Revised 
Jesus’ Prediction About the Abomination of Desolation, and
End of the Second Temple and Destruction of Jerusalem
by Mark Mountjoy
Introductory Remarks
The Olivet Discourse of our Lord in Matthew chapter 24 is one of the most popular and widely studied chapters in the Bible. It is studied and discussed by Christians because it contains many important teachings about the end times.
Who was Jesus? According to the New Testament, Jesus Christ is the Messiah and Savior of humanity. He is the son of Mary, who was a perpetual virgin, and Joseph, who was a carpenter. His birth occurred in Bethlehem, and he lived until A.D. 33 when he was crucified and died on the cross. After his death, he was resurrected three days later and ascended to heaven where he sits at the right hand of God the Father.
When did Jesus' ministry begin and when did it end? During the time period in which Jesus lived, His ministry began with His baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan River and ended in Jerusalem following His Last Supper with His disciples. The time period of His ministry is outlined in detail in the canonical gospels, and it is clear that His ministry lasted for approximately three years. In Jewish years his efforts began in 3790 (A.D.30), and ended three years later on Passover in the 14 Nisan 3793 (A.D.33).
Where did Jesus preach and heal? Jesus taught and healed throughout the region of Galilee, traveling to the towns and villages of the area. He first taught in the synagogues, preached the good news of the kingdom, and performed healings. He then moved on to other towns and villages, teaching, preaching, and healing. His hometown of Capernaum was no exception; he performed healings there, such as the healing of Peter's mother-in-law and the man with an unclean spirit. Additionally, he taught and healed in the nearby villages and farms, as well as in the remote areas.
Healing was a central part of Jesus’ ministry, and the people of the region were accustomed to his visits. He taught and preached in the synagogues, where he often taught from the Torah. He also taught in the homes and on the streets of the towns and villages, and he healed people who were possessed by spirits, paralytic, and suffering from various diseases. He taught and healed among the poor and the marginalized, proclaiming that "For such [as] these [i.e., the poor and the marginalized] the kingdom of heaven is made ready" (Matt. 25:40).
He visited Nazareth, the village where he had been raised, and he taught and healed there. He also taught and healed in the surrounding areas, including the nearby villages and farms, as well as in the remote areas.
Where is the Mount of Olives? The Mount of Olives is a prominent landmark located just east of the Old City of Jerusalem. It is a three-and-a-half-kilometer-long (2.2-mile-long) ridge of limestone, rising to an altitude of 810 meters (2,684 feet). It is situated opposite the Temple Mount and is accessible via the Kidron Valley. Its peak is marked by the Tomb of the Prophets, where various Old Testament prophets are said to be buried. The ridge is a popular destination for tourists and locals alike, offering spectacular views of the city and the Temple Mount.
Who were Jesus' twelve disciples? Jesus had twelve disciples, who were named Simon Peter, Andrew, James (the son of Zebedee), John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James (the son of Alphaeus), Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot. These individuals were chosen by Jesus to serve as his primary disciples and were instrumental in the formation of the first Church. Their names are recorded in the New Testament and serve as a testament to the authority and power of Jesus Christ.
Who were the Lord's inner circle of disciples? Peter, James, John, and Andrew represented the inner core of our Lord's ministry. This is important for establishing the context, intent, and circumstantial extent of the prophecies and events of Matthew chapter 24.
Matthew 24 is a popular chapter for Bible prophecy enthusiasts. It is, in fact, the most popular chapter of all the books of the Holy Bible.
Jesus Christ prophesied about the signs of the times and the end of the age. In this text, we will explore the details of these prophecies and discuss their relevance to the current age.
Prophecy of the Signs of the Times
The first sign is that there will be persecution of Christians. In the context of the Olivet Discourse persecution would be international in scope and instigated by anti-Christian forces (Matt 24:9, Mark 13:7).
The second sign is that there was to be an abomination of desolation in the inner sanctums of the Second Temple. This Temple was built by Zerubbabel and completed around 516 B.C., however, 46 years before Jesus' ministry Herod the Great embarked upon an expansion and remodeling project that greatly enhanced its beauty and reputation. In A.D.66 Jewish insurgents flooded into this Temple and used it as a garrison during the civil war and rebellion that raged on for the next three and six months (Matt 24:15, Mark 13:14).
The third sign is that the Son of Man will return in the heavens. This is a reference to the second coming of Jesus. According to his own words these events would happen before that present generation passed away (Matt 24:29, 34).
The Olivet Discourse Given by
Christ Prior to His Arrest
The Olivet Discourse is a pivotal text in Christian eschatology. It is believed to have been delivered by Jesus to his Apostles about 72 hours before his arrest and is composed of three parts. The first part introduces the discourse as a warning to the apostles Peter, James, John, and Andrew about the destruction of the Second Temple.
The second part contains three questions the apostles ask Jesus about the context and circumstances of these surprising prophecies. This essay will endeavor to show that context, circumstances, and fulfillment of Jesus' words happened within the lifetime of the Apostles.
The final part consists of two sections. The first section indicates that there will be an increase in false Christs and false apostles who will mislead many people away from the true faith. The second section warns against the emergence of a great false teacher who will lead many astray from the path of righteousness.
Prophecy of the End of the Age
The end of the age will be marked by several events.
First, there will be a great tribulation. This tribulation will be global in nature and will be instigated by the anti-Christ. (Matt 24:21, Mark 13:19)
Second, the sun will darken and the moon will turn to blood. This is a reference to the Day of the Lord (Joel 2:31).
A look at the prophecy. . .
The Olivet Discourse
Matthew 24 - And Jesus leaves the Second Temple from where he had just pronounced seven woes upon the leadership of the Jerusalem Aristocracy who he accused of sitting in Moses’ seat. But now this chapter opens with Jesus and the Apostles departing from the Temple with Peter, James and John, and Andrew. Walking over a causeway leading to the Mount of Olives, when they arrived on the other side of the bridge they stood opposite to the Temple, facing it, and this is where the setting of this chapter (and Matthew 25) takes place.
“And his disciples came up to shew him the buildings of the Temple.”
Mark and Luke disclose what Matthew omits, they said,
“Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!” (Mark 13:1).
And Luke writes,
"And some spake of the Temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts” (Luke 21:5).
Why is this an important piece of information? It is important because it shows us, from the very beginning of the discourse, Jesus’ attention was focused on a Temple that already existed since the days of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zerubbabel, not a so-called “Third Temple” in a far-off hypothetical future. Thus, in light of this single fact alone, any claim that ignores this paramount fact is a view founded upon a fictitious and unsupportable premise.
Jesus’s Astonishing Announcement
In light of the first two verses of this chapter (along with the iimmediate backdrop of Matthew chapter 23), the next forty-nine verses of this discourse will bring us to the destruction of Herod’s Temple and, along with it, the Jerusalem of Jesus’s day.
Matthew 24:2 - “And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”
This is the same “end” that can be observed in Matthew 3:12; 8:12; 10:22; 13:30; 13:42; 16:27-28; 19:28; 21:43-44; 22:7 and 23:39.
Matthew 24:3 - “And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” (Matthew 24:3).
All three questions posed Christ spring, not from issues never addressed before, but from things he has already said or thing they have already been repeatedly told:
(1) the passing of heaven and earth,
(2) His coming as a man of war in their lifetime, and
(3) the consummation of the world.
Some ask, Where were the Apostles ever told of the destruction of heaven and the earth? From the very beginning of his ministry Jesus declared that heaven and earth would pass away after every jot and tittle of the Law was fulfilled (Matthew 5:18).6 The destruction of the Second Temple started that a process toward that and it finished seven decades later when God confirmed to the Jews that he no longer wanted a Temple after the failure of Bar Kokhba to make Third Temple persist in violation of what Jesus and the Apostles declared to be the τέλος of that specific system of things.
And now here, three days before his crucifixion he mentions again the Destruction of the Second Temple, his Parousia and the end of Jerusalem in a bizarre civil war.
Now, the question they want to know is when will these three events happen?1
Matthew 24:4 “And Jesus answered and said unto THEM, “Take heed that no man deceive YOU”
The Apostles are the subject and, throughout the entire discourse, Jesus will be speaking to them in a manner that is consistent with these warnings being relevant to events overshadowing their lives.
Matthew 24:5 - “For many shall come in my name, saying, “I am Christ;” and shall deceive many”
In this first sign, Jesus cautions the Apostles of the rise of many who would falsely lay claim to being the promised Messiah.
Matthew 24:6 “And YE shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that YE be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, BUT THE END IS NOT YET.”
In this verse, Jesus gives the second sign and assumes that the end of the age is related to these wars and yet that end is not to be expected to happen right away.
Matthew 24:7 - “For nation shall rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences and earthquakes, in various places.”
Jesus gives four signs here: Greek municipalities surrounded the Jewish people in Scythopia and Decapolis, Damascus, and Idumea, Accrabatene, and Perea. Civil strife between the Judæans and these residents became frequent in the lead-up to the First Great Revolt. Not only was there violence and bloodshed to contend with, but food shortages led to famines, and famines, in turn, bred pestilential outbreaks of diseases. Horrific earthquakes are reported to have rocked both Judæa and the islands of the Mediterranean basin.2
Matthew 24:8-9 - “All these are the beginnings of sorrows. Then shall they deliver YOU up to be afflicted, (sixth sign) and shall kill YOU, (seventh sign) and YE shall be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.”
These signs show, again and again, that these events are within the lifetime of the Apostles, they manifestly have nothing to do with the establishment of the Israeli State in 1948.
Matthew 24:10-14 - “And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.”
Here, Jesus gives his Apostle a ninth sign in the lead-up to the end of the era. In this debacle, many who were once friends and comrades turned enemies and became dangerous informants. This phenomenon of extreme social turmoil and senseless hatred is duly noted in Rabbinic literature about this unfortunate time.3
Josephus writes,
“There were besides these disorders and civil wars in every city; and all those that were at peace with the Romans turned their hands one against another.
There was also a bitter contest between those that were fond of war, and those that were desirous of peace. At the first this quarrelsome temper caught hold of private families, who could not agree among themselves; after which those people that were the dearest to one another, brake through all restraints with regard to each other, and everyone associated with those of his own opinion, and began already to stand in opposition to one another; so that seditions arose everywhere, while those that were for innovations, and were desirous of war, by their youth and boldness, were too hard for the aged and the prudent man; and, in the first place, all the people of every place betook themselves to rapine; after which they got together in bodies, in order to rob the people of the country, insomuch that for the barbarity and iniquity, those of the same nation did no way differ from the Romans; nay, it seemed to be a much lighter thing to be ruined by the Romans than by themselves.”4
The prophecy of our Lord and the comments of Josephus on the scene show that the Jewish State was in a complete uproar, even before the Romans showed up to deal with the chaos. It could not be agreed on whether the country should fight the Romans or be at peace with them; nor could a difference of opinion between opposing parties be tolerated for a moment.
In this context, it is easy to see how those Jews who were indifferent to Roman rule in the Holy Land and even those washed in the blood of the Lamb would be two of the groups who would be definitely against any war with the Romans, however, those Jews who disbelieved Jesus but were zealous for the Law, despisers of government, and committed to nationalism could not make themselves behave reasonably or accept a passive role to bring about the realization of the kingdom of God they expected to appear.
Hence, on one hand, some felt agnostic about any Old Testament promises of a kingdom of God, others (Christians) trusted God to bring the kingdom by a Divine intervention into history, and the other side believed they had a responsibility to directly engage in war and the use of any ruse of dark arts to ensure a victorious outcome against the Romans.
11 “And many false prophets shall arise and shall deceive many.” (a tenth sign).
Besides false Christs (of verse 5), Jesus foretells false prophets. It is noteworthy that in Jewish Messianism the Messiah and the expected Prophet were believed to be (not one person) but two figures—both working together. Even as late as the writing of 1 John "many” false prophets had risen in the ranks (see 1 John 4:1).
12 “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.”
It is a mistake to claim that the entire Roman world was in a state of anarchy when Josephus makes it very clear that the Jews alone were in turmoil with themselves and with their neighbors. He writes,
“The next year, which was employed in a civil war [at home], so far as the Jews were concerned, passed over in peace. When Italy was pacified, the care of foreign parts was revived. The Jews were the only people that stood out; which increased the rage [of the Romans]. It was also thought most proper that Titus should stay with the army, to prevent any accident or misfortune which the new government might be liable to.”5
When discussing specifics of the situation in Judæa, Josephus points to the role played by the notorious Zealots who,
“. . .looked upon the doing of mischief to strangers only as a work beneath their courage, but thought their barbarity towards their nearest relations would be a glorious demonstration thereof. [They]. . .cut the throats of the high priests, that so no part of a religious regard to God might be preserved; they thence proceeded to destroy utterly the least remains of a political government, and introduced the most complete scene of iniquity in all instances that were practicable; under which scene that sort of people that were called Zealots grew up. . .”6
Thus the “abounding iniquity” that the Apostles and Jewish Christians had to face and endure caused many Jewish believers to give up their love and faith and give up.
13 “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”
This end is obviously something that was near and plainly within historical reach—unless we also conceive of the destruction of Jerusalem as also being beyond their lifetime . . .
14 “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”
A great handicap in interpreting this verse comes in the form of assumptions about what the word ‘world’ (Greek, οἰκουμένῃ) means as an English term. The standard lexicons define this word variously as meaning the “Roman Empire,” “the whole planet,” etc. These definitions are unhelpful because they do not comport to the meaning of the word as it is used in the New Testament or as it is similarly used to describe, not the planet, nor history as we know it, but the global community of Christian churches, regardless of denomination. This usage comes much closer to the truth of its meaning than James Strong gives.7
Likewise, in the context of the Olivet Discourse, the true meaning of ecumene is the worldwide household of Biblical Judaism. In other words, Jesus was telling the Apostles that once the Gospel was preached to the entire nation of the Jews (that is Jews and proselytes in countries and cities and villages beyond the borders of Judæa), the end of the era would arrive. And this interpretation is buttressed by the very next verse.
Matthew 24:15 - When ye, therefore, shall see the - 15 “When YE, therefore, shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand,)”
What is this “abomination of desolation”? Many answers are offered and many are of the opinion that the Abomination of Desolation was committed by the Romans. Many interpreters fall in line with this explanation. It is believed that this injustice against the Jewish people was achieved in the summer of A.D.70 when Titus and his troops brought the Roman standards into the Temple area. Yet the Romans were cast out of Jerusalem in late autumn of A.D.66 and in the retreat that followed the Roman commander, Cestius lost just below 6,000 troops at the famed Beit Horon passage where the Maccabees staged their first great victory against the Greeks 230 years prior.8
However, from the autumn of A.D. 66 to spring of A.D.70 the Romans were not present in the city, let alone the Temple. So since the Abomination of Desolation happens at the beginning and the victorious Romans brought their standards AFTER ALL THE DAMAGE HAD BEEN DONE around August of A.D. 70, it seems fair to ask if this is really it?
We need to ask some important questions in order to find out. We need to know exactly what history can tell us about Roman attitudes about the Jewish Temple: According to Josephus the Romans revered God’s House.9
But what does the historian tell us about the Roman’s objectives about the future of the Temple? He tells us the Romans hoped to save the Temple.10
It was the rebel Jews who wanted total destruction, and,
“instead of concord, had chosen sedition; instead of peace, war; and before satiety and abundance, a famine. That they had begun with their own hands to burn down that Temple, which we [Romans] have preserved hitherto; and that therefore they deserved to eat such as this was.”11
There are many serious and complicated problems to be overcome if we avert those incidents only arising and culminating in the year A.D.70 fulfill the Abomination of Desolation:
(1) It ignores what the Jews did in A.D. 66 (i.e., all Romans were either killed or routed out of Jerusalem on November 15, A.D.66).
(2) It disregards the fact that the Church fled Jerusalem at the very beginning of the war (in 66).
(3) It would mean the Apostles stayed in Jerusalem all the way till the summer of 70 to even see this, which they, obeying our Lord, DID NOT STAY. If the Jews committed sacrilege in the Temple in A.D.66, and if the Christians abandoned the city that same year, and if none of the Apostles stayed on to see what the Romans would do, then there is but one answer: the Abomination of Desolation has to do with JEWISH trespasses against the sanctity of the Temple commencing at the very beginning of the Great Revolt.
With these things in mind let us turn our attention to interpretations of Matthew 24 that are even farther afield: medieval and twentieth-century applications.
Daniel 9:24-27 and the True Meaning
of the Abomination of Desolation
Since there is so much confusion and misinformation about what the Abomination of Desolation is and when it was supposed to happen, it is a good idea to take a look at the most important verses and ask and answer some key questions. If the Abomination of Desolation is not a current event or an impending reality, what is it then?
Daniel chapter 9 provides the original prophecy from whence Jesus drew these themes. We read in Daniel 9:27,
“And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.”
In this passage, we learn that
(1) a prince shall confirm a covenant with many
(2) for one week,
(3) “in the midst of the week he will cause sacrifice and oblation to cease”
(4) for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate
(5) even until the consummation
(6) and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
One, A prince shall come. . . after the death of the true Messiah (vs. 26)
Two, He will confirm a covenant . . . for one week, or seven years (27a).
Three, He will cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease. . .sacrifice and oblation relates to the system of priestly administration founded by Moses.
Four, And for the overspreading of abominations. “The spread of unspeakable trespasses.” The New English Translation of the Septuagint reads,
“and in the Temple there will be an abomination of desolations until the consummation of a season, and a consummation will be given for the desolation.”
Theodotion’s translation of the LXX reads the same way, but Brenton’s Septuagint reads this way,
“and on the Temple shall be the abomination of desolation; and at the end of the time and end shall be put to the desolation.”
From these various readings of the text we can see that the MT translation reads quite differently from the three other LXX based translations. The LXX translations may be preferred because they each appear to support the idea that the abomination of desolation is not a single momentary act, but a process that lasts “for a season” (till the middle of a week, or forty-two months, which is, of course, half of seven years, see Revelation 11:2 and 13:5).
To understand this season Daniel 7:25; Matthew 24:22, Mark 13:20 and Revelation 11:2; 12:6 and 14 and 13:5 sheds significant light and insight. They each tell of the length of this abominable and desolating process as consisting of “a time, and times, and half a time” or, in other words, the half of a seven, or three and a half years or forty-two months (Revelation 13:5).
In other words, a presence in the Temple (which ought not to be there) is defending the city in a war, that causes the sanctity of the Holiest Place to cease and the sacred routines of the Holy Place to come to a sorry and unfortunate end.
The LXX readings make it clear that that season of abomination will come to its consummation “at the end of the time.” What brings the abomination to its end? We shall see shortly that it was the successful entrance of the Romans in A.D.70. Their arrival heralded the close of this harrowing and unforgettable chapter of Jewish history. Extant documentation about this is preserved in the eye-witness accounts of Josephus.11
Josephus is very specific about who the characters are who caused the Holy City to be doomed to destruction.12
It is quite a bit different from the message read into the Olivet Discourse by the interpolators! And it is interesting to note that the founding of the modern Israeli State did not also re-establish a priesthood or reify any of the important circumstances Olivet Discourse speaks of or clearly leads up to. In other words, the present existence of the Israeli State does not also reinstate the conditions that led up to the destruction of Jerusalem twenty centuries ago.
Jesus Commands the Apostles to Be Prepared
to Immediately Evacuate Judæa!
Now, let’s go on. . . Verses 16-22 zero in on actions which make it positively clear that our Lord's discourse is not on faraway events in either time or location. Since the events from verses 3-15 manifestly have to do with the sacred Jewish rites and Jerusalem's establishment coming into disrepute by detestable actions, twentieth or twenty-first century Manhattan, New York, Rome, or Brussels, Belgium or anywhere else simply evaporate into thin air as viable interpretive options.
The Lord says these happenings at the Temple signal that those in Judæa should make haste to get into the mountains.
Therefore the preceding twelve verses are about the lead-up to the Destruction of Jerusalem and the consummation of the Mosaic Epoch.
17 “Let him who is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house:. . .”
Here Christ stresses the imperative that at the time of the occupation of the Temple by those who do not belong there, haste must be made to vacate the city without even trying to retrieve belongings from inside their homes.
But how can we conceive of Christians throughout Jerusalem even being aware of events happening at the Temple? It could only occur if what was to happen was a very large public event.
The next question we need to know is if such a public event as this ever happened? The answer is, Yes! Josephus first describes how Cestius fled away from Jerusalem for no reason at all. By retreating without a warrant he and his troops forfeited a victory that could have been easily theirs that very day.
But by running away he lost close to six thousand of his troops to the Jews at a narrow pass in Beit Horon. That, as we noted above, was where the Greeks lost many thousands under the righteous and courageous leadership of Judas the Maccabee at the twilight of Greek power over the Jewish people.13
And so, here’s what happened next:
“But those who had pursued after Cestius, when they were returned back to Jerusalem, they overbore some of those that favored the Romans by violence, and some they persuaded by entreaties to join them, and got together IN GREAT NUMBERS in the Temple, and appointed a great many generals for the war.”14
This is the abomination of desolation that Jesus told the Apostles to watch for. This is what happens at the beginning of the hostilities; these things unfold when Christians and their Apostles are still able to make haste from the city. And it happens when Roman power in the holy city (which had had a firm grip on it from the time of Gnaeus Pompey the Great in 63 B.C. till this present time of A.D.66) was now broken, disabled, and routed.
The Jews now had COMPLETE, UNILATERAL AND UNEQUIVOCAL political control over their own capital for the first time in 129 years and it was going to be ugly because of terrible acts of impiety, sacrilege, and destruction are now about to EXPLODE into gruesome colors.17
18 “Neither let him which is in the field return to take his clothes.”
Such haste is to be made and so dangerous the development that under no circumstances are the Christians to take anything with them. They are as Lot, and his two daughters and must flee from the condemned city at once without looking back in forbidden inquiry or a final fading glance.
19 “And woe unto them that are with child, and them that give suck in those days!”
The difficulties of escape with the clothes on one's back are one thing, the extra burden, and hardship of escaping with children and infants quite another. It is not a picture of the righteous suddenly caught up to the clouds and away from the cares of the world that we see, but Christians fleeing as refugees on foot and inconvenienced in their journey by anything other than their own personal survival.
20 “But pray YE that YOUR flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day.”
It is fair to say that at the time of this speech, Jesus did not know either what season of the year or day of the week these events might take place. This inability to know the precise time is again voiced in verse 36. We will deal with his nescience shortly.
21 “For THEN shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time no, nor ever shall be.”
Daniel 12:1-2 comes into view here,
“And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince that standeth for the children of thy people. And there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”
That a resurrection of the dead is wed to this time of trouble is not a new or false idea. Jesus alludes to the resurrection of the righteous and the wicked in many of his sayings in Matthew 12 and 13. He does so again in 24:31 and the New Testament consistently conceives of this one event (the Destruction of Jerusalem) as ALSO containing the resurrection of the dead (See 2 Corinthians 5:1-4; Revelation 6:9-19; 11:1-18 cf. The Wars of the Jews 6.5.3:299-300).
The Great Tribulation (A.K.A. “Jacob’s Trouble”) and the resurrection of the dead are pictured by the Lord in Matthew 24:20-21 as happening in tandem with the Church’s flight from Jerusalem and Judæa after the Abomination of Desolation was initiated in Matthew 24:15.
And now we need to speak about the difficulty of that tribulation and who made it so. Josephus writes,
“. . .the Zealots and the multitude of the Idumeans fell upon the people as upon a flock of profane animals, and cut their throats; and, for the ordinary sort, they were destroyed in what place soever they caught them.
But for the noblemen and the youth, they first caught them and bound them, and shut them up in prison, and put off their slaughter, in hopes that some of them would turn over to their own party; but not one of them would comply with their desires, but all of them preferred death before being enrolled among such wicked wretches as acted against their own country.
But this refusal of theirs brought upon them terrible torments; for they were so scourged and tortured, that their bodies were not able to sustain their torments, till at length, and with difficulty, they had the favor to be slain.
Those whom they caught in the daytime, were slain in the night, and then their bodies were carried out and thrown away, that there might be room for other prisoners; and the terror that was upon the people was so great that no one had courage enough either to weep openly for the dead man that was related to him, or bury him: but those that were shut up in their houses, could only shed tears in secret, and durst not even groan without great caution, lest any of their enemies should hear them; for if they did, those that mourned for others soon underwent the same death that those whom they mourned for.
Only in the night time would they take up a little dust and throw it upon their bodies; and even some that were the readiest to expose themselves to danger, would do it in the daytime; and there were twelve thousand of the better sort who perished in this manner.”16
Josephus is not here describing a Roman scene of sinister slaughter and sadistic acts against the Jewish people, but an internecine ‘free-for-all’ where large baser elements of the Second Jewish Commonwealth CITIZENRY (the Zealots, the Idumeans) came to Jerusalem to inflict punishments upon the people who did not have the good sense and wherewithal to get out of doomed capital as fast as their feet could carry them.
22 “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.”
The Greek word for “shortened” here means to “dock” or divide in half. Contrary to the claims of Dispensational Premillennialists, the Tribulation foreseen by our Lord was to be of only a three year and six-month duration, not seven straight years (See Revelation 11:2; 12:6 and 13:5). No full-scale seven-year war in Jerusalem was allowable because of the danger that the Roman reprisal against it would spread and be so complete as to even wipe out all the Christians.
Therefore, ONLY a half of seven was allotted for the war (and DULY came to pass in the years A.D.66-70) and the remainder was set off to be fulfilled in another time and in another day (See Revelation 20:3, 7-15).
23 “Then if any man shall say unto YOU, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.”
This verse brings again the focus of these events as relevant to the Apostles and the first believers. Jesus has not strayed into events afar off. Nor has he forgotten their initial questions to him.
24 “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”
The false christs and the false prophets are noted in Josephus for their sinister plot to entice the Jerusalemites and the pilgrims of the Diaspora to STAY in the city.
“A false prophet was the occasion of these people’s destruction, who had made a public proclamation in the city that very day, that God commanded them to get up upon the temple, and that there they should receive miraculous signs of their deliverance. Now there was then a great number of false prophets suborned by the tyrants to impose upon the people, who denounced this to them, that they should wait for deliverance from God: AND THIS IN ORDER TO KEEP THEM FROM DESERTING, AND THAT THEY MIGHT BE BUOYED UP ABOVE FEAR AND CARE BY SUCH HOPES. Now, a man that is in adversity does easily comply with such promises; for when such a seducer makes him believe that he shall be delivered from those miseries which oppress him, then it is that the patient is full of hopes for such deliverance”17
We do not necessarily know what the function of the false christs and false prophets is until we read of the actual historical events in Josephus. It is with that added layer of information that we soon realize what the foes of Christ were telling the people to do and believe the EXACT OPPOSITE of what Christ has both foretold and instructed: to know that the city WOULD certainly be destroyed (contrary to Rabbinic Messianic hopes) and that all who hoped to be saved MUST (for the sake of their salvation, their safety, and their lives) flee the city as fast and they can.
25 And Jesus confirms this when he tells his men,
“Behold, I have told YOU before.”
26 “Wherefore if they shall say unto YOU, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.”
Jesus sternly warns the Apostles (and by extension the first Christians) that the religious deceivers and the revolutionary messiahs were not to be believed or given a moment of credence on any account.
27 “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.”
The “coming of the Son of man” here is the same as that foretold by our Lord in Matthew 10:23 and borrows its motif from Daniel 7:7-27. There it means a PUBLIC sky epiphany which is a demonstration and TRANSACTION by the people of the saints of the Most High God being brought to the Ancient of Days to receive the kingdom, glory, power, and dominion from the fourth sea beast (the seditious Jewish State).
Here Jesus is crystal clear that this will be an event all will see. So they should not believe that it will be accomplished in a corner or inside some secret or subterranean chamber.
28 “For wherever the carcass is, the eagles will be gathered together.”
In some popular versions of the coming of the Son of man it is conceived to be a “sunny day in the park” event. But this is not the view of our Lord, instead it was a transaction prosecuted in the midst of war and bloodshed, despair and carnage. It was to be a judgment against a rebellious people and a sinful capital of the Jewish people and the devastation of their land by raging fires. It was to be a Divine visitation against a wicked and perverse civilization. It was to bring the holy warriors who esteemed themselves “the sons of light” but were indeed “the sons of darkness” to dis-incarnation and to the holy tribunal of God where they would be judged according to their works and for their forsaking the commandments of their Lawgiver, Moses.
And at this time God would reckon with them for their brazen willful denial, crucifixion, and slandering their Savior and God, Jesus Christ (Jude 15).
29 “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:”
The word translated “immediately” in Greek is “eutheos.” It is translated immediately and straightway in our Authorized Version. Of the former see Matt. 4:22; 8:3; 14:31; 26:74; Mk. 2:8, 12; 4:5, 16, 17 and 29; Acts 9:34 and 16:10; Gal. 1:16 and Rev. 4:2. Of the latter see Matt. 4:20; 14:22 and 27; 21:2 and 3; 25:15; 27:48; Lk 5:39 and Acts 22:29.
Both these words “immediately” and “straightway” support the idea that Jesus intended the Apostles to believe his personal Second Coming would be in tandem with the Destruction of Jerusalem and not dissociated from it (as conventional interpolations and eisegesis of this chapter falsely insist).
In other matters related to just this one verse, what are we to think about the sun, the moon, and the stars?
Now, if the sun was to really go out and the moon was to really refuse to shine and the stars were to really drop from their places in the sky, certainly this would mean the collapse of the physical universe, right?
Many do believe this is how this verse should be understood.
In fact, it is their chief defense that the Olivet Discourse is really about a coming future event and not fulfilled circumstances. However, there are antecedent traditions and figures of speech relating to the violent overthrow of governments in ancient Semitic history.
Isaiah chapter 13 (the fall of Babylon) and 34 (the fall of Edom) and Jeremiah 4:23-27 (the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.), are just three of the many places in the Old Testament which attest that Jesus is by no means introducing the idea that the destruction of Jerusalem is somehow contingent upon the disappearance of the physical universe.
On the contrary, the destruction of the Holy City entails the disturbance of the non-human and human powers of the Second Temple civilization and these are figuratively likened to the sun, the moon, and the stars.
30a “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn. . .”
What is the “sign of the Son of man in heaven”? The sign of the Son of man in heaven could very well have been the introduction by the Romans of the one hundred pound rocks shot by powerful catapults that the Seventh Bowl judgment heralded (Rev. 16:15-21 cf. The Wars of the Jews 5.6.3:270-272).
In Matthew 21:43 and 44 Jesus had announced to the chief priests and Pharisees,
“The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.”
Yet when we turn over to Revelation the sixteenth chapter, when it nears the discussion of the Destruction of Jerusalem, notice what Jesus says,
“Behold I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.” And they gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying,
“It is done!”
And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell; and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
And every island fled away, and the mountain were not found. And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great”(Revelation 16:15-21).
Now, there are two items in this prophecy that I want to direct your attention to: Jesus’ announcement in the Parable of the Vineyard that the disobedient husbandmen will be ground to powder by the stone and Jesus’ herald in Revelation 16 that he is coming as a thief. These two items come together in connection to the Seventh Vial which is a deluge of one hundred pound stones upon Jerusalem.
Amazingly, this curious prodigy is recorded in the Wars of the Jews for all to see. Note what is said,
“The engines, that all the legions had already prepared for them, were admirably contrived; bill still more extraordinary ones belonged to the tenth legion: those that threw darts and those that threw stones, were more forcible and larger than the rest, by which they not only repelled the excursion of the Jews, but drove those away that were on the walls also. Now the stones that were cast were the of the weight of a talent, and carried two furlongs and farther. The blow they gave was no way to be sustained, not only by those who stood first in the way, but by those that were beyond them by a great space. As for the Jews, they at first watched the coming of the stone, for it was of a white color, and could therefore not only be perceived by the great noise it made, but could be seen also before it came by its brightness; accordingly, the watchman that sat upon the towers gave them notice when the engine was let go, and the stone came from it and cried out aloud in their own country language, 'THE SON COMETH!" so those that were in its way stood off, and threw themselves down upon the ground; by which means, and by their thus guarding themselves, the stone fell down and did them no harm. But the Romans contrived how to prevent that by blackening the stones, who then could aim at them with success when the stone was not discerned beforehand, as it had been till then; and so they destroyed many of them at one blow.”18
The situation and circumstances Jesus envisaged coming to pass in the lives of those in his generation bear reflection because they testify to us that what he foretold were more than empty threats, scare-mongering, or random guesses. If those who heard him then did not take him seriously, that decision was to their eventual but certain doom. At the very same time, those today who take these same warnings and haphazardly apply them to every world event and crisis that comes and goes are equally in the wrong as those who did not take Christ seriously in the first century.
The above material, along with what we have already noted adds tremendous weight to the validity of our perceptions from various quarters. These things are not imaginative but real. So now we want to notice how Jesus continues to explain the situation that the Apostles were to expect and bear in mind that, at the time these things would be happening, future generations could hardly be expected to participate in them.
32 The Parable of the Fig Tree. “Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: so likewise YE, when YE shall see all these things, know that it is NEAR, even at the doors.” When Jesus said, “so likewise YE, when YE shall see all these things, know that it is near. . .”
In the foregoing texts, it is clear that “all these things” has to do with the signs which unfolded near the close of the Apostles’ ministries in the first century and not the establishment of Israel as a nation or some other phenomenon twenty or more centuries later. But Premillennialists, who pride themselves in totally accepting Bible prophecy at face value, have to do a lot of work to get the Olivet Discourse to speak directly to the phenomenon of a new Jewish State in 1948—otherwise, the prophecies, if let alone, would merely speak of the Second Coming in conjunction with the demise of the Second Jewish State Temple in the first century, and they can’t have that! Thus, author David Paauw surmises,
“What does Jesus mean by the fig tree? The answer can be found in several places in the Old Testament.” He then quotes Hosea 9:10 and Joel 1:5-7 in the New International Version. He states, “. . .the fig tree is symbolic for Israel as a nation.”
After nearly 1900 years Israel once again became a nation on May 14, 1948. Jesus was saying that from the time Israel became a nation until “all these things have happened,” including the Tribulation, “this generation will certainly not pass away.” In even simpler terms: May 14, 1948 until the end of the Tribulation will be one generation. We are definitely living in the final generation before Jesus returns.”19
Two things have just happened here: In the context of the text, the fig tree DOES NOT REPRESENT THE BIRTH OF A TWENTIETH CENTURY JEWISH STATE: It represents the development of those signs we numbered that Jesus described as leading up to the ultimate sacrilege of the Second Temple.
Nevertheless, in Paauw’s thinking, this simple truth is simply held down and suppressed. Instead, the idea is introduced that the fig tree does not represent the signs but instead stands for the rebirth of the Jewish nation in May of 1948. His subtle shell game effectively manages and sabotages the meaning of the entire chapter for ulterior interpretive motives that orbit around a desire to see the Olivet Discourse being fulfilled today, in front of our eyes and not a long time ago, when it was really supposed to happen.
Hear John F.Walvoord, another Premillennialist, in his own words. Under Signs of the Coming Destruction of Jerusalem, he writes,
“Jesus told his disciples, “When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city” (Luke 21:20-21). In A.D.70 the Roman armies surrounded Jerusalem at the time of the feasts and did precisely what this passage predicts.
Those who were able to flee from the city were in some cases saved. Others who remained in the city were slaughtered as the Roman armies breached the walls and destroyed the temple as well as the city. This is the sad fulfillment of what Jesus had predicted concerning the destruction of the temple (Matt. 24:2). At the end of the age preceding the second coming of Christ, Jerusalem will be in a similar situation (Zechariah 14:1-2)”20
However, in his next breath Walvoord goes on to talk about the Jews being slain with the sword and being taken prisoners to all nations, but he does NOT suppose that that will happen in a yet future scenario when (according to his theory) the thousand years reign of Christ will directly abut [i.e., be side by side with or adjacent with] this world-wide dispersion.
It is fact that all Premillennialists believe the thousand years reign will be a period of unparalleled peace (not a revived Roman imperial captivity of the Jews, as a futuristic interpretation of the Olivet Discourse would seem to demand).
And it is also a fact that they do not believe the Jews will be in any kind of captivity then. However, in view of the Olivet Discourse the destruction of the city and Temple are certain, and so is the captivity. So what we are seeing? nd it is also a fact that they do not believe the Jews will be in any kind of captivity then. However, in view of the Olivet Discourse the destruction of the city and Temple are certain, and so is the captivity. So what are we seeing? Upon scrutiny we see glaring differences between what Jesus actually said and what people have read into it. Note how Walvoord distorts what Jesus says in this next quote,
“Though all agree that Luke 21:20-24 was fulfilled in A.D.70 with the destruction of Jerusalem, a wide difference of opinion exists concerning the fulfillment of other prophecies in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. The theological perspective of the interpreter to some extent determines the interpretation. Amillenarians tend to avoid detailed exegesis of these passages in favor of a more general approach that many of these prophecies were fulfilled in A.D.70.
Careful attention to the text, however, would reveal that this is an impossibility as the things that were predicted did not come to pass. Though the temple was destroyed, it was not desecrated in the manner indicated, and in A.D.70 the Great Tribulation, the predicted three and a half years leading up to the second coming of Christ, did not occur.
Finally, and most conclusive, the second coming of Christ, which is closely linked to the prophecies of all three Gospels, DID NOT OCCUR. Though there are similarities between the time of the destruction of Jerusalem and the time preceding the second coming of Christ, THE OUTCOME IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, and the prophecies Matthew recorded have NOT been specifically fulfilled as they relate to the end of the age." 21
The above observations make up what can be called popular religious idealism surrounding the interpretation of the Olivet Discourse, the Second Coming, and end of the world. Too much of it automatically assumes that the Olivet Discourse and cognate passages all over the Old and New Testaments have everything to say about the end of mundane history as we now know it and not about the approaching end of the fourteen hundred-year-old Mosaic civilization known in early Roman history as the Second Jewish Commonwealth.
Below we will see how ignorance of and denial of the reality of that important era causes people to easily go astray by clinging to opinions that cannot be sustained by any real evidence at the end of the day.
35 “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”
These so-called ‘words of certainty,’ I believe, are meant to convey much more than Jesus’ authority and Divinity (See my comments in endnote 1, below). And, it is simply and utterly unthinkable that Jesus could predict something for the lifetime of his Apostles (as he most assuredly did) and then we can blithely say,
“We see no problem with it not coming to pass as and when it was supposed to happen.”
Indeed, every Christian should have a real problem with that and ought not feel comfortable going along with a questionable string of ideas that basically says Jesus being dead wrong but that is not alarming but really is alright.
36 “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”
Jesus said no man knows the day or the hour, right? However, the story does not end there. Matthew 24 does not close the New Testament. It must be understood that Jesus also said this in his Incarnation and it is not the last word on when he could know these events would take place, after all, he is not God the Father, but is, in the Godhead, subordinate to him, as is the Holy Spirit.
First of all, it cannot be denied that he certainly knew which generation it would be in, as he stated in verse 32. But there's more to the story in the Pauline epistle of 1 Thessalonians 5:1-4 and Revelation 1:1,3 and 7 and 18:8,10, 17 and 19. The facts of “revelatory progress” will not allow the “no man knows” to be a “no man will ever know.” Such an alibi cannot stand up in a fair court. In other words, what was not known in Jesus' ministry became known by the Spirit afterward and we have the Divine authority (especially based on the Revelation texts addressed above) to now say that the Destruction of Jerusalem encompasses the day and the hour when our Lord fulfilled his Second Coming.
37 “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”
Verses 37 and 42 work together and re-affirm that the Apostles were to watch and be ready for an event that was to come in their very lifetime. And they could really do neither if the Lord did not intend for them to believe if was possible or probable that it would happen within a very reasonable span of time. If, on the other hand, he wanted the message to be for us it is nowhere clear or inherent in the text that this was his intent.
38 “For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark,”
As Noah got in the ark and the destruction started immediately, the Christians were instructed to leave the city and that Destruction was to begin well before our day and time, tabloid prophecies notwithstanding.
39 “And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”
The “flood” of the Second Coming is predicted in Daniel 9:27 where it says that “the end thereof shall be with a flood.” How was the end of first-century Jerusalem like a flood when there was no deluge of water in the A.D.66-70 imbroglio? It was a flood because the false teachers of that age had spent nearly thirty-three years teaching the people that Jerusalem was the place to be at the time of the end; it was like a flood because great multitudes of the deceived were coming from all the countries and almost three million doomed people packing themselves into the city in time to be shut up “as by fate” in a prison.22
40 “Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken and the other left.”
According to the “Rapture” doctrine, this verse speaks about Christians disappearing into thin air and the non-Christian standing there in the field alone. So far in Matthew 24 we have read not a single word about first century Christians being miraculously exempted from the Jewish imbroglio. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth! It is a comforting promise and I as well as many of you have been raised with these interpolations clouding what the Word of God teaches to the detriment of our discerning what is right and true. It is unprofitable and even futile to believe superstitiously that the Olivet Discourse has some intrinsic connection to the modern Israeli State or current events or that there is any possibility that today, or tomorrow, or the day after we could just suddenly disappear based on something the Olivet Discourse fails to discuss even once.
However, this conviction that its plain and true sense involves Zealot misconduct in the Second Temple, the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the Mosaic era carries can carry heavy consequences for those who are able to peer beyond the assumptions and constraints of conventionalism in order to question, challenge and forsake dogmatic “Shibboleths.”25
43 “But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.”
This verse and the next work together. Again, Jesus emphasizes to the Apostles, “Be ready.” But this instruction would make no sense if the events in question were not about 33 years away, but twenty-one or more centuries away!
44 “Therefore be YE also ready: for in such an hour as YE think not the Son of man cometh.” “So be ready.”
Yet the Apostles and any early Christians COULD NOT “Be ye also ready” more than twenty centuries outside of their lifetime, could they? Nor were the lead-up events to the Destruction of Jerusalem a reality for anyone’s lifetime outside of the A.D.66-70 Jewish revolt. Clearly, then, the concluding verses keep stressing the fact that Jesus understood that his Second Coming was in connection with the judgment and destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple, as we continue to see.
45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over all his household, to give them meat in due season?”
The faithful and wise servant must, in the context of these events, be a leader (or leaders) in the first-century pre-destruction of Jerusalem’s original Jewish Christian congregation.
This verse cannot logically be exploited to mean that some modern religious publishing agency needs to “feed” mankind the truth, as Jehovah's Witnesses falsely claim. For anyone who is interested in the facts, all they have to do is research the Watchtower's own past literature and continuous changes of doctrines, dates, and religious policy and they will discover that its claim to be the “faithful and wise servant” of Matthew 24 is simply untrue!26
46 “Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, “My lord delayeth his coming.” 49 And shall begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken.”
There is a predictable fondness among friends and foes of Christ alike to allege that the New Testament writers lay claim to two opposite propositions. According to many commentators and critics of the Gospel, it was first represented that Christ would come back quite soon (e.g., Matthew 10:23; 16:27-28; John 21:20-23; Acts 3:19-21), however, later on, when that did not work out, the later writings began to back-peddle and say Christ probably would come back at a time known only to God (e.g., 2 Peter 3:4-9). But is this true? If it was true 2 Peter 3:8 is the one and only verse that supports such a view of things.
However, the entirety of even 1 and 2 Peter does not lend their support to interpreting 2 Peter 3:8 as an admission of the possibility that Christ would not come back in the first century.
(1) 1 Peter 1:7-9 is committed to the idea that Christ’s return was then soon, 1 Peter 1:13 is too.
(2) 1 Peter 4:7 and 17 are declarations affirming imminence and 1 Peter 5:1 and 4 are too.
In 2 Peter this same pattern of commitment can be seen:
(1) in 2 Peter 1:11, 2:1 and 3:11, 13, 14 and 16 show the conflict is between what the first Christians affirmed (that Jesus was coming again soon) and the Jewish denial that anything could happen at all. How do we explain 2 Peter 3:8 as denying imminence when verses all around it speak otherwise? It can easily be explained as a denial of the momentary expectation the scoffers demanded as proof, as if to say, “Jesus was not the real Messiah, he did not rise from the dead, and he won’t come back to do anything!”
Their statements around their denial of our Lord's return also show that they no longer believed in the Old Testament. By saying, "Since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they did from the beginning of the creation" shows they no longer believe Moses' account about Noah and Antediluvian world and the Great Flood, and that is how serious the apostasy was in some circles of the Jewish world at that time in history.
Nevertheless, the verses surrounding vs 8 indicate the Apostle Peter wanted those Pontan, Galatian, Cappadocian, Asian, and Bithynian Christians to remain in an alert and expectant posture; he used the active verbs, “seeing” (in verse 11), “looking and hasting” (in verse 12), “we, according to his promise look” (in verse 13), and again, “seeing that ye look” (in verse 14). No group of people can realistically do these things if the events in question are thousands of years away.
In the bigger picture, therefore, the notion of a delay is an imaginary scheme that does not really exist in 1 or 2 Peter or anywhere else in the New Testament, as Hebrews 10:25 and 37; James 5:1-9; 1 John 2:18-19 and 3:2; Jude 14 and Revelation 1:1,3 and 7 poignantly demonstrate.
50 “The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, 51 and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
The final verse of Matthew 24 foretells the punishment of those who, in the end, turned out to be more concerned with their riches than in obedience to their Savior, holding to their salvation and keeping their heavenly hope.
When we look into the situation reported by Josephus, this too is recorded as one of the many “coincidental” occurrences that happened at that time.
In Josephus’ works we read the following harrowing account:
“Hereupon some of the deserters, having no other way, leaped down from the wall immediately, while others of them went out of the city with stones, as if they would fight them; but thereupon they fled away to the Romans. But here a worse fate accompanied these than what they had found within the city, and they met with a quicker dispatch from the too great abundance they had among the Romans than they could have done from the famine among the Jews; for when they came first to the Romans, they were puffed up by the famine, and swelled like men in dropsy; after which they all on the sudden overfilled those bodies that were before empty, and so burst asunder, excepting such only as were skillful enough to restrain their appetites, and by degrees took in their food into bodies unaccustomed thereto.
Yet did another plague seize upon those that were thus preserved; for there was found among the Syrian deserters a certain person who was caught gathering pieces of gold out of the excrements of the Jews' bellies; for the deserters used to swallow such pieces of gold, as we told you before when they came out, and for these did the seditious search them all; for there was a great quantity of gold in the city, insomuch that as much was now sold [in the Roman camp] for twelve Attic [drams], as was sold before for twenty-five.
But when this contrivance was discovered in one instance, the fame of it filled their several camps, that the deserters came to them full of gold. So the multitude of the Arabians, with the Syrians, cut up those that came as supplicants and searched their bellies. Nor does it seem to me that any misery befell the Jews that was more terrible than this since in one night's time about two thousand of these deserters were thus dissected.
5. When Titus came to the knowledge of this wicked practice, he had like to have surrounded those that had been guilty of it with his horse, and have shot them dead; and he had done it, had not their number been so very great, and those that were liable to this punishment would have been manifold more than those whom they had slain. However, he called together the commanders of the auxiliary troops he had with him, as well as the commanders of the Roman legions, (for some of his own soldiers had been also guilty herein, as he had been informed,) and had a great indignation against both sorts of them, and said to them,
“What! have any of my own soldiers done such things as this out of the uncertain hope of gain, without regarding their own weapons, which are made of silver and gold? Moreover, do the Arabians and Syrians now, first of all, begin to govern themselves as they please, and to indulge their appetites in a foreign war, and then, out of their barbarity in murdering men, and out of their hatred to the Jews, get it ascribed to the Romans?" for this infamous practice was said to be spread among some of his own soldiers also. Titus then threatened that he would put such men to death if any of them were discovered to be so insolent as to do so again; moreover, he gave it in charge to the legions, that they should make a search after such as were suspected, and should bring them to him.
But it appeared that the love of money was too hard for all their dread of punishment, and a vehement desire of gain is natural to men, and no passion is so venturesome as covetousness; otherwise, such passions have certain bounds and are subordinate to fear. But in reality, it was God who condemned the whole nation, and turned every course that was taken for their preservation to their destruction." 25
In the above thoughts and explanations, we see that the Destruction of the Second Temple via the Abomination of Desolation, the Second Coming of Christ, and the end of the Jewish State Temple era are at the very heart of Jesus’ message and is second only to his mission to die as a ransom for mankind's sins. It was spoken a mere three days before he was arrested, tried, and crucified.
In it the Destruction of the State Temple, signs of his Second Coming, and end of the Levitical system of things (“the world”) are placed squarely within the parameters of the Apostles' immediate concerns and lifetime. They were to watch for numerous signs. The Gospel that was given them was to be preached to the entire Jewish world, the desecration of Second Temple, their most holy heritage, was destined to be violated and soiled by forces within the Jewish State and these specific actions (as unlikely as they may have seemed thirty-three years before they happened) would signal the count-down to the end of their era.
These events literally initiated the war between the Jews and the Romans and must be understood as something that opened the war rather than led to its close, and, as we noted, historically, the Romans would not be in the city again until forty-two months later, when they were finally able to breach the walls and sack the city in a 4 months, three weeks and four day campaign.
Therefore the abomination of desolation cannot be a crime committed by the Romans. Instead, it was an extended series of outrages and sacrilegious acts that were committed within the Temple precincts by the Zealots and their compatriots the Idumeans.
Objections by Learned People Do Not
Negate the Reality of the Past Fulfillment
Observations of friends and foes of Christ are another tool that can be used to reach a definite conclusion that something highly unusual most likely took place during the civil war and remains mysterious and elusive because it has not come down to us as an independent report.
Now, however, this exercise takes us back to points One and Two but this time through the eyes of those who admit the premise but deny the conclusion. A number of dignities who have made comments on this subject include the great British commentator, William Barclay (a Christian) and Bertrand Russell, (an Atheist), Paula Fredricksen, a Jewish professor, Samuel Levine, a Jewish polemicist, and C.S. Lewis, a Christian philosopher.
We will examine Barclay’s comments first and note how they re-confirm to us what we see with our own eyes. What we see, he sees too, but he admits it and squirms uncomfortably as he desperately tries to explain it without actually agreeing to what it manifestly says.
Barclay has the following comments on Matthew 10:23, under the heading, “THE COMING OF THE KING” Matt. 10:23 (continued),
“This passage contains one strange saying which we cannot honestly neglect. Matthew depicts Jesus as sending out his men, and, as he does so, saying to them,
“You will not complete your tour of the cities of Israel until the Son of Man shall come.” On the face of it that seems to mean that before his men had completed their preaching tour, his day of glory and his return to power would have taken place. The difficulty is just this-that did not in fact happen,
The people of the early Church believed intensely in the second coming of Jesus, and they believed it would happen soon, certainly within their own lifetime. There could be nothing more natural than that, because they were living in days of savage persecution, and they were longing for the day of their release and their glory. The result was that they fastened on every possible saying of Jesus which could be interpreted as foretelling his triumphant and glorious return, and sometimes they quite naturally used things which Jesus said, and read into them something more definite than was originally there.
We can see this process happening within the pages of the New Testament itself. There are three versions of the one saying of Jesus. Let us set them down one after another:
Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom (Matt. 16:28). Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Kingdom of God come with power (Mk.9:1). But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God (Lk.9:27).
Now it is clear that these are three versions of the same saying. Mark is the earliest gospel, and therefore Mark’s version is most likely to be strictly accurate. Mark says that there were some listening to Jesus who would not die until they saw the Kingdom of God coming with power. That was gloriously true, for within thirty years of the Cross the message of Crucified and Risen Christ had swept across the world and had reached Rome, the capital of the world. Indeed men were being swept into the Kingdom; indeed the Kingdom was coming with power. Luke transmits the saying in the same way as Mark.
Now, look at Matthew. His version is slightly different; he says that there are some who will not die until they see the Son of Man coming in power. That, in fact, did not happen. The explanation is that Matthew was writing between A.D. 80 and 90, in days when terrible persecution was raging. Men were clutching at everything which promised release from agony; and he took a saying which foretold the spread of the Kingdom and turned it into a saying which foretold the return of Christ within a lifetime—and who shall blame him?
That is what Matthew has done here. Take this saying in our passage and write it as Mark or Luke would have written it:
“You will not complete your tour of the cities of Israel, into the Kingdom of God shall come.”
That was blessedly true, for as the tour went on, men’s hearts opened to Jesus Christ, and they took him as Master and Lord.
In a passage like this, we must not think of Jesus as mistaken; we must rather think that Matthew read into a promise of the coming of the Kingdom a promise of the second coming of Jesus Christ. And he did so because, in days of terror, men clutched at the hope of Christ; and Christ did come to them in the Spirit, for no man ever suffered alone for Christ.”29
Barclay’s comments make an effort to address the issue but ultimately fail and his final comments are an excuse that undermine and undercut the basic inspiration and trustworthiness of the Scriptures and make us question to what degree fear and desperation have shaped the texts we rely on for our salvation and our standing with God.
Indeed, if Barclay is right, then our expectation of eternal salvation through belief in the message, ministry, and death, burial, and resurrection of God’s Son has been seriously compromised by “tampering” at a very early time in the development of the New Testament canon.
If he’s right we actually do not know anything about the Second Coming because all of the places where those promises appear place them close at hand to the lifetime of the first Christians (see, e.g., Acts 6:14; Romans 13:11-12; 16:20; 1 Corinthians 1:5-9; 7:29; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12; 1 Peter 4:7; 1 John 2:18-19; 3:2-3; Jude 12-16; Revelation 1:1; 2:24-25; 3:3 and 3:9-11; 16:15; 22:6, 7, 10, 17 and 20).
And so, if he is correct, we would have to “play the devil” and say none of the core texts really mean what they say because they “really should say” the event was a very, very long way off.
The Critical Skeptic
Bertrand Russell, a famous British philosopher, comes next with comments which verify that he could objectively see that Jesus made certain definite assertions about the vicinity of his Second Coming. In Why I Am Not a Christian, a work of Russell’s written in 1927, we read the following comments, under Defects In Christ's Teaching. There he reasons:
“Having granted the excellence of these maxims, I come to certain points in which I do not believe that one can grant either the superlative wisdom or the superlative goodness of Christ as depicted in the Gospels; and here I may say that one is not concerned with the historical question. Historically, it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all, and if He did we do not know anything about Him, so that I am not concerned with the historical question, 
There are a great many texts that prove that. He says, for instance: “Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come.” Then He says: “There are some standing here which shall not taste death till the Son of Man comes into His kingdom”; and there are a lot of places where it is quite clear that He believed His second coming would happen during the lifetime of many then living. That was the belief of his earlier followers, and it was the basis of a good deal of His moral teaching. When He said, “Take no thought for the morrow,” and things of that sort, it was very largely because He thought the second coming was going to be very soon, and that all ordinary mundane affairs did not count.
I have, as a matter of fact, known some Christians who did believe the second coming was imminent. I knew a person who frightened his congregation terribly by telling them that the second coming was very imminent indeed, but they were much consoled when they found that he was planting trees in his garden. The early Christians really did believe it, and they did abstain from such things as planting trees in their gardens because they did accept from Christ the belief that the second coming was imminent. In this respect clearly, He was not so wise as some other people have been, and he certainly was not superlatively wise.”27
Russell was perfectly capable of opening his Bible and seeing what Jesus plainly said and he had no reason to apologize for it; many Christians do, however, and are embarrassed and ashamed in what they see as slips of Christ’s tongue and tardy events that they want to ignore because they know not how to justify them as the truth, nor do they want to frankly confess that they believe their Master was grossly wrong. Jesus was not wrong. Because of the way the Church misunderstands Jesus it only appears that way.
An Award-Winning Jewish Scholar
Our next witness to the fact of the belief of imminence in early Christian thought is William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of the Appreciation of Scripture at Boston University, Paula Fredriksen. A historian of early Christianity, she holds degrees from Wellesley College (1973), Oxford University (1974), and Princeton University (1979).
In 1988 Fredriksen was awarded the Yale University Press Governor’s Award for Best Book
In 1999 she won the National Jewish Book Award for her work Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews. It is from this celebrated treatise that we will be taking note of Professor Fredriksen’s observations. Referring to 2 Peter 3:8 Fredriksen says,
“‘Peter” repudiated the obvious meaning of the Gospel proclamation of the Second Coming by arguing for a vastly expanded view of time: Each of God's days is equal to 365,000 of ours. This is why he could then explain, the End was late: It only seemed late. His Christian contemporary John of Patmos, on the contrary, stimulated perhaps by the outbreak of local persecutions, inferred from current events that the ancient prophecies were falling due. Creating a pastiche of images from Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and various Christian traditions, he insisted that the End was indeed at hand: “The time is near.” “Behold” says the revealing angel, speaking on behalf of the Lord God and the Lamb (that is, of Christ), “behold, I am coming soon” (Rv 1:3, 22:7). Christian apocalyptic would go on to have a long, continuous, and tumultuous career. As our own era moves to the year 2000, we hear its noisy enthusiasts still.
But in the ancient canon, we can trace its “official” diminution as the tradition itself perdures and changes. Within the New Testament, along the anti-apocalyptic gradient, we see a rough inverse correspondence: The later the writing, the lower its level of commitment to an imminent Apocalypse; the earlier the writing (i.e., Mark and, before him, Paul) the higher.
Can we ride this trajectory backward into the documentary void that surrounds the historical Jesus? I think so. But we need more evidence, first, before making the case.”28
Professor Fredriksen’s observations of a commitment to the early Second Coming dropping off in the later parts of the New Testament are absolutely not correct (and she imagines a situation).
And what Fredriksen says about 2 Peter 3:8 is definitely out of the question—but she could not be more correct about the earliest expectations of the first generation of Christians.
The Anti-Christian Missionary
Our next witness is Jewish polemicist, Samuel Levine. In his book with the provocative title, You Take Jesus, I’ll Take God and subtitled How to Refute Christian Missionaries, he writes the following stunning remarks,
“The success of the Christian claim or its failure rests to a very large extent on the theory of the second coming. First of all, the explanation above that verses 31, 32, and 33 [of Jeremiah 31] refer to the time around 29 AD., and 
There is no indication whatsoever that this interpretation was intended. It is clearly an answer born of desperation.
In addition, there is a major historical dilemma that seems to explain why the doctrine of the second coming was invented. H.M. Waddams, who was the Residentiary Canon of the Canterbury Cathedral in 1968, wrote a book explaining why it took so many years for the Church to get organized into a formal organized group. His answer is that even though verses such as Matthew 24:34 may mean that Jesus is referring to a future generation (i.e., substitute “that” for “this,” which of course is very forced) nonetheless most of the early Christians thought the simple interpretation was correct. It corroborated the impressions they had of the message of Jesus and so they thought that Jesus would return in their lifetime. After all, Jesus did say, in Matthew 16:28, “Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the son of man coming in his kingdom.”
However, after many years went by, and the generation that lived in Jesus' generation had all died, it became rather apparent that Jesus would not reappear in the near future. The doctrine was therefore changed so that his reappearance was not necessarily going to be in the near future. . .[t]hus there is an excellent chance that the doctrine of the second coming arose out of a historical dilemma, and not because of the Christian claim that there is a theological dilemma which justified it.”
In Levine’s notes, he goes even further . . .
“Matthew 24 discusses the end of the world, and then, in verse 34, after describing all sorts of unusual prophecies, Jesus says, “Verily, I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.” The natural reading of the sentence is that the generation to whom Jesus is talking to would not pass. That is what “this generation” seems to mean--this very generation that I live among. However, the events did not occur during that generation. Later Christians, therefore, claimed that Jesus meant that when the prophecies begin, then the generation that begins to see those events shall not pass away until they are all fulfilled. Thus the sentence really should read, “that generation shall not pass away,” which is why the Christian interpretation is forced and was not really accepted at first.”29
We can agree with Levine’s observations, but not his conclusions. We believe, of course, that he is right in describing the present Christian interpretation of Matthew 24:34 as forced and awkward.
C.S. Lewis
The renowned C.S.Lewis, another British great, known for his wit and depth of thought, writes in an essay called The World’s Last Night some ideas that might prove truly disturbing to the devout believer who has never really considered the implications both of what the New Testament teaches about the Second Coming and how the Christians represent it in their confessions.
Lewis is very frank on the importance of the Second Coming to Christian doctrine and says,
“Yet it seems to me impossible to retain in any recognisable form our belief in the Divinity of Christ and the truth of Christian revelation while abandoning, or even persistently neglecting, the promised, and threatened Return. “He shall come again to judge the quick and the dead,” says the Apostles’ Creed. “This same Jesus,” said the angels in Acts, “shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” “Hereafter,” said our Lord himself (by those words inviting crucifixion), “shall ye see the Son of Man. . . coming in the clouds of heaven.”
If this is not an integral part of the faith 
The grounds for modern embarrassment about this doctrine fall into two groups, which may be called the theoretical and the practical. I will deal with the theoretical first.
Many are shy of this doctrine because they are reacting (in my opinion very properly reacting) against a school of thought which is associated with the great name of Dr. Albert Schweitzer. According to that school, Christ's teaching about his own return and the end of the world—what theologians call his “apocalyptic”—was the very essence of his message. All his other doctrines radiated from it; his moral teaching everywhere presupposed a speedy end of the world. If pressed to an extreme, this view, as I think Chesterton said, amounts to seeing in Christ little more than an earlier William Miller, who created a local “scare.” I am not saying that Dr. Schweitzer pressed it to that conclusion: but it has seemed to some that his thought invites us in that direction. Hence, from fear of that extreme, arises a tendency to soft-pedal what Schweitzer's school has overemphasized. For my own part I hate and distrust reactions not only in religion but in everything. Luther surely spoke very good sense when he compared humanity to a drunkard who, after falling off his horse on the right, falls off it next time on the left. I am convinced that those who find in Christ's apocalyptic the whole of his message are mistaken.
But a thing does not vanish—it is not even discredited—because someone has spoken of it with exaggeration. It remains exactly where it was. The only difference is that if it has recently been exaggerated, we must now take special care not to overlook it; for that is the side on which the drunk man is now most likely to fall off. The very name “apocalyptic” assigns our Lord’s predictions of the Second Coming to a class.
There are other specimens of it: the Apocalypse of Baruch, the Book of Enoch, or the Ascension of Isaiah. Christians are far from regarding such texts as Holy Scripture, and to most modern tastes the genre appears tedious and unedifying. Hence there arises a feeling that our Lord’s predictions, being “much the same sort of thing,” are discredited. The charge against them might be put either in a harsher or a gentler form. The harsher form would run, in the mouth of an atheist, something like this: “You see that, after all, your vaunted Jesus was really the same sort of crank or charlatan as all the other writers of apocalyptic.” The gentler form, used more probably by a modernist, would be like this: “Every great man is partly of his own age and partly for all time. What matters in his work is always that which transcends his age, not that which he shared with a thousand forgotten contemporaries.
We value Shakespeare for the glory of his language and his knowledge of the human heart, which were his own; not for his belief in witches or the divine right of kings, or his failure to take a daily bath. So with Jesus. His belief in a speedy and catastrophic end to history belongs to him not as a great teacher but as a first-century Palestinian peasant. It was one of his inevitable limitations, best forgotten. We must concentrate on what distinguished him from other first-century Palestinian peasants, on his moral and social teaching.”
As an argument against the reality of the Second Coming, this seems to me to beg the question at issue. When we propose to ignore in a great man’s teaching those doctrines which it has in common with the thought of his age, we seem to be assuming that the thought of his age was erroneous. When we select for serious consideration those doctrines which “transcend” the thought of his own age and are “for all time,” we are assuming that the thought of our age is correct: for of course by thoughts which transcend the great man’s age we really mean thoughts that agree with ours. Thus I value Shakespeare’s picture of the transformation in old Lear more than I value his views about the divine right of kings, because I agree with Shakespeare that a man can be purified by suffering like Lear, but do not believe that kings (or any other rulers) have the divine right in the sense required. When the great man’s views do not seem to us erroneous we do not value them the less for having been shared with his contemporaries. Shakespeare’s disdain for treachery and Christ’s blessing on the poor were not alien to the outlook of their respective periods; but no one wishes to discredit them on that account.
No one would reject Christ’s apocalyptic on the ground that apocalyptic was common in first-century Palestine unless he had already decided that the thought of first-century Palestine was in that respect mistaken. But to have so decided is surely to have begged the question; for the question is whether the expectation of a catastrophic and Divinely ordered end of the present universe is true or false.
If we have an open mind on that point, the whole problem is altered. If such an end is really going to occur, and if (as is the case) the Jews had been trained by their religion to expect it, then it is very natural that they should produce apocalyptic literature. On that view, our Lord’s production of something like the other apocalyptic documents would not necessarily result from his supposed bondage to the errors of his period, but would be the Divine exploitation of a sound element in contemporary Judaism: nay, the time and place in which it pleased him to be incarnate would, presumably, have been chosen because, there and then, that element existed, and had, by his eternal providence, been developed for that very purpose. For if we once accept the doctrine of the Incarnation, we must surely be very cautious in suggesting that any circumstance in the culture of first-century Palestine was a hampering or distorting influence upon his teaching.
Do we suppose that the scene of God’s earthly life was selected at random?—that some other scene would have served better?
But there is worse to come. “Say what you like,” we shall be told, “the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.” It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible. Yet how teasing, also, that within fourteen words of it should come the statement “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.”
The one exhibition of error and the one confession of ignorance grow side by side. That they stood thus in the mouth of Jesus himself, and were not merely placed thus by the reporter, we surely need not doubt. Unless the reporter were perfectly honest he would never have recorded the confession of ignorance at all; he could have had no motive for doing so except a desire to tell the whole truth. And unless later copyists were equally honest they would never have preserved the (apparently) mistaken prediction about “this generation” after the passage of time had shown the (apparent) mistake. This passage (Mark 13:30-32) and the cry “Why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) together make up the strongest proof that the New Testament is historically reliable. The evangelists have the first great characteristic of honest witnesses: they mention facts which are, at first sight, damaging to their main contention.
The facts, then, are these: that Jesus professed himself (in some sense) ignorant, and within a moment showed that he really was so. To believe in the Incarnation, to believe that he is God, makes it hard to understand how he could be ignorant; but also makes it certain that, if he said he could be ignorant, then ignorant he could really be. For a God who can be ignorant is less baffling than a God who falsely professes ignorance. The answer of theologians is that the God-Man was omniscient as God, and ignorant as Man. This, no doubt, is true, though it cannot be imagined. Nor indeed can the unconsciousness of Christ in sleep be imagined, nor the twilight of reason in his infancy; still less his merely organic life in his mother's womb. But the physical sciences, no less than theology, propose for our belief much that cannot be imagined”30
The thoughts of these five contributors help us grasp, grapple, and get a “reality check” on whether or not the New Testament really presents a problem to be faced (as some are able to read it in such a way as to not see what is evidently being claimed by way of an early Parousia and speedy end of the age) that is—in the very lifetime of the Apostles and the first Christians―just as promised, written, and expected.
From the musings of these different writers, it is clear to me (and I hope to you as well) that definite claims are being presented, not only in the Olivet Discourse, but in all of Matthew and, indeed, throughout the entire New Testament and these claims are not merely being made up or imagined by me or anyone else.
The bottom line for us is this: Jesus promised to appear in the clouds of heaven at a specific time and this is not reported in any great detail, but the near silence about it does not prove he did not make good on his word and any penalties enacted against Christians of our kind are merely admissions that the administrators have faith that Jesus did not make good on his word, his written revelation, assurances, and oaths to the contrary and notwithstanding.
Conclusion
This is the message of our Lord in the Olivet Discourse as seen and explained from the Atavist conceptual standpoint takes into account antecedent considerations, not just of Old Testament parallels (e.g., Daniel 9:26-27) but of precedents in Matthew itself (e.g., Matthew 10:23; 16:27-28 and 23:29-39). These precedents speak of and to the same issues addressed or touched upon in Matthew 24 and its parallels in Mark 13 and in Luke 17:22-37, and 21:5-36).
In the light of what we have seen and read, each us of has a responsibility to seriously contemplate what a Second Coming (rescued from never-ending futurity) now means in terms of a Judaeo-centric past and our present standing in churches blissfully unaware of these historic realities.31 But what Jesus’ said in John 8:12 must have a major bearing on how we treat the Olivet Discourse and Bible prophecies that foretold the Abomination of Desolation would be committed, unequivocally, by Jewish revolutionaries who occupied the Second Temple and demeaned and destroyed it with their satyr, atrocities, and murders over a period of almost four years.
Endnotes
1 End of the heavens and earth of Second Temple Judaism can be understood in light of the language of Jewish apocalyptic in the Old Testament, e.g, Isaiah 13:1-11, the fall of Babylon, Isaiah 34:1-6, the fall of Edom, Isaiah 19:1 God’s judgment against Egypt, and Jeremiah 4:23, God’s judgment against First Commonwealth Jerusalem at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar II.
2 When shall these things be?” and “What shall be the sign of thy coming” and “the end of the world” are three succinct questions that boil down to one question: When. Yet some of the most ancient churches of Christianity consider it a mark of spirituality to only to address “what” and to studiously avoid addressing “when” not realizing these distinctions they make are imaginary differences. In my many years among Orthodox and Roman Catholic believers, it was always believed that the time of the Lord’s coming is one of the “mysterious unknowns” that the Bible can never answer when, in fact, all over the New Testament what and when are firmly entrenched around the Destruction of Jerusalem.
3 J. Marcellus Kik notes, “There were earthquakes in Crete, Smyrna, Miletus, Chios, Samos, Laodicea, Hierapolis, Colosse, Campania, Rome, and Judea. It is interesting to note that the city of Pompeii was much damaged by an earthquake on February 5, 63, A.D. From the above evidence, one may conclude that the prophecy of Jesus was literally fulfilled as to wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes.” An Eschatology of Victory, 93.
4 Tish B’Av, III, The Source of Senseless Hatred, 29 “When the Ignorant Despise the Wise,” “When the Disciples Disregard Their Masters,” 30, “Self Hatred Leads to Exile.” Tishah B’Av–Texts, Readings, and Insights/ A Presentation Based on Talmudic and Traditional Sources, 32.
5 Josephus states more than once that the beleaguered Jews were treated in such a way that they preferred to be ruined by the Romans because it was a lighter punishment than being harmed by their own Jewish countrymen. (The Wars of the Jews 4.3.2:134).
6 The Roman world was at peace, but the Jews were the only people in the empire acting up, which, says Josephus, increased the rage of the Romans. Josephus’ Dissertation 3, Book 5, Chapter 10, Appendix
7 According to Josephus, in this environment those who called themselves “Zealots” quickly grew up. See The Wars of the Jews 7.8.1:265-272.
8 An extensive examination in Acts where it is said the Apostles “turned the world upside down,” speaks for itself. If they did this, they did so long before the Christian phenomenon came to the attention of the Roman authorities as any kind of “threat.” If (as it is said) the Romans did not know the difference between the Jews and the Christians until A.D.133, then it is not possible that Christians turned the Roman world “upside-down” in the A.D.40s! On the other hand, Luke speaks of the Holy See of Jerusalem in all-encompassing terms such as “every nation under heaven” attending Pentecost (Acts 2:5-11). And the Apostle Paul repeatedly claims that the Gospel was preached to every creature under heaven (Colossians 3:23 cf. Romans 16:26). The only solution to these expressions and claims is that this is a legitimate way of talking about the entirety of the Jewish world only. J. Marcellus Kik also understood the ecumene as being the Jewish world on page 99 of his Postmillennial treatise, An Eschatology of Victory.
9 The Beit Huron defeat of Cestius’ army got the Jews the trophy of close to six thousand Romans killed in one blow. This was much more dramatic than what had happened in the glorious days of Judas the Maccabee where only eight hundred Greeks were killed in the battle that gained him his fame. (The Antiquities of the Jews 12.7.2:289-292)
10 The Romans looked upon Herod’s Temple with sacred horror, whilst the Jews despised and defiled their own Holy Place, The Wars of the Jews, 6.2.3:123.
11 The Romans wanted to preserve the Temple for futurity, The Wars of the Jews 6.2.4:127-128.
12 Violence and perversion matching the sins of Sodom suggests the basest elements of society invaded Jerusalem during the civil war. There were also fictitious tribunals and the sentence of death for any offense large or small was the rule of law. Josephus also reports that there was a mass murder of over 8, 500 worshipers in a single night and these appalling actions effectively brought on the dissolution of the high priesthood by the Jews themselves.
13 “They also set the principal men at variance one with another, by several sorts of contrivances and tricks, and gained the opportunity of doing what they pleased, by the mutual quarrels of those who might have obstructed their measures; till at length, when they were satiated with the unjust actions they had done towards men, THEY TRANSFERRED THEIR CONTUMELIOUS BEHAVIOR TO GOD HIMSELF, AND CAME INTO THE SANCTUARY WITH POLLUTED FEET.” The Wars of the Jews 4.3.6.150.
Even the Book of Revelation is perfectly clear that the Jewish revolt began with extreme hostilities toward the God of Israel, the Second Temple, and the inhabitants of heaven (See Revelation 13:6). Furthermore, Jerusalem was doomed by John Gischala who came to the city with his Zealots and their ‘big talk’ and tens of thousands of refugees. . .John went about among all the people, and persuaded them to go to war . .” The Wars of the Jews 4.3.2:128-129.
14 Josephus placed the blame for Jerusalem's destruction directly at the feet of those adhering to the doctrines of Judas of Galilee and his Fourth Philosophy.
15 However the war in which Judas the Maccabee was involved was entirely different in that it was a truly righteous cause. The First Great Revolt, on the other hand, was conceived in the deepest iniquity and brought forth terrible results, all in accordance with the ancient prophecies foretold about the concluding years of the national life of the Jewish people in relation to their State Temple.
16 The convening of tens of thousands in the Second Temple courtyard led to the election of ten generals and the division of the Jewish State into seven regions. However, it was not very long before this new provisional government fell to more extreme elements in the Jewish world which, in turn, formed a meaningful and more tyrannical government that fell when the Romans came in over three years later.
17 The many fruits of unrighteousness that came to the fore during this unusual war were the result of trends that began very early in the history of the Hebrew people. By A.D.66 the combined forces of dissatisfaction and Messianic ambitions burst forth, expelled the Romans, and exercised unilateral Jewish control over Jerusalem for forty-two months, exactly fulfilling prophecies of the Old and New Testaments.
18 Jesus, in Luke 13:1-5 correctly predicted they would perish in this specific manner. Josephus writes,
“For notwithstanding these men were mad with all sorts of impiety, yet did they still admit those that desired to offer their sacrifices, although they took care to search the people of their own country beforehand, and both suspected and watched them; while they were not so much afraid of strangers, who, although they had gotten leave of them, how cruel soever they were, to come into that court, were yet often destroyed by this sedition; for those darts that were thrown by the engines came with that force, that they went over all the buildings, and reached as far as the altar, and the temple itself, and fell upon the priests, and those (2) that were about the sacred offices; insomuch that many persons who came thither with great zeal from the ends of the earth, to offer sacrifices at this celebrated place, which was esteemed holy by all mankind, fell down before their own sacrifices themselves, and sprinkled that altar which was venerable among all men, both Greeks and Barbarians, with their own blood; till the dead bodies of strangers were mingled together with those of their own country, and those of profane persons with those of the priests, and the blood of all sorts of dead carcasses stood in lakes in the holy courts themselves” (The Wars of the Jews 5.1.3:15-18).
Why did these unfortunate things happen to these people and why were they there? According to 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12, the people destined to perish with the Second Temple did so because “they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved” and took “pleasure in unrighteousness.”
19 The false prophet sought to deceive the people, but for what reason? Josephus’ war tells us that their purpose was only to convince the people to seek refuge in Jerusalem and defend the city against the Roman armies and God would appear on their behalf—which of course was propaganda and a fatal lie! (Wars of the Jews 6.4.5.285-288).
20 In accordance with Revelation 16:15-21, The Wars of the Jews 5.6.3.269-274 demonstrates that 100 pound stones were thrown against the walls of Jerusalem three days before Passover in A.D.70.
21 David L. Paauw, Jesus is Coming Back Soon. . .p. 6.
22 Major Bible Prophecies, 294. Although Walvoord insists that the so-called future fulfillment of Matthew 24 will be a “similar situation” such a view is hard to conceive if the Abomination of Desolation did not take place in Herod’s Temple, that Temple was not the one which was to be completely destroyed. According to him the world in question never even ended and the Second Coming and the resurrection of the dead failed to transpire.
23 Ibid. 96-297. The fact is, the “end of the age” of Premillennialism and the other conventional views is not the same end of the age described and envisaged in the Word of God. Yet, despite this, those errors are, ultimately, a litmus test of fellowship for as many of us who are aware of the real historicity and fundamental nature of the Biblical eschaton.
24 The Jews and proselytes were imprisoned in Jerusalem and could not go back home only because they refused to heed the warnings Jesus gave in his Olivet Discourse. See, Josephus’ The Wars of the Jews 6.9.4:428.
25 For a fuller discussion on this expression see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth
26 The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society’s own former claims disprove their boast that they are “God’s approved channel of communication” and “the only means of mankind’s salvation at this present time.” Their prophecies of 1879, 1914, 1915, 1918, 1925, and 1975 are glaring examples and notorious proof of the deceptive and seductive leadership tactics of this movement.
27 For report of thousands being cut open see, The Wars of the Jews 5.13.4:548-559.
28 THE DAILY STUDY BIBLE SERIES REVISED EDITION, THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW Volume I, (Chapters 1 to 10). REVISED EDITION Translated with an Introduction and Interpretation. Copyright © 1975 William Barclay First published by The Saint Andrew Press. Edinburgh, Scotland First Edition, September 1956 Second Edition, May 1958. Published by The Westminster Press (R) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).
29 Russell, Bertrand, Why I Am Not a Christian, pp. 16-17.
30 Fredriksen, Paula, Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews, p. 89.
31 Levine, Samuel, You Take Jesus, I’ll Take God, p. 15-16.
32 C.S.Lewis, The World’s Last Night, 383-385.
33 Atavist eschatology rejects the concept that there intrinsic virtue in believing the Second Coming belongs to a category of “perennial futurity” for the sake of motivating Christians to “watch.” The wisdom of a two thousand-year-long paradigm of delay and disappointment really proves one thing: Jesus was correct within the context, circumstances and scope with which Peter, James, John, and Andrew would have been able to understand in light of their own social circumstances at the end of an era that was on its way out.
Related
The Image of the Abomination of Desolation
in the Popular Christian Imagination
Comments on Revelation Chapter 11