…mmmm, hermeneutical fudge…

Talk about fudge, what of the enormous ‘room for fudge’ in the suggestion that the coming of the Son of Man on the clouds with glory and attendant angels revealed with fire (consistently portrayed in the NT as a decisive, final, and universal event) took place somewhere between AD 70 and the fifth century (roughly speaking of course).  An event nowhere recorded by the church, whether in her sacred scriptures or elsewhere as the fulfillment of ‘the blessed hope’ for which the apostolic church longed and awaited.  Here’s the joke on the post-apostolic church: you’re all ‘left behind’, except for a smattering of martyrs throughout the first few centuries (apparently).  What, the kingdom came?  How come none of the church fathers were informed?  Did we miss it?  How?  Where did it happen?  When?  Somewhere or everywhere in the Roman Empire, and at some point prior to Constantine, it would seem.  What of the resurrection of the dead?  Ah, a secret rapture!  The dispensationalists were right, but irony of ironies, they missed it too, by nearly 1500 years! 

The Son of Man came on clouds, in a manner of speaking (though His ascension to heaven in Acts 1 was quite literally so, or so Luke tells us), and like the lightening that lights up the heavens, from one end to the other, such that none would need to ask, “Is He here?”, though only metaphorically speaking of course (as the church apparently completely failed to realize that “the days of the Son of Man,” which they’ve been longing to see for at least 1500 years, had already arrived) and brought His kingdom to earth, spiritually speaking (as they’re remain numerous hostile and satanically inspired religio-political regimes in God’s world today).  It is so ironic because the days of the Son of Man’s coming are compared to the days of the flood (and there was no doubt to the condemned world of that day as to whether or not a flood had come) and the days of Lot during the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (indeed, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was so well known as to become proverbial within Israel, and its coming certainly wasn’t ‘missed’ by the population of those cities).  Yet the church has missed it (even the churches of the 4th and 5th century), well, until, as benevolent providence would have it, now.

You wrote: “But on what basis should I agree with you that judgment on Jerusalem is more fulfilled than the coming of the Son of man?”

Who said it is MORE fulfilled?  It was fulfilled in AD 70, to be sure, and yet it may well be that a future army will march against the city in the days of the man of lawlessness, the antichrist, when the abomination of desolation is set up in the holy place (an event prefigured in the abomination of Epiphanes but that did not appear to happen during the Roman incursion in AD 70 - at least there is no record of such an event that would fit the description of Daniel 9 and 2Thess.2:4 — and the erecting of Roman standards on the Temple site after its destruction defeats the purpose of Jesus’ warning concerning the abomination of desolation in Mt.24:15, and the insignias of the emperor on the Roman standards in the Temple vicinity would not have been unique to AD 70 or too terribly remarkable, as Roman soldiers bearing this insignia were stationed throughout the city and the environs of the Temple during various festivals,  Josephus’ account of the fulfillment of Daniel in Titus’ attack is just not terribly convincing for me). 

Interesting, isn’t it, that the abomination of desolation appears to have been fulfilled in Antiochus’ atrocity, and in a real sense was fulfilled, and yet Jesus saw it in his Olivet Discourse as yet future.  On what basis then did Jesus see Daniel 11 and perhaps 8 fulfilled in Antiochus Epiphanes (presumably) but Daniel 9, where the same language is used, as refering to a yet future event?  In part, I would suggest, because Daniel 9 speaks of the final days of history, the latter times “for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness.”  This clearly hadn’t happened by the time Jesus appears on the scene, and according to a plain reading of the text, neither has it happened yet.  To say that ‘everlasting righteousness’ was ushered in during the fall of Rome is to make a mockery of Gabriel’s words. Try convincing the average person today, or in the chruch during the not-so-well-defined fall of Rome that ‘everlasting righteousness’ has been usherd it.  Hence, crucial for our hermeneutics is sanctified common sense.  (BTW, recall that I had said that each text must be examined individually - these principles are broad and meant to safeguard us from either extreme of a fully ‘realized eschatology’, e.g., Dodd, or the ‘consistent eschatology’ of Schweitzer, et.al.  They are not meant to be presented as complete and sufficient criteria for such distinctions by themselves.  Each text must be examined within its own context). 

“Why do we have to tease apart the events of New Testament eschatology, which in the texts belong to the same basic nexus of hopes, which have a narrative coherence, and allocate some of them to the past and others to an indeterminate future?”

I don’t know about ‘teasing apart’ NT eshatological events, especially when it consistently presents a ‘now’ and ‘not yet’ motif in its own interpretation of the gospel events and implications.  But there is some distinguishing of ‘near’ and ‘future’ fulfillment in scripture.  I don’t see why this is difficult for you.  The NT does this all the time with OT prophetic statements, doesn’t it?  So the abomination of desolation as noted above.  Or the ‘seed’ of Abraham, fulfilled in Isaac, Jacob, and the exploding population of the nation in Egypt, and yet Paul argues that ‘seed’ refers specifically to Christ.  Or take the example of David and the covenant given him.  Is Solomon the fulfillment of the promise (as Solomon himself states at the temple dedication) or another, distant Son?  Or take the example of Isaiah’s suffering servant theme: is this the prophet himself in his own day, or Christ, or the apostle Paul (bringing light to the nations, and being rejected by Israel), or the whole church in its ‘missional’ task? 

Once I accept that the biblical narrative, beginning with the creation of heaven and earth and the fall of our ‘terrestrial domain’ in Genesis 1-3, and ending with its judgement and renewal in Revelation, is cosmic in scope, then the ‘nexus’ of biblical hope can easily be understood under the broad arc of univeral history, with Israel running as the central thread (and the lens through which that history is read). 

In fact, I think the remarkable differences between Luke’s account of the Olivet discourse and those of Matthew and Mark is due to the fact that Luke focuses on the imminent destruction of Jerusalem as judgment against ‘this generation’ in AD 70 (cf. Lk.19:44, which is also unique to Luke) as part of his overall focus of Luke-Acts in the transition from Judaism to a primarily Gentile Christianity, whereas Matthew and Mark follow the full eschatological trajectory, according to the questions of the disciples’ (“Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”, cf. Lk.21:7).  Thus Luke does not mention ‘the abomination of desolation’, but ‘when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies’ (in contrast, note, to Josephus’ identification of the abomination of desolation).  Luke then, I would argue, is distinguishing the AD 70 fulfillment as an important demarcation of a significant shift in redemptive history, ending Jesus’ warnings about the coming judgment with the enigmatic: “Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”  This also is without parallel in Matthew or Mark, but again coheres well with the overall ‘redactional’ concerns of Luke. 

After this, he continues the ‘apocalyptic’ description of the Son of Man coming on the clouds, which in Matthew’s account follows ‘immediately’ after the tribulation of ‘those days’.  So which is it, I would ask: does the son of Man come immediately after the destruction of AD 70, as Matthew has it, or after a period ‘of the Gentiles are fulfilled’?  I think there is more than one event contemplated here, and I think Luke recognized this.

You admit, “Yes, there are still enemies to be defeated,” but this cannot be if in fact the kingdom has come and the dead have been raised (or at least the martyrs), 1Co.15:23-26.  Or do you believe that the millennial reign of Rev.20 fills the gap between “His coming” and “the end” in 15:23?  If so, which I would not argue against necessarily, and if Christ has come already (which I would argue against), then, as Daniel’s prophecy would indicate, there are no rival rules.  Rome has not been merely disempowered, but utterly removed from the face of the earth.  Yet, there are rival rules.  Moreover, death continues to oppress the saints, and Satan prowls like a roaring lion looking for ‘easy prey’.

Finally, “because Christ died, because we have the Spirit, because the early church remained faithful in the face of persecution, no Caesar can rule over us, the back of satanic opposition has been broken, the kingdom of God over his people has come, and we are free to celebrate the fact in the extravagant language of Old Testament prophecy.”

I submit that this was JUST as true in the apostolic church as it is today.