What is Matthew 24 all about?
Matthew 24 is the reading set for the quaternary Lord's day before Advent (i.e. in the countdown to Advent at the ordinary flavour comes to a shut) and its parallel Mark 13 is the reading for the first Sunday of Advent. There is much confusion virtually both these passages (and the parallel in Luke 21), and there appear to be ii principal means it is read.
one. Both two main sections, Matt 24.1–35 and Matt 24.36–51 are about Jesus' second coming at the end of the age.
two. The first chief section Matt 24.1–35 is about the firsthand future and the destruction of the temple, but the second main section Matt 24.36–51 concerns a more afar expectation of Jesus' render at the cease of the age.
The commencement reading is very widespread, both amongst 'confessional' readers and 'sceptical' ones, for a range of reasons.
Firstly, there is a close clan between the events in the commencement department and linguistic communication of 'the stop.' Matt 24.six mentions that 'the end is yet to come up' and 24.13 talks of continuing firm 'to the end.' Secondly, in Matt 24.14 Jesus talks of the gospel existence preached 'in all the world' and and so 'the stop' will come up. Thirdly, Matt 24.21 talks of bang-up distress 'that will never be equalled.' Fourthly, at that place is language in Matt 24.27 of the 'coming of the Son of Homo.' And so in Matt 24.29, we are told of cosmic signs of the finish of the historic period, after which in Matt 24.30 again the 'coming of the Son of Man' will be seen by 'all the peoples of the earth.' Finally, in Matt 24.31, in that location is a trumpet call, and the angels gather the elect from the ends of the earth. Some also see a parallel between what is described here, and the 'stop times' judgements of the seven seals in Rev 6.
This all looks fairly compelling, so should make for a curt blog mail service—except for one vital thing:
Amen I say to you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. (Matt 24.34)
Jesus' saying here is quite emphatic in form, including the emphatic form of the negative, mentioning 'all' these things clearly, and opening with the 'Amen' formula, feature of Matthew'south tape of Jesus' didactics, and suggesting recollection of Jesus' actual words in Aramaic.
This is very difficult to evade. Some people suggest that the give-and-take 'generation' genea could be translated equally 'nation' or 'race' rather than 'generation'. But in that location is only one other occurrence in the gospels where this could exist the reading—in Luke 16.8. Even here, the contrast is between people of this historic period and those 'of the light', and so there is a temporal sense here. But in all other cases, the word clearly has the sense of 'the people alive at this time.' The clearest examples are in the genealogy in Matt 1.17 'fourteen generations', and in the Magnificat in Luke 1.48 and Luke 1.l 'his mercy extends to those who fear him, from one generation to another.' Along with this, the verse itself has a clear temporal sense in talking of information technology 'non passing away.'
(A minority reading argues that 'this generation' refers not to the generation Jesus is addressing, simply the 'stop times' generation of some time in the future to whom all these things volition happen. Apart from making this maxim completely tautologous, such a reading has the small-scale disadvantage of making the term mean any the reader wants it to mean, rather than what Jesus actually said. If he is looking around at his disciples and uses the word 'this', so he is referring to them!)
This all makes the first approach problematic, and led C Due south Lewis to annotate:
It is certainly the nearly embarrassing verse in the Bible. (in "The World's Terminal Night" (1960), The Essential C.S. Lewis, p. 385)
Such a view also proposes that, in these verses, nosotros have a dislocated mixture of predictions about the about and the distant future, which suggests Jesus didn't really know what he was talking near, or the disciples didn't, or the gospel writers didn't—or all 3. More than seriously, it has made not a few scholars conclude that Jesus thought his render would be within a generation, and that he was clearly incorrect—he was a failed apocalyptic prophet, and the writers of the NT tried (unsuccessfully) to cover up the fact.
The difficulty with this last conclusion is that Matthew, Mark and Luke all record Jesus saying this. Unless yous remember that all 3 gospels were written before the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, and then you have to conclude that they also believed Jesus expected his return within the generationand that subsequent generations of copyists believed this, merely somehow ignored it. This seems altogether implausible. All the prove points to the gospel writers taking Jesus seriously, and thinking that their contemporaries needed to know what Jesus said.
How tin can we make sense of this? A first massive clue comes in comparison the parallel passage in Mark thirteen with Matthew. The get-go section of Matt 24 equates to Marking 13.1–31; if you look in a Synopsis (which puts the passages from the dissimilar gospels in parallel with one some other) you can see that Matthew and Marking are almost identical (with the exception of Matt 24.10–12). Just in the second department, Mark has merely 6 verses, whereas Matthew continues with 16 more, and then in chapter 25 records a serial of Jesus' eschatological parables about final sentence (the bridesmaids, the parable of the 'talents', and the sheep and the goats).
A second massive clue comes in noticing Matthew'south stardom betwixt 'this' and 'that'. In Marker 13.4 the disciples ask Jesus a single, compound question about the temple, prompted by his comment that 'non a unmarried stone will be left on some other':
"Tell united states, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?"
Simply in Matthew, the compound question has become ii questions:
"Tell usa," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"
For some reason, Matthew appears to want to distinguish more clearly between the question of the destruction of the temple, and the question about Jesus' coming and the end of the age. Matthew continues the distinction, by being clear that in the first section, Jesus is talking about 'this', only at Matt 24.36 he introduces a marked modify of focus: 'But about that day or hour, no-one knows…' The nearly obvious caption of this is that Matthew is writinglater on the temple'south destruction in 70AD, but Marker was writing before it. So for Mark, the impending fate of the temple looms large; for Matthew, this has now passed, and the question of Jesus' coming deserves more attending.
What, then, do nosotros make of all the material in the first section which looks as though it is referring to 'the finish'? It doesn't need to be read in this way at all.
Note offset that emphasis of Matt 24.6 is not toassociate these events with 'the end', just todistinguish them. 'The terminate is non yet.' And in 24.xiii and 24.xiv, the word 'end' isnot the (semi-technical) termeschatos (every bit in 'the final days') merely the more full general termtelos. Secondly, we might be conscious that at that place is more preaching to be washed, merely the wordoikumene is all-time understood every bit referring to the known world. It does seem that preaching to the whole (Roman) globe was Paul'southward goal, and Luke (in Acts) does announced to think that that is what he has done, 'with all boldness and without hindrance!' (Acts 28.31)—and all before the autumn of Jerusalem. Thirdly, the distress of the siege of Jerusalem was indeed terrible; Josephus recounts a story of a woman killing her infant and eating half of it, offering the other one-half to rebel fighters (Jewish War chapter 6), and more Jews were killed past other Jews than by the Romans.
But a cardinal observation is to note the language of the 'coming of the Son of Homo.' The discussion for Jesus' second coming to earth,parousia,does non occur in Matt 24.30. The phrase instead is the 'erchomenos of the Son of Man'. This is an virtually direct quotation of the Greek of Dan seven.13:
"In my vision at night I looked, and at that place before me was i like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Aboriginal of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authorisation, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass abroad, and his kingdom is one that volition never exist destroyed."
In other words, this is not virtually the 'Son of Human' coming to earth, but his coming before God, receiving authority and beingness vindicated. Note that he exercises authority over 'all nations and peoples'. Jesus too quotes this—in exactly the same words—to the High Priest in Mark fourteen.62. Here Jesus cannot be talking nearly his return—he refers to himself sitting at the right hand of God and exercising the ability of the kingdom, which the priest believes to be blasphemy. And he says that the High Priest will witness Jesus' vindication and say-so; he volition run across Jesus raised from the dead and the Spirit coming to equip the disciples as witnesses not only to State of israel but to all nations.
This likewise makes sense of the final parts of our puzzle. The 'trumpet' isnot the 'concluding trump' of one Cor xv.52 and 1 Thess 4.16, but a metaphor for the proclamation of the gospel which we read well-nigh in Acts, and the 'gathering of the elect' is the entry into God's people of the Gentile believers. Only what of the catholic linguistic communication: 'the sun will exist darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will exist shaken.'? Note that this is to happen 'immediately' later on the distress of those days. Well, these words from Isaiah thirteen.10, Isaiah 34.4 and Joel 2.31 are also quoted presently after—by Peter at Pentecost:
In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people…The sunday will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood…And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (Acts ii.17–21)
Peter appears to empathize what is going on in forepart of him in exactly the aforementioned words that Jesus uses in the kickoff department of Matt 24—all happening within the life of that generation.
And so that is why I go with option ii above. The first part of Matt 24 is indeed about the destruction of the temple, but besides about the remarkable thing that God would exercise before that happened—Jesus' resurrection, the gift of the Spirit equipping the disciples, and the good news about God's kingdom spilling out beyond the premises of God's historic people to exist proclaimed to the whole known world. And in all these events, Jesus would be vindicated and take his seat at the right hand of the Mighty One. Information technology is just at Matt 24.36 that Jesus moves on to teach about his second coming to earth.
Information technology is worth noting that, at this historical, cultural and linguistic distance, this is a hard passage for us to read well. But it is besides worth noting that we are significantly impeded in reading carefully by the weight of interpretative traditions here. Worse, a number of Bible translations are misleading. Scofield, in famous 1909 Dispensationalist study Bible, really changed the word 'generation' to 'race' in v 34 in social club to support his interpretation. And today'due south New Living translation really adds the word 'render' in five 33 to do the same matter. Information technology has never been more of import to read a good translation.
For a fuller word of New Attestation eschatology, including how to read the difficult passages, run across my Grove bookletKingdom, Hope and the Terminate of the World.
(A version of this was first published in 2013)
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