An Interpretation of Matthew 24-25 (Part 19)

Dr. Thomas Ice

"Iftherefore they say to you, 'Behold, He is in the wilderness,' do not go forth,or, 'Behold, He is in the inner rooms,' do not believe them. For just as the lightning comes fromthe east, and flashes even to the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Manbe."

-Matthew 24:26-27

Previously, Jesushas been warning the Jewish remnant during the second half of the seven-yeartribulation to watch out for spiritual deception. Jesus referenced "the elect" (verse 24) for the second ofthree times in which that term is used in this passage, which refers to theJewish remnant who will come to Christ during the tribulation. Jesus continues His instruction andwarnings to "the elect" in verses 26-28.

Watch Where You Look

This passage(verses 26-28) from Christ's Olivet Discourse is pretty much only found inMatthew's account. Jesus iscontinuing His warning to the elect about how to not be misled. In essence He is saying that if someonecomes to you during the tribulation and says that the Messiah is hide awayprivately somewhere then do not believe anyone's account of this. Why? The reason for scepticism is because when the Messiah doesreturn it will be of such a public nature that there will not be any doubt thatHe has arrived. It will be thefalse Christs and false prophets who will attempt clandestine, backroomappearances for the purpose of deceiving. Nevertheless, if the passage says anything, it shouts that the return towhich Jesus speaks will be a bodily, physical and public advent.

It is interestingthat the preterist view of how Christ comes in this passage is closer to thekind to which Jesus warns the elect to beware. If you want to see an example of obfuscation and sophistryat work note these two examples. Preterist, Dr. Kenneth Gentry, says the following about this passage:

Quiteemphatically the Lord warns his disciples he will not come in a visible, bodilymanner in those days. He twicestates that any report of his physical presence would be erroneous: . . . Clearly these statements discouragetheir expecting any visible return in that day; he expressly declares that anycommand to look for Him in some limited particular location would be a mistake.

Yetthere will be a "coming" of Christ in that day: . . . This, however, is a spiritual judgment-coming, rather than abodily coming.[1]

Fellow preterist,Gary DeMar, also adopts an anti-bodily coming view of Jesus' predicted comingin this passage when he says the following:

Jesuswould come "just as the lightning comes from the east," that is, quickly andwithout warning. . . . What thepeople saw was the manifestation of the Lord's coming even though they did not actuallysee Him. . . . Was God physicallypresent? He was not. Did He come? Most certainly! . . .

Matthew24:27 reveals that Jesus is somehow participating in Jerusalem'sdestruction. This is exactly thepoint. . . .

Jesuscame "like lightning" to set Jerusalem "aflame all around." If you recall, it was Titus, as God'srepresentative agent, who set the temple on fire and leveled the edifice. . . .

Ina.d. 70 Rome was sent by God tofulfill a similar task. "Our Lordforewarns His disciples that His coming to that judgment-scene would beconspicuous and sudden as the lightning-flash which reveals itself and seems tobe everywhere at the same moment."[2]

The statements ofthese two preterists are examples of the kind of propaganda that Jesus is warningthe elect to avoid during the tribulation. Matthew 24:27­31 clearly is a reference to a stillfuture second advent. I will nowlook at reasons why verse 27 does indeed reference Christ second coming.

A Future Event

Both Gentry andDeMar attempt to spin this passage as if it were not teaching a bodily,physical return of Christ. Thispreterist view is one that only about 1% of interpreters (if that many) havetaken on this passage down through church history. That Jesus speaks here of his bodily return is supported bythe context. In contrast toChrist's coming in verse 27 are the false Christs and false prophets of verses23-24, who are clearly individuals that can be physically seen. Christ's return is juxtaposed tothem. Christ will not return andhide out in some back room in which an undercover agent will lead people tomeet. No Christ's return will bepublic and obvious to all. Thiscannot fit some "judgment-coming" through the Roman army. Regardless of what other biblicalpassages may teach in other contexts, the context of Matthew 24 only supports abodily coming by Jesus, which has to be the future second coming.

Jesusspecifically compares His coming in verse 27 to a lightning strike. I agree with DeMar that included inChrist's imagery is the idea of suddeness. However, because the force of the context (verse 26) iswhether He will appear privately (i.e. "inner rooms") or publicly (i.e. like a"lightning" flash) it clearly argues for an emphasis upon appearance. Further, the Greek word for "flashes"has the core meaning of "to appear, to make visible, or to reveal."[3] Thus, when speaking of lightening thatappears, it would be translated idiomatically as "flashes." When referring to people it is alwaysrendered "appear." This is how itis used in verse 30: "then thesign of the Son of Man will appear." In fact, "Wycliffe renders it appeareth"[4]in verse 27. When this detail iscombined with the fact that in both verse 27 and 30 the one appearing is called"the Son of Man," which always emphasizes the human aspect of Christ, the clearconclusion is that Jesus is communicating His bodily return. Even preterists agree that He did notreturn bodily in a.d. 70. If the text intended to speak of aninvisible return through the Roman army then Christ's Deity would have beenemphasized, not His humanity. Meyersays the following:

The advent of the Messiah will not be of such a nature that youwill require to be directed to look here or look there in order to see him; butit will be as the lightning, which as soon as it appears, suddenly announcesits presence everywhere; . . . what is meant is, that when it takesplace, it will all of a sudden openly display itself in a glorious fashion overthe whole world. Ebrard (comp. Schott) is wrong in supposing that the pointof comparison lies only in the circumstance that the event comes suddenlyand without any premonition. For certainly this would not tend toshow, as Jesus means to do, that the assertion: he is in the wilderness, etc.is an unwarrantable pretence.[5]

In all his effortto say why "the coming of the Son of Man" in Matthew 24:27 was not a literalcoming of Christ, Gentry fails to tell his readers that the Greek word parousia is used in this verse. Three of the four times that parousia is used in Matthew 24, Gentry admits that itrefers to the yet future second coming.[6] The Greek Lexicon, BAG says that parousia means "presence;" "coming, advent," and "ofChrist, and nearly always of his Messianic Advent in glory to judge the worldat the end of this age."[7] BAG cites all four uses of parousia in Matthew 24 as a reference to Christ secondadvent. In fact, BAG does not evenrecognize Gentry or DeMar's stated meaning as a possible category. It appears that the preterist mother isthe necessity of invention in this instance. The mother of all Greek word study tools, Kittle'sDictionary, in concert with BAG, tells us that the core idea of the word means"to be present," "denotes esp. active presence," "appearing."[8] Kittle's describes parousia as a technical term "for the 'coming' of Christin Messianic glory."[9] Thus, parousia carries the idea of a "presence coming," contrathe preterist notion of a "non-presence coming," an invisible coming. Our Lord's use of parousia demands His physical, bodily presence.

Toussaintprovides further reasoning for the futurist understanding of parousia in this passage:

. . . "What will be the sign of your coming?" (Matt.24:3). What does "coming" (parousia) mean? That term is filled with significance. This noun occurs four times in the Olivet discourse (theonly times Matthew uses parousiaand the only occurrence in the Gospels). The first occurrence is in the question asked by the disciples. Very interestingly, the remaining threeare in identical clauses, "thus, shall be the coming of the Son of Man" . . .(Matthew 24:27, 37, 39).

. . . The problem with this interpretation is the meaning ofparousia before verse 36 and after. If the coming of the Son of Man in Matthew 24:37, 39 is the SecondAdvent, one would expect the identical clause in 24:27 to refer to the same event. The word would also have the same meaning in 24:3. It must be the Second Advent in eachcase.

Furthermore,the word parousia as found in the New Testament is alwaysused of an actual presence. It maybe employed of the presence of persons as in 1 Corinthians 16:17; 2 Corinthians7:6-7; 10:10; Philippians 1:26; 2:12 and 2 Thessalonians 2:9. In each of these above cases the personis bodily present. In all the other cases parousia is used of the Lord's presence at His second coming,cf. 1 Corinthians 15:23; 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:23; 2Thessalonians 2:1, 8; James 5:7, 9; 2 Peter 1:16; 3:4, 12; 1 John 2:28. The only occurrences in the Gospel of parousia are in Matthew 24. It would seem that they, too, refer to a yet future comingof Christ.[10]

Gentry attemptsto say that the "lightning" description in Matthew 24:27 "reflects the Romanarmies marching toward Jerusalem from an easterly direction."[11] It is hard to imagine that the timeconsuming march of the Roman armies is the true interpretation of thispassage. Once again, I followToussaint's explanation of the text.

What then is Matthew 24:27 saying? It is simply saying people should not be misled by falseteachers or counterfeit messiahs who make their deceptive claims in somewilderness or inner sanctum (24:26). They may even fortify their pretensions by fantastic miracles(24:24). The reason the Lord'sfollowers should not be drawn aside is because the coming of the Lord Jesuswill be so spectacular no one will miss seeing it. It will be like a bolt of lightning that streaks from onehorizon to the other. This is whythe Lord used the correlatives hosper. . . . houtos; He is simply using an analogy or comparison. His Second Advent will be as obvious asa brilliant sky-spanning bolt of lightning. So will be the unmistakable and actual presence of the LordJesus Christ in His second coming to earth.[12]

Maranatha!

(To BeContinued . . .)

Endnotes

[1] Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., Perilous Times: A Study in Eschatological Evil (Texarkana, AR: Covenant Media Press, 1999), p. 71.

[2] Gary DeMar, Last DaysMadness: Obsession of the ModernChurch (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 1999), pp. 123-25.

[3] William F. Arndt and F. W. Gingrich, AGreek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1957), p. 859.

[4] James Morison, A Practical Commentary on theGospel According to St. Matthew(London: Hodder and Stoughton,1883), p. 475.

[5] Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer, Critical andExegetical Handbook to The Gospel of Matthew, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: T.& T. Clark, 1879), vol. 2, p. 143.

[6] Gentry in Thomas Ice and Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., TheGreat Tribulation: Past orFuture? Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1999), p. 53.

[7] Arndt and Gingrich, Greek-English Lexicon , p. 635.

[8]Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, eds., TheologicalDictionary of The New Testament,X vols., (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,1967), vol. V, p. 859.

[9]Kittel and Friedrich, Theological Dictionary, vol. V, p. 865.

[10]Stanley D. Toussaint, "A Critique Of The PreteristView Of The Olivet Discourse," an unpublished paper presented to the Pre-TribStudy Group, Dallas, Texas, 1996, n.p.

[11] Gentry in Ice and Gentry, Great Tribulation, p.54.

[12]Toussaint, "Critique," n.p.