Unintended consequences plague Elder Michael Ivey’s division of the Olivet Discourse. After Jesus foretold the temple’s fall, the disciples asked two questions: when would it happen and what signs would precede it (Matt 24:1–3). The Lord answered by giving the signs (Matt 24:4–31) and their timeframe (Matt 24:32–36). He then gave five parables to encourage watchfulness (Matt 24:37–25:46). Any division of the Lord’s narrative distorts at least three of them.
Elder Ivey divides the Olivet Discourse into two parts: (1) Matthew 24:15–22 “contain(s) the prophecy of the destruction of the Temple” and (2) Matthew 24:23–41 “denote(s) the sign and sureness of Christ’s second coming” and “the end of the world” in our future.1 He says, “The subsequent parables … present the idea of the necessity to be watchful and ready for the second coming of Christ.”
This post will show that three of these parables must pertain to the “last days” of the Mosaic age.2
The Master and His Two Servants
How should we interpret Jesus’ parable of “The Master and His Two Servants” (Matt 24:43–51)? My prophetic model (i.e., inmillennialism3) allows us to define his images from Scripture.
As for the servants, consider another parable Jesus gave earlier on the same day he gave the Olivet Discourse.4 In it (Matt 21:33–46), a landowner judges his servants. The Jews understood the lesson: “When the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them” (Matt 21:45). They were the wicked servants; God was the landowner. They foretold their future: “He [the house master] will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons” (Matt 21:41). Jesus agreed with their statement: “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it” (Matt 21:43).
These parables describe two kinds of servants, one wicked, the other faithful. Both dwell in the master’s household. This duality creates a situation unique to Jesus’ generation. Only during this period did God’s evil servants (unbelieving Jews) and his faithful servants (believing Jews and Gentiles) both serve God. The former did so through the Old (Mosaic) Covenant, the latter through the New (messianic) Covenant. This two-kind-of-servants situation can never exist again.
As for the house, the Old Testament often applies this image to the temple (or tabernacle). For example, God told Israel that “the first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God” (Exod 23:19; see also Exod 34:26; Deut 23:18; 26:13; et al.). The temple was the house of God during the Mosaic age.
Jesus came to build another house of God, a messianic-age house—the church of God (Matt 16:18–19; 1 Tim 3:15). Paul contrasted these two houses:
Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end. (Heb 3:5–6)
Again, Jesus’ generation presents an unrepeatable situation. During this period, God had two houses: the Mosaic-age house (the temple) and the messianic-age house (the church). In the Olivet Discourse, Jesus described God’s soon-coming judgment of his Mosaic-age house and its wicked servants.
But Elder Ivey puts this parable in our future. If so, who are the evil servants in God’s house whom he will cut in two? Jesus said wicked men could not enter the messianic-age house of God (e.g., Matt 5:20; John 3:5; 1 John 2:19). How can he cast some out?
The Ten Virgins
Jesus had said, “There are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom” (Matt 16:28). This statement provided the basis for his “Parable of the Ten Virgins” (Matt 25:1-13). When Jesus returned in his kingdom, some virgins would enter the kingdom; others would not.5
Inmillennialism6 again offers a natural explanation. During the period between the Olivet Discourse and the temple’s fall (AD 30–70),
God had two kinds of covenant virgins: some were virgins in just the Mosaic-age covenant; others were also virgins in the messianic-age (everlasting) covenant. The Son of Man (i.e., the bridegroom) would shut the former out of his kingdom, but welcome the latter into the wedding feast. That division occurred in Jesus’ generation.7
Let’s establish this view by comparing Scripture with Scripture (cf. 1 Cor 2:13).
During the Mosaic age, God viewed Israel after the flesh as “the virgin, the daughter of Zion” (Isa 37:22). When God judged the first Temple, Jeremiah said, “The ways of Zion do mourn … all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.” Later, he said, “The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground” (Lam 1:4; 2:10).
Jeremiah also used the word “virgin” to describe Jews in the future (to him) messianic age. God said, “Again I will build you, and you shall be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel!” (Jer 31:4). So, Jeremiah used “virgin” imagery to describe Jews in both the Mosaic and messianic ages.
Jesus used this imagery the same way in his parable. God would soon shut the foolish “virgins”—those who rejected Christ—out of the kingdom. He would welcome the wise “virgins” in Israel—those who believed in Jesus—into the messianic-age kingdom. All ten virgins had lamps that were (or had been) filled with covenant oil. But the foolish virgins said, “Our lamps are going out” (ESV). Their “sputtering, flickering, smoking wicks were a sad revelation”8 to them. However, the wise “virgins” had renewed resources: Holy Spirit oil filled their lamps. God had prepared them for the messianic age.
This two-covenant-virgin situation could only exist in Jesus’ generation. God now has no covenant virgins that will hear him say, “I do not know you.” If this parable pertains to our future, who are the covenant virgins that cannot enter the kingdom?
The Talents
“The Talents” parable (Matt 25:14–30) also pertains to the generation living in Jesus’ day. Jesus would go away—into heaven to receive his kingdom (cp. Luke 19:12; Dan 7:13–14). He would soon return to judge his (Jewish) servants, giving increased blessings to the faithful ones and casting the wicked ones “into outer darkness.” Both groups had served the Lord and received talents from him.
Some commentators stress that the lord in this parable returns “after a long time” (Matt 25:19). They say (with Elder Ivey) this means the parable pertains to our future.
This reasoning ignores a critical element of the parable: the judgment is within the lifetime of the servants. N. T. Wright makes this point:
In Matthew, the other parables in chapter 25 are focused, not on the personal return of Jesus after a long interval in which the church is left behind, but on the great judgment which is coming very soon upon Jerusalem and her current leaders, and which signals the vindication of Jesus and his people as the true Israel. There is, of course, a time-lag to be undergone, but it is not the one normally imagined. It is not the gap between Jesus’ going away and his personal return (the ‘coming of the son of man’ in the literalistic, non-Danielic sense); it is the time-lag, envisaged in Matthew 24, between the ministry of Jesus and the destruction of Jerusalem. This time-lag will be a period in which, in Jesus’ absence, his followers will be open prey to the deceit of false Messiahs, and will face a period of great suffering before their vindication dawns.9
A “long time” (Matt 25:19) equals “this generation” (Matt 24:34).
This parable describes a division in God’s Mosaic-age servants. Some would use the gifts God had given wisely; they would prosper in the messianic age. Others would hide their talents “in the land” (Matt 25:25)10 and remain unproductive. They would perish.
Elder Ivey’s relocation of this parable to our future robs the man’s journey to a far country of its relevance. It leaves us asking, Who are the Lord’s unprofitable servants whom he casts into outer darkness?
Conclusion
These three parables are one. In Jesus’ generation, Israel comprised two subgroups. One belonged only to the Mosaic age—Paul called it “Israel after the flesh” (1 Cor 10:18). This group would not enter the messianic-age kingdom.
The second subgroup also belonged to the Mosaic age, but its members were children of Abraham by faith (Gal 3:7). God had qualified them to enter the messianic age.
The first group contained wicked servants and foolish virgins. The second had obedient servants and wise virgins. Jesus would soon end his covenant with the first group—their temple would fall. He would bless the second group to enter the messianic (kingdom) age.
Elder Ivey’s placement of these parables in our future creates unintended consequences. It forces us to believe that God will cast off some of his covenant servants and shut some of his covenant virgins out of the kingdom.
Inmillennialism says Jesus was describing a unique historical situation. God judged his unfaithful Mosaic-age servants and virgins when the temple fell in AD 70. He will never judge his messianic-age servants and virgins this way.
The other prophetic models cannot account for these parables.
This post completes my analysis of Elder Ivey’s essay on the Olivet Discourse (here and here). He has decided not to respond. If he changes his mind, I will publish his remarks.
Footnotes
- I posted his essay and biographical information here and here. My three previous responses begin here.
- For a discussion of these exhortations, see Michael A. Rogers, Inmillennialism: Redefining the Last Days (Tullahoma, TN: McGahan Publishing House, 2020), 203–36. Also, see my post, Parables of Watchfulness.
- I document this perspective in Rogers, Inmillennialism. This book is available here in hardcopy and here as a PDF. A free summary PDF document of inmillennialism is here.
- Archibald Thomas Robertson, A Harmony of the Gospels for Students of the Life of Christ (New York: Harper, 1922), 160.
- The image in this post is The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins by Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow (1788–1862). This file (here) is in the public domain (PD-US).
- I document this perspective in Rogers, Inmillennialism.
- Rogers, Inmillennialism, 215.
- Archibald Thomas Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, 6 vols. (Nashville: Broadman, 1930–33), 1:197.
- N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, vol. 2 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 636 (emphasis added).
- Paul R. McReynolds, Word Study Greek-English New Testament, 3rd ed. (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 1999), Matt 24:25. This translation suggests Jesus was condemning the Jews who focused on the temple and the land it represented.
