An Interpretation of Matthew 24-25 (Part 1)
Dr. Thomas Ice
The Olivet Discourse, delivered shortly beforeJesus' crucifixion, is the most important single passage of prophecy in all theBible. It is significant becauseit came from Jesus Himself immediately after He was rejected by His own peopleand because it provides the master outline of end-time events.
-Dr. Tim LaHaye
The OlivetDiscourse is an important passage for the development of anyone's view of Bibleprophecy. The Olivet Discourse ismade up of our Lord's teaching on Bible prophecy that is found in Matthew 24-25,Mark 13 and Luke 21. Since one'sinterpretation of the Olivet Discourse greatly impacts whether they are apremillennialist or anti-millennialist, futurist or preterist, or pretribulationistsor posttribulationist, I will be attempting an extensive interpretation ofMatthew 24-25.
The Contextual Setting for Christ's Discourse
Thesetting for the Olivet Discourse, at least for Matthew's account, is found inpreceding events leading up to Matthew 24. Christ had presented Himself to the nation as their Messiah,but they rejected Him. No only didthe people reject Him, but their rulers did as well. Thus, Jesus rebukes and exposes their hypocrisy and unbeliefin Matthew 22 and 23. Jesus notesthat this present generation of Jewish leaders is like those from previousgenerations who killed the prophets (23:29-36). Christ then tells the Jewish leaders, "Truly I say to you, all these thingsshall come upon this generation" (23:36). What things? It will be thecurse of judgment, which will come upon the Jewish people through the Romanarmy in a.d. 70. "All hope for a turning of Israel toGod in repentance has gone," notes Dr. Stanley Toussaint. "The King therefore has no alternativebut to reject that nation for the time being with regard to its kingdomprogram. The clear announcement ofthis decision is seen in these verses of Matthew's Gospel."[2]
Inspite of the fact that the Jewish people deserved the approaching judgment,like a caring parent about to administer a just punishment, Christ cries out, "O Jerusalem,Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather yourchildren together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and youwere unwilling" (23:37). Jesuswants to gather His people (as He will in 24:31), instead, He will scatter themvia the a.d. 70 judgment (Luke21:24).
Jesusthen declares in verse 38, "Behold, your house is being left to youdesolate!" To what does the houserefer? In the context of thispassage it must be a reference to the Jewish Temple. Matthew 24:1-2 brings up a discussion by Jesus with Hisdisciples about the Temple. It isat that time that Jesus startles them by telling them "'Do you not see allthese things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here shall be left uponanother, which will not be torn down'" (24:2). What Jesus says will be desolate, the Temple, in 23:38, ismore precisely described in 24:2: both referring to the same thing-the Temple.
Next,Christ says, "For I say to you, from now on you shall not see Me until yousay, 'Blessed is He who comes inthe name of the Lord!'" (24:39). Not only does this verse hold out the certainty of soon judgment, butalso the eventual promise of yet to come hope and blessing upon the Jewishnation. Alfred Edersheim, a son ofthe present remnant of Israel, said of this passage:
Looking around on those Temple-buildings-thatHouse, it shall be left to them desolate! And He quitted its courts with these words, that they of Israel shouldnot see Him again till, the night of their unbelief past, they would welcomeHis return with a better Hosanna than that which had greeted His Royal Entrythree days before. And this wasthe 'Farewell' and the parting of Israel's Messiah from Israel and itsTemple. Yet a Farewell whichpromised a coming again; and a parting which implied a welcome in the futurefrom a believing people to a gracious, pardoning King.[3]
Sothis verse not only speaks of the judgment that surely came in a.d. 70, but looked to a future time ofredemption for Israel because the passage contains the forward looking word"until." Luke 21:24 recordsanother use of "until" by our Lords when He says, "andthey will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all thenations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until thetimes of the Gentiles be fulfilled." Hebrew Christian Bible teacher, Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum, says Israelmust call for the Lord to rescue them as a condition for the second coming,based upon Matthew 23:39.[4] Dr. Fruchtenbaum explains:
But then He declares that they willnot see Him again until they say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name ofthe Lord. This is amessianic greeting. It will meantheir acceptance of the Messiahship of Jesus.
` SoJesus will not come back to the earth until the Jews and the Jewish leaders askHim to come back. For just as theJewish leaders lead the nation to the rejection of the Messiahship of Jesus,they must some day lead the nation to the acceptance of the Messiahship ofJesus.[5]
Dr.David Cooper echoes Dr. Fruchtenbaum's understanding when he says, "Since Jesuscame in the name of the Lord, and since He will not return until Israel says,'Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,' it is clear that thepeople of Israel will see and recognize that Jesus was and is their trueMessiah."[6] The last few verses of Matthew 23 meansthat judgment was coming in the near future, but, beyond judgment, deliveranceand redemption awaits the Jewish nation. Judgment did come in a.d.70 and Matthew 24 speaks of the still future redemption of Israel.
The Historical Setting for Christ's Discourse
Matthew 24:1-3provides us with the setting for which Christ delivers His propheticsermon. We see that Jesus ismaking His way from the Temple (24:1) to the Mount of Olives (24:3), whichwould mean that He most likely would travel down the Kidron Valley and on up toOlivet. As He was going from theTemple "His disciples came up to point out the templebuildings to Him" (24:1). Thisstatement leads us to believe that they were talking to Jesus about howbeautiful the Temple complex was that Herod was still in the process ofremodeling and refurbishing. Suchan emphasis is borne out in the parallel references in Mark 13:1-2 and Luke21:5-6 as the disciples speak of the beauty of the Temple buildings. The Lord must have startled Hisdisciples by His response to their gloating over the beauty of the Templecomplex when He said, "Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone hereshall be left upon another, which will not be torn down" (24:2).
As 24:2 iscompleted, with Christ's statement, there is a break in the narrative. The narrative picks back up in 24:3when it says, "the disciples came to Him privately." Mark 13:3 tells us that the disciples who came to Himprivately were Peter, James, John and Andrew, and that they were sitting on theMount of Olives looking at the Temple. This would be the same vista that many have seen today when a visitorgoes to the viewing point in modern Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives thatoverlooks the Temple Mount with the Dome of the Rock perched upon it.
That thedisciples came to Jesus privately fits the pattern that Jesus practices andMatthew records of teaching only His believing disciples once the nationrejected Him as their prophesied Messiah in Matthew 12. From Matthew 13 on, Jesus speakspublicly to the rejecting nation only in parables (Matt. 13:10-17). "Therefore Ispeak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and whilehearing they do not hear, nor do they understand" (Matt. 13:13). However, many times He would laterexplain a public parable privately to His disciples (for example, Matt.13:10-23). In the OlivetDiscourse, we see Christ following this pattern. This private explanation, which is the Olivet Discourse,means that Christ will provide His explanation of future history for thebenefit of believers.
TheDisciples Questions
Whilesitting on the Mount of Olives these four disciples ask Jesus the followingquestions: "Tell us, when will these things be, and what willbe the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age" (24:3)? Immediately debate rises over whetherthese are two questions or three. If one takes the first option, then there is no doubt that the secondquestion contains two parts to it. I believe that there are two basic questions because of the grammar ofthe passage as explained by Dr. Craig Blomberg as follows:
"The sign of yourcoming and of the end of the age" in Greek reads, more literally, the signof your coming and end of the age. By not repeating the definite article("the") before "end of the age," Matthew's rendering of Jesus' words is mostlikely linking the coming of Christ and the end of the age together as oneevent (Granville Sharp's rule).[7]
Thismeans that the two phrases are closely related to one another in the mind ofthe disciples, who formulated the question. They believed that they were linked closely together.
Clearly the firstquestion relates to the destruction of the Temple, which was fulfilled in theRoman invasion and destruction of a.d.70. It is equally clear that thetwo aspects of the second question have yet to occur in history, even thoughsome want to see in this passage Christ's second coming (more on the errors ofpreterism as I progress through the passage).
It appears likelyto me that the disciples believed that all three aspects of their two questionswould occur around the same event-the coming of Messiah. Why would they have thought thisway? Dr. Toussaint is correct tonote that the disciples were influenced by the prophet Zechariah.
In their minds they had developed a chronology ofevents in the following sequence: (1) the departure of the King, (2) after a period of time thedestruction of Jerusalem, and (3) immediately after Jerusalem's devastation thepresence of the Messiah. They hadgood scriptural ground for this since Zechariah 14:1-2 describes the razing ofJerusalem. The same passage goeson to describe the coming of the Lord to destroy the nations which warredagainst Jerusalem (Zechariah 14:3-8). Following this the millennial kingdom is established (Zechariah 14:9-11).
Inother words, the disciples thought that all three events were related to asingle event-the return of the Messiah as taught in Zechariah 14:4. As we shall see, they were right tothink of Zechariah 12-14 and his teaching about Messiah's coming. However, they were wrong to relate theimpending judgment of Jerusalem and the Temple with the return of Messiah, as Ihope to show in future installments in their series. Maranatha!
(To BeContinued . . .)
Endnotes
[1] Tim LaHaye and Thomas Ice, Charting the EndTimes: A Visual Guide toUnderstanding Bible Prophecy(Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2001),p. 35.
[2] Stanley D. Toussaint, Behold The King: A Study of Matthew (Portland: Multnomah Press, 1980), pp. 264-65.
[3] Alfred Edersheim, TheLife and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 2vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,1974 [1883]), Vol. II, p. 414.
[4] Arnold Fruchtenbaum, The Footsteps of theMessiah: A Study of the Sequenceof Prophetic Events (SanAntonio: Ariel Press, 1982), pp.212-15.
[5] Fruchtenbaum, Footsteps, p. 215.
[6] David L. Cooper, Messiah: His Final Call to Israel (Los Angeles: Biblical Research Society, 1962), p. 47.
[7] Craig L. Blomberg, Matthew, Vol. 22 of The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1992), p. 353, f.n. 37.
[8] Toussaint, Behold The King, p. 269.