How could we have missed an event as phenomenal1 as the end of the world? Reading Jesus’ final group of signs for the destruction of the Temple can lead us to the conclusion we did just that. Jesus said:
For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together. Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun 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: 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 in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send 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. (Matthew 24:27–31)
This list challenges our effort to develop an improved model for interpreting biblical prophecy beyond anything we have encountered to this point. We have called these the “immediate signs” of the Temple’s destruction. They require special consideration.
The Temple fell in AD 70. We know several of the catastrophic events Jesus described did not occur if we limit their fulfillment to physical phenomena. What should we make of Jesus’ signs?
Certain atheists stand ready to offer a solution—Jesus was wrong! For one example of this approach, see our post, Christians Should Apologize. This explanation is a frontal assault on the Christian faith. Christians know a far better solution exists.
Another possible solution is to assume Jesus wove a description of the end of world history into the signs associated with the destruction of the Temple. Some of his signs might relate to the ultimate end and others to the end of the Mosaic age. We then face the daunting task of deciding which signs belong to each event. And, there is no clue in the text to guide us regarding how to make such a decision!
Or, perhaps Jesus was thinking of multiple fulfillments of his prophecy. If so, should we envision two lightning-like comings of the Son of Man, multiple suppers for vultures, dual collapses of the physical cosmos, etc? What prevents triple (or more) fulfillments and how do we know when they are all accomplished?
Proposed explanations like these ring hollow for one main reason—there is no evidence in the text itself to support such conjectures. Jesus prophesied the Temple’s destruction and the apostles asked questions about it (Matthew 24:1–3). Our Lord answered their sign question first (Matthew 24:4–31). He associated the signs with the destruction of the Temple, and with nothing else. We must build our prophetic model on this material. We dare not impute a meaning to these signs not found in the text.
Thankfully, a straightforward explanation exists for how Jesus could link these signs to the events leading up to and including AD 70. We can use the analogy of faith to establish this explanation almost beyond question. It eliminates the need to assume anything about what Jesus meant by these signs.
In this post, we will seek to establish this explanation by discussing a single assertion: the signs Jesus gave in Matthew 24:27–31 were the usual symbols Israel’s prophets had used to foretell God’s judgment on a city or nation.
We will explore each of the individual “immediate” signs in future posts. For now, we will consider three examples in Scripture of when the world ended.
The End of Babylon’s World
The prophet Isaiah foretold God’s coming judgment against Babylon using images similar to those Jesus used in the Olivet Discourse. Around 701 BC,2 he uttered “the burden of Babylon,” part of which is:
Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir. Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger. (Isaiah 13:9–13; emphasis added)
Isaiah had little reason, from a human perspective, to believe Babylon’s world would end. This was, after all, the mightiest empire on earth. Yet the prophet said “the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty” (Isaiah 13:6). Isaiah’s knowledge of this end-of-the-world event came from heaven.
God told the prophet about the coming “cosmic collapse,” and he revealed the instrument by which it would occur. He said: “Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver; and as for gold, they shall not delight in it” (Isaiah 13:17). The fulfillment of this prophecy occurred when “the Medes put their fierce fighting force at the disposal of Cyrus the Persian and were involved with him in the overthrow of Babylonia in 539 B.C.”3 God, using the armies of the Medes, brought an end to Babylon’s world!
God caused the stars of Babylon’s heaven to stop giving their light. Her sun became dark and her moon ceased to shine. Her “heavens and earth” removed out of their places.
These graphic and powerful images said nothing about the physical universe. Instead, they portrayed the future, dramatic overthrow of this powerful empire. Babylon’s world was in God’s hands. It would endure only as long as he determined. Then it would collapse under his fiery judgment. The symbols Isaiah used left a lasting impression of what was about to happen.
We should not imagine that astrologers in Egypt (or any other nation) witnessed a change in the physical cosmos when Babylon’s world ended.
The End of Egypt’s World
Speaking of Egypt, Israel’s prophets also prophesied the end of that nation’s world.
The burden of Egypt. Behold, the LORD rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it. And I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians: and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom. (Isaiah 19:1–2; emphasis added)
Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say unto him. . . . And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord GOD. I will also vex the hearts of many people, when I shall bring thy destruction among the nations, into the countries which thou hast not known. (Ezekiel 32:2, 7–9; emphasis added)
Regarding Ezekiel’s prophecy quoted here, Ralph H. Alexander says
Ezekiel delivered this funeral dirge for Egypt in March 585 B.C. . . . The carnage would be so great that it would fill every ravine and mountain (vv.5–6). It would be as if ‘a great darkness covered the land’ (vv.7–8), demonstrating that Egypt’s great sun gods were impotent to help. Cosmic collapse is a common image with earth-shaking events (cf. Joel 2:28; Acts 2). The nations who sang this funeral dirge would be stunned and horrified that Egypt had fallen in their midst (vv.9–10).4
Alexander also presents evidence for events that fulfilled this prophecy: “One fragmentary Babylonian text from the chronicles of the Chaldean king (B.M. 33041) implies that Babylonia invaded Egypt about 568/567 B.C. This is corroborated by Josephus (Antiq. X, 180–82 [ix.7]).”5
Egypt’s world ended just as God had said it would. This development is even more interesting when we realize God used Babylon—whose own world would end in 539 BC—to destroy Egypt’s world in 586 BC.
The end of Egypt’s world did not force Idumean astrologers to adjust their star charts. Let us pause to say, “This is the LORD’S doing; it is marvellous in our eyes” (Psalm 118:23).
The End of Idumea’s6 World
Idumea’s world—astrologers and all—would also end according to Isaiah:
Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood. And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree. For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment. The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea. (Isaiah 34:3–6; emphasis added)
Geoffrey W. Grogan again provides helpful insights and links this prophecy to Jesus’ signs in the Olivet Discourse. Commenting on Isaiah 34:4, he says:
The ultimate character of this judgment is made clear when we see that it encompasses the entire cosmos, a reminder of the description in 24:21–23. This kind of language is taken up by the apocalyptic passages of the NT (e.g., Matt 24:29; 2 Peter 3:10, and esp. Rev 6:13–14). The way Isaiah illustrates this truth of cosmic judgment from situations familiar to his readers heightens the impression of God’s absolute control over all things (cf. 40:12).7
Scholars debate many details about this prophecy’s fulfillment. These controversies will not detain us here. We need only observe that these memorable prophetic images describe Idumea’s destruction.
We should not mistake Isaiah’s meaning and assume he was describing the end of the physical cosmos. Idumea’s world ended in a cosmic collapse, but not one astrologer in any nation closed shop.
Conclusion
When Jesus gave the Olivet Discourse, God’s judgment was about to destroy the world inhabited by Israel after the flesh. (See 1 Corinthians 10:18 for Paul’s use of this term.) The Mosaic age would soon finish its allotted duration; the Temple would fall. The sacrificial system instituted by Moses fifteen centuries earlier would cease. Jesus used the traditional signs of Israel’s prophets to describe these age-changing events.
David Brown confirms this conclusion. He believed in a kind of dual fulfillment and that Jesus’ signs pertained, ultimately, to events at the end of history. Even so, he makes an observation, while commenting on Mark 13:25, that reinforces our argument. He says that in Jesus’ list of signs,
nearly every expression will be found used of the Lord’s coming in terrible national judgments: as of Babylon (Is 13:9–13); of Idumea (Is 34:1, 2, 4, 8–10); of Egypt (Ez 32:7, 8); compare also Ps 18:7–15; Is 24:1, 17–19; Joe 2:10, 11, &c.8
Our model will restrict these signs to the destruction of the Temple.
Ezra Gould’s comments on the Olivet Discourse also support our conclusion. While explaining Mark 13:24, he says:
This darkening and fall of the heavenly bodies is so common an accompaniment of O.T. prophecy, and its place is so definitely and certainly fixed there, as belonging to the apocalyptic imagery of prophecy . . . that it presents no difficulty whatever, and does not even create a presumption in favor of the view that this is a prophecy of the final catastrophe.9
By “final catastrophe” Gould means the end of world history. Nothing in the “immediate signs” suggests Jesus had that catastrophe in mind.
These signs represented the destruction that God’s judgment would bring on Israel after the flesh. Their world was about to end, just as the worlds of Babylon, Egypt, and Idumea had ended. The same signs applied to the judgment of all these nations. And, in each case, the physical cosmos remained unaffected. The cosmic phenomena to which these signs point are not material.
Let us apply this to ourselves. We who belong to Israel after the Spirit (Galatians 4:2910) now live in a new world. Scripture draws many contrasts between the old world that perished when the Temple fell and the new world that now exists. Whereas Christ’s Messianic rule was a promise in the old (Psalm 110), it is now a reality (Matthew 28:18–19; 1 Corinthians 15:25).
The Temple made of living stones (1 Corinthians 3:16f; 1 Peter 2:5) has replaced the Temple of dead stones (1 Kings 5:17). Circumcision in the flesh characterized the old world (Genesis 17:10–14); in ours, circumcision is of the heart (Romans 2:29).
In the former world, a particular physical birth served as a prerequisite for life in covenant with God (Genesis 17:9); the new world requires a spiritual birth from above (John 3:3). By extension, the children of Abraham in the old world were those physically born to him (Genesis 21:12). In the new world, we are children of Abraham by faith (Galatians 3:7).
We read that “once in the end of the world hath [Christ] appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26). The “end of the world” here is the same period of which Jesus spoke in the Olivet Discourse. The true sacrifice that actually takes away sin now blesses our new world. It has replaced the typical sacrifices of the old world that could never take away sin (Hebrews 10:11).
The old-world disobedience predicted for Israel after the flesh (Deuteronomy 31:16) has run its course. Scripture magnifies the new-world obedience of Israel after the Spirit as she is enabled by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:10; Philippians 2:13).
We could extend this list of scriptural contrasts, but will not for the sake of expediency.
Yes, we missed the end of the world inhabited by Israel after the flesh. Let us rejoice! We now live in a much better world (Luke 7:28)! Our world will not end until Christ defeats all his enemies, the last being death. The resurrection of our physical bodies, the final judgment, and the ultimate destruction of sin and all its consequences on God’s good creation will bring the end for which we now hope (1 Corinthians 15:25–26).
Soli Deo Gloria!
Footnotes
- This word represents a bit of irony, as the following paragraphs will seek to make plain.
- Geoffrey W. Grogan, “Isaiah,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 98.
- Grogan, “Isaiah,” 103.
- Ralph H. Alexander, “Ezekiel,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 901–02. Emphasis added.
- Alexander, “Ezekiel,” 893.
- I.e., Edom.
- Grogan, “Isaiah,” 217. Emphasis added.
- Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, A Commentary, Critical, Experimental and Practical on the Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 3:1:194.
- Ezra P. Gould, The Gospel According to St. Mark (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896), 250. Emphasis added.
- The Scripture references in the following paragraphs represent a host of others that make the same points.
2 comments
[Glenn included the text of Matthew 24:29-31 here.]
Greetings, Mike! I do not know quite where to begin with a comment here. What our Lord Jesus referred to as “the sign of the Son of Man” is evidently in response to His disciples’ question about “the sign” of His coming, and the end of the age (v. 3). So it appears that a key question we must ask as we read through the passage as a whole is one of whether the disciples were asking about the end of the Jewish age, or when the elements will melt with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up — the time of the final judgment of all of mankind. It seems highly significant that our Lord Jesus did not correct His disciples’ question, but rather answered it right in keeping with their language of “the sign” of His coming.
My main question to you is essentially this: If the Lord Jesus is not referring to the end of the age when He comes for His saints in the Olivet Discourse, where in Scripture then is there a comparably lengthy and thorough passage in which He does discuss in detail the events surrounding it? If you take away the Olivet Discourse from consideration, where then is His core teaching on His return for His saints? I ask this because here in the Olivet Discourse we do have all of the primary elements of the teaching of Christ and His apostles concerning His return: the trumpet, the gathering of His elect, the preceding global persecution and decimation in martyrdom, and the cataclysmic events in the heavens, etc. To my mind at least it could not be clearer that what we are looking at in the Olivet Discourse is in fact His core teaching on His return for His saints, which is then reiterated and expounded upon by His apostles in the NT epistles. To make all of this out to be merely a reference to the end of the Jewish age rather than when He comes for His saints at the last trumpet seems to be a doozy of a misjudgment, one comparable to the diSpENSATIONAL pretribulational claim that this passage occurs at some point after the Lord’s return for His saints, due to its allegedly “Jewish” elements.
All for now, but keep “looking for the blessed hope” and loving His appearing!
Much love in Christ,
Glenn
Brother Glenn,
Thank you for these comments. I will attempt a response with as much grace as you have shown in our previous conversations.
Your comments and questions arise from a set of assumptions you believe to be true, not from the text of the Olivet Discourse itself. You believe a certain set of events must occur. But, they must occur only if your assumptions are true. This leads you to the conclusion that, since my analysis of the Olivet Discourse does not validate these assumptions, it must be “a doozy of a misjudgment.”
If your assumptions are correct, then your evaluation of my position is correct. But that is the problem. How do we know your assumptions are correct? How do we know what “the trumpet, the gathering of His, the preceding global persecution and decimation in martyrdom, and the cataclysmic events in the heavens” mean what you think they mean? You think you know what these signify, but how do you prove your opinions to be true?
I grant that the Olivet Discourse “is in fact His core teaching on His return” and that it forms the background of the epistles. If so, why would we go to the epistles, assume we know what they mean, and then interpret the Olivet Discourse in light of that understanding?
This seems backwards. Much better to expound the Olivet Discourse in light of the Old Testament Scriptures, then use that understanding to interpret the epistles. Doing this will, without doubt, alter many of our ideas regarding the epistles’ prophetic teachings.
The imagery of the Olivet Discourse comes from the Old Testament prophets. They are appropriate and adequate for the subject of the Olivet Discourse—the fall of the Temple (Matthew 24:1–3). We should allow this to guide us as we study the epistles, not vice versa!
I want to provide a direct answer to your question. You asked, “If the Lord Jesus is not referring to the end of the age when He comes for His saints in the Olivet Discourse, where in Scripture then is there a comparably lengthy and thorough passage in which He does discuss in detail the events surrounding it?”
My answer is this. The Lord was referring to the end of the age!—the Mosaic age in which he lived, the age about to end when the Temple sacrificial system ended. We should not assume this refers to some other age disconnected from the Temple.
Jesus was referring to his coming to gather his elect. We should not assume a particular understanding of what this means based on other assumptions of what the epistles teach. I suggest we allow the Old Testament Scriptures to define this “gathering” for us. Lord willing, we will do this in an upcoming post. It may not mean what you think!
We need “a comparably lengthy and thorough passage” only if we assume there should be one! My approach is to not make that assumption, but to allow the Scriptures to interpret themselves. In the Olivet Discourse, Jesus used the same imagery as the Old Testament prophets. We should interpret his words from that perspective, not from one of our own devising. Doing so eliminates the need for some other lengthy passage that validates our ideas.
Yours in Christ,
Mike