Synoptic Gospels: Matthew 24

Can we just pretend we're done with it and move on?

Without George, it's been, I don't know, two, three months.

I don't know how long it's been. Oh, no.

It's got to be a lot further than that. Are you sure? Yes. Uh -huh.

So why did you initially... Never mind. Huh? Yeah, well,

I fail. I have no earthly idea. I really don't remember.

I went back and listened to some of the presentations I've listened to in preparation in the past, and I have no idea.

So we'll just sort of make our way through this as quickly as possible so we can get to other things.

As I've mentioned before, to do justice to Matthew 24 would require a tremendous amount of work, so many different perspectives.

I think I mentioned that D .A. Carson thought that it was one of the most difficult passages in the

New Testament. It spawned the largest number of commentaries and so on and so forth, which is probably correct.

And there is one text I do want to take some extra time on that we'll get to as quickly as possible,

I would imagine, regarding the knowledge of the sun. But just to summarize, we've been looking at it under the rubric of the questions that were asked by the disciples at the beginning of the chapter.

And their questions were, tell us, when will this be and what will be the sign of your coming of the close of the age?

Oh, now he shows up. Now, after all that time, we spent wondering where we were.

The official keeper of the notes. Do you work for the government? Just wondering.

There we go. Well, you know, but the pension's good.

Well, no kidding. For any of us, for that matter. And so, looking at the questions will really determine how you answer much of how the fulfillment is to take place.

And one of the things that I struggle with with this text is looking at where does the break take place between what is strictly about the destruction of Jerusalem and what is yet future.

You have three different, well, three major perspectives, not three different, three major perspectives.

Obviously, the dispensationalist perspective, the futurist perspective sees pretty much all of Matthew 24 as future.

The preterist perspective sees some forms of preterism, all of Matthew 24 as fulfilled.

And then that leaves the middle ground for the rest of us who struggle to see exactly where the distinction is.

And if there is a distinction, is it an instance where we have the destruction of Jerusalem being a paradigm for the end times?

There are many people who take many different perspectives on that particular subject. There are numerous books you could read by Reformed individuals who take different perspectives on those things.

But one thing that I was thinking about as, once again, I girded my loins to attempt to tackle this stuff.

One thing that seems quite certain for me, a week ago Thursday evening

I was in Toronto and I was doing a debate at a mosque in Toronto, the

North American Muslim Foundation mosque. Interestingly enough, it's a mosque in the middle of Chinatown.

I mean, literally, you go by all of the strip malls nearby it, there's hardly a word of English, let alone

French. And any of the signs, it's all Chinese. And yet, right in the middle of it, there is this mosque.

And one of the issues that was raised by my opponent in that debate was, in fact, one of his examples of what could not have been given by God and is a later perversion of Jesus' words in Matthew 24.

Because from his perspective, what it teaches is that the world would end within one generation of his death.

And therefore, since they believe Jesus is a true prophet and that didn't happen, therefore Matthew 24 cannot truly be scripture.

Though, though, though, they'll be very quick to quote the words of Matthew chapter 24.

Specifically, Jesus' words, but of that day and hour, verse 36, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the

Son, but the Father only. So they will quote that. But the rest of it's...

And it doesn't even make sense that they quote that, because they don't believe Jesus would ever have called himself the Son. So I don't even know why they quote it, other than just simply to force you to answer questions about certain issues.

So anyway, unfortunately, that came up in one of those contexts where either

I had like 30 seconds to comment or something along those lines, where you have very, very, very little time.

And how would you comment in a debate without being able to just lay out a tremendous amount of information and background and so on and so forth?

So it is interesting. And what it caused me to reflect upon was one of the things

I did say was, well, the very fact that you raise this issue proves to me that the dating you give to the

Gospel of Matthew is way too late, because he puts it in the 80s. So he would say that Matthew was written after the fall of Jerusalem.

One thing's awful clear to me. Whenever this was written, it wasn't written after the fall of Jerusalem, because if anyone were to write something after the fall of Jerusalem to try to make it look like it was prophecy, this isn't how they'd do it.

I mean, you'd have real specific stuff, and you'd make it look like Jesus just nailed it down to the day and the hour and the direction the armies came and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

That's not what you have. You've got general stuff, but one of the things that makes the interpretation of the text so difficult is that, yeah, you've got things like when you see the abomination of desolation that's spoken of by the prophet

Daniel. Well, the problem is that historically you had a profanation of the sanctuary under Antiochus Epiphanes about 163

BC, if I recall correctly, somewhere around there. And an idol was literally set up in the holy place, and it was a horrific thing.

It could have been 163, because that wouldn't have been there. Anyways, Antiochus Epiphanes had done something.

And people would think about that in Matthew 24, 15, and they'd look at what happened to Jerusalem, and they'd look at what happened with the

Roman soldiers and so on and so forth. They wouldn't necessarily see a parallel. They wouldn't necessarily see a fulfillment of that.

It seems to me that the very way that Matthew 24 is written produces all of these difficult questions for us to answer, none of which would have existed if Matthew had been written after AD 70.

That's not the way it would have been written to try to create fulfilled prophecy. The very fact that we struggle with these things seems very clearly to me to indicate that this is before the destruction of Jerusalem, and that it's not meant to be a step -by -step, okay, seven days later this is going to happen, and somebody named this is going to come and do this.

It's not meant to be anything like that. And so, it does not seem that Jesus wants to give the disciples, in light of what he says in verse 36, that this seems to be fulfilled as well, some kind of a roadmap of either all of the end times or the exact stuff that takes place coming up to the time of the destruction of Jerusalem.

It also strikes me that some of the statements that are made, where it talks about, let me see here, wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and so on and so forth, has there ever been a time in human history where that kind of stuff wasn't happening?

And I was thinking about that. You know, I mean, you can go buy books at the Christian bookstore, and they'll have graphs about how there's an increasing number of earthquakes or something like that.

And then, of course, the skeptics come out and demonstrate that that's not the case. Man, has there ever been a time,

I wonder, when there was not wars on the African continent? I mean, you just read the news, if the news even bothers to cover it.

It's just such an everyday event that they don't even, you know, once in a while it gets really bad, and so they'll mention it.

But the number of people being killed by other people just in Africa every day is mind -boggling.

And so it just makes you wonder. And it is interesting when you compare

Matthew 24, 15 and Mark 13, 14, which talks about the abomination of desolation and then says, you know, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

Don't even go down and get your cloak. Once you see it's happening, get out. But notice

Luke's parallel in Luke 21, 20. But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near.

Now, that's different in the sense that it sheds light on what's being said in Matthew and Mark.

It's not once you actually see someone entering into the holy place to perform sacrifice or something like that.

It's when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near.

And we know that many Christians kept this in mind. And when

Jerusalem was surrounded, they got out of dodge, shall we say, before the noose was fully closed.

And so it just strikes me that whatever we do with this text, that one thing we need to keep in mind is it bears all the marks of having been written,

I would say, well before the fall of Jerusalem, even before the beginning of the rebellion that led up to it, which

I would say would put it in the early 60s, which certainly is an allowable date for most people, but it's certainly not the most popular dates.

And one of the reasons for the late dating of the Gospels by many New Testament scholars is a fundamental belief that there really can't be prophecy anyways.

And so, since this is about the fall of Jerusalem, it had to have been written afterwards. It's a presupposition of many of them.

You've got to keep that in mind, even when you're reading commentaries that come from a quote -unquote Christian perspective, that that kind of naturalism still sneaks in.

So, if we were around verse 20 or so, which someone has told me we were, 21.

Oh, okay, all right, 21. So, we have two witnesses, and so that is sufficient for the purposes of the law and for the execution of the teacher.

Two or three witnesses, that's enough. For then there will be great tribulations, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.

If those days have not been shortened, no human being will be saved, but for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened. Now, obviously,

Luke's parallel is, for great distress shall be upon the earth and wrath upon this people.

They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trodden down by Gentiles until the times of Gentiles are fulfilled.

So, it does seem, in light of the parallel texts, that the focus remains upon Jerusalem.

Certainly, Luke has it focused upon Jerusalem. Certainly, if you didn't have that, then you might want to stretch verse 21 out, and certainly many, many books have been written.

Here's the great tribulation. As Hollywood has demonstrated over the not too many past years, films about, well,

December of 2012 or anything else can make lots of money at the box office and thrill lots of people, and you like to destroy the world and do it in very sundry different ways.

That certainly captures the imagination, but if we look at the parallel text, then what's being discussed is not so much a worldwide tribulation as it is the destruction of Jerusalem, which for the people of Israel really announces the end of their nation as a nation.

In fact, I think a lot of people would question properly and validly the idea that Israel as a nation has been reinstituted in some way that's relevant to biblical paradigms.

In other words, what we have today in the land of Israel created by the

United Nations, is that a recreation of this nation? I know it's popular.

I know I was raised with it, but there's a lot of questions about that and a lot of reasons not to view it in that way.

But certainly, what happened to Jerusalem, even in comparison to what happened in the sacking of Jerusalem in 586, when

Nebuchadnezzar and his armies destroyed Jerusalem, this was even greater.

Certainly, the Romans were much better at things. Now, I did happen to hear, and I didn't have time to verify this, but it seemed like a trustworthy source, that Titus did not want the temple to be burned.

There was a lot of gold in there, and that he was very angry and upset when, by mistake, the temple was burned.

Part of the reason was that because of the construction of the temple, it created almost a furnace effect.

So that when the fire began at the bottom, it spread and the temperatures became very extreme because of the box -type structure.

The heat would get trapped atop, and it resulted in superheating. And the result, according to Josephus anyways, was that the large amount of gold that was inside the temple and lining the walls of the temple, melted.

And that the Roman soldiers then, after the fire was out, had to basically hack apart all of the foundation stones because the gold had melted down into the stones.

Some have seen that as a fulfillment of Jesus' own words about not one stone left upon another to get to the gold.

And obviously some would have been lost permanently, even despite that. So I don't know if that's in Josephus or not,

I don't recall, but it would be interesting if it was a mistake or maybe it was the Jews themselves that started the fire to try to destroy it before the

Romans could profane it. Who knows? But certainly there was horrific fighting in the city itself once the walls of the city were breached and a tremendous amount of loss of life, more than we would expect to have happened in 586.

And hence the language that comes after this concerning the sun darken and the moon not give its light and the stars falling from heaven, we know that this type of language is used in Ezekiel and in Joel chapter 2.

In fact, in Joel, it's associated with the coming of the Spirit of God. Peter actually quoted that text in regards to the fulfillment of the days of Pentecost.

So clearly it doesn't have to do with a disruption of the cosmic orbits or something along those lines, but it is meant to be taken as a fundamental shaking of the created order, especially as it has to do with the existence of the people of Israel.

And so it's a little bit odd, and some people have seen this as maybe the division point that you're supposed to make, that you have the shortening of the days and hence there's not a complete destruction of all of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, but it's pretty close.

And then you have right in the middle of this a warning against false prophets.

Now it's found in Luke as well. And this strange statement in Matthew and in Luke where the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together.

And again, these verses have led to all sorts of differing interpretations, obviously.

One of the more interesting ones was that Titus' Roman legions, their standards, their flags, if you've ever looked at them, were emblazoned with the eagle and that it was

Titus and his legions that destroyed Jerusalem. That's been one interpretation that has been given.

But it is interesting that you have this warning because while the warning would have been valid during the period of time, the decades between the resurrection and the destruction of Jerusalem, it remains just as valid today as well.

That is, anyone going after someone who calls himself a

Christ, there is in this an affirmation of the fact that Christ is in essence the final prophet.

One might see this as something that needs to be applied narrowly to the people of Israel because it says, lo, here is the

Christ, which means the Messiah. So there will be no more messiahs. But in a broader sense to the fact that Christ is the final word from God and that there will always be a tendency to, well, let's put it this way.

If you write a fair book, an honest book, on something like Matthew 24, it's not going to sell nearly as well as one written by someone who says,

I have the secret to understanding it all. No one else has ever seen it the way

I have seen it. That guy is going to end up living in a house in Malibu with three cars and retirement for life.

Believe me, there are guys who have done it. You can name names. You can still walk down the grocery aisles right now and find some of those books down in the frozen food section.

It's amazing where I find them, where they get left behind. Who knows? But I never name names.

It's like I never mentioned that channel between 20 and 22. But if you write an honest book, a book that says, well, it could be this and it could be that, it's just not going to sell that way.

And so there will be those who will come along and will claim certain insights.

Now, what is the coming of the Son of Man? Was there a coming of the Son of Man in judgment against Jerusalem in AD 70?

And is that different than the coming of the Son of Man at the end of the age?

Well, that really is where the rubber meets the road. I don't think there's any question that even as Jesus was going to the cross, he said to the women as he's in the

Via Dolorosa, on the way of sorrows, on the way to Mount Calvary, don't weep for me, weep for you and for your children.

I mean, it is part and parcel of his proclamation of judgment.

And certainly that judgment came from the hand of the Lord. I mean, you have a people here who their city is left to them desolate.

They have rejected the Messiah. They have been complicit in his crucifixion.

And then in the persecution of his followers. Now, certainly there were some of the elect that were called out.

That's Paul's whole argument in Romans 9. God has not completely abandoned his people.

Look at me. I'm a Jew. And there is an elect remnant of Jews.

And depending on how you interpret Romans chapter 11, that complete number of the elect remnant will be saved without any question.

But is that what is being referred to here?

Especially in light of verse 31 and the loud trumpet call.

Is this not the end of the age that is being referred to here?

Well, it's hard to say because after you have the

Joel 2 and Ezekiel language in Matthew 24 -29 being used.

Then you have the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. But even after that, you still have then verse 32 from the fig tree, learn its lesson.

As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also when you see all these things, you know that he is near at the very gates.

Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place. And so you are left with either doing the, well, the term generation here refers to a people.

And so the Jewish people will continue on until the end of time type thing.

Well, I know that there have been a lot of people who've taken that viewpoint, at least in modern times.

But I wouldn't want to have to take that one into a debate, let's put it that way. It would be very difficult.

I think to substantiate that outside of a fair amount of special pleading.

It seems that Jesus is saying that what he's talked about at this point will in fact take place in regards to this particular time period and this particular people.

And then he has, and why did they move it?

Oh, we skipped it before, didn't we? Yeah, we skipped it before. They cut it up, unfortunately, which is sort of silly.

And the rest of the chapter is in section two, oh, page 265.

Okay, they put it forward. Then you have 37 through 44 As were the days of Noah, so will the coming of the

Son of Man be. So a lot of people do strike the division somewhere after verse 34.

Whether 35 or 36 goes to that or goes later is part of the question.

Because when you get into the rest, you will notice

I think a not so subtle shift in the way

Matthew has constructed the material. And that is, he says,

As were the days of Noah, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Now, how can that be if you've got armies surrounding

Jerusalem if it's the same coming of the Son of Man? If it's the same destruction of Jerusalem at end times or whatever else it might be.

For as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark. And they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away.

So will be the coming of the Son of Man. Well, why give signs beforehand and now say people were just living their lives?

They were just marrying, being given in marriage. That's, until our days, normal.

And then two men will be in the field. One is taken, the other is left. Please do not start singing and we are all left behind or something like that at this point.

Someone breaks out a guitar and starts strumming. I'm going to run screaming for the room.

Two men will be grinding the mill. One is taken, one is left. Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your

Lord is coming. But know this, if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and would have not let his house be broken into.

Therefore, you also must be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. No signs.

No armies. None of that stuff. It's an unexpected time.

So then, who then is the faithful and wise servant whom his master has set over his household? To give them their food at the proper time, blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing.

In other words, doing what you've been called to do. Regular ministry. Not sitting out in white robes on a hillside.

1844 with Miller and the gang. Truly I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.

But if that wicked servant says to himself, my master is delayed and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with the drunken, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and an hour he does not know and will punish him and will put him with the hypocrites.

Their men will weep and gnash their teeth. And so there is this warning and it strikes us as being very different from the material that came before.

And there seems to be a shift in the last, what is that, about 14, 15 verses to something that's, yeah,

I suppose would always have relevance even in that first 40 years, but has much more of a relevance outside of that time in the sense that there is the imminence of this appearance of the

Son of Man and no one knows when. Now, I would imagine the full preface would just simply say, no, it was only, it was only relevant to that particular time.

But the fact that you have specific things up to a certain point and then there's this very different perspective at the end would seem to substantiate, at least

I would lean that direction, that you have now a, more of an emphasis upon the last question and the final coming of the

Son of Man, which would obviously take place long after the destruction has come upon Jerusalem.

So that does seem to fit together with what

Luke has as well as far as taking heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be down with dissipation, drunkenness cares this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a snare.

Look, the destruction of Jerusalem, anybody who really had their eyes open saw it come and years before it happened. As soon as the

Jewish revolt took place, look, it's not like we have these rapid deployment forces, you know, so we can bring force to bear almost anywhere in the world in a very brief period of time.

That's not how Roman legions work. Rapid deployment was not the specialty of the day and certainly the

Jews knew long before Titus got there that he was a coming because it's sort of hard to hide thousands of sweaty, smelly

Roman soldiers they sort of kick up a lot of dust and all they had to do was look at Google Earth and they could see them coming.

But they knew they were coming and so it wouldn't have been well, we're not going to worry about it, they're not going to come down here, they're going to turn left, they knew they were coming, they knew exactly what their goal was and what their target was.

So it just seems that from this point onward you have a shift in the emphasis.

Now, it's also interesting that at verses 35 and 36 you have 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 sun but the Father only.

Now, this is also found in Mark 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 sun but the Father only. Luke does not have what is verse 24, 36 or 13, 32.

There are some manuscripts of Matthew that do not have the phrase nor the sun but it is by far the most ancient reading and it's found in Mark without almost any question so we don't have to worry too much about that either.

Two things. Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away. Has numerous echoes in Jewish literature of the time in the sense of the eternality of God's word except no one would ever say my words.

They would say the words of God or God's speech or whatever other terminology might use.

The very fact that he would say but my words will not pass away needs to be seen as again the rather shocking statement that it is.

In fact, yesterday I was writing I was listening. Tomorrow morning I've got a

I won't even call it a debate. I've got a radio program to record in London so I have to be at my office by 6 a .m.

in the morning before 6 a .m. in the morning to record this. And this fellow has written a book and he's a pretty well -known scholar but he's not

Reformed and he takes a few shots at Reformed theology. Nothing. I mean, it's British. It's very mild.

Very, very mild. You know how the Brits are. And so they contacted me on really short notice that could we send you the e -book and would you be willing to be on the program so it would be the other side because he basically says he is taught against Calvinism.

Okay. So they sent me the book. I converted it to MP3 and did a 77 -mile ride yesterday while listening to all of it.

And one of the things I did find interesting because he is an expert on Rabbinic Judaism which is interesting was he argued and this was placed most ways that I agreed with and most of his anti -Reform stuff was like, what are we supposed to talk about in the program tomorrow?

I mean, it's not like he's Dave Hunt or something for crying out loud. It was just very, very calm.

But anyway, though I did have my computer because I can choose different voices when it renders a text.

I used a British voice so it sounded a little bit more like the guy. It had a British accent to it.

So it's pretty nice. It makes me, Mr. Callahan's going, I can't believe I sent you a book from England.

And you read it in one day and in a British voice even. There's something wrong with that. There ain't no pages to turn, you know.

I know. It seems like this next generation has just lost it, I know. Anyway, we're going to have this conversation.

But one of the things I found really interesting was he said that one of the verses that he feels teaches the deity of Christ most strongly that almost never gets used as an evidence to the deity of Christ because of a lack of knowledge of Jewish backgrounds was not this statement, though I'm sure he would agree with what

I just said about heaven and earth pass away and my words not pass away. But he said

Jesus' statement were two or three and gathered in my name. There I am in the midst of them.

He said any Jewish person today would know exactly what

Jesus was referring to there because it was a well -known rabbinic statement that and I'll get the quote it's on my computer somewhere but where two or three are gathered in the study of the scripture there and the term that was used for God there is the former the one who makes the one who forms the former is in the midst of them.

And I had I had honestly never heard that before you know it's always good to learn something new and he gives the exact reference to the mission

I believe so I want to double check it and check it out but I don't have any reason to question it. But there are a lot of places like this where the modern reader will read something and just sort of oh that's interesting you know but it would have struck the original audience with a from a completely different angle and certainly verse 35 of Matthew 24 heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away

I mean heaven and earth is the very creation of of Yahweh God himself and so to say my words will not pass away um in the context of basically assuring the disciples that there will be mockers and there will be those who question but I'm telling you the truth about what's coming is a very very high statement but then you have very quickly verse 36 of that day and hour no one knows neither the angels of heaven nor the son but the father only and of course this is a text that is used by many to say see

Jesus can't be God because God knows everything Jesus doesn't know everything well a couple things whatever this does about Jesus he's higher than the angels and he is son in a special way in the same special way the father is father that's why it's inconsistent for my

Muslim friends to use this because they don't believe Jesus would ever have identified himself as the son um they would deny that fundamentally so they're inconsistent to utilize this this particular text but how do we understand this

I mean leaving aside everything else the exalted language Jesus just used of himself in verse 35 and and all the rest what about the direct assertion that this invalidates the deity of Christ because he does not know that day or that hour there have been various answers given um some have taken the um the concept of of knowing here as in determining or fixing you know but that really wouldn't explain the angels um it seems to me that we have here the same type of self -limitation on the divine attributes in the incarnation that you have in reference to other things uh for example only once during the lifetime of Jesus uh is his glory actually seen in its

I guess in its fullness in the um transfiguration on the mount in the presence of the father and Moses Elijah uh and yet he had eternally been glorious and so there is a veiling of that uh there is a self -limitation that must take place on the part of the son for the incarnation to take place now what would the purpose be because Jesus does have supernatural knowledge he is shown as having supernatural knowledge in many places what would be the purpose in veiling this particular aspect

I don't know I don't know but given that there are certain exercises of divine attributes that Jesus clearly lays aside during time of his incarnation this is one aspect uh that is um that is veiled maybe

I don't know so that as he acts as the final prophet his prophecy can take the form that it's taken rather than another form that would be outside of the will of the triune

God in giving um too much information concerning these issues so that we would not actually be um watchful uh because we have a road map in essence say well it's not time yet because we haven't done this haven't done that so on and so forth so I don't know the text does not say uh but the self -limitation is a voluntary limitation on the part of the sun as we are told elsewhere and so the idea that this denies his deity makes no more sense than saying that Jesus had to glow uh because he is light you know if God is light then

Jesus would never have to use a candle uh that doesn't that doesn't make any sense uh any more than well

Jesus' birth was not appropriate for God uh inappropriate for God to eat or drink or all sorts of other things that are quite appropriate for the incarnate existence uh of Christ and I see that I need to start bringing my glasses so I can see the clock in the back uh we will uh pick up somewhere around here who knows where uh

I'll sort of let George decide uh when we uh when we get back together again again let's pray Father once again we thank you for the freedom that you have given to us to be able to gather together to possess your word to consider these things and Lord we thank you that once again we can gather and in fact now go into worship you to hear your word to sing praises to your name lift up our hearts