Hermeneutics Pt. 6: In Practice Matthew 24

Hermeneutics as Practice: Reading Matthew 24 in Context

Interpreting the Word of God, study of hermeneutics, what we're going to be looking at tonight is practice. We've gone through all of the principles, I think to the extent that we really need to. And so what we're going to start to do now is to see how do we put these principles into practice.

So, one of the most misinterpreted portions of Scripture in all of the Bible is Matthew 24, okay? So, I want to read the first 36 verses for context. We're going to be reading a lot of Scripture, so you can either follow along up here or if you want to open your Bibles and follow along there.

We're going to read the first 36 verses. We're probably not going to get past the first three, maybe four verses of Matthew 24. Because again, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take the time, take the pains to go through exactly how do you interpret a portion of Scripture.

So, the very first step in interpreting a portion of Scripture is to read it, okay? So, I said I'm going to get basic. I'm not going to take anything for granted. So, this is Matthew chapter 24. Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when his disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to him.

And he said to them, Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another which will not be torn down. As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, Tell us, when will these things happen?

And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? Now, that's probably what we're going to look at. But again, I want to go through the entire portion only up to a certain point to verse 36.

And Jesus answered and said to them, See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in my name saying, I am the Christ and will mislead many. You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened for those things must take place.

But that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.

Then they will deliver you to tribulation and will kill you and you will be hated by all nations because of my name. At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many.

Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations.

And then the end will come. Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, let the reader understand. Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.

Whoever is on the housetop must not go down to get the things that are in his house. Whoever is in the field must not turn back to get his cloak. But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days.

But pray that your flight will not be in the winter or on a Sabbath. For then there will be a great tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. Unless those days have been cut short, no life would have been saved.

But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short. Then if anyone says to you, behold, here is the Christ, or there he is, do not believe him. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.

Behold, I have told you in advance. So if they say to you, behold, he is in the wilderness, do not go out. Or behold, he is in the inner rooms, do not believe them. For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. 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.

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. And he will send forth his angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together his elect from the four winds from one end of the sky to the other.

Now learn the parable from the fig tree. When its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So you too, when you see all these things, recognize that he is near, right at the door.

Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But of that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.

Now, we could go around the room and ask, how many people have heard sermons about these or read books alluding to that? And we could probably wind up with about five, six, seven different interpretations as to what that means.

What I want you to do, put all preconceived ideas aside, begin by looking at these verses using the principles we have studied during the last several weeks. In other words, don't make up your mind, don't let anything, any sermons that you've heard or any books that you've read come into play.

Let's just look at the text as though you were looking at it for the very first time. And using the principles of hermeneutics, let's see what it says, right? So preconceived ideas, that's a no-no. All right, first question we asked, and if you remember, as we've been going through, I said there's always a series of questions.

Who wrote the text? That should be one of the first questions you always ask whenever you come to a portion of scripture. And in this case, it's Matthew who happens to be one of the 12 disciples, okay?

Who was it written to? Apparently, the first century Jews. Now, I put down apparently because it's not addressed like Paul's letters are addressed to the Romans or to the Hebrews or et cetera. But apparently to first century Jews, and how do we arrive at that conclusion?

The numerous Old Testament references, especially from the book of Isaiah. And by the way, these facts that I'm putting up here now are universally accepted across evangelical lines, whether regardless of the eschatological position or whatnot, these are well-accepted facts.

And that is the text emphasizing fulfilled prophecy. Why does that indicate the Jews? Because the prophecy was given to the Jews and the fulfillment of the prophecy would be specifically pertinent to them, okay?

You don't find the same emphasis on fulfilled prophecy, for example, in the book Gospel of Luke. Luke was written to Gentiles, pretty certain that that was the focus of it, to the Theophilus, all right?

What does Theophilus mean? Yeah, friend of God or lover of God, all right? And then there are many other textual reasons. But like I say, the fact that this is the Gospel of Matthew written by one of the 12 to the nation of Israel, specifically to Jews, is pretty much accepted across denominational lines.

What was the purpose of the entire Gospel? Remember what we talked about, context, context, context. If you're going to look at Matthew 24, very first thing you got to say is, all right, what is the purpose of the entire Gospel?

Because what you're looking at in Matthew 24 will be covered by and shaded by the whole purpose of the whole Gospel. So what was the purpose of the entire Gospel? To present Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah of Israel.

The Gospel is the good news. He brings in the new covenant, all right? So the main focus of the Gospels is to present Jesus Christ as the Messiah, all right? Now we can get, asking all those preliminary questions, we can then ask, what was the specific occasion for the text of Matthew 24?

In other words, what was the context for what we just read? And again, we didn't finish the discourse. We only got up to verse 36, all right? If you remember the text, it was the disciples pointing out the beauty of the temple buildings.

That's what they're doing. They're walking out of the temple and they're pointing out the beauty of it. Who's speaking in the passage? An easy one, Jesus is speaking to his disciples. That's important as well, because remember in the beginning of the text, it said Jesus was speaking to his disciples privately.

So this is to that group of people that he is speaking to. Is everybody following that so far? Okay. So what is the immediate context of the passage, all right? In chapter 22, Jesus is being tested by the Pharisees.

Now again, this is important. Remember, we're looking at the content. Why does Jesus say the things that he says? So we have to go back to chapter 22. He's being tested by the Pharisees. But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together.

One of them, a lawyer, asked him a question testing him. Teacher, what is the great commandment in the law? And he said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.

This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets. Now, while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question.

Now, notice, I just want to pause here. Notice what he's doing. The Pharisees come and they test him. He gives them an answer that they were not expecting. Okay. They were more than likely asking him about the ten commandments and which is the greatest of the ten.

And he comes back with these two, all right? And then says, on these two commandments depends the whole law and the prophets. I just want you to think back several chapters, about 15 or so chapters to chapter 5 through 7 of Matthew, known as the Sermon on the Mount.

What was Jesus doing in the Sermon on the Mount?

Yes.

Correcting the misteaching of the Old Testament law.

All right.

They had reduced the Old Testament law to a set of regulations, outward regulations. And Jesus, remember, says it's a matter of the heart.

All right.

So, and now he comes up and what does he show? What is the essence of the law and the prophets? His love. Something the Pharisees did not have, nor did they exhibit.

All right.

So, again, now he's correcting the Pharisaical view of religion.

Okay.

So, now when he finishes that, they're still gathered together. Jesus asked them a question. What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he? They said to him, the son of David.

All right.

And we know a discourse follows that about who the Christ is.

All right.

And that will play into it later on anyway. I just didn't want to take all the time here. But you know, the Lord said to my Lord, etc. Okay. So, that exchange now, what we've just looked at, that's followed by the rebuke of Jesus to the Pharisees in chapter 23.

The beginning of chapter 23, Jesus, in fact, your Bible probably says, Phariseeism exposed or something like that at the note on the top of it.

All right.

Where Jesus explains the, you know, just how contrary to Scripture, what the Pharisees are saying and what they are doing, how they live. Followed by Jesus pronouncing the woes. Okay. On the scribes and Pharisees calling them hypocrites.

Do you see a progression? Remember, Matthew is not necessarily written in chronological order. It's written for the purpose of showing Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah of Israel. So, he's coming through and you can see all of this leading up to what we're looking at in Matthew 24.

And that's followed by chapter 23 with these words. This is after the woes. Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city.

Just want to stop there for a minute. Who's he talking to?

All right.

He's addressing the people who are standing in front of him. Is there any reason to take this and make it any other group of people scripturally? In other words, you would have to import something into the scripture to say that this isn't taught.

He's not talking specifically to the people, but we don't see it here. All right, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on Earth from the blood of righteous able to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barakaya, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

So he's talking to first century Jews that were alive at the time. And what's he saying? He says they are going to have the guilt of all the bloodshed from Abel, who was the very first martyr and Zechariah.

I think I've addressed this before in the Hebrew canon. Second Chronicles is the last book of the Hebrew canon. Zechariah is the last of the martyrs. It's not A to Z. It just happens to work out that way.

All right, but it's from the very first recorded martyr to the last martyr of the Hebrew canon. Okay. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Notice the people he's talking to.

This is before we get to Matthew 24. This is setting up Matthew 24. He's looking at these people. They have tested him. He's coming back and forth with them. And then he pronounces this on them. Your generation is going to have all the blood guilt, all right, from Abel to Zechariah.

All right.

And why? Because you will scourge in your synagogues, persecute from city to city. And if you go to the other parable of the vineyard, where the vineyard owner sends his son, all right, and they kill the son.

All right, so you have all of this blood guiltiness. And Jesus says, it's going to come upon this generation. And that word, this generation, is very, very specific in the Greek. The word for generation is genea, and hotos is the article, the this.

And it means a group that is close in proximity.

All right.

Now, all of this is necessary to understand chapter 24. Now, notice, look at how much time we've spent already. Look how much scripture we've had to read before we even get to chapter 24. So, look at what Jesus said.

All the blood, meaning all the guilt, of all the murdered prophets will fall upon this generation. And again, keep that in mind, that phrase, this generation. The phrase, this generation, means a group of people close at hand.

All right.

Any way you try to interpret it with the modifier this, it's somebody who is close, whether it be in proximity of time or proximity of spatial proximity. But it means that there is another word. If he was talking about another generation or another group of people, he would say that generation, not this generation.

Okay. In other words, the people to whom Jesus is speaking, represented by the Pharisees, the Sadducees. That generation, we even do it in English. Now, which generation? I'm not talking to you guys now.

I'm saying that generation. I'm pointing to another group of people. Will suffer all the righteous blood, shed by the wicked generations over the years. The blood guiltiness is building and building on that nation.

Peter, the fact that you have to keep hammering the point over and over again just goes to show that you have to be imposing something into it. If you're just reading the text, there's no other way to read it than this generation.

And obviously, you're just saying the same thing over different ways, but it's so silly that you would have to do that. Unfortunately, it's become the predominant view to not do it.

Yeah.

And while I recognize that a lot of people sitting here understand that, our videos go out to a lot of other people who may have never even heard this view before. Because even though this is the clear reading of the Scripture, people have been so indoctrinated by an outside view being imposed on the Scripture that they don't even consider that what I'm saying is true.

Okay? Now, look at the last woe that Jesus proclaims. Notice we're about 20, 25 minutes into this teaching. We haven't even gotten to Matthew 24 yet, and yet that's what the lesson is. If you're going to a portion of Scripture and you're trying to interpret and see what it means, if you're not going through something like this, you're doing it superficially, and you may come up with the wrong interpretation.

Make no mistake about it. Biblical hermeneutics is difficult work. It is hard work. It takes time, and it takes effort. And to prove that, just look at how many different interpretations of not even this doctrine, but some of the other doctrines.

All right?

It was Dr. John Gerstner, that's R .C. Sproul's mentor. He had a phrase that always stuck with me in one of the lectures that I heard from him, and it was, he says, beware of the theology of the first glance.

Just because something looks that way at first glance doesn't mean that's what it says. Now, this is Matthew 23. This is the last of the woes. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, if we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.

Do you get what they're saying? Oh, we honor Isaiah. We honor Jeremiah. We admire and we look to them and we honor all those people that our fathers killed.

All right?

And Jesus says, so you testify against yourselves that you were the sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of guilt of your fathers. Remember, we, oh, I was just going to go into common grace, but I'm doing that in the mentoring group.

Remember when Abraham was promised the land of Palestine, but he had to wait over 400 years, right? Why? Because the wickedness of the Amorites wasn't full. God is a just God, and he waits until just the right time.

And here now, the measure of the guilt of the fathers and the generation that's alive was going to reach its climax because of what they were going to do to prophets, all right, and then what they were doing to Jesus Christ himself.

Okay?

Fill up the measure of the guilt of your fathers. Which generation is he talking about? His generation. Who is going to have the measure of guilt laid upon them? Some future generation of Jews? Somebody who's alive today?

No.

That generation. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell? And if you look at you brood of vipers, that was something that he specifically reserved for the Pharisees.

And the last words of Jesus before he leaves the temple and sits on the Mount of Olives in Matthew 23, 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.

Behold, your house is being left to you desolate. I underline desolate because not that we're going to get to it tonight because we won't, but that word comes into play again. You'll see it later in Matthew 24.

And so I just wanted you to be aware of that. For I say to you, from now on you will not see me until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Now, look at what he says. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate.

What does it mean to be left desolate? Empty, vacant. It's not going to be there. The whole purpose and everything else of the house, it's not going to be there anymore. And keep those words in mind. And in verse 39, I'm not going to go into right now, but that's a quotation from Psalm 118, which is, in fact, lo and behold, a messianic psalm pertaining to Christ.

Hopefully we'll get to there one day. Now, all of this sets the stage for the Olivet Discourse. So now we can begin to look at Matthew 24. So now we're about almost 30 minutes into our study, and now we're finally going to start to look and see, all right, what is Matthew 24 all about?

Well, first, let's see. They exit the temple. The disciples point out the beauty and magnificence of the temple buildings. Luke records a little bit fuller explanation of what happened. So instead of using Matthew 24 -1, I'm going to use Luke 21 -5.

And while some were talking about the temple, that it was adorned with beautiful stones and votive gifts. In other words, you get the picture of what's happening. They're coming out of the temple. Everything that we just talked about happened in one of the courtyards of the temple with Jesus confronting the Pharisees, them confronting him.

So all of that is taking place where he pronounces woes upon them. Now they come out of the temple. And as they come out of the temple, the disciples are looking. Isn't this beautiful? Look at this wonderful building.

And look at all the gifts. The votive gifts are like offerings for appeasement or for atonement. Look at how beautiful it is. And look at what the votive gifts have built here for us. They were proud of the temple.

That's what causes Jesus to respond. Now you have the context.

Okay?

Matthew 24 -2,. And he said to them, Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another which will not be torn down. What a downer. Can you imagine? They're looking at the stones and how beautiful it is and all.

And Jesus says, it's all going to be torn down. How much so? Not one stone upon another is going to be there. Now those words prompted the disciples to ask some questions. And rightly so. As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, And that word privately, I should have underlined that.

Because this is kind of like an in-house seminar now. Jesus to his disciples. Tell us when will these things happen? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? Three specific questions.

Tell us when these things will happen. What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? Now there's a couple of questions that we have to ask here. Are these unrelated questions? Because if you listen to a lot of the teaching that's gone out, in fact the predominant teaching on this chapter, says that these three questions are three separate events.

Unrelated. Separated by time and history and space. Well you have to ask, what prompts these specific questions? Why are they asking these questions? The thought of the temple being destroyed. That's what prompts the questions.

And the extent of the destruction. Now one stone left on top of another. That's why they're asking. So remember the principle. Who is Jesus speaking to? And what do his words mean to them? Now what does it mean to some professor sitting in an ivy tower in a seminary today?

What does it mean to the disciples? Because that's who Jesus is talking to. This is not some general prophecy that he's even giving to the whole of Israel. It's to the disciples themselves. Who is he speaking to?

And what do his words mean to them? In order to understand that, remember one of the questions. What will the sign of these things be? And of the end of the age? Well the Jews always thought in terms of a two-age system.

Three if you count the time before the Mosaic Law. So it could be two or three. But generally they thought they didn't count too much about what happened prior to the giving of the law. So they thought of it in terms of a two-age system.

The age of the Mosaic Covenant. They wouldn't call it the Old Covenant. For the same reason we don't find coins with 30 BC on it. You know why we don't find coins with 30 BC stamped on it? Everybody understand why?

If you find one, it's a forgery. Okay. So they only thought in terms of the Mosaic Covenant, which they were under. And the coming age of the Messiah. So when they ask, what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?

What are they talking about? Are they talking about some future millennial kingdom? They're talking about what's the end of the Mosaic Covenant. Therefore these are not three unrelated questions. But they all have to do with the same event.

The destruction of the temple. When is the temple going to be destroyed? You'll find some systems of thought that will say, oh, well, Jesus is talking about a future temple that's going to be rebuilt.

And he's talking about when that one will be destroyed. That begs the question. Here he's talking to his disciples. And they were pointing to that temple, which was standing at that time. And he says that not one stone will be left upon another.

That temple, the one he's pointing to, it's a complete horrendous hermeneutic to say that we're now talking about another temple. To say these questions are three unrelated occurrences is to insert a system of thought into the text that is not there and is in fact foreign to the thinking of the disciples.

And that's what you have to keep in mind. What do the words of Jesus first and foremost mean to the disciples? Because he's answering their questions. The disciples ask the questions as though they are related.

They're not asking, you know, three different things. They're asking, when is his coming? When is the end of the age? Et cetera. And then Jesus places these events within the lifetime of some of the disciples.

And here's where we have to do a little bit of more work. We have to get out of Matthew 24 again. Notice what Jesus says elsewhere concerning these events. In Matthew chapter 10, context for this, he's sending out his disciples to go through the cities.

And you will be hated on all account of my name, but it is the one who endured to the end who will be saved. But whenever they persecute you in this city, flee to the next. For truly I say to you, you shall not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes.

Now isn't that phraseology exactly what we've been looking at in Matthew 24? He's talking about the coming of the Son of Man. And here we see the Son of Man coming. But here we have, this is what we call a time text.

All right?

It tells us when this is going to, and when is it going to happen? All right? Before they finish going through all the cities of Israel. So that means before, what does that mean time-wise? It has to be before 70 A .D.

Because by that time, that's when Jerusalem was destroyed. So whatever he's talking about has to occur at that point. And this isn't the only text. Again, this is in Matthew 16.

All right?

This is after Peter makes that profession of faith. You know, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and will then recompense every man according to his deeds.

Let me ask you a question. What does that sound like? What does the most of evangelical Christianity say that that's referring to? Yeah, second coming of Christ, right? Isn't that what they say?

All right.

Let's look at something. You recompense every man according to his deeds. Truly I say to you, there are some of those standing here who shall not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

He's looking at 12 men, and he says, Some of you will not die until you see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Now, we know that they all died. Some people try to say he's talking about the transfiguration, but that occurred only six days later or seven days later, and they were all still alive.

So that would mean that Jesus didn't know that none of them were going to die, which doesn't make any sense.

And if they held to the transfiguration being the second coming, they are preterists already.

That's true.

All right.

But notice the language, the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. That's the language that we have to look at. So whatever this is referring to, all right, it happened in the lifetime of most of the disciples, and that's who he's speaking to.

Remember, I told you to keep the word he spoke to them privately because it was only to the 12. That's who this is addressed.

All right.

And, again, the Apostle John. Do you think John picked up on this at all about what was the last days? John gets more specific. Children, it's the last hour. And just as you heard that Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have arisen, and we know this, and we know that it is the last hour.

So the end of the age occurred at some point before all the apostles died. Remember another principle of hermeneutics, Scripture interprets Scripture.

All right.

The plain reading of all these texts, and there are many others, by the way, this is just some select ones, teaches that the events Jesus is speaking about in Matthew 24 are not only contemporaneous with each other but will occur within the lifetime of some of the disciples.

You have to come away with that conclusion if you just do the hermeneutics of the text. If you start importing somebody's system of eschatology, you're going to come up with many fanciful ideas. Questions?

And, again, I figured I'd just put those up. That's all we've done so far.

Yes.

Can I just verify the points, basically, of how to interpret it? I have, like, a concise list.

Okay.

Can you just tell me if you would correct it?

Okay.

So first you read the passage. Then you look into who wrote the text. Then you look into who is it written to. Then you ask, how do we arrive at this conclusion? Then you ask, what is the purpose of the entire gospel?

Then it's, what was the specific occasion for the text? Who is speaking in the passage? And what is the immediate context of the passage? Is there anything that I should add?

No, you got it. So now when you get into the passage itself, you ask some of those same questions. And, again, remember, as we go through this, there's a lot of other principles holding to the historical grammatical exegesis.

In other words, taking the words as they are meant historically and as the grammar. We don't change the grammar of a word. A noun is a noun. A verb is a verb. An adverb is an adverb. Because you can change the meaning of a text by changing the grammar.

And, again, too, remember, we interpret the obscure in the light of the clear teaching, the implicit in light of the explicit. That's why we looked at several other passages, not just Matthew 24, but is Matthew 24 consistent with what Jesus teaches other words?

And it is.

We see almost exactly the same wording. And I specifically chose this passage, not to foster my preteristic postmillennial views. Well, maybe a little. All right, maybe a lot. No, because this one is so often misinterpreted by importing any exterior thought into it, external thought into it.

And I think you can see I didn't bring any of my system of thought into this. Let's just let this text speak for itself. That's the way we're supposed to do it in Scripture. And we're not bringing a matrix.