Pastor David B. Curtis
Pastor David B. Curtis
Matt. xxiv., Mark xiii., Luke xxi - In Matthew xxiv. 3, we find the apostles, doubtless as the result of their Master's previous teaching, associating together three events as likely to happen at one and the same time, the destruction of the temple, a return of Christ to judgment, and not the end of the world, but (as may be seen from the margin of the Revised Bible) the end of the age, that is, of the Jewish dispensation. (See Appendix B, on "The End of the Age," page 192.) "As He sat on 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 consummation of the age" ? That the three questions contained in this verse were practically but one, is clearly shewn by the fact that our Lord responds not with three answers, but with only one. In the long discourse that, follows there is not the faintest hint of the need of any "double interpretation". Jesus says not a word about the end of the world, but simply describes beforehand events that were to precede and accompany the siege and destruction of Jerusalem. He also declared that not merely a part but the whole of the things of which He spoke would receive an exhaustive fulfilment within the lifetime of His earthly contemporaries.
For the truth of the greater part of these predictions we have independent historical evidence. Josephus and others record the occurrence, in the last days of the Jewish dispensation, of wars and famines, of earthquakes and physical convulsions, of cruel persecutions and terrible suffering. That the predictions concerning a great falling away from the faith,(1) the rise of antichrists, and the universal diffusion of the gospel throughout the then known world, were realised before the destruction of Jerusalem, we have proofs within the New Testament itself.The 1st epistle of John, written in the 'last hour' of the Jewish dispensation (ch. ii. 18 Revised Bible) announces the appearance of many antichrists, speaks of a great apostasy from the faith (ii. 19), and declares that already many false prophets have gone out into the world (iv. 1). This also exactly agrees with the account given in Rev. ii and iii, of the degenerate condition of the seven churches of Asia,(2) afflicted as they were by evil practices and pernicious teaching.
(1) In the parable of the Sower (Matt. xiii.), our Lord taught that only a small minority of His disciples would bring forth fruit to perfection.
Compare Luke xviii. 8: 11 "When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth" ?
(2) The Apocalypse, as we know from internal evidence (Behold He cometh, i. 7; Behold I come quickly, iii. 11 and xxii. 7, 12; Behold I come as a thief, xvi. 15; Surely I come quickly, xxii. 20) was written at a time (probably 67 A.D.) when the Lord's coming was immediately at hand.
With regard to the wide diffusion of the gospel, predicted in Matt. xxiv. 14, as one of the signs that would accompany 'the end,' it is to be remembered that before the discovery of America and Australia the word "world" had a far narrower meaning than at, present, and that 1800 years ago it, meant, simply the Roman Empire. It was only in this sense, for example, that the emperor Augustus could cause a census of "all the world" to be taken (Luke ii. 1). We have also evidence that this was the meaning belonging to the word in New Testament times from the fact that in the lifetime of the apostles the gospel had already penetrated through the whole world, "had. been preached in all creation under heaven" (Col. i. 6, 23), and made known to all nations (Rom. xvi. 26). Christ had Said to them: "Ye Shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all, Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1. 8). "And they went forth and preached everywhere" (Mark xvi. 20). "Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world" (Rom. X. 18).
We know from Luke xxi. 11, 25 that our Lord foretold that there would be "terrors and great signs from heaven" at this time, and "signs in sun and moon and stars." These predictions were fulfilled in the marvels recorded by Josephus as having been seen in the sky at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem.
"The miserable people did not attend nor give credit to the signs which were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future desolation ; but like men infatuated, without either eyes to see or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them, Thus there was a star resembling a sword which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year. Thus also before the Jews' rebellion, when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month Nisan, and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round about the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time ; which light lasted half an hour. A few days after that feast, a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared. I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals. For, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armour were seen running about among the clouds" (Wars vi. 5. 2).
The prophet Joel also bad said that in "the last days" of the Jewish dispensation (Acts ii. 17), before the day of the Lord came, that great and notable day, God would show wonders in the heaven above (Joel ii. 3 0). The prediction contained in Matt. xxiv. 29, Mark xiii. 24, 25, is somewhat different, implying, as it does, a total cessation of light and the coming of dense darkness either upon the whole earth or (what to those immediately concerned would be practically the same thing) to the consciousness of individual men. Striking parallels to these verses are found in Isaiah xiii. 10, 13; xxxiv. 4; where the prophet foretells the overthrow of the people of Babylon and Edom in the utter darkness of death,
"For the stars of heaven shall not give their light, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine "All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll."
It is a historic fact that in the closing years of the Jewish age vast numbers both of Christians and of unbelieving Jews perished throughout the world. And if at the coming of the Lord in 70 A.D. all the most saintly of His followers that still survived, and all His worst enemies, suddenly died, Matt. xxiv. 29 will then describe the dense darkness which came on them in the moment of death through the closing up of their ordinary senses and powers of perception. That thirty years beforehand, Christ was cognisant of the events that would precede and accompany the siege and destruction of Jerusalem is proved by the historical evidence previously referred to. So closely indeed do His predictions correspond to the actual course of events, that some critics maintain that the discourse recorded in Matt. xxiv., Mark xiii., Luke xxi. is not prophecy at all, but must have been written after 70 A.D.This is an utterly untenable position. If the words of Matt. xxiv. 30 ("then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven........and they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory ") were not really uttered by Jesus, but by writers of a later age, who did not know that the Second Advent had taken place, they would not have gratuitously attributed to Him a prediction which had apparently been falsified. But if we examine this eschatological discourse with care and candour, we shall find that our Lord's supernatural fore knowledge and the absolute trust worthiness of His statements on the subject may by it be firmly established to the reasonable satisfaction even of those who to begin with, may be sceptical as to His divinity.The known fulfillment of the mass of the predictions is a sure guarantee for the fulfillment of the whole. It is that we here contend for, and not for the belief that, apart from independent historical evidence of its accomplishment, every prediction recorded in the Bible, having reference to a time that is now past, was necessarily a true prediction.
The testimony of history demonstrates that the Lord Jesus clearly foresaw the events which would precede and accompany the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
But His account of these events, given beforehand, is in at least one important respect fuller than any which we have elsewhere. Among the things which would then be certain to take place, He solemnly announces the appearing of the sign of the Son of man in the sky, and His own personal and visible coming on the clouds (Matt. xxiv. 30). Moreover He Illustrates the certainly of His Advent following at once the signs He had named, by reference to a common phenomenon, the budding of the fig tree, which always indicated that summer was immediately at hand. The marks of time throughout the chapter are clear and unmistakable "When ye" (some at least of those to whom He was speaking - The pronouns you and your cannot be used to the exclusion of the individuals immediately addressed.) "see the abomination of desolation" (v.15). " Then shall be great tribulation" (v. 21). " immediately after the tribulation of those days" (v. 29). "then shall appear the Sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth (or land) mourn, and they Shall see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (v. 30).
"Even so, ye" (so me at least of those to whom He was speaking) also, when ye see all these things, know ye that He is nigh, even at the. doors" (v. 33). In verses 34 and 35, our Lord makes assurance doubly sure by adding verily I say unto you this generation shall not pass away till all these things be accomplished. Heaven, and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." This was Christ's answer to a question as to time : "When shall these things be" ? " He solemnly assured His apostles that the whole would be realised in the lifetime of some of them. The announcement must have been received with surprise, and perhaps with a measure of' incredulity, even by those to whom it was originally addressed. At that time there was apparently as little prospect, of the destruction of Jerusalem,and the, appearing of the Son of man " on the clouds of heaven," as there now is of the total destruction of London, and of the winding up of the world's history. But, by the words which He uses, Christ brings prominence the fact it is He Himself who is speaking ; and thereby He anticipates, and answers beforehand, the difficulty that some would find in believing the statement, and the ceaseless attempts that would be made, in subsequent ages, to evade and explain away the natural and common-sense meaning of His words.[1] We have no need to search in some remote corner of the dictionary for the signification of the phrase 'this generation' The meaning which Jesus Himself, and the evangelist Matthew who here reports what He said, attached to the words, may be readily gathered from Matt. xi. 16: "Whereunto shall I liken this generation ? " xii. 41: "The men of Nineveh shalt stand up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it " (Compare xii. 42). xii 45: Even so shall it be also unto this evil generation." xxiii.36 "Verily I say unto you, all these things (ie. all the righteous blood shed from Abel to Zechariah) shall come upon this generation" In each of these instances, the words in question denote our Lord's earthly contemporaries. The conviction that this is also the meaning to be attached to the phrase in Matt. xxiv. 34, is strength- (1) by the fact that elsewhere Christ seldom (if indeed ever) mentioned His Second Advent without assigning to it a very narrow limit of time; and (2) that, in this very discourse by the use of the words ye, you, your, then, immediately after, then, He had already limited the event to the lifetime of the apostles. To suggest that in Matt. xxiv. 34, the words 'this generation' mean 'the Jewish race,' or 'the Christian dispensation,' is to rob the passage of the urgency which it undoubtedly expresses; and to make it, as devoid of significance as if a prophet predicting the destruction of London and the burning of St. Paul's Cathedral were to add with great emphasis :-" The Anglo-Saxon race shall not pass out of existence until all this is accomplished!"
The exhortation given in Matt. xxiv. 42, 44, to the first believers, that they were to be earnest and prayerful in anticipation of their Master's return, derived its urgency , from the certainty of that return taking place in the lifetime of some of them, coupled with the uncertainty or the exact date. That generation was not, to pass till all those things were accomplislied. Yet the precise day and the precise hour no one knew; not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only (vv. 34, 36).
That Jesus Christ, whilst declaring His own ignorance of the exact day and hour when He would come back to judgment yet, repeatedly taught that, His return would be an event of the near future, and would take place at the close of the Jewish dispensation, and in the lifetime of some at least of His contemporaries, is also an inevitable inference from much that is recorded in other parts of the gospel narratives.
"At hand." - Mark i. 15, implies that the heavenly Kingdom, the coming of which is spoken of later on in Rev. xi.15 [2] and Rev. xii.10, [3] as having been realised, had not been set UP at the Messiah's birth and first entry into the world, but would follow at no very distant date. Like the Baptist and the apostles, Jesus began His public ministry by by declaring not that , the Kingdom of God" had now come, but that the time was fulfilled, and the Kingdom already at hand !
Says F.D.Maurice, in the preface to his work on the Apocalypse: "I can never be thankful enough for having arrived at the conviction that the words 'the Kingdom of heaven is at hand' are used by the evangelists in their strictest sense."
John a herald of speedy judgment -
The Baptist, was emphatically a preacher of judgment-the forerunner of Jesus the King and Judge, even more than of Jesus the suffering Lamb of God. He predicted the gathering of the -rain into the granary, and the burning up of the chaff with un-quenchable fire. He solemnly announced that, at the time He spoke, the kingdom of heaven was at hand ; the axe was already lying at the root of the trees ; and the wrath was soon to come (Greek: mel'-lo [strongs 3195] ), Matt. iii. 2, 7, 10, 12. Our Lord afterwards declared (Matt. xi. 10, 14, 15) [4] that in the person of John there had already appeared the Elijah spoken of by Malachi (iv.5), [5] whose coming had been predicted as certain to precede (apparently at no distant date) and herald the Second Advent of the Messiah-that advent to judgment which was to prove to the Jews the great and dreadful day of the Lord. [6] And because Jesus knew that, the importance and full significance of John and the second Elijah being one, and the same person, would be in danger of being lost sight of, He drew special attention to the fact by adding " He that hath ears to hear let him hear."
Before their ministry ended - The natural meaning of Matt. x. 23, is that Christ's apostles would barely have time to proclaim throughout Palestine the glad tidings that the Kingdom of heaven was at, hand (verse 7) before He Himself returned to set tip that Kingdom. " When they persecute you in this city flee into the next, ; for verily I say unto you, ye shall not have gone through the cities of Israel till the Son of man be come. " To suggest that the verse means that, our Lord would closely follow His disciples, and overtake them, is to rob the statement) of all point. His presence would not hinder their continuing to preach and it is hard to see how it could provide a motive for urgency and haste. Moreover, His instructions on this occasion reached forward to a time after His ascension, when, for His sake, they would he brought before governors and kings (Verse 18).
Until the end of the Jewish age - That the ministry of the apostles, as whole, was to terminate at, the destruction of Jerusalem, is further evidence by the fact that their Master's promise to be with them, in a special and peculiar sense, whilst they fulfilled their commission, extended only to the close of the Jewish dispensation. "Go ye there fore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them Into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy spirit : teaching them to observe whatsoever I commanded you ; and lo, I AM with you, all the, days, even unto the end of the age" Matt. xxviii. 20). [7] " Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation " (Mark xvi. 15). That, the phrases " all the -nations," " the whole creation," did not include more than the world as known to the apostles, is proved by the fact that even in the lifetime of, Paul the apostles had accomplished the work thus committed to them ; the gospel having been made known to all nations (Rom. xvi. 26), and preached in all creation under heaven (Col. i. 6, 23). Indeed the limited range of the phrases in question is shown by the words with which Mark's gospel closes : "And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the Signs that followed (xvi. 20).
At the end of the Jewish age - "He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man, and the harvest, is the consummation of the age" (Matt. xiii. 37, Revised Bible [8]). Here, be it observed, a harvest [9] was to be gathered in at the close of the Jewish dispensation,and was perhaps thought of (is destined to be specially the result of Christ's own personal ministry.
From this parable of the wheat and the tares, it is certain that the distinction in time which some make between the Epiphany (Christ's coming to take away His people), and the Parousia (Christ's coining with His people to judge the world), is groundless. "Let both grow together until the harvest ; and in the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers, Gather up first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into My barn" (Matt. xiii. 30).
"White already to harvest" - In John iv. 35-38, our Lord taught that the spiritual harvest of the Jewish nation was near at hand. He also represented His apostles as being harvest laborers, reapers; not sowers of the seed! "Say ye not, There are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest ? Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look upon the fields, that they are white already to harvest he that, reapeth, receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal ; that he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together For herein is the saying true, one soweth and another reapeth. I sent, you to reap that, whereon ye have not laboured : others have laboured and ye have entered into their labour." So also in Luke x. 2 (" The harvest is plenteous, but the labourers are few ; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that He send forth labourers unto His harvest "), the use of a verb in the present tense (is) denotes the nearness of the harvest, and explains why a necessity existed not for sowers of the word, but for reapers !
Within the lifetime of some who listened - "Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of man shall be ashamed of him,when He cometh In the glory of His Father with the holy angels" (Mark viii. 38) "For the Son of man is soon to come (Greek: mel'-lo [strongs 3195 er'-khom-ahee [strongs 2064] ) In the glory of His Father with His angles, and then shall He render unto every man according to his deeds. "Verily I say unto you, there be some of them that stand here, which shall in no wise taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in His kingdom" (Matt. xvi. 27, 28). From these verses, we infer three things as to the judgment of which they speak : (1) that it, specially concerned our Lord's earthly contemporaries ; (2) that, it was near at, hand ; and (3) that it would take place within the lifetime of some who heard our Lord speak. To make these words apply to the Transfiguration scene which followed after an interval of seven or eight, days, is to reduce the solemn prediction of Matt. xvi. 28 to the common-place remark that some of His audience would be alive in a week's time to witness that scene! The Transfiguration prefigured the glories of the Second Advent, and Peter (2 Pet.1. 16-19) recalls the fact that he and his companions had been eve-witnesses of Christ' s majesty on the Mount, as a proof that, they were not, following cunningly-devised fables when they proclaimed His speedy return to the earth in glory. But, in itself, the Transfiguration was in no sense a coming of Christ or of Christ's Kingdom. He had first to go away, before He could return! The two verses quoted above (Matt. xvi. 27, 28), when taken together prove unmistakable that our Lord predicted an actual advent to Judgment within the lifetime of some who were then listening to Him.
"Speedily" - Jesus knew beforehand the awful sufferings that, would fall on His followers in the last days of the Jewish dispensation. In the parable of the unjust judge (Luke x vill), He associated the avenging of God's elect with His own second coming, and declared that their deliverance from their enemies would take place, not after a long delay, but, speedily. If there had been the possibility of a considerable lapse of time, this word " speedily " would not have been required ; and, if used, would have conveyed a false impression to those to whom the parable was originally addressed.
Within the lifetime of some of the Apostles - When Christ's disciples were saddened by the announcement that, He was soon going to leave them, He comforted them by speaking of the Father's house of many mansions and with the information that a time was coming when He would manifest (that is, make visible) Himself unto them but not unto the world (John xiv. 2, 3,19, 22). One purpose, He declared, of His temporary absence from them was that He might go elsewhere to prepare a home for them. The separation between Him and them would end, not by their following Him into the spirit-world when they died., but by His own return to them ; for He declared that He would come back to fetch away from earth these same sorrowing friends (" I will receive you unto Myself in order that where He was they might be also! This promise has a significance for us in modern times, reminding us of the heavenly home which has been in existence since 70 A.D., and to which if we are found faithful we shall have an entrance richly and abundantly administered to us at death. But primarily the promise was made, not to believers who might live In remote future ages but, to the men who were. at that. moment listening to Jesus ; and therefore to them it, was assuredly fulfilled centuries ago.
Thus, after the ascension, the expectation and hope of the apostles, so far as their Lord's visible presence was concerned, was naturally and inevitably the very reverse of David's sentiment uttered over his dead child: " I shall go him but he Shall not return to me" (2 Sam xii. 23).
Within the lifetime, of John - The words addressed to Peter (John xxi. 22): "If I will that he tarry till I come, what, is that. to thee?" afforded a strong presumption that the Second Advent would take place in John's lifetime; for it is impossible that Jesus would suggest this idea only to mislead. The apostles erroneously inferred that, if the Lord came so soon, John would be exempted from death.
It is this latter inference that the evangelist hastens to correct by pointing out, that Christ had not promised that he should not die. Accordingly we have great reason from history to believe that John survived the destruction of Jerusalem, and that he died in the beginning of the second century. [10]
The hour cometh and now is." - "Now is a judgment of this world."-In John v. 18, we read that the Jews sought to kill Jesus because He called God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. in reply, Christ justified the stupendous claim which He had advanced. He asserted (verses 21, 22) the right and the power to raise men from the grave and judge them. "For as the Father raiseth the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son also quickeneth whom He will. For neither doth the Father judge any man, but He hath given all judgment unto the Son, that all may honour the Son even as they honour the Father."
In verse. 29. He predicts the universal resurrection and universal judgment yet to come at the end of the world "The hour cometh in which all that are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they that have practised ill unto the resurrection of judgment." But in contrast to this, He mentions in verse 25 with great emphasis and solemnity a period of time which when He spoke was in the near future (the hour cometh and now is), when in response to the voice of the Son of God, a resurrection would take place: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour cometh and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear (implying that all would not hear) shall live."The full force of this statement has been evaded by the passage being spiritualised and explained as referring to the communication of spiritual life to those who are dead in sin.Yet surely one and the same principle of interpretation should be applied to verse 25 and verse 29. Either both must be taken literally, or both be spiritualised!
The same phrase "the hour cometh and now is" occurs in John iv. 23, [11] where it is applied to that abolition of all distinctions of race and place in the sight of God which took place, like the first resurrection, at the destruction of Jerusalem. Our Lord's statement (John xv. 31, margin Revised Bible) should also be borne in mind in this connection,
"Now is a judgment of this world, now shall the prince of this world be cast out."
The use of the future tense shows that the event was yet to come, whilst the word "now" proves that it was nevertheless near at hand.
"Weep for yourselves and for your children." - In His address to the women of Jerusalem, when on His way to crucifixion, Jesus implied that, within the lifetime of themselves and their children a great day of wrath would come, when men would call on the mountains and rocks to fall on them, and hide them from the face of the Judge.
"Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not, for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are coming in which they shall say : 'Blessed are the barren.'… Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills, Cover us " (Luke xxiii. 28-30). With this, Rev. vi.15, 16, should be compared, and the, fact, remembered that, the author of the Apocalypse (writing in spirit and truth; for such doth the Father seek to be His worshippers- probably about 67 A.D.) repeatedly asserted that he was describing events Which were to happen in what it, as then the near future (Rev. i. 1, 3, 19 ; xxii. 6, 10).
Within the lifetime of His judges - Jesus, when on trial before the High Priest, told His judges that, later on, the relative positions of Himself and them would be reversed. Having been placed on His oath He most solemnly declared to them Hereafter (or henceforth) ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven " (Matt. xxvi. 64). The fact that these men were to see Christ coming (ie., as He came) is an indication that the event must have happened during their lifetime. According to 1 Thess. iv. 16, [12] no resurrection of the dead was to take place until after the Lord Himself had descended from heaven; and therefore none of the dead could see Him in His previous act of coming.
This inference is confirmed by the meaning of the Greek phrase (ap-ar' tee [strongs 534]) here rendered "hereafter " or henceforth." When applied not to a continuous state of things, but to an act or event which is to take place once for all in the future, the word denotes the proximity of the event, and can only be adequately translated by some such phrase as " in the near future," "ere long."
"In the near future" - The passage (Matt xxvi. 64) just referred to throws light on another verse (John i. 51), where the same word (ap-ar'-tee[strongs 534] occurs in some ancient manuscripts. It suggests the probability or that verse also being a description of something that happened at the destruction of Jerusalem Christ informs Nataniel that, hereafter " (i.e., in the near future) he and others [13] would see the heavens opened and the, angels of God ascending, and I descending on the Son of man. The omission there, in certain ancient manuscripts, of the word (ap-ar' tee [strongs 534] ), confirms the likelihood that this is the real meaning of the passage.The scribe was not aware that the Second Advent had occured, and did not know of any event that, had taken place "in the near future" to Which the prediction could refer. Not understanding the appropriateness of the word (ap-ar' tee [strongs 534] ) he omitted it.
Corroborative statements - Some other sayings of Jesus Christ throw light, upon. the time of His second coming. (1) He taught the, nearness of judgement by comparing, those who listened to Him, to offenders who were already on their way to appear before the magistrate and to receive sentence. He charged upon His earthly contemporaries their consummate folly in that they were so wise in interpreting the signs of the weather, but did not recognize the, signs of the momentous epoch at which they themselves were living. "Ye hypocrites, ye know how to interpret, the face of the earth and the heavens but how is it that ye know not how to interpret this time? And why,even of yourselves, judge ye not, what is right? For as thou art going with thine adversary before the magistrate, on the way give diligence to be quit of him; lest haply he hale thee unto the judge, and the judge shall I deliver thee to the officer, and the officer shall cast thee into prison. I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou have paid the very last mite" (Luke xii. 56-59). So also Matt. v. 25: "Agree with thine adversary quickly whilst thou art with him in the way. (2) The fiery judgment which was one purpose of our Lord's incarnation is spoken of in another passage as being well-nigh kindled. "I came to cast fire upon the land (or earth) and what will I, if it is already kindled ? " (Luke xii. 49). (3) In the parable of the great supper (Luke xiv. 16-24), it is noticeable that no long interval separated the call to the. guests and the commencement of the feast. The host sent forth his servants at supper-time to say to them that were bidden :
Come, for all things are now ready" (verse 17). (4) The use of the word first in Luke xvii. 25, does not, Seem to admit of a delay of 1800 years: "So shall the Son of man be in His day . But first must He suffer many things and be rejected of this generation." That only a brief interval is implied will be seen by comparing such passages as Luke ix. 59, 61 ; and xxi. 9: "Suffer me first to go and bury my father." "I will follow thee, Lord, but first suffer me to bid farewell to them that are at my house." " When ye shall hear of wars and tumults, be not terrified : for these things must, needs come to pass first; but the end is not immediately."
The inference to be drawn - We know that it had been revealed to the aged Simeon that he should not, see death until he had seen the first advent of the Messiah (Luke ii. 26). A candid consideration of the passages now quoted from the gospel narratives enables us to declare with equal certainly that 1800 years ago it was revealed on divine authority to our Lord's earthly contemporaries that, some of them should in no wise taste of death until they had witnessed His Second Advent. We may conclude with reasonable certainty that Christ's words have been correctly reported. It is admitted that belief in the immediateness of His return began to grow obsolete at the end of the first century; and it is clear that men of a subsequent generation who knew nothing of the event having been realised at the destruction of Jerusalem would not have gratuitously attributed to Jesus predictions which had apparently been falsified. These predictions cannot therefore have been the invention of later ages; for they run counter to the ideas that have prevailed on the subject ever since the destruction of Jerusalem. Thus the natural and inevitable inference is that Jesus taught not only that He would surely come back to judgment, but that He would do so within certain definite limits of time which coincide unmistakably with the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the Jewish dispensation. The many times which His predictions on the subject are repeated and the varied forms which they assume, make it certain front the point of view of historical science that such was His teaching.
On no subject are the words attributed to Him clearer or more emphatic. Let anyone who denies that the signification now contended for as attaching to those words is their natural and common-sense signification, state in what plainer language and more varied ways this meaning could have been conveyed had it been really intended. The belief that Christ's Second Advent, with its accompaniments of a resurrection and a judgment, took place at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem rests on precisely the same basis as the expectation of these event ever taking place; namely, on the plain, emphatic, and continually repeated statements of our Lord and His apostles given beforehand, and unsupported as yet by any human record after the event.
Matters or fact are in question. The silence of history proves nothing either way, it being equally impossible to prove from history that Jesus was not seen on the clouds of heaven in 70 A.D., and that a resurrection, a judgment, and the translation of living saints did not accompany His advent. He Himself predicted that these events would take place at the close of the Jewish dispensation. To Christian believers this affords the strongest possible presumption that they did take place, for to Christian believers His predictions are history anticipated! The burden of proof in the argument rests not on those who assert, but on those who deny, the past advent. An earnest study of the life of Jesus is calculated to beget such supreme confidence in Him that the fact that He often predicted His own resurrection (Matt. xvi. 21 ; xvii. 23 ; xx. 19 ; John ii. 19) becomes to many a certain proof that He did rise from the grave. A similar consideration fixes the time or the Second Advent; for, as with the case of the dying robber's entrance into Paradise on the very day of the crucifixion (" Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise, Luke xxiii. 43), an event of the past of which we have not the faintest historical evidence, our one all sufficient source of information on the subject is the plain testimony of the Lord Jesus, given beforehand. This constitutes evidence of the surest, kind ; and with Christians, at any rate, should put an end to all doubt and all controversy on the matter. IPSE DIXIT. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but His words shall not pass away (Matt. xxiv. 35).
To regard with suspicion His words or the record of His words is to destroy belief in a Second Advent at all. To deny the truth of His predictions because We are unable historically to verify a certain portion of them Is simply to make manifest the shallowness of our faith in Him. To disprove the truth of those predictions would be to shake the Christian religion to its very foundations. Let God and God's Son be true, and, if need be, every mere man a liar!
There are comparatively few things In life as to which we can attain to what is known as " mathematical certainty." No one can logically "prove" the good faith of even his dearest friend. Supremely reasonable as belief in it may be, it is (after all) a mere assumption! High probabilities and "moral" certainties are thus the very guides of life. It is also a fact that many judges attach more value to circumstantial, than to direct evidence. For neither honesty nor good sense necessarily makes a man a competent observer, and most human beings find it a matter of the utmost difficulty to remember exactly what they have seen or heard, and accurately reproduce it. In religion too, the very existence of God and of an unseen world is, at first, a matter not of absolute knowledge, but of a supremely reasonable faith. And in our search for the truth as to Christ's Second Advent a similar wise, sane attitude of heart and mind should lead us to exclaim with a certain ancient saint, " Whatever the The Son of God has said, I believe." For the words which our Saviour uttered, the same shall judge us on the last day (John xii.48).
[1] In like manner in at least one passage, Paul, when teaching that the second advent would take place in the lifetime of some of his readers, insists that the statement rests on divine authority-the fact had been expressly revealed to him by God. "This we say unto you by the word of the Lord : that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep" (1 Thess. iv. 14).
[2] "The Kingdom of the world is become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever."
[3] "Now is come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ."
[4] "This is he of whom it is written, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee." "If ye are willing to receive it this is Elijah, which is (or was for) to come."
[5] "Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord come."
[6] "These are days of vengeance," said Jesus (Luke xxi. 22, 23) referring to the last days of the Jewish dispensation, "that all things that are written may be fulfilled. . . . There shall be great distress upon the land, wrath unto this people."
[7] See Appendix B, page 192.
[8] Exactly the same words occur in the exposition of the parable of the Drag-net (Matt. xiii. 49) "So shall it be in the consummation of the age."
[9] Similarly the term "first-fruits of His creatures" was applied to the primitive Christians (James i. 18).
[10] See also note on page 92.
[11] "The hour cometh and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father
[12] For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air."
[13] Ye is plural.