The Olivet Discourse, delivered shortly before Jesus’ crucifixion, is the most important single passage of prophecy in all the Bible. It is significant because it came from Jesus Himself immediately after He was rejected by His own people and because it provides the master outline of end-time events.

– Dr. Tim LaHaye[1]

The Olivet Discourse is an important passage for the development of anyone’s view of Bible prophecy. The Olivet Discourse is made up of our Lord’s teaching on Bible prophecy that is found in Matthew 24- 25, Mark 13 and Luke 21. Since one’ s interpretation of the Olivet Discourse greatly impacts whether they are a premillennialist or anti-millennialist, futurist or preterist, or pretribulationists or posttribulationist, I will be attempting an extensive interpretation of Matthew 24- 25.

The Contextual Setting for Christ’ s Discourse

The setting for the Olivet Discourse, at least for Matthew’ s account, is found in preceding events leading up to Matthew 24. Christ had presented Himself to the nation as their Messiah, but they rejected Him. No only did the people reject Him, but their rulers did as well. Thus, Jesus rebukes and exposes their hypocrisy and unbelief in Matthew 22 and 23. Jesus notes that this present generation of Jewish leaders is like those from previous generations who killed the prophets (23:29-36). Christ then tells the Jewish leaders, ” Truly I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation” (23:36). What things? It will be the curse of judgment, which will come upon the Jewish people through the Roman army in a.d. 70. ” All hope for a turning of Israel to God in repentance has gone,” notes Dr. Stanley Toussaint. ” The King therefore has no alternative but to reject that nation for the time being with regard to its kingdom program. The clear announcement of this decision is seen in these verses of Matthew’ s Gospel.” [2]

In spite of the fact that the Jewish people deserved the approaching judgment, like a caring parent about to administer a just punishment, Christ cries out, ” O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling” (23:37). Jesus wants to gather His people (as He will in 24:31), instead, He will scatter them via the a.d. 70 judgment (Luke 21:24).

Jesus then declares in verse 38, ” Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!” To what does the house refer? In the context of this passage it must be a reference to the Jewish Temple. Matthew 24:1-2 brings up a discussion by Jesus with His disciples about the Temple. It is at that time that Jesus startles them by telling them ” ‘ Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here shall be left upon another, which will not be torn down’ ” (24:2). What Jesus says will be desolate, the Temple, in 23:38, is more precisely described in 24:2: both referring to the same thing- the Temple.

Next, Christ says, ” For I say to you, from now on you shall not see Me until you say, ‘ Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ” (24:39). Not only does this verse hold out the certainty of soon judgment, but also the eventual promise of yet to come hope and blessing upon the Jewish nation. Alfred Edersheim, a son of the present remnant of Israel, said of this passage:

Looking around on those Temple-buildings- that House, it shall be left to them desolate! And He quitted its courts with these words, that they of Israel should not see Him again till, the night of their unbelief past, they would welcome His return with a better Hosanna than that which had greeted His Royal Entry three days before. And this was the ‘ Farewell’ and the parting of Israel’ s Messiah from Israel and its Temple. Yet a Farewell which promised a coming again; and a parting which implied a welcome in the future from a believing people to a gracious, pardoning King.[3]

So this verse not only speaks of the judgment that surely came in a.d. 70, but looked to a future time of redemption for Israel because the passage contains the forward looking word ” until.” Luke 21:24 records another use of ” until” by our Lords when He says, ” and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” Hebrew Christian Bible teacher, Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum, says Israel must call for the Lord to rescue them as a condition for the second coming, based upon Matthew 23:39.[4] Dr. Fruchtenbaum explains:

But then He declares that they will not see Him again until they say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. This is a messianic greeting. It will mean their acceptance of the Messiahship of Jesus.

` So Jesus will not come back to the earth until the Jews and the Jewish leaders ask Him to come back. For just as the Jewish leaders lead the nation to the rejection of the Messiahship of Jesus, they must some day lead the nation to the acceptance of the Messiahship of Jesus.[5]

Dr. David Cooper echoes Dr. Fruchtenbaum’ s understanding when he says, ” Since Jesus came in the name of the Lord, and since He will not return until Israel says, ‘ Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,’ it is clear that the people of Israel will see and recognize that Jesus was and is their true Messiah.” [6] The last few verses of Matthew 23 means that judgment was coming in the near future, but, beyond judgment, deliverance and redemption awaits the Jewish nation. Judgment did come in a.d. 70 and Matthew 24 speaks of the still future redemption of Israel.

The Historical Setting for Christ’ s Discourse

Matthew 24:1-3 provides us with the setting for which Christ delivers His prophetic sermon. We see that Jesus is making His way from the Temple (24:1) to the Mount of Olives (24:3), which would mean that He most likely would travel down the Kidron Valley and on up to Olivet. As He was going from the Temple ” His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him” (24:1). This statement leads us to believe that they were talking to Jesus about how beautiful the Temple complex was that Herod was still in the process of remodeling and refurbishing. Such an emphasis is borne out in the parallel references in Mark 13:1-2 and Luke 21:5-6 as the disciples speak of the beauty of the Temple buildings. The Lord must have startled His disciples by His response to their gloating over the beauty of the Temple complex when He said, ” Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here shall be left upon another, which will not be torn down” (24:2).

As 24:2 is completed, with Christ’ s statement, there is a break in the narrative. The narrative picks back up in 24:3 when it says, ” the disciples came to Him privately.” Mark 13:3 tells us that the disciples who came to Him privately were Peter, James, John and Andrew, and that they were sitting on the Mount of Olives looking at the Temple. This would be the same vista that many have seen today when a visitor goes to the viewing point in modern Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives that overlooks the Temple Mount with the Dome of the Rock perched upon it.

That the disciples came to Jesus privately fits the pattern that Jesus practices and Matthew records of teaching only His believing disciples once the nation rejected Him as their prophesied Messiah in Matthew 12. From Matthew 13 on, Jesus speaks publicly to the rejecting nation only in parables (Matt. 13:10-17). ” Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand” (Matt. 13:13). However, many times He would later explain a public parable privately to His disciples (for example, Matt. 13:10-23). In the Olivet Discourse, we see Christ following this pattern. This private explanation, which is the Olivet Discourse, means that Christ will provide His explanation of future history for the benefit of believers.

The Disciples Questions

While sitting on the Mount of Olives these four disciples ask Jesus the following questions: ” Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age” (24:3)? Immediately debate rises over whether these are two questions or three. If one takes the first option, then there is no doubt that the second question contains two parts to it. I believe that there are two basic questions because of the grammar of the passage as explained by Dr. Craig Blomberg as follows:

” The sign of your coming and of the end of the age” in Greek reads, more literally, the sign of your coming and end of the age. By not repeating the definite article (” the” ) before ” end of the age,” Matthew’ s rendering of Jesus’ words is most likely linking the coming of Christ and the end of the age together as one event (Granville Sharp’ s rule).[7]

This means that the two phrases are closely related to one another in the mind of the disciples, who formulated the question. They believed that they were linked closely together.

Clearly the first question relates to the destruction of the Temple, which was fulfilled in the Roman invasion and destruction of a.d. 70. It is equally clear that the two aspects of the second question have yet to occur in history, even though some want to see in this passage Christ’ s second coming (more on the errors of preterism as I progress through the passage).

It appears likely to me that the disciples believed that all three aspects of their two questions would occur around the same event- the coming of Messiah. Why would they have thought this way? Dr. Toussaint is correct to note that the disciples were influenced by the prophet Zechariah.

In their minds they had developed a chronology of events in the following sequence: (1) the departure of the King, (2) after a period of time the destruction of Jerusalem, and (3) immediately after Jerusalem’ s devastation the presence of the Messiah. They had good scriptural ground for this since Zechariah 14:1-2 describes the razing of Jerusalem. The same passage goes on to describe the coming of the Lord to destroy the nations which warred against Jerusalem (Zechariah 14:3-8). Following this the millennial kingdom is established (Zechariah 14:9-11).[8]

In other words, the disciples thought that all three events were related to a single event- the return of the Messiah as taught in Zechariah 14:4. As we shall see, they were right to think of Zechariah 12- 14 and his teaching about Messiah’ s coming. However, they were wrong to relate the impending judgment of Jerusalem and the Temple with the return of Messiah, as I hope to show in future installments in their series. Maranatha!

(To Be Continued . . .)

 

Endnotes
[1] Tim LaHaye and Thomas Ice, Charting the End Times: A Visual Guide to Understanding Bible Prophecy (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2001), p. 35.

[2] Stanley D. Toussaint, Behold The King: A Study of Matthew (Portland: Multnomah Press, 1980), pp. 264-65.

[3] Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974 [1883]), Vol. II, p. 414.

[4] Arnold Fruchtenbaum, The Footsteps of the Messiah: A Study of the Sequence of Prophetic Events (San Antonio: Ariel Press, 1982), pp. 212-15.

[5] Fruchtenbaum, Footsteps, p. 215.

[6] David L. Cooper, Messiah: His Final Call to Israel (Los Angeles: Biblical Research Society, 1962), p. 47.

[7] Craig L. Blomberg, Matthew, Vol. 22 of The New American Commentary(Nashville: Broadman Press, 1992), p. 353, f.n. 37.

[8] Toussaint, Behold The King, p. 269.

” Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” – Matthew 24:34

The last few months have been a time in which I have been involved in a couple of debates with preterists. Preterism teaches that most, if not all, of the Book of Revelation and the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24- 25; Mark 13; Luke 21) were fulfilled in conjunction with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in a.d. 70. If this notion is granted, then almost all of Bible prophecy is not to be anticipated in the future, but is past history. Their false scheme springs forth from a misinterpretation of Matthew 24:34 (see also Mark 13:30; Luke 21:32), by which they launch an upside-down view of eschatology, which does not look to the future but instead gazes at the past.

Preterist View

Preterist Gary DeMar says, ” the generation that was in existence when Jesus addressed His disciples would not pass away until all the events that preceded verse 34 came to pass.” [1] In contrast with fellow preterist, Dr. Kenneth Gentry, DeMar believes that this passage requires that all of Matthew 24 and 25 must have been fulfilled in some way by a.d. 70 through the Roman invasion and destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.[2] DeMar says, ” Every time ‘ this generation’ is used in the New Testament, it means, without exception, the generation to whom Jesus was speaking.” [3] DeMar’ s assertion is simply not true! ” This generation” in Hebrews 3:10 clearly refers to the generation of Israelites that wandered in the wilderness for 40 years during the Exodus.

How To Find The Correct View

But how do we know that almost all of the other New Testament uses of ” this generation” refer to Christ’ s contemporaries? We learn this by going and examining how each is used in their context. For example, Mark 8:12 says, ” And sighing deeply in His spirit [Jesus is speaking], He said, ‘ Why does this generation seek for a sign? Truly I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation.’ ” Why do we conclude that ” this generation,” in this passage refers to Christ’ s contemporaries? We know this because the referent in this passage is to Christ’ s contemporaries, who were seeking for a sign from Jesus. Thus, it refers to Christ’ s contemporaries, because of the controlling factor of the immediate context.

When interpreting the Bible you cannot just say, as DeMar and many preterists do, that because something means X . . . Y . . . Z in other passages that it has to mean that in a given verse.[4] NO! You must make your determination from the passage under discussion and how it is used in that particular context. Context is the most important factor in determining the exact meaning or referent under discussion.[5] That is how one is able to realize that most the other uses of ” this generation” refer to Christ’ s contemporaries.

Matthew 23:36 says, ” Truly I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation.” To whom does ” this generation” refer? In this context, ” this generation” refers to Christ’ s contemporaries because of contextual support. ” This generation” is governed or controlled grammatically by the phrase ” all these things.” All these things refer to the judgments that Christ pronounces in Matthew 22- 23. So we should be seeing that in each instance of ” this generation,” the use is determined by what it modifies in its immediate context. The scope of use of every occurrence of this generation is determined in the same way.

The same is true for Hebrews 3:10, which says, ” Therefore I was angry with this generation.” ” This generation” is governed or controlled grammatically by the contextual reference to those who wandered in the wilderness for forty years during the Exodus.

The Correct View

Now why does ” this generation” in Matthew 24:34 (see also Mark 13:30; Luke 21:32), not refer to Christ’ s contemporaries? Because the governing referent to ” this generation” is ” all these things.” Since Jesus is giving an extended prophetic discourse of future events, one must first determine the nature of ” all these things” prophesied in verses 4 through 31 to know what generation Christ is referencing. Since ” all these things” did not take place in the first century then the generation that Christ speaks of must be future. Christ is saying that the generation that sees ” all these things” occur will not cease to exist until all the events of the future tribulation are literally fulfilled. Frankly, this is both a literal interpretation and one that was not fulfilled in the first century. Christ is not ultimately speaking to His contemporaries, but to the generation to whom the signs of Matthew 24 will become evident. Dr. Darrell Bock, in commenting on the parallel passage to Matthew 24 in Luke’ s Gospel concurs:

What Jesus is saying is that the generation that sees the beginning of the end, also sees its end. When the signs come, they will proceed quickly; they will not drag on for many generations. It will happen within a generation. . . . The tradition reflected in Revelation shows that the consummation comes very quickly once it comes. . . . Nonetheless, in the discourse’s prophetic context, the remark comes after making comments about the nearness of the end to certain signs. As such it is the issue of the signs that controls the passage’s force, making this view likely. If this view is correct, Jesus says that when the signs of the beginning of the end come, then the end will come relatively quickly, within a generation.[6]

The whole preterist argument goes up in smoke since they have reversed the interpretative process by declaring first that ” this generation” has to refer to Christ’ s contemporaries, thus all these things had to be fulfilled in the first century. When one points out that various passages in Matthew 24 were not fulfilled, preterists merely repeat their mantra of ” this generation,” so that all these things had to be fulfilled in the first century.

I do not think that any of the events in Matthew 24:4-31 occurred in the first century. I will now look at the most significant event in the passage- the Second Coming of Christ in verses 27 through 31.

Did Jesus Return in a.d. 70?

Once again, preterists argue that it had to happen in the first century because of ” this generation.” So preterists use their very active imaginations, with a little help from Josephus, to try to explain why these passages do not speak about Christ’ s second coming.

Verse 29 says, ” But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” Dr. Gentry says, ” I will argue that this passage speaks of the a.d. 70 collapse of geo-political Israel. Let us note that there is biblical warrant for speaking of national catastrophe in terms of cosmic destruction.” [7]

If these are literal signs in the heaven then they have not happened in the past. Are they literal? YES! First, this was one of the reasons why the sun, moon and stars were created. Genesis 1:14 says that, on the fourth day, God created the sun, moon and stars ” for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years.” What bigger event than the second coming of Christ would demand a global sign? In this passage Jesus is reporting what will actually happen in history. It will be a supernatural event, yet Dr. Gentry and other preterists want to dumb down this event with their naturalistic view that this has already happened.

Second, just as the sun was literally darkened at the crucifixion of Jesus as a sign, so will it be at His return. Third, the burden of proof is on preterists who do not take this literally as to why they don’ t. They need to come up with something more convincing than the mantra of ” this generation” requires it, because I have shown that it does not. The point of the passage is that only God can control His creation and use it as a global sign that He is being announced as the returning, glorious Lord of all creation, into an environment of unbelief.

Matthew 24:30 says, ” and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.” Dr. Gentry says, ” This verse, along with all other verses leading up to if from Matthew 24:1, applies to the a.d. 70 destruction of the Temple.” [8] If this prophecy has something to do with the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70, then Dr. Gentry has not been able to tell us exactly what it is.

I agree with Greek scholar, A. T. Robertson, that the sign is the coming of the Son of Man Himself.[9] The first sentence would be rendered as follows: ” and then will appear the sign, which is the Son of Man in heaven.” This is called in Greek grammar the appositional use of the genitive case. The coming of the Lord Himself is the sign, which was the very point he made to the high priest in Matthew 26:64 when He told them that they would see Him ” coming on the clouds of heaven.” This is what the angle told Christ’ s disciples in Acts 1:11 after watching Jesus being taken up to heaven in a cloud, that ” This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” This is why the next time Jesus comes, it will not be some ” signless sign” that did not actually exist in the form of the Roman army, but instead the visible, bodily, physical return of Christ that mirrors His ascension.

The next part of verse 30 says, ” then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.” Why will they mourn, because they will see the undeniable sign of the returning Christ. Dr. Gentry says, that this merely refers to the Jewish tribes of Israel in a.d. 70.[10] NO! This is a universal term used of global unbelievers. Every time this plural phrase is used in the parallel Book of Revelation it clearly refers to Gentiles. For example in Revelation 13:7 it speaks of ” every tribe and people and tongue and nation.” Every use in the Old Testament of ” all the tribes of the earth” has a universal meaning in the Septuagint. The Old Testament uses the term ” all the tribes of Israel” (about 25 times) when it wants to refer to the Jewish tribes.

Most importantly, the verse goes on to say, ” they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.” It says, ” they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky.” The text says, ” they will see the Son of Man.” This has to be a reference to the visible, bodily, physical return of Jesus Christ to planet earth! This did not happen in a.d. 70? Josephus does not record it. This cannot refer to a symbolic, naturalistic interpretation that somehow Jesus returned in conjunction with the Roman army in the first century. Jesus said, ” they will see the Son of Man.”

Further, Jesus returns on the clouds, just like Acts 1 said He would. He will return with power and great glory. The glory refers to His visible, Shechinah Glory cloud that has been God’ s trademark throughout history.

Conclusion

If Jesus returned in a.d. 70, as preterists say, then, on what day did He return? Since this is a past event, we should be able to know the exact day our Lord supposedly returned and fulfilled this passage. I have never read in any preterist material, any of them who can tell me the day and exact manner or event that supposedly was Christ’ s return in a.d. 70. In fact, this was such a non-event in terms of church history, that it was not until the seventeenth century that we have an extant record of anyone suggesting anything like a preterist view that refers Matthew 24:27 and 30 to a.d. 70. Maranatha!

 

Endnotes
[1] Gary DeMar, End Times Fiction: A Biblical Consideration of the Left Behind Theology (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001), pp. 67-68.

[2] Gary DeMar, Last Days Madness: Obsession of the Modern Church (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 1999), pp. 198-201.

[3] DeMar, End Times Fiction, p. 68.

[4] See D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), p. 65.

[5] See Roy B. Zuck, Basic Bible Interpretation: A Practical Guide to Discovering Biblical Truth (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1991), pp. 106-09.

[6] Darrell L. Bock, Luke 9:51- 24:53 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), pp. 1691- 92.

[7] Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., Perilous Times: A Study in Eschatological Evil(Texarkana, AR: Covenant Media Press, 1999), p. 77.

[8] Gentry, Perilous Times, p. 79.

[9] A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, VI vols, (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1930), vol. I, p. 183.

[10] Gentry, Perilous Times, p. 83.