16; Isaiah 49:23; Isaiah 49:26; Isaiah 52:6; Isaiah 54:15 ff.).

Thus, God’s mighty acts in history were not merely to punish or bless either Israel or the nations, but to lead all men, Jews and Gentiles alike, to confess that Israel’s God is the only truly self-existent, eternal, living God, who alone is worthy of adoration and service. Israel was to learn that it was Jahweh who struck them, not merely some pagan foreign power, so they would return to Him (Isaiah 9:13; Jeremiah 5:3). There was no supernatural exhibition of God’s person in the skies over Israel or Jerusalem when He poured out His wrath on them. Nevertheless, from the outcome of the events, His people were to draw the necessary conclusion that the LORD HIMSELF directed those remedial chastisements (cf. Joe 2:11). They were to conclude that punishments like the sacking of Jerusalem and the burning of the Temple furnish irrefutable evidence that a great day of the Lord has come. (Cf. Isaiah 2:12-22; Amos 5:18 ff.; Zephaniah 1:7 ff., Zephaniah 1:14 f.; Zechariah 2:2 f.) THIS WAS A CONCLUSION THEY WERE TO DRAW, fore announced indeed by prophets, but not an affirmation written in flaming letters across the sky nor thundered from heaven. This they could DEDUCE as the Babylonian war machine, for example, rolled into the beleaguered Holy City to pillage, slaughter and burn. But this was a CONCLUSION well-grounded in many prophecies that guided Israel to read their destiny aright, even if in the light of the flames that consumed their last hope of reprieve from divine justice. (Cf. Jeremiah 5:19.)

Merely because one cannot discern God’s Kingdom materially visible does not constitute proof that it does not exist or has somehow failed. The above-cited references often allude to God’s hand stretched out over a given people to punish it. But who seriously believes that a gigantic fist appeared in the sky over them to smash them for their sins? To the contrary, the prophets sometimes indicate which specific, quite earthly enemy power would be God’s appointed instrument, be they some great empire or the marauding desert tribes, or even Israel herself (Ezekiel 25:4; Ezekiel 25:14; Ezekiel 26:7; Ezekiel 30:24 f; Ezekiel 32:11 f; Ezekiel 29:19 f.; cf. Jeremiah 51:11; 1 Chronicles 5:26; 1 Chronicles 21:16). In the colossal shifts in imperial power in the ancient Near East God established His sovereignty as Lord of history (Daniel 2:21; Daniel 2:44). This lesson was so clear that even a Nebuchadnezzar could understand it (Daniel 4:3; Daniel 4:34 ff.). On some occasions, because of a direct revelation, earth’s monarchs were brought to their knees before God’s universal dominion (Daniel 2:47; Daniel 3:28 f; Daniel 4:28-37; Daniel 5:18-21; Daniel 6:25 ff.). At other times God overthrew thrones and established justice despite the evil intentions of the human agents He used. (Cf. Isaiah 10:5-19; Isaiah 10:24 ff.; Isaiah 13:5; Isaiah 14:24-29; Isaiah 30:30 ff.; Isaiah 31:8 f; Isaiah 38:6; Jeremiah 51:20 ff., Jeremiah 51:27 ff.; Micah 4:11 f.). These acts of God were to convince Israel that God’s servant, Nebuchadnezzar, for example, was nothing more nor less than God’s tool operating at the level of empire (Isaiah 44:28; Jeremiah 25:9-14; Jeremiah 46:10). In Israel or elsewhere only the crass unbeliever could pout, But I expected something different, something more psychologically convincing, some more spectacular evidence of God’s reality and sovereignty!

Just as God ruled men from heaven without personally and visibly directing history’s traffic from some mountain top, overthrowing thrones and shattering the power of kingdoms (cf. 1 Chronicles 29:11 f.; Haggai 2:2 f.), so everything Jesus was doing was intended to produce the conviction in the dispassionate observer that Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus followed the same model established by God: He forewarned of Jerusalem’s fall. Then He brought it to pass. Thus, men could conclude that the Crucified One sits on the Throne at the center of the universe, that He has indeed come on the clouds of heaven, and shall come again, as He said.

Must His reign seem less real, just because it too is invisible? Can we believe it to function effectively, even if He is not seated on a golden, Davidic throne in Jerusalem (John 18:36)? Merely because we cannot observe His reigning, must we repeat the ancient slander: Is the Lord among us or not (Exodus 17:7)? Proponents of millennial theories that require a messianic throne of David in Jerusalem appear to be dissatisfied with a spiritual kingdom, as if its spiritual character somehow compromises its reality and power. All must learn to live with Jesus-’ promise: I will be with you always, to the very close of the age (Matthew 28:20). Rather than confirm His word by appearing bodily after His departure, He sent His Spirit to be with us and in us. Significantly, it was in a context such as Ezekiel’s five apologetic defenses mentioned above, that God’s promise to send His Spirit arises. So, if God approaches earth to re-organize its inhabitants any way He chooses but needs no visible, material body to accomplish this, why must it be thought strange that Jesus Christ need not appear in the sky before earthly judgments can be wrought on the earth by Him?

NOTE: it is not argued here that Jesus-’ vindication at the fall of Jerusalem is the final or exclusive fulfillment of Daniel’s great prophecy. Rather, that any time Christ intervenes, either on behalf of His Church or to punish His enemies, He gives proof of His heavenly reign, vindicates His claims and justifies the faith of His people. Every such intervention may be considered evidence of the coming of the Son of man on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory to the Ancient of Days to rule from His throne until that final Day when, what Christians have believed all along, shall finally break in upon the consciousness of all men, and Daniel’s prophecy shall have its final, most glorious fulfillment. (Cf. notes on Matthew 10:23 and Matthew 16:28.)

WHO SHALL SEE THE SON OF MAN COMING, AND HOW?

It would seem that, according to Matthew, they will see, must refer exclusively and contextually, to all the tribes (who) mourn, i.e. those of Israel who rejected God’s offer of grace through Jesus. But would those who repudiated Jesus-’ interpretation of Judaism’s fall be psychologically able to admit the Nazarene’s complete vindication in the holocaust of 70 A.D.? Although they probably would not grasp this connection, Jesus-’ expression admits two possible explanations.

JEWS WOULD SEE WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING. A child watches two expert chess players move their pieces on the board, without its seeing what the moves mean, while the players themselves not only witness but also experience, recognize and understand what each play means in terms of the past, present and possible future of the game. Similarly, Jews would see Jerusalem, the Temple and its millennial glory going up in flames and the demolition of the entire Mosaic institution for access to God through priesthood, sacrifices and cleansing from sin. But what they could see with their mind, or comprehend, must depend on what they were willing to recognize as the meaning of what they saw. (Cf. Isaiah 29:9-12; Isaiah 29:14; Acts 3:17; Acts 13:27.) The extent to which they repented and trusted God to judge righteously measured their openness to His revelations (Isaiah 32:3). Otherwise, they would see without understanding (cf. Matthew 13:11-16; Isaiah 6:9 f; Isaiah 42:18 ff; Isaiah 53:1; contrast Isaiah 52:15; Romans 10:16-19; Hebrews 3:7 to Hebrews 4:2). Their centuries-old Wailing Wall mentality documents their continued incomprehension.

CHRISTIANS WOULD SEE AND UNDERSTAND. They will see, in Matthew, seems to refer contextually to Israel alone. This phrase, however, is used also by both Mark and Luke who make no specific allusion to anyone in particular, since they omitted all mention of the Jews. Further, the third person plural verb in Greek can be used, as in English, for the indefinite subject: one will see, anyone in general will see, you will see, etc. (Cf. Blass-Deburnner, Grammar, §130.) So, Jesus leaves the door open for not only Jews to see, but also Christians. These latter not only witness the awe-inspiring end of Israel’s Temple, but also the dramatic conclusion of the Mosaic dispensation and the historical vindication of Jesus of Nazareth. So, what the Jews witnessed uncomprehendingly, the Christians, looking at the same objects, could see in it what Daniel’s images portrayed, the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven. Comprehension and true insight were possible only for those who accepted the true meaning of the event as this is perceived on the basis of Jesus-’ prediction and the empirically observable occurrence of what He had foretold, interpreting everything in the light of Dan 7:13 f. Christians could grasp the true significance of the decline and fall of Judaism, because they possess the interpretative key to history, handed them by the Lord of History Himself.

CONCLUSION

The end of the pre-Messianic age and the commencement of the Kingdom of the Messiah coincided theoretically at the Passion, Victory, Ascension and Coronation of the Christ which culminated in Pentecost, 30 A.D. But only a few believersno more than 300 at firstembraced this change of administration for nearly a generation. Business continued as usual in Judaism. This would lead to the falsely secure notion that all was well. But the sudden, definitive removal of Judaism’s commonwealth and its Levitical system and Temple became the signal proof that only Jesus of Nazareth had correctly revealed the mind of God (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21). Thus, the very crumbling of the Jewish commonwealth, their religious center and its aftermath, just as He prophesied, would attest to Jesus-’ heavenly reign by His superintending the punitive justice meted out on those who rejected His messiahship and crucified Him, and by His justifying the faith of those who proclaimed Him Lord of all. Both acts of this divine King prove He sits enthroned and rules with power and great glory. They prove that He has truly begun to do, concretely and historically, what Daniel’s expressions meant: He has already ascended to heaven and come to God on the clouds of heaven to take His place rightfully on God’s throne. Jewish silence that finds inexplicable their Temple’s 2000-year desolation is tantamount to a confession that God has incomprehensibly abandoned His people and that Israel today has no solid refutation against the claim that the Crucified One has triumphed and is their true Master, despite the fact that they repudiate His Lordship. No longer may fleshly Israel claim unique or exclusive access to God, because Israel’s Bible, in the absence of its Messiah, points uncompromisingly to its Levitical sacrifices by which alone this access may be enjoyed. But now that access is denied by the Temple’s millennial absence.

No wonder, then, that in 70 A.D. Christians could lift up their heads in hope (Luke 21:28). Christ’s people were freed from the ungodly, oppressive sovereignty of Judaism by the execution of the Lord’s sentence on it, because in that event it became evident on earth that Jesus-’ kingship is real. The Son of man was really in heaven and He had actually come on the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of Days and was gloriously crowned with honor and sovereign power, just as Daniel had foretold and Jesus Himself had confirmed! Christ in heaven administers His Kingdom, while His people conquer and reign on earth (Revelation 5:10; cf. Revelation 1:6; Romans 8:37; 2 Corinthians 2:14; 1 Peter 2:9).

NOTE: None of the above conclusions are intended to detract from the perfect, final realization of Daniel’s prophecy, whereby what is now discerned only by believers shall become indisputably evident to everyone at Christ’s coming. Nor does this interpretation deny the clearly literal expectations of many other texts that speak of His return on the Final Day (1 Thessalonians 4:16; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10; 1 Corinthians 15; 2 Peter 3, etc.). Jesus-’ Kingdom became de jure effective at Pentecost (Acts 2), but it was and is only gradually realized de facto as His influence spreads throughout the world and more of His enemies are put under His feet. Even so, there remains a sense in which it is still largely a Kingdom de jure and shall not be manifest to all of earth’s inhabitants in all its glory until the Last Day. Christ’s present reign is not inconsistent with the continued presence of evil in the world. (See notes on Matthew 13.) Revelation dramatizes the final outcome of this conflict and warns that all present appearances are deceiving that seem to put Christ and Christians-’ victory in doubt. He really reigns and His people are victors, even though all earthly observation would deny it. What is even now true shall simply be manifest at the Last Day.

4. Worldwide proclamation of the Gospel and its results: the beginning of the Lord’s Year of Jubilee (24:31)

Matthew 24:31 **And he shall send forth his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. **This sending forth of angels closely resembles Jesus-’ interpretation of His own parables of the Tares and of the Dragnet (Matthew 13:41; Matthew 13:49). Further, the great sound of a trumpet seems associated with the last trumpet call of God at the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:52; 1 Thessalonians 4:16). Notwithstanding these similarities, two considerations suggest that these expressions be otherwise interpreted:

Jesus-’ explicit indications of schedule require a fulfillment within the time-frame of His own contemporary generation (Matthew 23:35 f.; Matthew 24:21; Matthew 24:29; Matthew 24:34).

Jesus-’ language utilized symbols already well developed in the Old Testament prophets and in the Law, and, as indicated above, although some of the same symbols may also be used in connection with the Second Coming, nevertheless, it is entirely appropriate that He be thought free to adopt this same language in a sense governed by the time limitations He indicated.

His angels (Greek: àngeloi = messengers generally). Whether such messengers are supernatural or completely human must be decided form the context. Besides the many texts which speak of supernatural agents of God, the following texts illustrate the appropriateness of using àngeloi for men: In Matthew 11:10 àngelos refers to John the Baptist (= Mark 1:2; Luke 7:27) whereas in Luke 7:24 àngeloi refers to some of John’s disciples. In Luke 9:52 àngeloi refers to emissaries of Jesus. In James 2:25 àngeloi describes two spies sent to Jericho. This evidence indicates that the translators-’ choice to render àngeloi with angels in our text unnecessarily attributes supernatural nature to these messengers, and this conclusion may safely be re-examined, since our Lord may well have meant His human messengers of which He had spoken earlier in unliteral language (Matthew 23:34).

With a great sound of a trumpet, as texts like Revelation 8, 9 illustrate may have other functions in God’s economy besides giving the blast that signals the world’s end. The question must ever be asked: what image would Jesus-’ Jewish audience have received from this expression? In Israel’s millennial history, the trumpet was used to give signals to Israel and call the community together (Exodus 19:13; Exodus 19:16; Exodus 19:19; Numbers 10:1-7). At the New Moon and on other occasions trumpets were used to signal great national celebrations and feasts (Psalms 81:3). Alarms were sounded to warn of approaching danger (Joe 2:1). However, the trumpet’s use at Sinai may not have been merely a signal, but part of the very expression of God’s presence and glory, and susceptible of being associated with the new covenant announcement of the Law of Christ, not from Sinai, but from Jerusalem. From its many literal uses it symbolic use is drawn, but which one is intended here?

Among its other uses, the trumpet, as a symbol, would bring to the Jewish Jubilee a trumpet song of the emancipation of Hebrew slaves and of the restoration of alienated property to its true owners, and of a year’s vacation from life’s toil. In this same vein, Jesus established the keynote of His own ministry, citing Isaiah 61:1 f. (Luke 4:18 f.).

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Then He claimed, Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. So doing, He initiated the great spiritual era of freedom, rest and restoration. With His own trumpet blast He announced that the time of deliverance had come. Then, as He sent forth His heralds to proclaim this same dispensation of God’s grace now available to all in the Gospel, these messengers (àngeloi) but echoed the Jubilee trumpet’s function to proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.

However, it would appear that Jesus selected a great sound of a trumpet from a figure used by Isaiah 27:13, where God promised to gather His exiled people who were perishing in captivity. Note the comparisons:

JESUS

ISAIAH

The Son of man shall send forth his angels

The Lord will thresh

with a great sound of a trumpet they shall gather his elect

In that day a great trumpet will sound You, O Israelites, will be gathered one by one

from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other

Those who were perishing in Assyria and those who were exiled in Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.

The only element not mentioned in both texts is his angels, although the passive (you will be gathered in Isaiah) suggests an agent of some kind.

Several points should be noted:

This was no literal trumpet. Rather, because it was already a well-known symbol of Israel’s jubilee release, Isaiah seems to have spiritualized the Jubilee trumpet to signal a new epoch of glorious release from bondage to pagan powers.

Even in Isaiah, this trumpet is no merely human signal, but the summons symbolically sounded by God or by His agents (Cf. Isaiah 18:3; Isaiah 11:12), to call penitent exiles back to Jerusalem to resume their worship and service to Him. (Cf. Joe 2:15 f.; Psalms 81:3.)

The trumpet-call would produce a restoration to their original sanctification as the people would thresh out grain and collect the kernels individually in the most careful manner possible into a container, so God would separate the grain, the penitent, from the husks, their ungodly brethren yet living among pagan nations.

Jesus apparently reworked Isaiah’s literary image to project the vision of an even more glorious trumpet to publish the year of release, not limited to the Jews or to the land of Palestine, but good tidings of great joy for all peoples. He would inaugurate a Jubilee of return and redemption for all nations, which is His next point.

**They shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. **Again His language strikingly resembles His own mode of describing the Final Judgment (Matthew 13:41-43; Matthew 13:48-50; 2 Thessalonians 1:7 ff.). Nevertheless, this prophetic language appears to have been borrowed from Moses and Zechariah. Surprisingly, nothing actually celestial is alluded to in one end of heaven to the other. In fact, Zechariah (Matthew 2:6) quotes the Lord as calling, Come! Come! Flee from the land of the north, for I have scattered you to the four winds of heaven. This idiom is only natural, since God had promised compassion on the exiles thus:

If any of thine outcasts be in the uttermost parts of heaven, from thence will Jehovah thy God gather thee and from thence will he fetch thee (Deuteronomy 30:4, ASV).

What is meant less figuratively is their restoration from banishment to the most distant land under the heavens (Deuteronomy 30:4, NIV). It is everywhere assumed that these would be flesh-and-blood exiles walking on earth, not disembodied spirits floating in from some distant point in space. (Cf. Nehemiah 1:9.)

Borrowing this prophetic terminology, Jesus could depict the sounding of the Gospel proclamation which would gather the true Israel of God from the far reaches of the world and unite them in the worship of Jehovah in. the real and abiding Zion (the church), not the earthly and passing Jerusalem (Butler, Isaiah, II, 54). The messengers (àngeloi) of Christ are commissioned to go into all the world, making disciples of all the nations (Matthew 28:19 f.), a process which proposes to gather God’s Elect, His Church, from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Cf. Matthew 8:11; Luke 13:29.) Our Gospel proclaims deliverance and redemption from the oppressive slavery to sin, available to every creature (Mark 16:15). This liberation encapsules the profoundest meaning of Jubilee. God’s elect are no longer drawn from one small nation, but are composed of people from every tribe, nation, people and tongue. This text, then, points to the grand, non-national, worldwide character of the New Israel and how it came to be.

So, when did the trumpet actually sound: during the ministry of Christ (Luke 4:17 ff.)? with the Gospel proclamation of the acceptable year of the Lord, as Jesus-’ messengers went through the land sounding the Gospel trumpet of release from bondage to Satan? or with the destruction of Jerusalem which formally and finally announced the final end of the Old Dispensation? Ideally, all three, because what occurred in the Gospel preaching by the early Christians and what took place at Jerusalem in 70 A.D. was nothing but the extension of the royal authority and ministry of Jesus Himself. To the world these mighty acts announced Gospel redemption. Also our slavery to Judaistic legalism was now surpassed by a Gospel for every man and people which proclaims liberation to everyone. This fact became concretely obvious when the last vestiges of the Old Dispensation indisputably crumbled to the ground in flames. But it is not impossible that the final Trumpet (1 Thessalonians 4:16), while presumably literal, may be but the last, most glorious expression of God’s merciful trumpet to publish eternal release, restoration and redemption. (Study Leviticus 25; Zechariah 14, esp. Zechariah 14:16 ff.)

WHEN TRAGIC EVENTS ARE ACTUALLY REASSURING

Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near (Luke 21:28). Jesus introduces these words to conclude this section and yet their meaning is echoed in the parable of the trees which follows, and to which this verse serves as introduction. This verse, then, looks both ways:

It prepares the mind to hear Jesus say, When you see all these things taking place, you can tell that the kingdom of God is near. You will live to see it.

It summarizes what the believing observer is to decide about the tremendous, earth-shaking events Jesus has just described in the previous verses, which must mean exclusively the destruction of Jerusalem. That Jesus is not here alluding to the Second Coming is clear

Because when these things begin to take place implies a certain gradualness that permits time for reflection on the world events just described (Luke 21:25 f.). But the Second Coming will be marked by an unexpected, unpredictable suddenness (Matthew 24:39; Matthew 24:42; Matthew 24:44; Matthew 25:13).

Because Look up and raise your heads, when referred to the Second Coming, is also meaningless, for Christ’s return will be announced by heavenly shouting, trumpet music and Jesus-’ own glorious, personal appearance (1 Thessalonians 4:16). It will all be so obvious as to require no special announcements (Matthew 24:23 ff.) or hopeful searching the skies. His appearance will be instantly visible to all; His voice audible to all (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10; John 5:28).

Because the expression, your redemption is drawing near, cannot allude to eternal redemption, since this would give time for lastminute preparation. But such convenient, last-minute repentance is absolutely excluded by Jesus-’ warnings (Matthew 25:1-13). Universal repentance and consequent salvation is inconceivable (Luke 18:8; Matthew 7:13-14; 1 Peter 4:12-19). That eternal redemption from sin and all its consequences (1 Peter 1:5-9; Romans 8:23) is not here envisioned is evident from the contextual consideration that Jesus is merely discussing the post-Jewish dispensation when the Gospel would be proclaimed among the Gentiles and the universal Church vindicated as the earthly expression of God’s Kingdom. So, redemption, here, refers to the near approach to the Church’s liberation by those earthly events which would signal the arrival of Christ’s Kingdom (Luke 21:31 = Matthew 24:33).

Jesus-’ meaning, then, is, When these things, the earth-shaking events leading up to my heavenly vindication, begin to take place, you, my dear disciples, may then look up and raise your heads bowed down by the severe troubles you suffer at that time, because your redemption from the limitations imposed by the Jewish period of the Church and your liberation from persecution by Jewish authorities is drawing near.

HOW JUSTIFY THIS POSITION TAKEN?

While we may be satisfied that this passage makes primary reference to the vindication of Jesus as God’s Messiah when the Father furnished convincing proof of Jesus-’ Lordship and of the justice of His cause during the period immediately successive to the fall of Jerusalem and as a necessary result of this judgment, nevertheless it would be irresponsible to ignore the many striking similarities which other commentators notice between Jesus-’ language here and what, in my view, are genuinely end-of-the-world events.

The astronomical panorama of changes in our universe (2 Peter 3:7; 2 Peter 3:10; 2 Peter 3:12). The creation of new heavens and earth (2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1-5; cf. Revelation 6:12 f.).

The appearance of Jesus Christ in the sky (1 Thessalonians 1:10; 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 1 Thessalonians 3:13; 2 Thessalonians 2:8; 2 Timothy 4:1; Titus 2:13).

The mourning of those who rejected the truth, the terror of those shaken by the glory of our returning Lord, terrified by the prospect of their damnation (Revelation 6:12-17; cf. Revelation 1:7?).

The loud trumpet signaling the end, Christ’s return and the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:52; 1 Thessalonians 4:16; cf. Revelation 11:15).

The angels sent forth to gather Christ’s elect from all over the earth (Matthew 13:41-43; Matthew 13:48-50; 2 Thessalonians 1:7 ff.).

How explain these remarkable similarities? Does similarity argue identification or that this entire paragraph (Matthew 24:29-31) should be understood exclusively with reference to the Second Coming? While the parallels are many and remarkable, their origin in Old Testament prophetic language warns against strict literalism. On the other hand, we may be perfectly content if our marvelous Lord chooses to bring every one of these prophecies to a surprising, literal fulfillment. However, on what basis can prophecies that refer primarily to events immediately following Jerusalem’s fall, be thought to point also to the world’s Last Day?

One answer is to see in the definitive judgment upon Judaism a symbol foreshadowing the sentencing of the entire world. Thus, while others are mistaken to see only end-of-the-world events in the foreground of Jesus-’ picture before Matthew 24:34, nevertheless it is thought that there may be principles involved here that have a wider application that would extend to Christians living on earth after that event until Jesus comes again. The major objection to this view is the repeated warning of our Lord that, whereas the fall of Jerusalem would be preceded by unmistakable signs of its impending disaster, the coming of Christ and the world’s end will not. The nearness of that Day will be undiscernible in every respect (Matthew 24:36, Matthew 24:42 ff., Matthew 24:50; Matthew 25:13; Mark 13:33; Mark 13:35; Luke 21:34). Therefore, what is the purpose of searching for parallels and similarities? At this critical point the two events are not at all similar.

Another approach is to recognize in Matthew 24:29-31 a symbolic panorama of earthly events depicted in typical apocalyptic language coined by and borrowed from the prophets, but which, while having undoubted fulfillment in Jerusalem’s demise, may yet occur in all their cosmic literalness at the Lord’s return. These cosmic disturbances are characteristic of the theophanies of both history and prophecy of the Old Testament, so why should they not also serve in New Testament history and prophecy as well? Although these suggestions cannot be ruled out categorically, enough evidence has been offered in the verse comments to indicate that Jesus spoke in a meaningful language to people familiar with His terminology. Correct exegesis, therefore, must proceed from the standpoint of what the prophets meant by language which Jesus utilized to communicate His own revelations to minds saturated with His Bible.

Because nothing is lost for the Second Coming, it is simply better to consider Matthew 24:29-31 as expressing the theological results of the end of the Jewish era, leaving the above-mentioned texts free to teach us about Christ’s real coming, without our seeking some clue in Matthew 24 to the date of the Parousia when the Lord flatly denied any possible hope of success.

FACT QUESTIONS

Define the tribulation of those days. To what days does Jesus refer by those days? How had He defined those days earlier? (Matthew 24:19-22). Identify the tribulation itself: what is a tribulation?

In what sense is the Coming of the Son of man to be immediately after the tribulation of those days? How could all the majestic events Jesus included in this paragraph (Matthew 24:29 ff.) really occur immediately after the crises of the tribulation?

Locate the Old Testament passages where the following expressions are used and give the interpretation intended by the Old Testament author in each case:

The sun shall be darkened, the moon shall not give her light, the stars shall fall from heaven, the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.

All the tribes of the earth shall mourn. To what tribes does the prophet refer? To what earth? What occasioned their mourning?

The Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory: to what or whom was this Son of man coming when He approached on the clouds of heaven in the original reference?

gather. a great trumpet: what was this trumpet used for in the original reference(s)?

the four winds of heaven.

Now, rewrite Jesus-’ paragraph using the literal meaning of each phrase as you have gleaned it from the Old Testament prophets. That is, take His figurative language borrowed from the Prophets, and, as if you were writing for people unfamiliar with the Old Testament, express His literal meaning which would have been communicated to His original Jewish hearers familiar with the Old Testament.

Establish with good reasons to what coming of the Son of man Jesus alludes.

True or false? The better translation is All the tribes of the land (not earth) shall mourn. Defend your answer.

What additional information does Luke add that helps to interpret this section?

Matthew 24:32-35

**D. Encouragement to Believe Jesus (24:32-35)

(Parallels: Mark 13:28-31; Luke 21:29-33)**

32 Now from the fig tree learn her parable: when her branch is now become tender, and putteth forth its leaves, ye know that the summer is nigh; 33 even so ye also, when ye see all these things, know ye that he (footnote: it) is nigh, even at the doors. 34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all these things be accomplished. 35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

Some interpreters hold that the fig tree is a symbol of the Jewish people, and that the revising of their nation, as symbolized by the renewal of the fig tree, signals the near approach of Christ’s Second Coming. Does the fact that Luke’s version of this parable speaks not only of the fig tree, but also of all the trees, modify this view in any way?

In what sense is it correct to affirm that all these things that Jesus had described earlier (Matthew 24:4-31) must be considered as signaling the near approach of the Kingdom of God within the lifetime of His contemporaries?

Some people hold that Matthew 24:29-31 are referring to Christ’s Second Coming. Now, however, Jesus asserts that all these things must be accomplished during the lifetime of His own generation. But He did not return in that generation. Who is mistaken: Jesus or His interpreters? How do you know?

What kind of person is it who thinks that it would be easier for the inexorable natural laws of heaven and earth to fail than for his own affirmations to be proven wrong? What does this tell you about Jesus who made precisely this claim?

How does Jesus-’ assertion, that His words shall not pass away, furnish a good reason for believing Him? Do you believe Him?

Do you believe that His generation lived to see the realization of all these things, just as He said? If so, why? If not, why not?

Jesus expects that His disciples would see certain phenomena and be able to decide correctly that the kingdom of God is near. Further, He will teach that the Second Coming will not be heralded by any forewarning, but will come abruptly and unexpectedly for everyone. How do these facts clarify Jesus-’ meaning about the phenomena and modify our understanding of it?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

Then Jesus told them a story: Think of the fig treein fact, look at any tree and learn its lesson. As soon as its branches become tender and its leaves come out, you can see without being told that summer is not very far away. Similarly, when you see ALL THESE THINGS taking place, you can recognize that the Kingdom of God is near and ready to make its triumphal entry. I can tell you for sure that this present generation will live to see it all take place. Heaven and earth will come to an end, but what I have said. never!

SUMMARY

In the same way that leaves signal the approach of summer, clues already mentioned signal the arrival of God’s Kingdom, an event which must occur during the lifetime of Jesus-’ contemporaries. The universe could fall apart sooner than Jesus-’ words fail to be fulfilled.

**NOTES

Leaves are a signal of summer’s approach (24:32)**

Matthew 24:32 **Learn from the fig tree her parable. **Even as He spoke, Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives. Back of them, as they faced Jerusalem, lay a small village called Fig-Town, or Bethphage. (Cf. Matthew 21:1; Mark 11:1; Luke 19:29.) Not unlikely it drew its name from the abundance of its fig trees. Because Jesus pronounced these words just before Passover, the fig trees would even then be leafing out. (See notes on Matthew 21:19.) Because Jesus said, and all the trees (Luke 21:29), this parable is not essentially about fig trees exclusively, but, rather, about how trees in general function and about what this function tells the nature observer about the seasons. By showing His disciples something with which they were already familiar, something which also involved their ability to predict the approach of summer with reasonable certainty, Jesus facilitated their understanding of something less familiar.

**When her branch is now become tender, and putteth forth its leaves, ye know that the summer is nigh. **This shows His disciples that to predict the near approach of whatever phase of God’s Kingdom Jesus has in mind would not be nearly so difficult or problematic as it might seem in theory. (This is the same approach Jesus had already used with others who could determine the short-term weather forecast from the appearance of the sky. Matthew 16:1-3)

No objective reading of this paragraph (Matthew 24:32-34) will justify the creation of an allegory of the rebirth of the Jewish state (Fig tree = Jewish people) without reading into Jesus-’ words what is not there, to favor a preconceived theory of eschatology. To do so, one must forget that Jesus also said, and all the trees (Luke 21:29), since the supposed symbolism would extend to all other races, if each tree stood for a race, as the fig, in theory, stands for the Hebrews. So, the theory topples of its own weight, felled by solid information from Luke.

2. Similarly, the foregoing clues signal H-hour for God’s Kingdom (24:33)

Matthew 24:33 **Even so ye also, when ye see all these things, know ye that he is nigh, even at the doors. **Just as surely as budding and leaves were a sure indication of the nearness of the warm season, so the disciple of Jesus could discern the approach of some great event by the clear signs just listed. The great controversy turns on what is intended by all these things, since the decision about WHAT is nigh depends largely upon these things that indicate its near approach. The problem began with the Greek used by Matthew and Mark, since neither indicated a subject for the verb, is nigh (engùs estin). This leaves translators torn between he and it, because grammatically both renderings are possible. Luke’s specific statement, however, furnished the missing key by informing us that Jesus meant; the Kingdom of God is near. Because Jesus said it, therefore, this concept should be read into Matthew’s narrative as the subject it, as found in the ASV margin and in other translations. But, even so, because Jesus-’ Kingdom is a Messianic Kingdom on earth, wherever His Kingdom is, there is He in the midst of it (Matthew 18:20; Matthew 28:20; Luke 17:21). Now, the riddle becomes: to what phase of the Kingdom of God does Jesus refer?

Some point to Matthew 24:4-28 and suppose He means just the fall of Jerusalem. It is assumed that He temporarily overlooks what appears to be the Second Coming in Matthew 24:29-31 and points back to the events mentioned earlier, i.e. Jerusalem’s destruction. But this involves two exegetical weaknesses:

This view must apply all these things to events in a more distant context while shutting an eye to the Second Coming supposedly mentioned in the nearer context.

Consequently, this view must deny that Jesus-’ allusions in Matthew 24:29-31 perfectly mirror the classic style of Old Testament prophets before Him, and contrary to these prophets-’ own interpretations, consider their words literal when used by Jesus.

Others suppose He means the state of affairs commencing at the Second Coming when Christ’s rule shall be universally acknowledged. This view is supported by these suppositions:

All these things is thought to refer only to the signs mentioned in Matthew 24:29-31, taken to mean Christ’s coming in glory at the end of the world. However, see our notes on these verses which treat them as expressing the spiritual significance of the period immediately following Jerusalem’s fall and directly resulting from it.

Some suppose the fig tree parable is to be connected with Jesus-’ cursing of the fruitless fig tree (Matthew 21:18 f.), bespeaking the punishment of the unfruitful Jewish race. Hence, they see its resurrection from national and spiritual dormancy just before the world’s end, symbolized by the flowering of the fig tree. However, there is no evidence that Jesus created such a symbol as fig tree = Israel.

This generation (Matthew 24:34) is supposed to embrace only the Jewish race. Hence, what is affirmed about this generation, becomes a prediction of Israel’s continuance as a race until the Second Coming. However, see our objections at Matthew 24:34.

Consequently, it is concluded that Jesus could not have included literally all these things, from the disciples-’ question, Tell us when will these things be, down to when you see all these things (Matthew 24:3-33). Accordingly, He omitted all reference here to the overthrow of Jerusalem. Ironically, this view’s proponents often take everything in Matthew 24:29-31 literally, but balk at treating all these things and this generation, with the same measure of literalness. Worse, because all these things are thought to be the signs that precede the Second Coming and signal its approach, these commentators make Jesus party to two errors:

(1)

He is pictured as predicting His return immediately after the fall of Jerusalem. (Cf. Matthew 24:29). To avoid this gaffe one must eviscerate immediately of its usual meaning, assigning it a modified sense, defended by reference to 2 Peter 3:4-9. However, Peter clearly refers to the parousìa of Christ, where Jesus does not use this word in our immediate text. (See on Matthew 24:29-31.)

(2)

Jesus is caused to contradict Himself, being made to speak of signs foreshadowing an event for which He specifically revealed there would be no advance warning.

This viewpoint ignores the main point of Jesus-’ affirmation. The very appearance of all the signs He mentioned intend to forewarn of the nearing of the great event. If a sign is truly functional, it is to alert the observer for the near advent of that great event as surely as the budding of the trees announces the arrival of summer. But if these events which supposedly signal the nearness of Christ’s return have come and gone century after century from the days of the disciples to our own, and yet the Second Coming has never occurred, then Christ’s return is simply not the event heralded by the supposed signs in question. When Jesus gave true signs, He referred to something else, the fall of Jerusalem (Matthew 24:14-28). Further, what was commonly mistaken for signs (Matthew 4:4-13), He flatly ruled out as indicative of anything precisely because of their very ordinary commonness.

The more appropriate view is that which permits Jesus to say anything He wants to, regardless of what this does to our theories. On the surface, as all commentators who have struggled with the apparent incongruities in Jesus-’ expression, admit, He seems to include in His phrase, all these things, everything He has been saying since He started answering the disciples-’ question, i.e. in Matthew 24:4-33. So be it! To the question whether all these things really did occur within the time-span of one generation, may be given a hearty, positive answer.

The Gospel of the Kingdom was preached in all the world (Colossians 1:6; Colossians 1:23; see on Matthew 24:14).

Jerusalem was surrounded by armies, but the Christians fled anyway (Luke 21:20; see on Matthew 24:15).

National Israel was demolished in a disastrous war that desolated the Temple, the priesthood and the royal Davidic house (Matthew 24:19-22). Israel could not but wail bitterly thereat.

Jesus-’ rightful claims to divine authority were completely vindicated (Daniel 7:13 f.; Ephesians 1:20 ff.; see on Matthew 24:30 f.). He transferred the Kingdom from Israel to another people who would bring forth the fruits thereof (Matthew 21:43). When the barren. Jewish institution was finally crushed, believers could discern in it that the mighty stone the builders rejected had now become the Capstone (Matthew 21:42; Matthew 21:44; Luke 20:18). It also crushed its opponents.

God’s elect were really gathered from the four winds by His messengers. (See on Matthew 23:34; Matthew 24:31.)

All of this gives evidence that the Sovereign God who revealed Himself in Jesus of Nazareth rules supreme. This is the expression of the Kingdom of God alluded to here. (See the Special Study on the Coming of the Son of Man, my Vol. II, 430ff.; and on The Kingdom of God, my Vol. III, 160ff.)

3. All these events must occur in Jesus-’ generation (24:34)

Matthew 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all these things be accomplished. Generation, in Scripture, refers to:

The successive elements in a genealogy (Matthew 1:17).

The people living at the same time (Matthew 23:36; Matthew 24:34; Luke 17:25).

A people or class distinguished by shared qualities, usually in a bad sense in the New Testament (Matthew 17:17; Mark 8:38).

The average lifetime of a person, an age. (Cf. Colossians 1:26.)

Figuratively, a measurement of eternity (Ephesians 3:21).

In these usages the shared root meaning is the concept of contemporaries of the people involved in a generation. Were it not for prior commitments to a particular eschatological view, the common reader would understand Jesus to mean that His own contemporaries would live to witness the great events He predicted. This is the correct view, because it is sustained by the following considerations:

THE PROPHETIC FULFILLMENT ITSELF. A generation is usually considered to cover a period of roughly forty years. If the surest interpretation of a prophecy is to be sought in its undoubted fulfillment, then the fact that every event that Jesus predicted took place roughly forty years after He prophesied it, i.e. from 30-70 A.D., is corroborative evidence that He spoke literally here. (See notes on Matthew 24:29-31.)

THE APOLOGETIC AIM. McGarvey (Matthew-Mark, 351) saw that this discourse, known and preached by Jewish Christians, had special, evidential importance for that generation, as it

contained in itself a challenge to that generation of Jews to watch the course of events in their own national history, and to say whether its predictions proved true or false. No generation has lived that was so competent to expose a failure had it occurred, or that would have done so more eagerly. But the events, as they transpired, turned the prophecy into history, and demonstrated the foreknowledge of Jesus.

Through His own apostles and prophets (Matthew 23:34; Luke 11:49 f.), He addressed this crucial message, not just to any then-future generation, but to this generation. The Apostles themselves and those of their own generation who would see the beginning of these things (Matthew 24:33), would also be part of the generation that would witness the end (Matthew 24:34; cf. Matthew 16:28; Mark 9:1 with Luke 21:31 f.).

THE LINGUISTIC CONSIDERATION. Matthew’s own use of generation (geneà) outside of Mat 24:24 indicates how our author normally understood the word in question:

Four times in Jesus-’ genealogy, he uses geneà to mean the people composing successive steps in a family lineage (Matthew 1:17).

In Matthew 11:16 Jesus not only spoke of an obtuse attitude, but was addressing the fickle, unreasonable people living in His own time who showed it.

In Matthew 12:39; Matthew 12:41-42; Matthew 12:45 and Matthew 16:4 Jesus reacted to His contemporaries-’ unjust demands for further miraculous proof of His authority, despite the abundance of evidence already granted, terming them an evil, adulterous generation. But it was to this generation that He personally gave the crowning credential, the sign of Jonah. His contemporaries must answer in the Judgment for their rejection of Him who by His resurrection was fully authenticated as God’s Spokesman.

In Matthew 17:17 Jesus bemoaned the perversity of unbelief shown by the very people with whom He must continue to live, tolerating their bad attitude, i.e. His contemporaries.

In Matthew 23:36 His context conclusively clarifies His reference. He points not merely to a wicked attitude, but primarily to THE PEOPLE THEN LIVING as opposed to all preceding generations. The sons, as distinguished from your fathers, are those to whom He would send His messengers and upon whom would come His threatened judgment. While this generation did not personally slay Zechariah, it does not follow that the whole Jewish race is alluded to. Rather, Jesus affirmed that His own contemporaries shared the spirit of those who murdered that prophet in their own era, but He was not hereby re-defining generation so as to include their predecessors.

Nowhere does Matthew utilize generation (geneà) to refer exclusively to the entire Jewish race in a bloc, as a race.

THE NEAR CONTEXT. All these things that must occur in Jesus-’ generation (Matthew 24:34) refer to all these things that indicate the arrival of God’s Kingdom (Matthew 24:33; Luke 21:31). His reference, then, is broader, reaching back to sum up everything discussed earlier. He had threatened the desolation of Israel’s great house by divine retribution of His generation (Matthew 23:34-39). Pointing to the Temple, He reworded this menace, You see all these things …? There will not be left one stone upon another. (Matthew 24:2). His men questioned Him, Tell us, when will these things be? (Matthew 24:3). Then, Jesus sketched a panorama of general world conditions and specific Church problems characteristic of that period. Expressing Himself both literally and figuratively, He listed salient features of the last days of the Jewish State, and concluded, Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near (Luke 21:28). Summarizing with His fig tree parable, He uses this cumulative argument: When you see all these things (worldwide Gospel proclamation, Matthew 24:14; Matthew 24:31; Jerusalem surrounded by armies, Matthew 24:15; Luke 21:20; the destruction of the Temple, Matthew 24:2; the devastation of the Jewish State and its institutions, Matthew 24:15-28; during an era troubled by trials, turbulence and tragedy, Matthew 24:4-13; Matthew 24:29; and the glorious vindication of the Son of man, Matthew 24:30 f.), then know that the Kingdom of God is near. So, all these things embraces everything in Matthew 24:2-34.

THE LARGER CONTEXT. According to Luke 17:25, the suffering and rejection of Jesus by this generation must precede the long-awaited unveiling of the Messiah in His true glory. This clearly refers to the Jewish nation then living whose leadership and majority following would finally repudiate Jesus as their Christ. That this generation must point to His era, but not to His race, is evident. Otherwise the rejection of Jesus would involve ALL JEWS down to His Coming and the hypothesis of any final conversion of all Israel must be abandoned by its proponents.

THE QUESTION OF CONSISTENCY. Does Jesus contradict Himself? If He were promising His Second Coming during His contemporary generation, Matthew 24:34; Matthew 24:36 would be mutually contradictory. It does not follow that, because the early Christians could not possibly have continued to wait for Him, when Israel was not converted and Christ did not come, therefore they cannot have so understood the words in the sense merely of the generation then living (Biederwolf, 348). On the contrary, the trouble lies in wrongly assuming that Jesus was discussing His Return, when He really contemplated the earthly events that manifested His heavenly reign during the first century. So, those early disciples, because they were culturally prepared to interpret His words more accurately than most moderns, could have well understood His words in the sense of the generation then living. What is mistaken, rather, is the expectation that this generation must last until the Second Coming or that all Israel must be converted en masse,. (See on Matthew 23:39.)

JESUS-’ GENERAL TIME-TABLE. That this generation corresponds to Jesus-’ contemporaries is corroborated by Matthew 16:28 where He promised the majestic manifestation of His Kingdom during the lifetime of His disciples. Similarly, Luke places that same appearance during the lifetime of this generation (Luke 21:31-32; cf. Luke 9:27). Jesus warned that the final crisis of Jerusalem would occur during the lifetime of men, women and children who even then inhabited that city, (Luke 19:41-44; Luke 23:27-31). Can it be seriously doubted that He had in mind the invasion and siege by the Romans in 70 A.D.?

CAN GENERATION MEAN RACE HERE?

Because Jesus often gave a negatively loaded flavor to the expression, this generation, it is thought to refer exclusively to that entire sector of the Jews that rejected Him. Ignoring the Jewish Christians, such interpreters extend the meaning potential of this phrase to embrace all unconverted Jews generally, then affirm that Jesus wanted to promise the non-extinction of the Jewish race until the Second Coming.

Lenski’s contention (Matthew, 952) is substantially correct that generation depicts a certain kind of people whose characteristics are deducible from a given context. (Cf. Psalms 12:7 [LXX Matthew 11:8]; Psalms 78:8 [LXX Psalms 77:8]; but see Psalms 78:4; Psalms 78:6! Matthew 24:6 [LXX Matthew 23:6]; Psalms 73:15 [LXX Psalms 72:15]; etc.) However, it is also true that such people can also be living at the same time as those who do not share those same characteristics at all and from whom they are distinguished. Thus, contemporaneity is not excluded by Lenski’s argument.

Hendriksen (Matthew, 869) astutely defends the need for a solemn declaration from Jesus that the Jewish race would continue on earth until the Lord comes. In fact, this people might be supposed to deserve extermination since it turned down and murdered its own Christ, despite its particular privileges. Contrary to all historical probability, the Jews would remain a distinct people. However, the context speaks of SIGNS which would point unmistakably to the near approach of a great event, SIGNS as easily recognizable as the greening of the trees that indicate spring’s arrival, SIGNS that would not appear until the appointed time. The very continuance of the Jewish race down to the Judgment could never be a sign of its approach, because this supposed sign loses its value as a particular indication at the appropriate time, being the common experience of EVERY AGE!

Granted for sake of argument that geneà could mean both generation and race, thus permitting the prophecy to have a potentially double fulfillment, first that the Jewish race would not pass away until the destruction of Jerusalem, and, second, that the Hebrews would not disappear from the earth until Judgment, on what basis could it be proven that Jesus intended BOTH MEANINGS AT ONCE IN THE SAME SENTENCE? But that the latter meaning is not in Jesus-’ mind is indicated by the fact that the Apostles listening to Him would see all these things which must take place before that generation would pass away (Matthew 24:33).

Study other texts where generation (geneà) is used in its usual literal sense: Matthew 1:17; Luke 1:48; Luke 1:50; Acts 13:36; Acts 14:16; Acts 15:21; Ephesians 3:5; Ephesians 3:21; Colossians 1:26; Hebrews 3:10 (= Psalms 95:7 ff.). While Luke 16:8 certainly linked geneà with both the sons of this age and the sons of light, it correctly places them in the same generation, not scattered over many centuries. While Acts 2:40 and Philippians 2:15 speak of a type of people, yet nothing contextually prohibits their being contemporaries of the very people who are exhorted to distinguish themselves from such a crooked, depraved generation.

CONCLUSION

This verse, then, is truly what Kik (Matthew XXIV) styled it, the pivotal time text. It reveals Jesus-’ true prophetic perspective in that it furnishes the first, clearest SIGN of the time limitation within all the aforementioned events were to occur. Because in the first section (Matthew 24:4-14) Jesus denied that world-shaking tragedies were a sign of the end, He cannot now be stirring together events connected with both Jerusalem’s destruction and the world’s end. Because in the second section (Matthew 24:15-28) He prospected events geographically slated for Palestine and ethnically restricted to the Jewish people, these are not to be mistaken for the world’s end either. Because in the third section (Matthew 24:29-31) He adopted apocalyptic language to envision the immediate theological results of His victory and vindication, it is unnecessary that any of its images refer to Judgment Day either. So, when Jesus formed the time-frame that confined His prophetic perspective to the era of His own contemporaries, that settles the question as to His subject. Up to this verse He predicted God’s sentence only upon the unbelieving of Judaism. From this point on He will proceed to describe a universal judgment that involves not one but all nations.

4. The certainty of the predicted events (24:35)

Matthew 24:35 **Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. **In this context there are two things that will not pass away: this generation (Matthew 24:34) and the words of Jesus and durability of His words is more lasting than the universe itself! Earlier (Matthew 5:18), Jesus had affirmed the permanent validity of the Mosaic Law until its complete fulfillment. Now He places His own word on that same level! How dare this thirty-year-old Galilean invite comparison between His own words with the apparently permanent forces of the universe? Yet, if heaven and earth are upheld by the word of God and by that same means shall pass away (Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3; Hebrews 1:10 ff.; 2 Peter 3:5-7; 2 Peter 3:10-13), this bold assertion of Jesus demands that we admit that His own statements possess all the omnipotence and eternity of God. Because this declaration concludes Jesus-’ prophecy, it constitutes His personal signature to the certainty of its fulfillment. For His words to pass away, the prophetic predictions filling this chapter must fail to be fulfilled as foretold.

While we are right to recognize that my words mean anything Jesus says, here He points specifically to everything He had just predicted. The Jerusalem Temple, that sun around which Judaism’s solar system revolved, had seemed to Jesus-’ followers as durable as heaven and earth, and so much an integral part of God’s program that it could never perish. Now they must learn that only what Jesus says is truly imperishable and more dependable than any spiritual or material universe they had known before (See notes on Matthew 24:29.)

His claim, My words shall not pass away, is the more striking in light of His subsequent confession not to know the date of His Second Coming (Matthew 24:36). However, Jesus-’ well-established foreknowledge of the Jewish wars and Jerusalem’s fall have established beyond all doubt His claim to be God’s Son and to know what He is talking about when He reveals what He DOES know. (See on Matthew 24:36.) He knows about the future Judgment too. Let all who hear Christ’s sure word take it into account in shaping their lives!

FACT QUESTIONS

What, according to Jesus, is the point of the comparison in the fig tree parable?

What information does Luke alone furnish that assists our interpretation of the fig tree story?

What is the thing which Jesus compares the appearance of leaves on the trees? How do you know?

What does the expression at the very gates (or: doors) mean?

What are some of the Biblical definitions of the word generation as these may be ascertained from the uses the Bible makes of the word?

Which of these definitions is appropriate here in Matthew 24:32-35? How do you know?

What does Jesus include in the expression: all these things in the sentence, This generation shall not pass away, till all these things be accomplished? Defend your answer, explaining how you decide this.

Jesus, Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Explain how the first expression serves to clarify the second. In what sense shall heaven and earth pass away: literally? figuratively? Or is this only a relative comparison? In what sense will Jesus-’ word not pass away?

Luke quotes Jesus as affirming that the Kingdom of God is what is approaching. To what phase of God’s rule does Jesus allude, if all of the foregoing detailed prophecies are to be considered harbingers of it?

Matthew 24:36-42

**III. CHRIST’S SECOND COMING (24:36-25:46)

A. The Date Known but to God (24:36) (Parallel: Mark 13:32)**

36 But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only.

**B. Stories Illustrating Important Characteristics of the Final End-Times

Illustration From Life Before the Flood (24:37-42)**

(Parallel: Mark 13:33; Luke 21:34-36)

37 And as were the days of Noah, so shall be the coming of the Son of man. 38 For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, 39 and they knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall be the coming of the Son of man. 40 Then shall two men be in the field; one is taken and one is left: 41 two women shall be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left. 42 Watch therefore; for ye know not on what day your Lord cometh.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

Jesus seems to believe in angels. Do you? What does their existence mean to you?

Do you think it is safe for the Son of God, the revealer of truth and the way back to God, to admit that He does not know the time of His return? Does not this admission compromise our total confidence in His other revelations? In what sense can He affirm His ignorance on this point without compromising His authority?

Do you see anything significant about the order of Jesus-’ words: no one (man). the angels. the Son. the Father? If so, what is the significance?

Some think that Jesus has now changed the subject from events connected with His own generation to the Second Coming. Others believe He changed the subject back in Matthew 24:29. Which of these two views is more nearly correct? On what basis do you decide as you do?

Some notice that Jesus denied that any human being knows the day and hour of His coming, but said nothing about their knowing the year, month or week. Accordingly, say they, we may discover these latter with reasonable certainty. Do Jesus-’ words refer to the exact day and hour in the sense of the hour or minute? Or is His meaning more general? What other texts or information would clarify His intended meaning?

Why is the time of Jesus-’ return known only to God? Of what advantage to us is this?

How does the fact that Matthew and Mark cited Jesus-’ ignorance of the final date actually comfort us by assuring us that all else they relate about Jesus is true?

How does Jesus-’ admission of ignorance about the date of His return actually build and confirm our faith in Him rather than weaken or destroy it?

Some consider the story of Noah and the flood to be a fable grossly exaggerated and not to be taken seriously as sober history. On the basis of His reference to Noah and company, do you think Jesus agrees that Noah’s flood is purely legendary? How certain do you think Jesus was that the information in Genesis 6-9 really occurred as written? What does this say about Genesis as a book? about Noah? about the flood? about Jesus? about you?

Do you see anything wrong with what people were doing in Noah’s day? After all, they were eating and drinking, marrying and given in marriage. Do not these activities characterize our normal everyday life? What could be so wrong about this? Further, Jesus-’ application pictures people at work in the field or at the mill. Surely this is not wrong too? How could these ordinary activities have anything to do with man’s unpreparedness for (1) Noah’s flood or (2) Christ’s Second Coming? ,

What is the psychological problem of people who try desperately to learn the date of Christ’s return? How, according to the Scriptures, can such people be helped?

What should we think of people who, by explanations of prophecy or other methods, try to discover what even God’s Son did not know? What should we think about their explanations?

Jesus said, Watch therefore, for you know not.. In what way(s) should our daily activities be permeated with a sense of watchfulness? How should we organize our daily affairs, so as to be able to do this? By neither eating nor drinking, marrying nor being given in marriage? Should we not work in the field or grind at the mill?

What major Bible doctrine is reaffirmed by the expression: one is taken and one is left?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

However, as to the precise date or when that hour will strike, NOBODY knows, not even the heavenly messengers nor the Son. Only the Father knows. In fact, the second coming of the Messiah will be just like it was in Noah’s time. In those days just before the flood they went right on eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, right up to the very day when Noah entered the ark. Those people were unaware of the impending danger until the flood actually came and swept them all away. This is the way the Messiah’s coming will take place. At that time two men will be working together in the field. One will be swept away and one will remain. Two women will be grinding at a handmill. One will be swept away and the other will remain. But be on your guard, lest your minds be coarsened by self-indulgent carousing and drunkenness and by the worries of this life, so that that Day suddenly overtake you. It will go off like a trap, catching all the inhabitants of the entire earth. Be constantly on the alert and pray, since you have no idea when your Lord is coming. Pray that you may have the ability to survive all these things that are about to take place, and to stand with confidence in the presence of Christ Himself!

SUMMARY

The time of Christ’s Second Coming is known only to the Father. Life on earth at that time will continue right up to the last minute as if nothing were going to happen. This very ordinariness and normalcy could lull the believer into complacency. Therefore, to avoid this trap, prayer is required for strength to survive and to stand victoriously before the tribunal of Christ Himself!

NOTES A. The Date Known but to God (24:36)

Matthew 24:36 **But of that day and hour. **Kik (Matthew XXIV) correctly entitled this verse the transition text, because Jesus has abruptly but clearly changed the subject, a fact made evident in various ways:

Note the triumphant finality with which Matthew 24:35 closes the predictions concerning the fall of the Jewish state in the lifetime of Jesus-’ generation.

Jesus then introduces the following material with but (de). Granted, this is not a strong adversative conjunction in Greek, but it implies some kind of contrast between the foregoing material and what comes next.

The subject introduced next is that day (singular), whereas in the foregoing section (Matthew 24:4-35) He treated those days (plural). (Matthew 24:19; Matthew 24:22 = Mark 13:17; Mark 13:19 = Luke 21:23) In Matthew 24:36 Jesus speaks of a specific day and hour. This distinction between singular, day, and plural, days, is neither accidental nor insignificant. Kik (Matthew XXIV, 102) observed

Nowhere in the New Testament is the pluralthe days, days of vengeance, those daysused in reference to the second coming of Christ or to the final judgment.. A general impression prevails that the term, last days, has reference to a short period just before the second coming of Christ, but that term is not so defined in Scriptures. The last days began with the first advent of Christ and will continue until his second advent. This is indicated in a number of scriptural passages (Hebrews 1:1 f.; Acts 2:16 f.; 1 John 2:18; 1 Peter 1:20).. The plural does not refer either to the second coming or the final judgment.

That day is decidedly unique, since there could not be many, truly final last Days, but only one definitive Last Day. In this light, then, that day and hour became a practically fixed, well-defined technical term reinforced by Jesus-’ further instruction. (Cf. Matthew 24:42; Matthew 24:44; Matthew 24:50; Matthew 25:13; Mark 13:32 f.; Luke 21:34.) Earlier, our Lord spoke of the Judgment as that day (Matthew 7:22) and revealed much about the day of Judgment (Matthew 11:22; Matthew 11:24; Matthew 12:36). This usage is reflected in the Apostles-’ language. (Cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:4; 2 Thessalonians 1:10; 2 Timothy 1:12; 2 Timothy 1:18; 2 Timothy 4:8; 1 Corinthians 3:13; Jude 1:6, etc.)

This verse unequivocally changes the subject from Jerusalem’s last days to the Final Day of the world. When Jesus affirmed that no one knows that day and hour, He clearly distinguished this particular Day from ALL the days for which He had earlier furnished some clear, definite signs of their near approach. Contrarily, concerning this one Day He denies that anyone can discern the time of its arrival, because there shall be no forewarning evidence given. For this latter Day only constant readiness would suffice due to its absolutely unknowable arrival date (Matthew 24:42 to Matthew 25:46). The approximate time of Jerusalem’s fall could be estimated with reasonable accuracy, but the moment of the world’s Last Day remains a state secret of the Almighty.

**But of that day and hour knoweth no one. **Some argue that Jesus did not deny we can calculate the month, year or century, since He only indicated as secret the day and hour. Nevertheless, that He intends to declare absolutely unknown and unknowable the general period of His return is explicitly declared by Mark (Mark 13:33): Watch and pray, for you do not know when THE TIME will come. Further, hour need not mean the specific schedule, but time generally. (Cf. John 2:4; John 4:21; John 4:23; John 5:25; John 5:28; John 7:30; John 8:20; John 12:23; John 13:1; John 16:2; John 17:1.) In this sense, day and hour are but two ways of referring to the same time period in question, technically a hendiadys. Either way, as Bruce (Training, 328) noted,

This statement, that the time of the end is known alone to God, excludes the idea that it can be calculated, or that data are given in Scripture for that purpose. If such data be given, then the secret is virtually disclosed. We therefore regard the calculations of students of prophecy respecting the times and seasons as random guesses unworthy of serious attention.

If the Son of God Himself does not know, how could any dumb disciple expect to guess it right?! This inescapably real human ignorance will be underlined no less than six times in His message (Matthew 24:42; Matthew 24:44; Matthew 24:50; Matthew 25:13; Mark 13:33; Mark 13:35; Luke 21:34).

Not even the angels of heaven. Study Jesus-’ doctrine of angels in Matthew (Matthew 13:39-42; Matthew 13:49 f.; Matthew 16:27; Matthew 18:10; Matthew 22:30; Matthew 25:31; Matthew 25:41; Matthew 26:53). Angels are possibly inserted here because, despite their specially privileged relationship and access to God (Matthew 18:10) and despite their own participation in particular phases of the world’s Last Day (Matthew 13:41; cf. Revelation 14:19), they have not been informed of God’s eschatological timetable. This automatically disarms in advance any false prophet who tries to claim inside information on this critical date on the basis of claimed angelic revelations.

Neither the Son. Before puzzling over Jesus-’ admission to ignorance, we must note in what order He named each protagonist:

Created beings: man (no one, oudeis, masculine) and the angels of heaven.

Uncreated Beings: the Son and the Father.

Further, starting with man, He traced an ascending scale from the purely human to the purely Divine, inserting between them, first, created spirits, the angels, then the uncreated Son, the eternal Word made flesh. Jesus expresses His true identity openly. He is simply not an ignorant human like anyone else, because He writes His own name with the heavenly beings, between God and the angels. Mackenzie (P.H.C., XXIII, 478) stated the appropriateness of this order beautifully:

Let the name of any of the prophets or apostles be substituted for the designation of Christ, and a sentence is produced at which even a Socinian (anti-trinitarian denier of Christ’s divinity, HEF) might stagger. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither Moses, but the Father. It matters little what particular name is selected for the experiment. Isaiah, Daniel, Paul or John, in such a collocation, would be alike incongrous with the whole phraseology and spirit of the Bible. Why, then, would such an announcement have revolted us, when the name of the Son, in this identical connexion, awakens no surprise? Manifestly because the human soul of Christ, from its conjunction with the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of His person, was admitted to a knowledge of the counsel of God which is never ascribed to any other creature; manifestly because in Him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

Neither Matthew nor Mark hesitate to report this confessed ignorance of His return date. Were they attempting to foist off on the world a false Messiah, they could not have afforded to risk inclusion of such an embarrassing admission. But the marvel is that our Evangelists think they run no risk to report this astonishing admission. Why? Because they are absolutely certain that nothing is so convincing as truth and they tell this about Jesus, perfectly confident that this confession of ignorance really detracts nothing from His glory.

Our faith in Jesus Himself is not undermined by His frank confession of limitations. Rather, does not Jesus-’ rigorous honesty actually undergird our confidence in Him? We would have had far less faith in Him, had He faked an answer to this crucial question. Nevertheless, He had the moral courage to risk the loss of every disciple by stating, I do not know. Further, He said it in the face of all the withering criticism of future generations of scoffers whether erudite or not. But, all risks notwithstanding, we may stand with Him who could unflinchingly tell us the truth, however apparently embarrassing it be to His position, however gratifying to His critics and however astonishing to His followers. This unswerving honesty marks Him a true ambassador and credible spokesman for God. (Cf. John 7:18.)

Why did not Jesus know this date? Following Biederwolf (348), we may summarize three attempts to resolve this quandary thus:

This ignorance is referred to Christ’s human nature and is consistent with the statement that He emptied Himself (Philippians 2:5 ff.) and increased in wisdom (Luke 2:52) and learned obedience (Hebrews 5:8 f.). The unique combination of complete humanness and true deity in one Person remains beyond our human comprehension, but not beyond our belief, given the sufficiency of the evidence. If He, as man, did not know this date, so what? This is a characteristic of man.

He knew personally, but not officially, i.e. Christ was using hyperbolical language to show that the great event was to be kept a profound secret, the knowledge not having been given Him as regards us, i.e. for the purpose of being communicated to us.. But this seems something of an attempt to evade the plain meaning of the expression, the ignorance referred to being the same as that of man and angels with which it is connected. Further, had Jesus known the date, but refused to reveal it, we would be irresistibly tempted to dissect His words for some hint hidden there. Contrarily, what He does imply about His return date is that its delay would be so indefinite and the interval preceding it so impossible to calculate that numerous disciples would surrender their alertness, cease their preparations and return to sinfulness and debunk the doctrine as mere hero legend.

Schaff, who does not like this dualistic separation between Christ’s two natures, suggests a voluntary self-limitation of knowledge on the part of Christ, i.e. a sacred unwillingness to know. He who could have requested twelve legions of angels, but opted to undergo the shame and submitted to separation from the Father, could He not also surrender to the indignity of now knowing this date? Even if this perfect Judge alone knows the Father and what was in man, might He not for our sakes decide not to be above mankind by knowing that day and hour?

Whichever view is taken, a clear distinction must be made between His ignorance of this one item and the possibility of error when, as a true prophet, He revealed the mind of God. For, had He been only a man, He would have rendered Himself ridiculous in the extreme to entitle Himself the Son, placing Himself alongside the Father and superior to angels. Further, were He but a common, ignorant mortal, to describe Himself as the Son of man, a title true in that sense of anyone else, becomes no title at all. But because He was the GOD-MAN, His appropriation of the title, Son of man, becomes a highly relevant revelation of His true nature. To the question whether His knowledge were limited in other ways, we may respond that this is the only recorded subject on which He had to answer, I do not know.

So, why is the time not known to the Son, but to the Father only? Earlier, Jesus had taught that the Father has sovereign right to establish certain priorities (Matthew 20:23; cf. Deuteronomy 29:29; Acts 1:7). The motive for God’s secreting this information may not lie in some weakness of Jesus-’ nature, but in the nature of OUR weakness. Every human being must live with the uncertainty of the date of judgment. Consequently, when we realize that any day could be our last, to please God, we orient all our priorities in view of His judgment (2 Corinthians 5:9 f.; 2 Peter 3:8-13). This aims to motivate each generation to live in a state of expectancy that God’s Judgment Day could arrive in its own lifetime, and so make the required preparation. So, it may be that Jesus, the Son of man, chose to live as any other human being, motivated by this same uncertainty. Hence, His thorough-going identification with us, His brethren, cost Him this knowledge.

Two implications are evident in the fact that only the Father knows the date:

If Jesus does not know the date of His return, then nothing revealed in this entire discourse may be interpreted as offering certain signs of that event, because this would imply that He DID know.

Everything else Jesus will say next grows out of this complete human ignorance of the world’s Last Day and urges practical preparation for it in light of this limitation. To suppose that clever calculations of the signs on our part could discover that date is to eviscerate the following lessons on all meaning. (See notes on Matthew 24:42; Matthew 24:44; Matthew 24:50; Matthew 25:13; cf. Luke 21:34 f.; Mark 13:35.)

Plummer (Matthew, 340) sees the following illustrations as Jesus-’ treatment of mankind’s having to live with the tension between the certainty of judgment and the uncertainty of the date on which all must face that judgment. He asks, What effect will this combination of certainty and uncertainty have upon mankind? Jesus answers by indicating what effect this tension SHOULD have on each disciple. Analyze how each story illustrates this.

Matthew 24:37-42

**B. Stories Illustrating Important Features of the Final End-Times

Illustration From Life Before the Flood: Business As Usual (24:37-42)**

Matthew 24:37 And as were the days of Noah, so shall be the coming of the Son of man. That day and hour (Matthew 24:36) are now identified as the long-awaited coming of the Son of man (parousìa). By using this technical term for His Second Coming, He does not mean a spiritual, invisible coming in temporal providential blessing or judgment, but that great final event alone (Matthew 24:27). This illustration was used more than once (cf. Luke 17:26 f.). The days of Noah are described in Genesis 6-9; Hebrews 11:7; 1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 2:5. Jesus stated His conclusion first, filling in details next.

As. so. The situation before the flood serves as a basis for Jesus-’ comparison, but does He thereby intend to validate the historicity of the Noachic epoch? How could a dubious fable wield the convincing power to drive men to act, if it is objectively untrue? Obvious fictions do not transform character. So, it is psychologically improbable that our Lord would resort to religious fiction to support the comparison He drew. Consider the illogic of those who would demythologize Genesis: Christ’s return will be like the days of Noah. But the days of Noah never were. So, Christ’s return is founded on a literary allusion of dubious worth, but still teaches the moral lesson. No pious fraud has the fearful power to move the conscience and will like the true execution of divine justice on guilty mankind. Jesus assumed His comparison is grounded in facts that actually occurred.

Matthew 24:38 **For **as **in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark. **Jesus does not point to any gross iniquity in Noah’s contemporaries, since the activities to which they are here pictured as giving themselves, are neutral per sè. Similarly, in Lot’s day, people were buying and selling, planting and building (Luke 17:28). Rather, their grave miscalculation arose from their careless indifference to God’s solemn calls to repentance. They conducted their daily routine as if no judgment would strike, as if there would always be a tomorrow just like today in which to dash off a quick prayer of contrition and rush for the ark, should that unlikely event ever really become necessary. They married and settled down comfortably in the common activities of life and turned off Noah’s preaching as alarmist extremism. It would be mistaken to suppose that the great tribulation of Rev 7:14 could not be in full swing before Jesus comes, merely because He describes the world as engaged in its ordinary pursuits, because these relatively untroubled people may not be identified with those who undergo the Christian tribulation referred to. In fact, these happy-go-lucky folk conducting their normal life may actually be contributing to the tribulation of the godly.

Matthew 24:39 **And they knew not. **WHAT did they not know? Had not Noah preached righteousness and judgment to come (Hebrews 11:7; 2 Peter 2:5)? Did they not know that God meant business when He threatened them with annihilation? They knew not that they could not get away with their godless lives until God brought them irrefutable evidence that He meant what He said, that Noah was His servant, that the soul that sins shall die, and that there are no exceptions. Although they had indeed been informed, they did not fully perceive the danger they were in until disaster struck.

WHY did they not know? Because they did not want to. The demands of God and of conscience were, then as today, postponed or relegated to the realm of the irrelevant, explained away -naturally,-’ -reasonably,-’ even -scientifically,-’ until the fatal day arrives (Lenski, Matthew, 956). Gross immorality is not the big problem because of the magnitude of God’s forgiving grace. The real issue is this willful, therefore culpable, indifference to warnings, this gross ignorance caused by turning their mind off to God.

Many hold that the great astronomical cataclysms and signs in the sky (Matthew 24:29-31; Luke 21:11; Luke 21:25 f.) are literal warnings that sound the alarm of the world’s end. Were that true, on what basis could Jesus affirm here that the world shall continue to operate on a business-as-usual basis right up to moment of His return, blithely unaware that its eternal destiny is about to break in upon them? How could the world of tomorrow be taken by surprise as was Noah’s world if there were spatial fireworks warning men to get right with God? The fact is that they knew not because there were no suns refusing to shine, no moons not giving their light, no stars falling from heaven to alarm them. Consequently, because no such astronomical credentials of God’s impending judgment scared those of Noah’s day into making a last-minute frantic dash for the ark, we are not at liberty to interpret Matthew 24:29-31 as if it meant that the Day of Jesus-’ Return shall be preceded by literal, heavenly clues that permit men to foresee its dawning. The absolute security of Noah’s generation, which serves as the basis of Jesus-’ comparison totally excludes the appearance of millennial harbingers when He returns. Contrary to Alford (I, 246), the security here spoken of is totally inconsistent with the anguish and fear prophesied in Luke 21:25 f., because two different events are described: there, the end of the Jewish era in God’s economy; here, the end of the world.

**Until the flood came and took them all away. **Jesus-’ second point of comparison concerns the abruptness, finality and inescapability with which judgment comes to an unexpecting, unprepared world.

Matthew 24:40 **Then shall two men be in the field; one is taken, and one is left. 41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left. **These two vignettes carry forward Jesus-’ earlier point: life will proceed as usual right down to the last second before the Second Coming. Simply because the schedule of Jesus-’ return cannot be known, His saints will not be climbing some mountain peak or crowding into church buildings to await His arrival. Rather, like anyone else, they will be involved in typical daily occupations, such as field-work done by men or food preparation by women. (Cf. Exodus 11:5.) To grind grain into flour for bread, these two women are seated on the floor. Between them are the two grind-stones that constitute the mill, one stone mounted atop the other. Depending on the weight of the upper mill-stone, the strength of both women would be needed to turn it. Seated opposite each other, one turns the upper mill-stone a half turn; the other, the remaining half turn, while grain is dropped through a hole in the center of the upper stone.

But Jesus-’ point is not simply to repeat the lesson of ordinary human activity, as in Noah’s day, but also to focus on the rigorous individuality of the final separation: one is taken and one is left. Christ’s return to judge the world will produce a complete, permanent separation between people who, in other exterior respects, are alike and are even toiling side by side at the same occupations. (See on Matthew 13:24-30; Matthew 13:37-43.) The critical factor is each individual’s preparation to meet God. However physically near two people may be while working at a common task, they may be worlds apart on the question of Jesus Christ and their love for God’s Kingdom.

Who is to be taken and who left? Some hold that this language teaches that believers are to be taken away from the earth prior to the consummation of all things specifically before a great period of tribulation which, say they, shall be brought on the wicked. Our verses are cited to establish this massive secret rapture. Others hold that this mysterious exodus of the believers is scheduled during, or even after, the great tribulation, but not necessarily in conjunction with Jesus-’ return. Still others see those taken as received up in glory by the returning Christ, by supposed cross-reference to Matthew 24:31 thought to harmonize with 1 Thessalonians 4:16 f.

Contextually, however, Jesus-’ total illustration focuses on a different perspective. He now enters into the particulars to explain how people will be taken away, not merely en masse, as by a flood, but individually and personally, while each is engaged in life’s common occupations, and yet as thoroughly separated as Noah was from his contemporaries. But who was actually taken: Noah or his wicked contemporaries? In his day it was THE UNGODLY, because the flood came and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. The wicked are the intruders who have invaded and polluted a world that belongs to God and His people. So, for the happiness and tranquility of the righteous, the ungodly must be removed. This is in the style of God to remove the unrighteous by His punitive justice and leave His people in possession of the earth as their inheritance (Psalms 1; Psalms 37:9-15, Psalms 37:21 f., Psalms 27-29, 34; Matthew 5:5; cf. Romans 4:13).

The ancient world was taken away, but Noah was left. At the Red Sea the Egyptians were taken away, but Israel was left alive and free. Sodom and Gomorrah were taken by fire and brimstone, but Lot was left to go away. Daniel’s accusers were taken away by lions, but Daniel was left completely vindicated. The tares will be taken away and burned, but the wheat shall be left to be gathered into God’s granary. The bad fish shall be taken away, but the good alone will be left. The wicked shall not stand in the judgment, but those who do the will of God will abide forever. (1 John 2:17; cf. Zechariah 13:8 f. in the context of Mat 12:1 to Matthew 14:21.)

So, it is not at all certain that the taken are God’s raptured saints, gathered more or less secretly out of this present evil age. Rather, both in Matthew and Luke (Luke 17:22-37), Jesus pictures sudden destruction that thundered down on complacently wicked people. Far clearer is the supposition that Jesus proposes to take the unprepared by surprise to their destruction and leave the godly in possession of their inheritance. This only apparently conflicts with our being caught up to meet Him in the air (John 14:3; 1 Thessalonians 4:13 ff.), since the saved expect to inherit a new universe in which righteousness feels at home (2 Peter 3:13; Isaiah 65:17; Isaiah 66:22). So, Jesus-’ prophecy teaches simply that, after the dust settles, the only ones left standing victorious in possession of the land will be the Christians! (See on Matthew 5:5.) In fact, sudden angelic harvesting will first gather the wicked from among the righteous (Matthew 13:41 ff., Matthew 13:49 f. interprets Matthew 13:30: Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.) Once the weeds are harvested, all that remains is the Owner’s good grain, i.e. the righteous, God’s people. Are the following texts ap-propos? Psalms 37:9-11; Psalms 55:22 f; Psalms 58:9-11; Psalms 64:1-10; Isaiah 26:20 f.; Revelation 3:9 f; Revelation 18:4; Revelation 19:1-9.

Matthew 24:42 **Watch therefore: for ye know not on what day your Lord cometh. **This, Jesus thinks, is the appropriate conclusion to His first illustration. So saying, He settled three points:

THE CERTAINTY OF THE DAY: Your Lord is coming.

He who comes is your Lord, so glorious, powerful and clothed with authority and majesty is he; also, and who are loyal to him. Cf. Isaiah 57:15 (Hendriksen, Matthew, 871).

Your Lord is coming: His return is certain. The sufferings of human existence are not eternal, because human history itself is not endless. Rather, the date for the final vanquishing of evil is now in the hands of Christ Jesus, the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth. Our certainty of His reign does not rest in knowing the date of His coming, but in our confidence in His Lordship, in the complete sovereignty of His reign and in the absolute certainty of His coming to draw history to a decisive close.

THE CONCEALMENT OF THE DELAY: You know not on what day. No time has been revealed, so signs given to enable anyone to forecast the dawning of the final Day of the Lord (1 Thessalonians 5:1 ff.). No sectarian time-setting or sign-watching could be more perverse or futile, since it arises out of curiosity to know what Jesus says cannot be known and ignores this unequivocal declaration of the Lord Himself that the time or season cannot be computed (cf. Mark 13:33). Jesus next reinforced this point with three illustrations that undergird this basic truth.

THE CONSEQUENT DUTY: Watch therefore. In the tension resulting from the certainty of Jesus-’ return and from the lack of any clue to the date, the correct Christian attitude is that mental and moral alertness that is ever the price of freedom and one of the sources of our true happiness (Revelation 16:15). In Greek, watch (grçgoreîte) does not involve simply looking at something so much as being awake and alert intellectually and spiritually, as illustrated in Jesus-’ stories that follow. Although everyone in these parables had his own specific duties, this constant sense of expectancy is to be their common responsibility and the spirit in which each is to work. For the Church to abstain from daily work and normal human activities in order to search the skies (watching) for the first inkling of His return, would be to misinterpret His meaning entirely. What, then, is the mainspring that activates the watching spirit?

Contextually, it is primarily the absolute impossibility to ascertain the time of Jesus-’ return.

Is it not more especially a loving eagerness to please Him who has entrusted such gifts to us, a warm affection for our returning Lord that invigorates our sense of responsibility and stimulates us to diligent, almost inspired, activity?

Is it not also an alert, hopeful anticipation of His pleasure upon returning to find our work in progress, and a longing for His warm, hearty praise?

So, watchfulness has its alert eye on the Lord’s purposes, program and methods. Jesus-’ antithesis to watchfulness is reported by Luke 21:34-36): Take heed to yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a snare. It is not merely the gluttons and drunkards who are suddenly trapped, but also those everyday worriers whose concern for food, raiment and creature comforts takes their attention from the unseen spiritual concerns of man’s true destiny and from the one object of man’s existence, judgment before the returned Christ. This distraction permits the great judgment morning to dawn as unwelcome and unprepared for as a surprise attack. When terrified sinners are horrified by their unpreparedness in the presence of the overpowering majesty of the returned Christ, His prepared people confidently stand on their feet cheering in the presence of their Savior, Lord and King. (Consider Psalms 1:5; Malachi 3:2; Isaiah 33:13-16; Philippians 2:10; 1 Corinthians 16:22; Jude 1:24!)

FACT QUESTIONS

On what basis may it be affirmed that the expression that day and hour refers to the Second Coming and the end of the world? Had Jesus been discussing this in the immediate context?

On what other occasion(s) did Jesus affirm that only the Father decides the sequence of events in human history and established His own priorities?

Where had Jesus used the illustration of Noah and the flood earlier? (book and chapter) What was He illustrating in that context?

State the main point of the illustration taken from the days of Noah.

What Greek technical word did Jesus use to indicate that He refers only to His Second Coming, not to a spiritual, invisible coming either in temporal judgment on His enemies nor in temporal blessing on His people?

List the various activities of everyday life going on in Noah’s day and at Jesus-’ return.

What is meant by the phrase: one is taken and one is left? Taken where? Left where?

What touch of realism is pictured in the fact that two women shall be grinding at the mill? What kind of a mill is involved?

Matthew 24:43-44

2. Illustration of the Burglar (24:43f.)

43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what watch the thief was coming, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken through. 44 Therefore be ye also ready; for in an hour that ye think not the Son of man cometh.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

How does this story differ in emphasis from the previous one?

Why do you think Jesus told several different stories centering around His principle topic? What effect would such repetition produce on the reader or hearer?

Do you think it is wise for Jesus to compare Himself to a burglar?

What is this hour that you think not? Is it an hour when you think Jesus will not come?

If the New Testament instructs us to expect Jesus-’ return at any moment and to prepare adequately for it, how can Jesus affirm that He will return when we do not expect Him? That is, how can we expect Him and not expect Him at the same time?

Despite the uncertainty about God’s scheduling of the Second Coming, what grand truth is not at all uncertain, according to Jesus?

If you are so sure about Jesus-’ return, did you actually look up this morning and pray, Lord, will this be the day? How would a prayer in this spirit help you to be ready?

PARAPHRASE

You can be sure that if the head of the house had known in what part of the night the burglar was coming, he would have kept awake and not allowed his house to be broken into. So, you too must be ready, because the Messiah’s second coming will take place at a time when you do not expect Him.

SUMMARY

Although Christ’s return will occur at some unknowable moment, you can know to be prepared.

**NOTES

Illustration of the Burglar: The Time is Unpredictable, So Be Always Ready.**

Matthew 24:43 But know this: the following all-too-common experience is your fair warning that your situation parallels that of someone personally responsible for protecting his house and its contents against theft (Luke 12:39 f.). If the master of the house had known … he would not have suffered. This is a hypothesis contrary to fact, because he could not have known the exact time of the thief’s coming, because thieves give no advance warning to their victims. Worse, the owner could not even know for certain whether the thief were even coming, much less in what watch. Watch refers to the division of the night into guard-duty of 3-4 hours for each watch which is marked by a change of the guard. (Note on Matthew 14:25; cf. Judges 7:19; 1 Samuel 11:11; Lamentations 2:19; Luke 12:38.) For people living in houses constructed even out of stone, to have their walls broken through is a grimly real possibility. (Cf. Matthew 6:19, thieves dig through and steal. The householder’s only hope lay in constant vigilance.)

Matthew 24:44 **Therefore be ye also ready; for in an hour that ye think not the Son of man cometh. **So Jesus compared Himself to a thief only in one point: the absolutely unknowable time of His coming. Elsewhere this same thief in the night motif is caught up and developed as psychological motivation for repentance and service (1 Thessalonians 5:2 ff.; 2 Peter 3:10; Revelation 3:3; Revelation 16:15). Be ye also ready. It is everywhere assumed that the Christian need not be caught unawares, because, while many certainties surround the Second Coming, one thing is totally certain: the Son of man is coming! No uncertainty about the schedule or manner of His return can justify any relaxing of our readiness. Be ready: no cost or effort must be thought too great to be adequately prepared. This readiness involves alertness and sobriety (Romans 13:11-14). Physical rest in sleep is not condemned. Rather, He rejects that moral indifference to God that shows itself in a lack of concern to ready oneself appropriately for the Final Day (Matthew 22:11 ff.).

**For in an hour that **ye **think not, the **Son of man cometh. Now the disciples are compared to the master of the house in two ways: (1) there would be no forewarning of the coming; and (2) they would need constant vigilance. This truth has several ramifications:

The Lord will send no special last days signs to warn Christians in that last fateful generation of His near approach. This parable stands in direct contrast to the lesson of the fig tree (Matthew 24:32 f.). The fig tree furnishes clear indication of the arrival of summer, whereas the burglar gives absolutely no advance notice of his arrival. Therefore, the events indicated by the story of the thief in the night cannot be identified with those fore pictured by the parable of the fig tree. The fig tree speaks of the death-throes of Israel’s institutions, whereas the thief in the night speaks only of Christ’s Second Coming.

This inability to know harmonizes with the character of our dispensation. Our era is one of walking by faith, not by sight or full information on every event in God’s timing (2 Corinthians 4:18; 2 Corinthians 5:7). The very nature of the Christian epoch would be drastically warped, were it possible for us to ascertain our future infallibly. We could delay our obedience and dally until shortly before the fated hour and finally repent at leisure after a life of self-indulgence. As it is, however, the very uncertainty of every moment of our lives argues convincingly for godliness in every minute, for it could be our last.

God is running this program! There is no room for presumption on our part. Whether we die and go to be with the Lord, or whether He returns first, the result is the same: prepared or not, we must appear before Him who is our Judge. Every day of opportunity is His gracious gift to welcome and to live joyously, thankfully and responsibly. What our Lord intends to do at any future point, He can well set in motion today. Therefore, every second is potentially history’s last.

Lenski (Matthew, 957) exclaimed, That is the astonishing feature about the uncertainty regarding the time. Even those who are constantly on the watch will be completely surprised. Note: not unprepared; just surprised by its sudden arrival.

At the same time, the unexpected coming of the thief must not be misunderstood to mean stealth or impossibility of discovery, as if Jesus were teaching a secret rapture. Rather, Peter underlines the great noise involved in Jesus-’ coming as a thief (2 Peter 3:10). The greater marvel would be if nobody noticed His arrival, despite the earth-shaking calamities he described (2 Peter 3:4)!

FACT QUESTIONS

Define a watch in the night. To what does it refer in Jesus-’ story?

What is meant by the expression, broken through, with reference to a house?

In what way is Jesus like the thief in the night? How is He different?

In what way is the believer like the householder? How is he different?

What precautions should the believer make under the circumstances Jesus described?

Despite the uncertainties involved, what event is absolutely certain?

What is the principal topic of which this parable is illustration?

LET’S PREVIEW THE FOLLOWING PARABLES

Note how closely each of the following parables shares certain common qualities with the others and develops Jesus-’ general theme:

Eachg story is addressed to Jesus-’ disciples, hence does not speak about the world particularly. Rather, each addresses problems that concern Christians intimately, by speaking to the issue of Christian responsibility during the period between Pentecost and the Second Coming.

Each parable concerns an important figure who is absent, but returns. The point of each illustration turns on what would transpire upon his return. This aspect emphasizes the responsibility of those who await him during his absence. In its own way each story emphasizes (1) the uncertainty of the time of the Lord’s return; (2) the necessity for appropriate preparation for that event during his absence; and (3) the rewards or punishments for success or failure to do this.

The parable of the conscientious and the hypocritical servant sees stewards left in charge of the household of an absent master (Matthew 24:45-51).

(1)

THE UNCERTAINTY OF THE TIME: My master is delayed (Matthew 24:48).

(2)

THE RESPONSIBILITY: to give them their food at the proper time (Matthew 24:45).

(3)

THE REWARDS: He will set him over all his possessions or punish him and put him with the hypocrites (Matthew 24:47; Matthew 24:51).

The parable of the ten virgins depicts ten girls awaiting the coming of an absent bridegroom (Matthew 25:1-13).

(1)

THE UNCERTAINTY OF THE TIME: The bridegroom was delayed (Matthew 25:5).

(2)

THE RESPONSIBILITY: Go rather to the dealers and buy (oil) for yourselves (Matthew 25:9).

(3)

THE REWARDS: Those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast; others remained excluded outside (Matthew 25:10-12).

The parable of the talents pictures three servants who were responsible for their Lord’s money during his absence (Matthew 25:14-30).

(1)

THE UNCERTAINTY OF THE TIME: After a long time the master. came (Matthew 25:9).

(2)

THE RESPONSIBILITY: You ought to have invested my money (Matthew 25:27).

(3)

THE REWARDS: Well done, good and faithful servant or Cast out the worthless servant (Matthew 25:21; Matthew 25:23; Matthew 25:30).

Each parable illustrates some phase of Christian responsibility, but the cumulative instruction of their lessons affords us a grander picture of our service until Jesus comes.

The parable of the conscientious and the hypocritical stewards teaches loyal concern for everyone else in the Master’s household as the prime expression of loyalty to our coming Lord. The emphasis is on our responsibility for OTHERS.

The ten virgins parable inculcates a conscientiousness that insures our own personal preparation. The emphasis is on our responsibility for SELF-preparation for His coming.

The talents parable spurs us to make profitable use of everything God has placed at our disposal for His glory. The emphasis is on our responsibility for our Master’s BUSINESS to bring Him a profit.

Matthew 24:45-51

3. Illustration of the conscientious and the hypocritical servant (24:45-51)

45 Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath set over his household, to give them their food in due season? 46 Blessed is that servant, whom his lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing. 47 Verily I say unto you, that he will set him over that he hath. 48 But if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord tarrieth; 49 and shall begin to beat his fellow-servants, and shall eat and drink with the drunken; 50 the lord of the servant shall come in a day when he expecteth not, and in an hour when he knoweth not, 51 and shall cut him asunder, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

How does this illustration differ from the preceding story about the burglar?

In what sense is it true that this parable is really as much about stewardship as it is instruction on what will happen on the Last Day?

In the illustration the conscientious administrator is assigned one kind of work before his master left and another upon his return. How do you explain the difference?

If the Lord Jesus called the administrator faithful and wise, how can He later term him, that evil servant? Or, is He talking about the same person? If so, how is this language possible? If not, why say that evil servant?

On what basis could the evil servant truly say, My lord tarries? What would this element of Jesus-’ story reveal about His Second Coming?

When the lord returned, he found the faithful and wise servant doing what? What does this detail tell us about what we should be doing when Jesus returns?

When the lord returned, what did he find the evil servant doing?

What is the psychological motivation of the evil servant, that caused him to choose the course that he did? Does this ever tempt you?

In what sense is it true that everyone in God’s world really has been set over his household to give them their food at the proper time?

Explain how a person could be cut asunder and yet later be assigned his portion with the hypocrites. Would not being chopped in two have ended his miserable existence? How could he feel any further shame by being assigned the hypocrite’s reward? Did he not die, or is this a post-mortem vilification? What do you think happened?

Why bring in the hypocrites here, when the story is really about the evil administration of one particular servant? How does this almost passing allusion to the insincere strengthen the impact of Jesus-’ story for you?

PARAPHRASE

Who then will be the conscientious, sensible slave whom his lord has put in charge over his household to dispense to them their sustenance at the proper time? What happiness will be his when his master comes home and finds him doing what he is supposed to! I can tell you for sure, he will put him in charge of all his property. On the other hand, suppose this same servant is wicked and says to himself, -My master is taking his time.-’ Suppose, too, that he begins to bully his fellow servants, and dines and drinks with his drunken friends. That servant’s master will arrive someday when he least expects him and at an hour that catches him unawares. The lord will cut him in two with a scourge and send him to his fate among those who try to fake it. There people cry and clench their teeth in impotent rage.

SUMMARY

Christ’s absence may be prolonged. Nonetheless, the responsibility for others assigned to each of us must be carried out with conscientiousness, because presumption and indifference will be severely punished.

**NOTES

Illustration of the conscientious and the hypocritical servant (24:45-51)**

Matthew 24:45 **Who then is the faithful and wise servant? **Then (àra) links this parable logically with the foregoing story where Jesus demanded a state of constant readiness which, in turn, requires a certain type of character: wisdom and loyalty. (Cf. Luke 12:39-42.) The present parable primarily illustrates these qualities and their contrary, the folly of disloyalty. Who then is? This question, rather than send us looking for someone else qualified, nudges us to ask it of ourselves.

Faithful (pistòs) reveals two connected qualities:

It involves believing that his lord’s word is good, his service worthy of one’s most earnest, generous service and trusts him to know what is ultimately best for all.

It is also a trustworthiness and conscientiousness in doing what is expected, fidelity to duty. (Cf. 1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Titus 1:7.)

Wise (frònimos, considerate, thoughtful, prudent, sagacious, sensible).

The wise servant makes proper use of his stewardship for the profit and benefit of his lord.

He is also aware that the lord will require an accounting at the proper time.

**Whom his lord hath set over his household, to give them their food in due season. **This description appears to refer only to stewards with responsibility greater than those of the household itself. But Jesus obviously intends each disciple to take this warning to heart as if each one is already, or could become, the faithful and wise servant. (Cf. Luke 12:41 ff.; Mark 13:34-37.) Further, this description of the situation is so psychologically and sociologically true to life, because literally EVERYONE, no matter how humble his station, has really been set over others in the wide household of humanity. This parable, then, lays stress on proper behavior toward our common fellow-servants in God’s household, by depicting this steward’s responsibility simply to take care of all the other members of the lord’s household during his absence. No concept of our preparation for the Second Coming can be adequate that does not conceive of our duty as one of mutual ministry to our brethren (1 Peter 4:10). In the Lord’s absence His people cannot serve Him directly. Nevertheless, each proves his sense of responsibility to Jesus by the degree to which he serves the other fellow-servants over whom the Lord has placed him (Matthew 25:40).

Matthew 24:46 **Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. **Rather than answer His own question, Who then is the faithful and wise servant? by saying, It is the one who., Jesus underscores the special happiness of such a person. By so doing, He induces everyone to want to be conscientious and loyal. Happiness, according to Jesus, is to be found, not in fruitless speculation about the signs of the End-time, spending precious time to pin down the date, or in idle sky-gazing to detect some early signal of His return, but in doing what the Lord requested. Without anxiety about the date, we simply utilize every day responsibly by working at our appointed task to do honor to our master.

Matthew 24:47 **Verily I say unto you, that he will set him over all that he hath. **This statement is not to be applied absolutely, as if Jesus would establish only one loyal steward over all His vast Kingdom as his reward for faithful administration, when, as is likely, He actually intends to reward millions of faithful stewards in a similar manner. In fact, what each receives will be far greater than here pictured (Matthew 25:21; Matthew 25:23; cf. Luke 19:17; Luke 19:19). Rather, this reward nicely completes Jesus-’ story, implying a recompense like that of Joseph who, because of his fidelity and wisdom, was elevated from slave to Prime Minister of Egypt (Genesis 39:3 ff; Genesis 41:33-44). Christ’s rewards are not material, so that to give them to one would impoverish all others, but spiritual, like His own love, so that the more everyone possesses, the more is made available for others! Faithfulness and responsible service will be repaid with opportunities for infinitely greater responsibility. (Cf. Revelation 2:26; Revelation 3:21; cf. Matthew 25:21; 1 Timothy 3:13.) Because this means more work, those self-seeking people who side-step responsibility or loath labor may well ask themselves whether they really long for Christ’s rewards after all. Hendriksen (Matthew, 872) sees implied here

the assignment of certain specific tasks in the life hereafter, each task a matter of pure delight and satisfaction, and each in harmony with the individuality of the person for whom it is marked out.

Matthew 24:48 But if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord tarrieth.. Who is this fellow? Is he identical with the former wise and faithful steward? Though previously unmentioned, he is the very man. When Jesus told this story earlier, He clearly referred to just one steward; however, He did not term the steward evil as here (Luke 12:45). So, Jesus described him here as evil by prolepsis, i.e. described him in terms of what his later conduct proved him to have been. However, by this sudden switch, Jesus prospects the two alternatives open to the SAME servant of God: he may be a wise, faithful steward, or he may elect the route of the self-satisfying, and so prove to be an evil servant. Within the same disciple lies this dual potentiality. How does this happen?

Say in his heart. Mulling over his changed circumstances brought about by his master’s absence, he toys with his options. Outwardly he had welcomed his lord’s confidence, apparently vowing loyal, earnest assistance. Inwardly, however, his true desires and secret motives are strikingly diverse. No wonder he will be treated as a hypocrite (Matthew 24:51).

My lord tarries. Although this observation explains his subsequent actions which are condemned, nothing in the text indicates that the observation itself is mistaken. In fact, some lengthy delay explains to a no small degree the false confidence that permitted this steward to get up the courage to act the tyrant and indulge himself excessively. This treacherous manager attempted to pin-point the date of his master’s return, but badly miscalculated, because he did not know for HOW LONG his lord tarries. To all appearances, the Lord Jesus too is taking His time (chronìzei). This harmonizes nicely with similar statements elsewhere (Matthew 24:4; Matthew 24:19; cf. Luke 12:45). This intimates that Jesus knew that the real date of His Second Coming was scheduled for much later than any suggestion of its nearness might seem to affirm. There is no ground for believing that He expected it in the first century. Peter, too, warned against our growing impatient and slipping into frivolousness and complacent indifference, merely because the years seem to roll uniformly by without any sign of Jesus-’ coming. Rather, any delay is prompted by His patient mercy and must not be mistaken for ineptness or slowness, because the Day will come suddenly and certainly (2 Peter 3:5-12).

Matthew 24:49 **and shall begin to beat his fellow-servants, and shall eat and drink with the drunken. **Not only are the thoughts of this hypocrite alien to his apparently sincere promises made openly to his departing master, but now his conduct exposes lusts he dared not reveal to his lord’s face. Fellow-servants emphasizes two things:

Although this administrator is in some sense over them, he too is really a servant and their fellow, hence equally responsible to their common lord to treat them with consideration for sake of the work they rendered the master (cf. 1 Peter 5:3).

If fellow-servants, then also the property of his master. Hence, his abusing them constituted an abuse of his lord’s possessions, as truly as if he had been his master’s enemy. The crooked steward’s bad example and possible misappropriation of what was intended for others, compounded his wickedness, because it hindered them from serving their lord properly.

This supervisor mistook responsibility for the privilege of power, so he exercised the latter and abandoned the former in two ways:

To beat his fellow-servants is typical of self-assertive people who abuse the trust of power delegated to them, trampling on those under them, but for whose care they are really answerable.

To eat and drink with the drunken naturally follows for those self-indulgent little bosses who suppose that material enjoyments and bodily pleasures are the natural right of those in power.

Note the fairness with which Jesus, even in passing, treated the use of alcohol among a people accustomed to using fermented wine and strong drink (Deuteronomy 14:26; Isaiah 25:6). Although He Himself lived a normal life and ate normal food and drank wine, as opposed to John the Baptist who did neither (Luke 7:33 f.), He can still condemn its abuse in no uncertain terms. This, because its abuse leaves men insensitive to their fellows, irresponsible toward their duty, and, consequently, unprepared to meet God. (See Should Jesus Drink Wine? my Vol. II, 526ff.)

Matthew 24:50 **The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he expecteth not, and in an hour when he knoweth not. **This is no correction of the servant’s conclusion, My lord tarries, but, rather, its confirmation, since the delay continued long enough to lull this steward into complete complacency. Carrying on his shameful conduct, he grew confident he would not be surprised. He basked in careless indifference until he no longer worried about his master’s return. He expected not: his stupidity is the greater because he knew to expect him. Yet his continual self-indulgence further desensitized his moral alertness and proportionately increased his spiritual dullness. In an hour when he knoweth not: this emphatically reiterates the fact that absolutely no warning signs will announce the near approach of Jesus-’ coming. At no time may we safely assume that His Second Coming is not imminent merely because we see no indications warning of His approach. We may not assume that we can stop sinning just in time to be found good and faithful at His return.

Matthew 24:51 **He shall cut him asunder, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. **To cut asunder (dichotoméô) is to cut into two parts. True, horrible butchery was not an unknown punishment in the ancient world. (Cf. Daniel 2:5; Daniel 3:29; Hebrews 11:37; the apocryphal Susanna, vv. 55, 59.) Nevertheless, Jesus-’ expression may also point elsewhere.

Literally, to severe scourging which cuts the skin, or perhaps to mutilation, from which the punished could survive to face the supreme humiliation of being shamed as a hypocrite. (Cf. Sir. 33:26-28; Sir. 42:5.) Some societies still mutilate those convicted of certain crimes.

Figuratively, to inflict a punishment of extreme severity, his lord not only sliced through the apparent consistency between his pretenses and his deeds to unmask his real hypocrisy, but also summarily dismissed him from his position and severed him from his service.

He must be punished with the hypocrites, because he was humble and helpful before his master, but turned tyrant when he left. He planned to play the role of conscientious supervisor at his lord’s return.

Whether in the parable or in the reality, the weeping and gnashing of teeth is the endless punishment of inconsolable grief and helplessness, that self-accusing anger suffered by anyone who sees his true happiness so frivolously and so irretrievably tossed aside by his own foolish choices. (See notes on Matthew 8:12; Matthew 13:42; Matthew 13:50; Matthew 22:13; Matthew 25:30.)

LESSONS

The Lord warns that the true criterion is not how people might act, were they certain Christ is coming back today, but how they actually conduct themselves in His absence. Accordingly, we demonstrate our fidelity or lack of dedication to our absent Lord, by the degree to which we nurture or abuse our fellow-servants, by the degree to which we utilize for His glory the wealth, ability and opportunities entrusted to us or turn these into authority to oppress others and amass wealth and prestige for ourselves. The crime against Christ is not simply a question of misusing great sums of money (as in the parable of the talents) or of failing to make adequate, appropriate and timely preparation (as in the parable of the ten virgins). Nor is it simply the misappropriation of what belongs to our Lord, but, rather, the combination of all of these that affects how we treat our brethren. No wonder Jesus included this facet of the terrible eternal punishment in His sentence of Mat 25:46, because He is talking to people who confidently expect to be welcomed by Jesus, but shall discover themselves rejected at the final sentencing.

FACT QUESTIONS

What are the duties of the faithful and wise servant assigned him during his lord’s absence?

What are the new duties assigned to this servant upon his lord’s return?

Quote the beatitude Jesus coined to describe the happiness of the faithful and wise servant.

Describe the conduct of the evil servant.

Contrast the final fate of the evil servant with that of the wise and faithful one.

What does it mean to be cut asunder?

What is the portion of the hypocrites? Who are they and why bring them into this picture? Explain why the evil servant should share their portion.

Define gnashing of teeth as Jesus used this expression here.

Old Green Commentaries

The College Press Bible Study Textbook Series — 59 volumes by 25 authors, published between 1961 and 1992 and affectionately known as the 'old green' commentaries for their green hardback bindings. Each volume is a commentary, workbook and teaching manual in one, written by Restoration Movement …

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