Pastor David B. Curtis
Pastor David B. Curtis
Old Testament prophecies - We freely admit that belief in the past Second Advent is inconsistent with some traditional explanations of the predictions of Daniel and other Old Testament prophets. This does not in the least shake our position. We dare not twist and torture the plain teaching of the Master Himself in order to bring it into agreement with traditional explanations of the Old Testament. If there is an apparent contradiction between the two, Christ must be to us the interpreter of Daniel, not Daniel the interpreter of Christ! For example, we cannot tell for certain what the abomination of desolation was, although in all probability it was something connected with the Roman army which besieged Jerusalem. Yet we do know that it must have come in the lifetime of the individuals whom Christ addressed. He did not say When they see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet nor "When the abomination of desolation is seen," but He said: "When ye see the abomination of desolation. "The pronoun 'you' or 'ye' cannot, be used to the exclusion of the individuals immediately addressed. Therefore we know that the abomination of desolation is not future, but past. In like manner, since in the nature of the case there cannot be two seasons of unparalleled suffering, it is absolutely certain that the time of awful distress predicted by Daniel (xii. 1) came at the close of the Jewish dispensation. In Matt. xxiv. 21, Jesus associated it with the abomination of desolation which those who listened to Him were to live to see (verse 15). It was something which would be surely realised ere that generation passed away (verse 34). It was amongst the signs by which they would know that He Himself was nigh, even at the doors (verse 33). By definitely connecting the abomination of desolation and the season of unparalleled distress with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., our Lord has for ever settled for us the date of the end of the 'seventy weeks' mentioned in Daniel ix.24.
Owing to obscurities of language, and for other reasons, some parts of the Old Testament are exceedingly difficult to understand. But happily no such uncertainty attaches to the teaching of Jesus Christ which is our only standard of infallible truth. If by any possibility a real contradiction could be proved to exist between the Old and the New Testaments we should not need to doubt or hesitate as to our position with regard to them. The utterances ofOld Testament saints and seers have exceeding value for men in every age. But the teaching of our divine Master is of yet more priceless worth. The former may be compared to a gold mine; the latter to the pure, unalloyed metal itself Any theological doctrine. or any interpretation of a passage of Scripture stands utterly condemned if it contradicts the simple and natural meaning of the language used by our Lord Himself.
Luke xxi. 24 - The report which the evangelist Matthew gives of our Lord's eschatological discourse (chapter xxiv.) seems to have been drawn up with the precision of a legal document to limit the fulfilment of the whole to the lifetime of Christ's earthly contemporaries and preclude the possibility of a double interpretation. It has been too readily assumed that Luke's narrative on the other hand expressly project, Christ's personal and visible reappearing into a more distant future. " There shall be great distress upon the land, and wrath unto this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led captive into all the nations And Jerusalem shall he trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And there shall be signs in sun and moon and stars............ for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory" (Luke xxi. 23-27).
In The Parousia (page 428), Dr. Russell maintains that the treading down of Jerusalem by the Gentiles predicted in verse 24, found an exhaustive fulfilment in the fact that, throughout the whole duration of the war, three years and a half, the holy city was tyrannized over by an armed mob of Zealots and Edomites (Josephus, Wars, iv. 5). In favour of this supposition it may be urged that it can scarcely be doubted that these are the people referred to in Rev. xi. 2 : "The holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two mouths." Yet striking as is the suggestion, it is by no means clear that Luke xxi. 24 is to be explained in the. same way.(1) the treading down of Jerusalem predicted our Lord cannot have gone on contemporaneously with the siege. It was to follow the slaughter of the Jews and their being led captive into all the nations! (2) It surely requires more than three years and a half for The Times Of The Gentiles to be fulfilled.
Yet by the repeated use of the pronouns ye, you, your, [1] and by the solemn statements of verses 32, 33 ("Verily I say unto you : This generation shall not pass away till all things be accomplished. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away") the narrative in Luke, just as certainly and emphatically as in Matthew and Mark, teaches that the second advent was to take place in the lifetime of our Lord's earthly contemporaries. In the light of these facts it is reasonable and easy to believe that the words "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" are to be regarded as being in a parenthesis. Jesus was a Jew speaking to Jews concerning events in which as individuals and as a nation, they were intimately concerned. In verse 24 He casts a single glance forward beyond the time of the destruction of Jerusalem to the end of the Gentile dispensation in which we are now living. But in verse 25 He takes up again the thread of the discourse thus momentarily interrupted.
Some apparently contradictory statements - (1) "Every eye shall see Him"-"Behold He cometh with the clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they which pierced Him, and all the tribes of the land (or earth) shall mourn over Him" (Rev. 1. 7). This prediction is supposed by many to teach that the whole world without exception would see Christ at His second coming. If this be the real meaning of the verse, it conflicts with many passages in the New Testament already quoted, which teach that the event was to be of a more private and restricted character. But the language of the Bible is to be interpreted according to the usages of everyday life in ordinary speech such words as all and every are continually used in a sense short of absolute totality. They usually denote the whole within certain well-understood- and well-defined limits. the blind man, on having his sight restored saw all things clearly (Mark viii. 25). After the interview at. Jacob's well, the woman of Samaria declared concerning Jesus : " He told me all things that ever I did " (John IV. 39). The apostles preached everywhere! (Mark xvi. 20).
The restricted sense in which the words "all" and "every" are continually used in every day life, render it at least possible that in Rev. i. 7) the meaning is that Christ would be seen by all whom His coming concerned personally. At any rate, by the use of the emphatic words " Behold He cometh," John taught that the advent in question would occur in what was then the near future.
(2) The Restoration Of All Things - "Repent ye therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that so there may come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send the Christ who hath been appointed for you, even Jesus; whom the heaven must receive until the time of the restoration of all things where of God spake by the mouth of His holy prophets which have been since the world began" (Acts iii. 19-21). It is supposed by some that in these verses Peter taught that the Second Advent would not take place until the end of the world. Yet when we. carefully examine his words, we notice that the return of the Messiah and the coming of seasons of refreshing were for the individuals addressed ! (1) It may be that the 'restoration of all things' is only another name for the 'new heavens' and the 'new earth' which are to come at the end of the now-existing Millennium (Rev. xxi). In that case the words "whom the heaven must receive until the time of the restoration of all things " find their fulfilment in the reign of Christ in heaven over the earth during the period that intervenes between His second and third advents. (2) More probably the reference is to the establishment of the Kingdom of God, in 70 A.D. This was the goal to which the prophets had looked forward. This was the period when all things that had been written in the Old Testament found at last an exhaustive realisation (Luke xxi. 22.) Our Lord Himself spoke of the partial reformation wrought, among the Jews by the preaching of John the Baptist as a restoration of all things. [2] With still greater force the words apply to that wondrous epoch, when the types and shadows of the Old Testament vanished, and were succeeded by permanent heavenly realities. In 70 A.D. believing Jews recovered more than had been lost before. The earthly Canaan, the earthly Jerusalem, the earthly temple, gave place to the heavenly. The throne of David was more than restored in the establishment of the heavenly Kingdom of David's greater Son.
(3) "Blessed Is He That Cometh" - "Behold your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me henceforth till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord " (Matt. xxiii. 38, 39). In these verses Christ seems to predict that at His Second Advent the Jews who were now rejecting Him, would welcome and accept Him. A multitude of other passages however point in the opposite direction. We therefore venture to suggest that here the words mean that on His return His enemies would be compelled against their will to admit that He who had come to them in the name of the Lord was indeed the Blessed One. The use of the pronouns 'you' and 'ye' seems to indicate a special reference to the individuals to whom the words were immediately addressed.
[1] "Take heed that ye be not led astray. Go ye, not after them. . . When ye shall hear of wars and tumults, be not terrified. . . . They shall lay their hands on you, and shall persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for My name's sake. It shall turn unto you for a testimony. Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate beforehand how to answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all Your adversaries shall not be able to withstand or to gainsay. But ye shall be delivered up even by parents. and some of You shall they cause to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for My name's sake. And not a hair of your head shall perish. In your patience ye shall will your lives. But when ye see Jerusalem compassed with armies. . . . When these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draweth nigh. . . . Even so ye also, when ye see these things coming to pass, know ye that the Kingdom of God is nigh . . . . Take heed to yourselves lest aply your hearts be overcharged . . . . and that day come on you suddenly as a snare ; for so shall it come upon all them that dwell on the face of all the land (or earth). Put watch ye at every season, making supplication that ye may prevail to escape all these things that shall (Greek: Shall Soon) come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man."
[2] "Elijah indeed cometh first said restoreth all things. But I say unto you that Elijah is come, and they have also done unto him whatsoever they listed " (Mark ix. 12,13).