The Signs in the Rearview Mirror

Looking at street signs in the rearview mirrors of our cars does not help us get to our destination in most cases. Nevertheless, we can benefit by looking back at the signs of which we have been writing.

In our last post, we completed our examination of the individual signs Jesus gave for the destruction of the Temple (Matthew 24:1–3). Our glance back at them as a group will reveal two important points that deserve a second look.

After this backward glance, we will review our effort to construct a prophetic model. We will restate the reasons for making the effort and show the progress we have made. This may prove helpful to our new readers in particular.

Future posts will examine Jesus’ answer to the disciples when question. This will establish the foundation to expand our prophetic model beyond the destruction of the Temple. When completed, the model will include Jesus’ victorious reign in his kingdom, capped by the overthrow of his final enemy, death, in the resurrection.

Two Key Points About the Signs

Important aspects of a matter often hide while we examine individual details. We see them only when we step back and survey the entire landscape. The two points we want to make here behave in this manner.

An actual answer

First, we wish to stress that Jesus actually answered the disciples’ request for a sign of the Temple’s destruction.

Some commentators deny this obvious conclusion. John MacArthur—a Bible teacher I admire and respect—is an example. He makes the astounding claim that Jesus ignored the disciples’ query about the Temple. Jesus provided no signs of fulfillment for his own prophecy and focused only on events that would transpire thousands of years later, at the end of the church age. Here are his words:

In the Olivet Discourse itself [Jesus] makes no clear reference to the events of A.D. 70 [when the Temple was destroyed]. His entire reply is an extended answer to the more important question about the signs of His coming and the end of the age. Virtually ignoring their initial question, He said nothing whatsoever about when the destruction of Jerusalem would occur. That is because those events were not really germane to the end of the age. They were merely a foretaste of the greater judgment that would accompany His return, previews of what is to come ultimately.¹

MacArthur provides no proof for these assertions in his immediate context.

This understanding disrupts the natural flow of the Olivet Discourse (see below) and makes for a very awkward conversation. Jesus first predicted the Temple’s destruction. The disciples then asked when these things would happen and what sign would show their approach. According to MacArthur, Jesus then responded by ignoring his own prophecy and the disciples’ questions about it. Instead, for some unexplained reason, he shifted his focus to events in the distant future unrelated to the destruction of the Temple.

Reasons commentators take approaches like this lie outside the Olivet Discourse. Certain prophetic presuppositions—about what the “end of the age” means in particular—create the need for them. One can question whether writers would do things like this if their pre-existing assumptions did not require it.

Maneuvers like this are unnecessary. Jesus used common Old Testament signs appropriate to the destruction of the Temple. There is no need to apply his signs to anything else. Instead of ignoring the disciples’ request for a sign, Jesus responded with amazing precision. No sudden and unforeseen change of topic found its way into this conversation.

An answer based on precedent

Second, the strength of the case for the appropriateness of Jesus’ signs lies in their conformity to prophetic precedent and usage. None of them appears out of place in Jesus’ prophecy about the fall of the Temple because the prophets had used them in similar circumstances.

The following table contains signs (in Matthew) that commentators often place in other contexts. It also lists just a few of the available Old Testament texts that show the appropriateness of each sign to Jesus’ prophecy about the Temple’s destruction.

Signs In Matthew		Sample Old Testament Precedent
Abomination of desolation (24:15)		Daniel 9:26–27; 12:11
Superlative tribulation (24:21)		Exodus 11:6
Lightning (24:27)		Psalm 77:18
Feasting vultures (24:28)		Hosea 8:1
Cosmic collapse (24:29)		Isaiah 13:10
The Son of Man in heaven (24:30)		Psalm 110:1
Mourning tribes (24:30)		Zechariah 12:10–14
“Coming” in judgment (24:30)		Isaiah 19:1
Gathering the elect (24:31)		Isaiah 40:11

Previous posts, in particular numbers 13 through 18, provide additional prophetic precedents. See links to these posts here.

If all the signs Jesus associated with the destruction of the Temple conform to previous Old Testament prophetic usage, the analogy of faith suggests we should not force them into another context.

A Brief Overview

Our primary task is to construct a model for interpreting biblical prophecy. The current prophetic models—amillennialism, postmillennialism, historic premillennialism, and dispensationalism—contain areas of weakness. We want to glorify the Lord our God by extracting the prophetic model built into the Scriptures. Doing this will make improvements in several areas.

Objectives

The new model will improve apologetics. As we have seen, the available options contain weaknesses that create opportunities for critics of the Christian faith. Bertrand Russell exploited this in his book Why I Am not a Christian. R. C. Sproul noted that evangelical Christians have not responded to such challenges with sufficient vigor. Christians need a prophetic model that better enables them to answer criticisms like Russell’s. We want to build such a model from the Scriptures (Acts 17:11; 2 Timothy 2:15).

The prophetic model will encourage evangelism. There is an optimism in our model that affirms God’s intention to expand His kingdom to fill the earth (Isaiah 11:9). This ensures our success in making disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18–19).

Some advocates of the existing systems recognize the connection between this optimistic view of prophecy and missions. Craig L. Blomberg says optimism in prophecy has “captured Christian allegiance to a significant degree only in times of great missionary expansion . . . when some people have allowed themselves to imagine a fuller Christianization of the earth than the world has heretofore seen.”² We want to show how the biblical view of prophecy plays an important part in the church’s missionary enterprise.

With apologies in advance for the computer metaphor, this will be an open-source prophetic model. By this I mean the original sources for the model will be available and explicit. Advocates of existing frameworks appeal to many Scriptures in their explanations of prophecy. Yet, there is a dearth of material that explains the original development of the frameworks. We want to develop our model in a step-by-step manner that allows readers to understand each new element and see how these elements fit in the overall framework. Knowledge of the inner workings of any complex tool (e.g., software, systems, etc.) increases our ability to use it.

Our prophetic model will provide context for living the Christian life. The apostles often used prophetic themes to encourage Christians to live holy lives. Paul told the Corinthians to live “so that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:7–8). A prophetic view that fails to provide motivation to holiness is not robust enough. The prophetic model under development here will make a direct appeal to kingdom success as a motivation for living the Christian life.

Method and Status

Our effort has taken a straightforward path. We began in the New Testament because there God has revealed the meaning of certain Old Testament passages (e.g., Ephesians 3:4–11). In the New Testament, we chose to not start in the Revelation because it is a book filled with symbolic language—God “signified” its contents unto John (Revelation 1:1). The Olivet Discourse presented the next longest prophetic passage and contained few prophetic symbols. We chose this passage as our starting point.

We used Matthew’s account of the Olivet Discourse for most of our analysis because it supplies the most details of what Jesus said on that occasion. Mark and Luke have supplied key supporting information.

Matthew arranged his material in an easy-to-follow four-step progression. First, Jesus prophesied the Temple’s demise. Second, this prediction prompted the disciples to ask when this would occur and for a sign related to it. Third, Jesus responded by providing a list of signs and an answer to the when question. Fourth, Jesus gave an exhortation that completed his discourse. (Our outline of the Olivet Discourse resides here.)

We have now examined details of the Olivet Discourse through the signs Jesus provided.

Conclusion

By God’s grace, we have constructed a significant portion of the framework we need to better understand prophecy. We have examined the signs Jesus provided. Commentators often associate (at least some of) them with the end of history. This is a mistake; the signs in the Olivet Discourse pertain instead to the subject under consideration—the destruction of the Temple (Matthew 24:1–3). This event occurred in AD 70. Our discussion of Jesus’ answer to the disciples’ when question will reinforce this conclusion.

The fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy was a major milestone in God’s redemptive plan. The Temple’s fall ended the Mosaic age. It was not, however, the end-all of God’s prophetic word. The disciples knew the Messianic age would continue, now unencumbered by the Old Testament trappings centered in the Temple.

We will see that Christ’s kingdom reign—his parousia (presence) with his people during which he overcomes sin in all its manifestations—is the true focus of a scriptural prophetic model. The signs Jesus gave pointed to the destruction of the Temple, but beyond that event lay the ongoing parousia (presence) of the One who replaced it (Matthew 12:6).

“Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (1 Timothy 1:17)

1. John MacArthur, The Second Coming: Signs of Christ’s Return and the End of the Age (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 80; emphasis added.
2. Craig L. Blomberg, “The Posttribulationism of the New Testament,” in A Case for Historic Premillennialism: An Alternative to “Left Behind” Eschatology, ed. Craig L. Blomberg and Sung Wook Chung (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 66.