In my last post, I gave three reasons for objecting to Dr. John Murray’s divisions of the Olivet Discourse into different periods. I mentioned that Dr. Sam Waldron adopted Murray’s views and has explained and expanded them. Here, I will discuss the underlying presuppositions that put them in a position of being “compelled to construe”1 these divisions.
Assumptions exert a powerful determinative influence over any endeavor. The belief that the Earth is the center of the solar system caused ancient astronomers to see the planets perform retrograde motion, a counterintuitive backward motion. They had never seen an inanimate object reverse course on its own, but it was the only way they knew to explain the phenomena while holding the geocentric concept. Copernicus challenged that assumption. He realized that putting the sun at the center eliminated the need for retrograde motion.
Similarly, several vital assumptions drive Murray’s divisions of the Olivet Discourse. These ideas determine the outcome of his interpretation, but they lie hidden below the surface. He doesn’t discuss them. I want to make them explicit and examine their validity.
I recognize the sensitive nature of this task. When someone questions things at this level, we react viscerally; such challenges arouse our emotions. I am not questioning Dr. Murray’s commitment to truth or love for the Lord. I appreciate his work in God’s kingdom, and I suspect he and Waldron would encourage us to examine the basis of their reasoning.
Here are some of the presuppositions built into Murray’s analysis of Matthew 24.
End of the Age
Murray says the Olivet Discourse “is concerned, not only with the destruction of the temple but also with the advent and the consummation of the age.”2 He assumes the disciples were thinking about the end of history when they asked, “What will be the sign of … of the end of the age?” (Matt 24:3). Waldron clarifies this premise: “The disciples assumed that destruction of the temple could mean nothing less than the end of the world.”3
Murray uses the term “the end” at least nine times in his article,4 with this assumption in the background. He bases his divisions of the Olivet Discourse on it.
Let’s rethink this assumption. The temple was the preeminent symbol of the Mosaic age. What if the disciples knew its destruction would mean the end of the age for which God had designed it? If so, “the end” in this context would mean the end of that age.
The apostles later wrote from this perspective. They said the sacrificial system and everything associated with it was “obsolete and growing old … ready to vanish away” (Heb 8:13). The law that ordained the temple sacrifices was temporary, “added because of transgressions, till the Seed (i.e., Christ) should come” (Gal 3:19). They spoke of “the removal of those things (i.e., of the Mosaic age) that [were] being shaken … that the things (i.e., of the messianic age) which cannot be shaken may remain” (Heb 12:27).
It seems more reasonable to assume the disciples understood the significance of the temple’s demise than to think they linked it to the end of history. When it fell, the daily sacrifices ended (Dan 12:11), the priesthood ended (Heb 7:12), and the age for which God designed them ended. The temple’s fall was “the end” of which the disciples and Jesus spoke.
This revised understanding of “the end” almost single-handedly eliminates the rationale for making some parts of the Olivet Discourse refer to AD 70 and others to the end of time. I suggest we make it; “the end of the age” in Matthew 24 means the end of the Mosaic age, not the end of history.
Bewildered Disciples
Murray’s end-of-age assumption has a sibling—that Jesus’ prophecy confused the disciples. Waldron says, “It seems clear from their questions that the disciples assumed that destruction of the temple could mean nothing less than the end of the world. This confusion could not go uncorrected,”5 so Jesus spoke about the temple’s fall in some parts of the Olivet Discourse and about the end of history in others. This approach somehow corrected their confusion.
We should not charge the disciples with ignorance on this topic. Sure, they were dull in their understanding of some topics. For example, their response to one of Jesus’ parables caused Him to say, “Are you thus without understanding also?” (Mark 7:18). And the Lord rebuked Peter for denying the necessity of His coming death: “But when He had turned around and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men” (Mark 8:33).
The disciples had much to learn, but they were not ignorant about all topics. Let’s remember that Peter confessed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt 16:16). And, when asked if they would go away, Peter answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). Jesus said of them,
You are those who have continued with Me in My trials. And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as My Father bestowed one upon Me, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Luke 22:28–30)
These were key insights.
The disciples also knew a messianic (kingdom) age would follow the Mosaic age. Over a year earlier, Jesus had sent them to “preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand’” (Matt 10:7). He gave them explicit and detailed instructions regarding their message and how the Jews would respond to it (Matt 10:5–42). It is difficult to see how they could have preached about the kingdom age if they thought the temple’s fall would end history.
Further, they knew the kingdom age would arrive with Jesus’ coming. The Lord had told them, “You will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes (Gk. erchomai) ” (Matt 10:23). So, when they associated the temple’s fall with the end of the Mosaic age and with the Lord’s coming (Gk. parousia),6 we should assume they understood the relationship between these three things.
There is little reason to assume they were thinking about the end of history.
Coming, Advent, and Parousia
Murray and Waldron assume the following about Christ’s coming, advent, and parousia:
- These three terms describe the same event.
- This event will occur at the end of history.
These presuppositions remain unquestioned. Does Jesus discuss them in the Olivet Discourse? Yes. Of necessity, therefore, He is talking about something other than the temple’s fall in His generation. This conclusion forces Murry and Waldron to divide the passage into separate periods.
This is not the place for a detailed discussion of these concepts.7 I want to say enough to show we should examine these assumptions.
Before doing so, please let me clarify one thing lest you misunderstand my position. I believe God will end history in a cosmic event visible to ocular sight and that that event will involve the physical, bodily presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. I wholeheartedly endorse the Apostle’s Creed: “I believe in … the resurrection of the body.”
Regarding the first assumption, one of these terms—parousia—is not an event but a state of being present. Jesus’ parousia did not happen at the temple’s fall, nor will it occur at the end of time. The Lord is either present in a certain way at any given time or He is absent. Parousia is a common word for the former.
Paul helps us understand this concept: “As you have always obeyed, not as in my presence (Gk. parousia) only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation” (Phil 2:12). The Apostle’s parousia with the Philippians was not an event, it was his being present.
Christ’s parousia is his presence with his people in the messianic (kingdom) age. It was a reality in AD 70 (Matt 24:3, 27, 37, 39), and it will exist at the resurrection (1 Cor 15:23). The other two terms—advent and coming—are events related to the parousia, but we should not equate them with it.
The second assumption—that these three words pertain to the end of history—runs counter to almost every time marker in the New Testament. I noticed Matthew 10:23 above—Jesus would come before the disciples finished their mission to Israel, and this would be before some of His hearers died (Matt 16:27–28). Near the end of Jesus’ generation, the writer of Hebrews said, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay” (Heb 10:37).
At the very least, we should not assume without proof that Jesus is describing an event at the end of history while giving signs of the temple’s fall.
Confused Commissions
Murray assumes that the commission in the Olivet Discourse is identical to the Great Commission Jesus gave after His resurrection. “At [Matt 24:14] the more auspicious aspect of interadventual history is promised, the worldwide preaching of the gospel for a witness to all the nations, in accord with our Lord’s post-resurrection commissions (Matt. 28:18-20; Luke 24:46, 47).” This identification lends support to Murray’s assumption “of the extended period that the events of interadventual history require for their fulfilment.”8
This approach overlooks the distinguishing characteristics of these commissions. The one in the Olivet Discourse involved preaching the gospel “as a witness to all the nations.” It announced the judgment God was about to execute on Jerusalem (e.g., 1 Thess 2:16). The prophets had similarly called on the nations to witness God’s previous judgments (e.g., Mic 1:1–12 ESV). The New Testament shows the disciples completed this commission in their generation (Rom 1:8; 10:18; 16:25–27; Col 1:6, 23; et al.).
Jesus’ post-resurrection commission was for another purpose: to “make disciples of all the nations” (Matt 28:19). This evangelization of the nations began in Jesus’ generation and will continue throughout the messianic age. Through the Church obeying this commission, God will subdue all things to Christ (Psa 110:1; 1 Cor 15:25–26; 2 Cor 10:3–6; et al.).
The disciples completed the commission Jesus gave them in the Olivet Discourse. We should not equate it to the Great Commission and then divide Matthew 24 because we think it was not fulfilled.
Visibility
We should question another of Murray’s assumptions—that Christ would be visible to ocular sight when He would come in His kingdom.
Several passages suggest otherwise. Jesus told Caiaphas, “From now on, you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matt 26:64 ESV). The high priest would “see” the coming in the same way he would “see” the Lord at God’s right hand—not with his natural eyes but by beholding the events Jesus foretold, especially the temple’s destruction.
Jesus explicitly stated this: “When He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, ‘The kingdom of God does not come with observation’” (Luke 17:20).
This matches the Old Testament comings of God in judgment. Isaiah, for example, said, “Behold, the LORD rides on a swift cloud, and will come into Egypt; the idols of Egypt will totter at His presence, and the heart of Egypt will melt in its midst” (Isa 19:1). The prophet called on men to “behold” the Lord coming on a cloud. He meant for them to do so by beholding Egypt’s destruction. Nobody saw Him with ocular sight. The same was true of God’s judgment of Jerusalem.
Times of the Gentiles
Jesus said, “Then there will be great tribulation … [and] immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened” (Matt 24:21, 29). Regarding these statements, Murray says,
When we come to verse 29, we encounter some difficulty. For ‘the tribulation of those days’ might appear to refer to the ‘great tribulation’ of verse 21 which is associated particularly with the desolation of Jerusalem. And we ask: How could it be said that, immediately after 70 A.D., the events specified in verses 29–31 took place?9
Jesus’ word “immediately” challenges Murray’s divisions of the Olivet Discourse. To address it, he inserts the entire church age before verse 29, based on Luke’s account of Jesus’ words: “Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” (Luke 21:24).
He takes it for granted that “the times of the Gentiles” are identical to the age we live in. If this is true, Jesus was talking about events in His distant future.
Let me again just hint at why we might question this idea. Jesus was establishing the kingdom of God in its messianic-age form. This included transferring the kingdom from the Jews to the Church through the events surrounding the temple’s fall (Matt 21:43; 23:36, 38).
Successive Gentile kingdoms ruled Jerusalem for centuries: Babylon, Media, Greece, and Rome (cp. Dan 2). That “trampling” would end with the temple’s fall. Once God finished the kingdom transfer, the messianic-age Jerusalem—the one above—would not suffer such subjugation (cp. Gal 4:21–31).
I suggest we see the temple’s fall and the “great tribulation” that preceded it as the climax of the Gentile oppression of Jerusalem. Once these events happened, “the times of the Gentiles” would be over.
This revised assumption fits the flow of redemptive history and preserves unity in the Olivet Discourse.
Interadventual Period
Murray’s title includes the term “interadventual period,” which he assumes is between Jesus’ generation and the end of history. He states one section of the Olivet Discourse (vv 4–14) gives “certain outstanding features”10 of that period.
In this section, his analysis of Jesus’ statements depends on the assumptions he has already made. For example, he says verses 15–18 “comprise another section of the discourse. This section cannot be a continuation, because verse 14 had brought us up to the end.” By “the end,” he means the end of history, an assumption we discussed above.
However, if “the end” means the end of the Mosaic age at the temple’s demise, the logic for these two sections (vv 4–14 and 15–18) falls to the ground.
I suggest that the “interadventual period” equates to “this generation” in which all these things would occur (Matt 24:34). If so, Matthew 24 describes the interval before the temple’s fall, not the entire messianic (church) age. That is the Biblical “interadventual period.”
Cosmic Collapse
Jesus said, “The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Matt 24:29).
Murray assumes Jesus meant the end of the physical cosmos:
There is to be the cosmic renovation (cf. Rom. 8:18-23; 2 Pet. 3:10-13). The cosmic commotions of verse 29 are consonant with the descriptions given elsewhere respecting the great change that will take place in the cosmos. These commotions are an integral part of the complex of events focused in Christ’s advent. They can be said to constitute the entourage of the advent.11
Should we follow him here? The prophets had used such language many times to describe God’s previous judgments, including those on Jerusalem. For example, Isaiah proclaimed doom on Babylon, saying, “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” (Isa 13:10; cp. Isa 34:1, 2, 4, 8–10; Ezek 32:7–8; Psa 18:7–15; Joel 2:10–11; et al.).
We should assume Jesus used cosmic collapse imagery as the prophets had always done. This will put us on safer interpretive ground.
Conclusion
Murray’s approach includes other assumptions, but I suspect these are enough to make my point—his divisions of the Olivet Discourse depend on his assumptions. I’m persuaded that a better alternative exists for each one of them. Accepting these alternatives eliminates the problems I discussed in my previous post: discontinuity of audience and subject, conflicting sign sequences, and inaccurate use of “this” and “that” demonstrative pronouns. This allows us to appreciate the unity in Matthew 24: a single subject (the temple’s fall), one audience (the disciples to whom Jesus spoke), and a single period (Jesus’ generation).
Let us recognize the power of our preconceived notions in our understanding of Scripture. May the Lord bless us to interpret His revelation “not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (1 Cor 2:13).
Footnotes
- John Murray, “The Interadventual Period and the Advent: Matthew 24 and 25,” in Collected Writings of John Murray, (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth, 1977), 388.
- Murray, “The Interadventual Period,” 387.
- Sam Waldron, “The Meaning of Matthew 24, Part 2,” https://cbtseminary.org/meaning-of-matthew-24-2/
- Murray, “The Interadventual Period.”
- Sam Waldron, “The Meaning of Matthew 24, Part 2,” https://cbtseminary.org/meaning-of-matthew-24-2/
- See Matthew 24:3. I discuss the relationship between these two Greek words for “coming” in Michael A. Rogers, Inmillennialism: Redefining the Last Days (Tullahoma, TN: McGahan Publishing House, 2020), 73–88.
- For such a discussion, please see my book (here).
- Murray, “The Interadventual Period,” 388.
- Murray, “The Interadventual Period,” 387.
- Murray, “The Interadventual Period,” 388.
- Murray, “The Interadventual Period,” 391.
