A Response to Elder Michael Ivey’s Essay—Part 1

I published Elder Michael Ivey’s essay on the Olivet Discourse in my last two posts (here and here). It contradicts my prophetic framework (i.e., inmillennialism¹) and, therefore, my view of Paul’s “rapture passage” (1 Thess 4:13–5:11). 

None of the popular prophetic models accept my thesis regarding the Olivet Discourse (Matt 24–25; Mark 13; Luke 21:5–38). I say every element Jesus listed there existed in his generation. The models deny this and require that some of them, especially the coming of the Son of Man, will only occur in our future. 

Commentators who accept one of these models must isolate these future elements from the rest of the Olivet Discourse. Some do so by taking generation to mean the Jewish race, not contemporaries. Others ignore the pronoun Jesus used, treating this generation as if it means that generation living in the future. Other commentators appeal to double fulfillment: things happened as Jesus said they would happen in his generation, but they will also happen again in our future. The fictitious “elastic time” idea appeals to others: a day is as a thousand years, so we cannot know what the timestamps in Scripture mean. 

Elder Ivey does not appeal to any of these devices. Instead, he divides the Olivet Discourse by using a form of the common already-not-yet approach in which “fulfillment is temporally transformed into a long, drawn-out, already—not yet period.”² Regarding the Olivet Discourse, he says Jesus “addresses the beginning of fulfillment of the prophecy, not its completion.”

I will devote at least two posts to his reasons for making this statement and another to his use of the Western Wall to illustrate it. In my concluding post, I plan to show how dividing the Olivet Discourse spoils the parables of exhortation Jesus gave.

Here I will make a single point: Elder Ivey’s reasoning does not support his conclusion.

The Crucial Point—Part A

Elder Ivey supports his already-not-yet position by emphasizing that the disciples’ question and Jesus’ answer used different Greek words. The Lord prophesied: “I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matt 24:2). The disciples questioned: “When shall these things be³ (Gk. sunteleō)?” (Matt 24:3). Jesus answered: “Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place (Gk. ginomai)” (Matt 24:34). The question has  sunteleō; the answer has ginomai. 

Here is the crux of Elder Ivey’s argument: the disciples asked “when the prophecy would be completed.”⁴ The word change shows “Jesus did not tell his followers when the prophecy would be completed. He told them when it would begin to be completed.”⁵ The disciples asked when the things related to the temple’s fall would end; Jesus revealed when they would begin. 

Elder Ivey supports this distinction by giving one definition from Strong’s dictionary for each Greek word.⁶ The second word—ginomai—provides his foundation, so I will concentrate on it.

James Strong gives excellent advice in his section on “How to Use the … Dictionary.” He says, “Of supreme importance in word studies is examining words in their biblical contexts.”⁷ Following his suggestion shows ginomai often cannot mean “begin to be completed.” We should remember this when interpreting Matthew 24:34. 

The immediate context—the Olivet Discourse—cannot support Elder Ivey’s about-to-be definition. That meaning cannot apply to “all these things” Jesus mentioned. An earthquake does not “begin to be” in one generation and last for centuries before it is complete (cp. Matt 24:7). The abomination of desolation (Matt 24:15) did not “begin to be” in Jesus’ day, only to enter a state of suspended animation until some future time. Jews are not still fleeing to the mountains (Matt 24:16). “The tribulation of those days” (Matt 24:29) is not the tribulation of our days or any future days. The coming of the Son of Man did not “begin to be” in the apostolic age only to reach completion in our future (Matt 24:3, 27, 30).⁸ 

The New Testament’s extended context provides many other examples where ginomai cannot mean “begin to be completed.” I will give just two examples, both from the Gospels. Jesus asked, “If a man has (Gk. ginomai) a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying?” (Matt 18:12). Did he mean a man would begin to have a hundred sheep? No. The man already had the complete number of sheep.

In another place, Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made (Gk. ginomai) for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). This statement does not mean God began to make the Sabbath; it means he made it. Afterward, it was a completed part of the moral law. Jesus was Lord of a Sabbath that existed, not one under development (Matt 12:8).

Elder Ivey interprets the Olivet Discourse based on a single definition in a simplified dictionary. This procedure plunges us into difficulty, as our contextual analyses prove. 

Elder Ivey would join me in objecting to this approach in other passages. For example, Peter commanded people to repent and “be baptized … for (Gk. eis) the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). Strong says eis can mean “for [intent, purpose].”⁹ Does this mean the intent or purpose of baptism must be the forgiveness of sins? No, because eis can mean other things. In like manner, we should not interpret the Olivet Discourse through one definition in Strong’s—the stakes are too high.

Authoritative Greek dictionaries give meanings of ginomai that include:

To occur as process or result, happen, turn out, take place.… All this took place … until all has taken place (=is past) … everything that had happened … this thing that has taken place.¹⁰

In Matthew 18:12, acquiring a flock had reached completion. In Mark 2:27, God had completed ordaining the Sabbath. The “begin-to-be” meaning for ginomai corrupts these statements. Does it also subvert Jesus’ purpose in the Olivet Discourse (Matt 24:34)? Contextual evidence must determine this matter.

Conclusion

Context argues against the “about to be” meaning of ginomai in Matthew 24:34. The translations provide more accurate definitions: be fulfilled (KJV); take place (NKJV, ESV, NASB, HCSB); and may come to pass¹¹ (YLT).

We cannot argue for an already-not-yet interpretation of the Olivet Discourse from a single meaning of the Greek word ginomai. Elder Ivey does so to isolate two parts of the discourse: one in our past and the other in our future.

I will show (D. V.) the impossibility of such a division in my next post.

1. I document this perspective in {Rogers, 2020, #5624} This book is available here in hardcopy and here as a PDF. A free summary PDF document of inmillennialism is here.
2. G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 939.
3. I have removed the original italics in the NKJV and am using them here for emphasis only.
4. My emphasis.
5. My emphasis.
6. I don’t know which edition of Strong’s dictionary Elder Ivey is using. For reference, see James Strong, The New Strong’s Dictionary of Hebrew and Greek Words (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1996).
7. Strong, Dictionary.
8. I speak from Elder Ivey’s perspective not from my concept of Christ’s parousia.
9. Strong, Dictionary, s.v. 1519, eis.
10. William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 197(emphasis added).
11. This translation reflects the subjunctive mood of the verb.