A commentary on Matthew 24 - in which a future parousia of Jesus is confirmed, a false parousia is refuted, and the concept of overlapping ages introduced by unexpected developments in Jesus’s coming as messiah is established.
1-2 – Jesus foretells the destruction of the temple.
In Matthew, and more clearly in the parallels (Mark 13:1; Luke 21:5), it is important to see Jesus correcting the assumptions contained in the disciples’ expressions of awe at the grandeur and beauty of the temple. It is also important to fully register and understand their shock at Jesus’s prediction of the temple’s total destruction.
The disciples reflected Israel’s view of the temple as representing God’s presence with the nation, and as central to her identity. Understanding this exposes a fundamental misapprehension of the disciples in their question concerning the "coming" of Jesus: "your coming, and the end of the age" - Matthew 24:3, which leads directly to -
3 – The disciples’ two questions: "When will these things be and what (will be) the sign of your coming and of the completion of the age?"
The second question follows on from the first. The mindset of the Jewish audience of Matthew and of the disciples at that stage are both reflected in the second question. For them, an event as sacrilegious as the destruction of the temple would trigger the summoning of a militaristic messiah who would defeat Israel’s enemies and inaugurate the ‘end of the age’. The only ‘age’ this could refer to was ‘this evil age’ of intertestamental literature – in which Jews suffered under pagan oppression. ‘The age to come’ was the assumed ‘age’ of Israel’s enduring national triumph over her enemies.
The ensuing clarification which Jesus provides of events preceding and leading up to the destruction of the temple, and immediately following, are a refutation of the idea of an imminent ‘coming’, or militaristic avenging messiah, and a description of what can confidently be expected of a messiah to come - the conditions surrounding his coming, the timing (in general terms) of that event, and how to prepare for it.
4-8 – Events which would precede the destruction of the temple
These were not signs of Jesus’s coming, but the opposite - signs that he was not immediately about to come – verse 6b. Jesus specifically heads this list of events with a warning against false messiahs – doubly significant in the light of false Jewish expectations reflected in the second question of Matthew 24:3.
The list of events comprises: false messiahs; wars and rumours of wars; national and international conflicts; earthquakes and famines. These things occurred in the 40 years following Jesus’s death and resurrection. ‘All these are the beginning of birth-pains’ – verse 8; ‘birth-pains’ being a metaphor indicating an indefinite period of travail: ‘The end will not come at once’ – Luke 21:9. We are still in that period of travail.
9-13 Further events and Jesus’s pastoral concern for his followers
The disciples are warned of the constant threat of persecution, but assured of the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. Families will be divided, and hatred of the disciples will come from representatives of every nation and section of society. The gospel must first be proclaimed throughout the whole world to all nations/people-groups – Matthew 24:14. Those who demonstrate patient endurance will be vindicated (sothesetai) over their persecutors – verse 13, primarily through spiritual protection if not the preservation of physical life. Luke’s ‘not a hair of your head will perish’ (21:18) must be seen as hyperbolic, in view of, for instance, the killing of James, the brother of John, by Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:1-2). James was one of the group to whom Jesus was speaking in this discourse (Mark 13:3), and the first of the 12 to be martyred.
15-25 The ‘sign’ – ‘the abomination that causes desolation’
This is the only sign to be provided of the imminent destruction of the temple. A warning is given to the disciples to pay particular attention to interpreting this sign. Matthew reminds Jewish readers that the key is to be found in Daniel (Daniel 11:29-32; 8:9-14; 9:27).
In Daniel, ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ is the defilement of the temple for three and a half years (167 – 164 BC) by Antiochus Epiphanes – in sacrificing swine on the altar of burnt offering, and dedicating the temple to Olympian Zeus.
According to Josephus, the Zealots committed a ‘desolating sacrilege’ by consecrating a clown as High Priest and using the Holy Place as a brothel and morgue.
Luke describes the ‘desolation’ of the temple as being ‘near’ when the Roman armies begin their invasion of the Holy Land and siege of Jerusalem – not just the desecration and destruction of the temple (Luke 21:20-21). This at least gave the Christians the opportunity to flee the city when the sign was recognized.
Matthew reinforces this point with his description of the desolation ‘standing in the holy place’ – Matthew 24:15-16, where the word topos is used (en topo hagia) suggesting the Holy Land, rather than naos which would have been used for the temple itself.
‘For there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now – no, nor ever shall be’ – Matthew 24:21.
These ‘days of vengeance’ – Luke 21:22 – began in AD 66 with the siege of Jerusalem, and concluded in AD 70 with its destruction and that of the temple by the Romans under the command of Titus. There is no teaching here of a future three and a half years of the great tribulation.
26-27 Confusion caused by false messiahs, and the certainty of the final coming of the true messiah
A contrast in Matthew (not included in Mark or Luke), is made between contemporary historical Jewish phenomena of false messiahs, and an as yet unfulfilled future event of the coming of the true Messiah. (verse 27).
Matthew’s “Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather” – verse 28, is decisive. There will be no coming of a military messiah to deliver Israel.
29-31 The Son of Man coming
Mark, from whom Matthew’s account is probably derived, indicates an emphatic change of subject, beginning the paragraph with ‘But’ – ‘Alla’. The word means a major contrast with everything that has previously been said. A lesser contrast would have been indicated by ‘de’. There is a break in the prophetic narrative.
The events now described are ‘immediately after’ the disaster of the temple’s destruction. Matthew may be in part hyperbolically reflecting on the loss of the temple. More importantly, he looks forward to the times which will commence immediately following the destruction, ie not with some interval between. The events describe the turmoil of the nations which is to come – in stark contrast to any imagined ‘coming’ of a militaristic messiah who would usher in a ‘golden age’ of Israel’s vindication.
The figurative language echoes that of the prophets (Isaiah 13:9-11; 34:4; Amos 8:9-14; Joel 2:10, 30-32; 3:14-16; Ezekiel 32:7-8) and describes the entire sweep of human history from the destruction of the temple in AD 70 until the final coming of Christ. These are not primarily signs which marked the fall of the temple, nor are they signs which will accompany the Son of Man’s final coming. They are a way of describing constant turbulence in human affairs until the Son of Man comes.
Jesus is at pains to eliminate any confusion in the minds of his disciples that his final coming will be associated with the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in AD 70. The gathering of the elect from the four corners of the earth (‘from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other’ - 31b) anticipates a final gathering which must be preceded by an indefinitely extended time in which the gospel must be proclaimed to all people groups. Paul’s ‘in all the world’ - Colossians 1:6, did not mark the completion of that process - and must be seen as an expression of confidence in the gospel, but not its literal fulfilment.
32-35 – The fig tree
The abomination of desolation is the sign of the impending destruction of Jerusalem, just as the fig trees’ leaves appearing on the tree are a sign that summer is near.
‘This generation’ – verse 34 – refers to the generation alive at the time Jesus was speaking, consistent with the use of the phrase elsewhere in Matthew (11:16; 12:39; 12:41, 42; 45; 16:4; 17:17; 23:36) and in Mark and Luke. The destruction of the temple was within a generation (40 years) of Jesus’s warning.
The fig tree parable refers back to the warning of the abomination of desolation. A compositional principle of interchange is demonstrated here with the addition of a second parable – which refers to the future coming of the Son of Man – so that the abomination of desolation and fig tree passages (15-25 & 32-35), are related to each other, and the Son of Man coming and the unknown day and hour and parable of the master and servants passages (29-31 & 36-51) are related to each other.
36-51 – the unknown day and hour of the Son of Man’s coming; the parable of master and servants
The stark contrast between the days preceding the final coming of the Son of Man, verses 38-39, and the days preceding the destruction of the temple, show that this section does not relate either to the immediately preceding section, verses 32-35, or the abomination of desolation passage, verses 15-25.
Likewise the master returns to his household when he is least expected by the faithless servants – like a thief breaking into a house. The ‘thief’ metaphor, with which the parable is introduced, links the parable with the preceding description of the times of Noah – when “people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage” – Matthew 24:38. This is “how it will be at the coming of the Son of a Man” – verse 39b, in stark contrast to the conditions obtaining at the siege of Jerusalem. The ‘thief’ metaphor directs us to its other usages in relation to Jesus’s return. The first, in 1 Thessalonians 5:2, also reminds us that Jesus’ coming will be at a time when: “people are saying, ‘Peace and safety’ “ – 5:3, quite unlike conditions at the siege of Jerusalem.
This unexpected coming precedes the cosmic disturbances described in 2 Peter 3:10 – again suggesting a contrast with conditions at the time of the siege (not in the cosmic disturbances themselves, but in the preceding unexpectedness of the coming).
Whatever the meaning of “Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a handmill; one will be taken and the other left.” – verses 40-41, the conditions described are quite inconsistent with the Roman military invasion in AD 66-70. The focus is future – to as yet unfulfilled events.
A careful examination of Matthew 24 reveals that while it contains many contradictions to popularly held views, and that much of the description is of events which were fulfilled in AD 70, much of the passage only makes sense if placed in a wider time frame.
The passage also confirms the validity of an overlap of ages which began with the birth and life of Jesus. There was no vindication of national Israel attending this advent of the messiah, Jesus. There was equally no vindication of another group in place of national Israel. Concepts such as these belong to an interpretation of prophecy which was displaced by the historical facts of Jesus’s life and death. There was no immediate and universal change in the condition and history of the earth at Jesus’s coming alone. On the other hand, events were set in motion, made possible by the decisive death and resurrection of Jesus, which pointed to an age to come, whose realities were already being experienced in part in the lives of Jesus’s followers.
Matthew 24 illustrates this reading, in which two ages overlap in one person, the messiah Jesus. The militaristic messiah conceived at the prospect of the destruction of the temple was as illusory as all the other false messiahs who appeared before that event. There was no “end of the age” according to popular Jewish expectations, where the “end” was of “this evil age”. The only “end” was that of the temple, and more significantly, the end of one “age” (or aeon) in the person of Jesus himself on the cross, and the beginning of another "age", likewise in that same person, through his resurrection.
Every follower of Jesus participates in these realities, but only in the sense of a down-payment in respect of the full amount guaranteed later (of the Spirit), or a ‘spirit of adoption’ in respect of full adoption later (through personal resurrection).
For now, there is experience of “the powers of the age to come” – Hebrews 6:5. But that age is still fully to come. Nevertheless, as incontrovertibly established by the very nature of Jesus’s advent on earth in history, that age overlaps with an incontrovertibly continuing “evil age” – Galatians 1:4; Ephesians 6:12 – which did not cease at any time in the 1st century or up to the present day.
I am indebted to E.W.Morey’s Guide to Understanding Revelation for many of the ideas expressed in this commentary, and the subdivisions he uses to examine the text.
The main proponents of an ‘overlapping ages’ understanding of ‘this evil age’ and ‘the age to come’ are, as far as I know, Hermann Ridderbos and George Eldon Ladd. However, I am not fully aware of how each develops the view, and do not share other aspects of their eschatology - for instance Ladd’s historic premillennialism and progressive dispensationalism.
Re: "Set upon a golden bough to sing - Of what is past, or passi
Very interesting, Peter. I hope you don’t mind if I make a few comments and ask a few questions.
Is there any positive reason to think that the disciples at this point imagined that the destruction of the temple would ‘trigger the summoning of a militaristic messiah’? Is it not more likely that they were thinking of the destruction of the temple by military action against Israel and of a ‘coming of the Son of man’ in the sense described in Daniel 7 - that is, a coming to the throne of God to receive a kingdom? Jesus warns them not to be misled by false Christs who presumably might have been plotting a divinely backed attack on Rome, but we can’t infer from this alone that this is the sort of messiah they were now expecting, having spent three years with Jesus.
What makes you say that we are still in the period of the birth-pains? Surely they are the troubles that would precede and culminate in the war. You are clearly not a woman if you think that this is a metaphor for for an ‘indefinite period of travail’.
Is the phrase topos hagios used in the LXX for the whole land? In Lev. 10:18 and Psalm 23:3, for example, it refers to the tabernacle or temple.
This is misleading. Matthew 24:26-27 contains nothing that suggests a temporal contrast between the appearance of the false messiahs and the coming of the Son of man. The contrast is entirely spatial: the false messiahs appear locally, the coming of the Son of man is perceived from the east to the west. If by this Jesus means that the fulfilment of Daniel’s vision about the vindication of the oppressed commmunity as it is represented in himself will be recognized far beyond the confines of Judea, then there is no reason to read into this verse the sort of temporal contrast that you have found.
Mark has the ‘but’ because this is the point at which he contrasts the localized false messiahs (13:21-23) with the vision of the coming of the Son of man on the clouds of heaven (13:26). As you yourself noted, Mark does not have Matthew’s statement about the lightning (Matt. 24:27). So there is no break in the prophetic narrative. Moreover, Mark’s ‘in those days’ makes it clear that the vision of the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven will take place as part of the sequence of events that culminates in the destruction of the temple. Matthew has ‘immediately after’ those events.
There is, therefore, no narrative or exegetical reason to say that the prophetic imagery of Matthew 24:29 refers to ‘the entire sweep of human history’. If the Old Testament prophets can use this language to describe divine judgment on Jerusalem, why should we suppose Jesus is using in such a radically different sense?
On the contrary, Jesus is at pains to connect the two: ‘in those days’, ‘immediately after’; and the vindication of the Son of man is accompanied by language that is used in the prophets to speak of the destruction of Jerusalem. The blowing of the trumpet and the gathering of scattered Israel is a prophetic motif that speaks of the return from exile and the restoration of Israel following God’s judgment.
Jesus says that ‘all these things’, which must include the events of Matthew 24:29-31, will take place within a generation. The parable of the fig tree has clearly refers to the political and social signs that will presage the vindication of the disciples. But the exact day and hour are unknown: the phrase ‘that day and hour’ must refer to the same events desribed in 32-35. The emphasis in the stories that follow is on what happens to the wicked, which is why the element of surprise is to the fore. Jesus does not want his followers to become part of complacent Israel and end up being swept away by the flood of God’s judgment on the nation. The imagery of people being ‘taken’ in the field, etc., fits quite well the situation of a war. I suggested in The Coming of the Son of Man that being taken was a bad thing - being killed, captured in war (paralambanō appears in a variant reading of Acts 16:35 with the meaning ‘take into custody, arrest’), parallel to being swept away in the flood, being destroyed by fire from heaven (Lk. 17:28-30), or having a thief break into one’s house. These are all images of judgment on an unsuspecting people. It fits the events of AD 66-70.
So the age of second temple Judaism came to an end with the destruction of the temple and a new age for God’s people began, characterized experientially by the indwelling of the Spirit in the whole community. There is no mysterious overlapping of the ages - that’s a modern invention. We are in the age which has come. It’s very simple.
Re: "Set upon a golden bough to sing - Of what is past, or passi
Thanks for your comments Andrew. Just in response:
I think the supposed connection between Daniel 7:13, for instance, and Matthew 24:3, may be very misleading. It seems far more likely to me that the question is a more direct response of conventional Jewish thinking to the likelihood of an avenging messiah to arise if the temple was desecrated. Jesus then corrects the false premises he sees behind the question, separating the issue of what will happen to the temple (soon) with when the messiah will come in his parousia (much later).
‘Birth pains’ is indeed a metaphor, and in some ways, though maybe not entirely, could be said to describe the turbulence of history and the church’s experience, both leading up to and beyond the destruction of the temple. But you are right, I am clearly not a woman!
Interesting comment on topos hagios. It’s really Luke’s account more than Matthew’s which applies the point about the abomination that causes desolation to the time when the disciples ‘will see Jerusalem surrounded by armies’. He understood the abomination to be the Roman armies ravaging the land and beginning to surround Jerusalem, not just the desecration and destruction of the temple (Luke 21:20-21). Had it just been the latter, the Christians would have had no opportunity to flee the city - it would have been too late.
Matthew 24:26-27 could contain both a spatial and a temporal contrast. The contrast then would be not just between local pseudo-messiahs and a universal true messiah, but also between messiahs who appeared in the 1st century, and a messiah who has not yet appeared. I also think that Matthew 24:27 (‘for as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so will it be with the coming of the Son of Man’) suggests a much more visible event than one which is seen only by deduction.
The break in the narrative introduced by Alla is more emphatic in Mark (13:24) than the break in Matthew (24:29). Mark also suggests a somewhat more indefinite period of time than Matthew, which will follow the temple’s destruction, but precede the coming of the Son of Man: ‘in those days (en ekeinais tais hemerais) after that tribulation’ - where tribulation refers to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. This, taken with the differences in conditions which distinguish the coming of the Son of Man from those attending the destruction of the temple, provides a very strong case for viewing the imagery of Matthew 24:29 (Mark 13:24-25) as covering a lengthy period of time, corresponding to turbulent world history since Jerusalem’s fall up to the present day.
The OT imagery of Matthew 24:29 is not confined to Jerusalem, but incorporates imagery describing judgement on Babylon (Isaiah 13:9-11), ‘all nations’ (Isaiah 34:4), indefinite judgement (Joel 2:10), judgement taken out of an OT time-frame by Peter (Joel 2:30-32), further judgement on the nations (Joel 3:14-16), Egypt (Ezekiel 32:7-8). A worldwide sweep of Matthew 29 is very well implied by its OT antecedents.
‘Immediately after the distress of those days’ - Matthew 24:29; ‘But in those days, following that distress’ - Mark 13:24 does suggest a disconnection between the destruction of Jerusalem and the coming of the Son of Man. First comes tribulation/distress. This is followed, in the passages, not by restoration of Israel, but by immense conflict, as described in the imagery of cosmic turbulence.
‘All these things’ - Matthew 24:34, is part of a passage (32-35) which describes the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. The fig tree corresponds to the sign that these things are about to happen, ie the abomination that causes desolation. Matthew 24:29-31 is not included in this ‘all’ - for reasons I have outlined. Matthew 24:36-51 would also not be included, for reasons equally compelling.
More importantly, the idea of an ‘age of second temple Judaism’ coming to an end with the destruction of the temple is not the main idea implied in the disciples’ question: ‘what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’ - Matthew 24:3. Second Temple Judaism is never described as ‘an age’, where ‘age’ is ‘aion’. The question here connects more directly with the Jewish idea of ‘this evil age’, which would be replaced by ‘the age to come’.
It’s interesting, actually, how closely your interpretation resembles the Jewish concept, which I believe Jesus is at pains to refute, in that both rely on the concept of avenging judgement to assure the people of God of their future security. I’m fundamentally less convinced that the judgement in itself is actually the basis of the future security of the people of God - though judgement obviously plays an important part in God’s on-going activity, as well as his final acts.
The compelling revision which Jesus introduces in Matthew 24 is of a time-lag, confirmed by all the other NT evidence, which is comprehensively explained by the concept of overlapping ages. This is not a modern invention at all - it is what the church has been living with down through the ages. It’s actually your version which is the modern alternative! But the terms used to described an ‘overlap’ have admittedly been coined in modern times.
Re: "Set upon a golden bough to sing - Of what is past, or passi
The point of the ‘birth pains’ metaphor is that a limited period of suffering will culminate in a significant event - labour pains do not go on indefinitely! Jesus tells the disciples that those who endure to the end of this suffering will be saved (24:13). The end will not come before the good news that God is coming to reign over his people has been announced throughout the Greek-Roman world (24:14). Jesus is not talking here about a gospel of personal salvation: he is thinking of the public announcement to the world - particularly the world that challenged and opposed Israel - that God was acting on behalf of his people, bringing both historical judgment and deliverance for a faithful remnant. He assures the disciples that there will be time for this announcement to be made throughout the whole oikoumenē of the Roman empire before the outbreak of war.
Luke makes no reference to an ‘abomination’; he merely speaks of the desolation of Jerusalem (‘when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near’), which reflects passages such as Jeremiah 25:18; 44:6 rather than Daniel’s ‘abomination of desolation’.
Matthew 24:26-27 contains a temporal contrast only if you insist on reading it into it. The only temporal note in this passage is the ‘immediately’ which connects the tribulation of the war against Rome with the cosmic upheavals and the seeing of the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven. Peter, we have to interpret what is actually said, not what our doctrines would like us to think is being said.
The fact that the imagery of cosmic collapse is used for both judgment on Israel and judgment on Israel’s enemies does not allow us to conclude that it is used in Matthew 24 to describe the rest of human history. It is used in the Old Testament to refer to judgment on a particular city or nation; it is not used to describe an open ended set of judgments. It is used to speak of God’s specific act of judgment, not an indefinite period of time. When Joel uses this language to predict judgment on Jerusalem, he is not at the same time predicting judgment on Babylon or anyone else. So when Jesus uses this imagery at the explicit climax to his forewarning of the war against Rome and the destruction of Jerusalem, the natural assumption must be that he is speaking in the language of prophecy about the far-reaching political and theological significance of this event.
How can the word ‘immediately’ suggest a disconnection? How can ‘in those days’ mean some indefinite time later? The problem is that you have misinterpreted the heavenly signs. They do not signify ‘immense conflict’; they speak of the world-shaking significance of what is taking place. Both Matthew and Mark explicitly and unequivocally (I don’t know how to make this any clearer) associate the events in the heavens with the events on the earth. They signify that the war against Rome, on the one hand, and the vindication of Jesus, on the other, will have convulsive repercussions in the heavens - amongst the principalities and powers, perhap.
Why not? They ask specifically about the destruction of the temple, which Jesus has just spoken about, and the end of the age, clearly connecting the two things together. They make no reference to an ‘evil age’. Jesus has said, or at least implied, that his body will replace the temple. So why shouldn’t the end of the temple age be at the forefront of their minds? In Mark 13:4 it is only the destruction of the temple that they ask about - the possibility is not there of differentiating between that and the end of some other age. Jesus’ whole response addresses a question about the destruction of the temple because it is this which supremely will vindicate his claim that Israel must taken an alternative path if it is to remain in covenantal relationship with YHWH.
Re: "Set upon a golden bough to sing - Of what is past, or passi
Andrew - I did some tidying up of my previous response to yours, which may have gone back on the site too late to catch your response above.
Birth-pains - you are going to have to be a bit more elastic on this point. Even if the birth-pains were completed with the events reflected in AD 70, they would have been going on for the best part of 40 years. But Matthew says: "All these are the beginning of the birth pains." - 24:8. I don’t think a limited period of time is being suggested at all. (Birth-pains is only one of a number of ways of interpreting the word).
Desolation - Luke is using the same word as Mark and Matthew, where they position it in abomination of desolation, so there’s no reason to think he is using the word differently. It’s not a huge point, but the Christians would have needed some opportunity to flee the city before it was completely surrounded. Maybe they would have been aware that the temple’s desecration was on its way as soon as the Roman armies entered Israel and headed for the city.
Matthew 24:26-27 - Are you saying that I am interpreting things according to prior doctrinal assumptions, but you are not? Well I certainly am, but you will see that they are very modified by textual considerations. But I don’t think you are without a doctrinal agenda either!
Matthew 24:29 - "the natural assumption must be that he is speaking in the language of prophecy about the far-reaching political and theological significance of this event"
Yes, but which event? The destruction of Jerusalem/the temple is, for you, only the judgemental evidence of another event, which took place in an invisible heavenly dimension. Obviously, I am arguing that the evidence for that supposed spiritual event, especially in Matthew 24, is very suspect, and ultimately very misleading. There are more convincing ways of understanding Matthew 24.
Matthew 24:29 - It’s interesting that Matthew 24:29 begins "Immediately after the distress/tribulation of those days." Why were the heavenly signs not described as occurring during the distress of those days, if "those days" actually related to the destruction which was taking place at that time? But it doesn’t say this; it says "Immediately after the distress of those days". In other words, "Immediately after" emphasises that there will be no respite from disturbance. Turbulence will continue. How long? Indefinitely - that is, until the messiah actually does appear in his true parousia.
‘Aion’ is not the appropriate word to use to describe a period of time which was never said by anyone, least of all Jesus and the disciples, to be an aion in itself (ie the period of 2nd temple Judaism). We simply disagree here, but I think that it is a better interpretation of historical evidence to say that aion refers to something which was described using the word - ie the evil aion of Israel’s subjection to oppression, contrasting with the aion to come of her triumph. Jesus corrects the mistaken assumptions behind the use of the word, and redefines how both aions will work out in practice through his own intervention in history.
Re: "Set upon a golden bough to sing - Of what is past, or passi
I don’t have much more to add here. With respect to Matthew 24:26-27 I will brazenly assert that I have no doctrinal agenda. My point is simply the exegetical one that no temporal disconnection is made in these verses between the appearance of false Christs and the appearance of the Son of man. The only temporal note is the word ‘immediately’, which seems to have quite the opposite effect. If we find it there, it is because we need to have it for other than exegetical reasons.
The disciples regarded the destruction of the temple as marking the end of an age. I don’t think it is so clear here that Jesus is correcting mistaken assumptions on the part of the disciples. It seems to me that they ask a question in response to his comments about the destruction of the temple and he gives them a straight answer. He never says anything along the lines of ‘you are mistaken in your understanding of things’. What makes you so sure that they have missed the point?
It seems to me very unlikely that having spent three years with Jesus the disciples would have still imagined that Jesus was about to lead a military uprising against Rome. Presumably Judas jumped ship partly because he saw that this wasn’t going to happen. After Jesus’ death and resurrection they are still asking when he is going to restore the kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:6) - militarily? It is highly significant that Jesus at this point only addresses the question of when. He does not question their assumption that the whole point of all this is the restoration of the kingdom to Israel.
Jesus certainly is revising the general Jewish expectation that the end of the age will come about with the military defeat of Israel’s enemies and the restoration of Jerusalem. But where he differs is over the means by which this will be accomplished. Israel will be saved from destruction not by Sadducean collaboration, not by Pharisaic adherence to the Law, not by armed revolt, not by withdrawal into the wilderness, but by the way of the cross. It is only by following the narrow path of suffering, in the name of Jesus, that Israel will successfully negotiate the upheavals of the end of the age and come to renewed covenantal life in the Spirit. He works with the schema of an old age giving way to a new age, but he makes the story of the Son of man (rather than some more militaristic Old Testament narrative) the defining paradigm for the transition.
Re: "Set upon a golden bough to sing - Of what is past, or passi
The underlying difference between us is in our understanding of parousia, what the disciples meant and what Jesus meant. Even without the interpretation of Matthew 24:3 along the lines given, I would still hold to the view that it means Jesus’s return to this earth, and that it is still future. This is after wrestling with all the more recent views, including your own, Tom Wright’s, and various preterist interpretations.
Of course Matthew 24:26-27 alone could not provide the basis for a doctrinal agenda of a future parousia. But taking evidence provided in the rest of Matthew 24, I don’t see any reason at all why there should not be a contrast temporally as well as spatially between the two events compared. Anyway, I thought your reference to importing a doctrinal position referred to the whole of Matthew 24 - not these two verses.
Concerning the views of the disciples towards the temple, I’d have thought it was fairly clear that they were admiring its grandeur in an uninformed way, and show no understanding whatsoever of the significance of Jesus’s enacted judgement of the temple in Matthew 21. They are ripe for correction, and one could imagine Jesus being rather irritated at their impressionable mindlessness.
It’s certainly true that the disciples had not understood Jesus’s destiny to die in Jerusalem right up to the last minute. Why were they otherwise carrying swords when Jesus was arrested, and one of them (usually taken to be Peter) strikes the servant of the high priest with his sword? They were hoping for, if not expecting, an uprising. So it’s certainly credible that they did not understand the nature of Jesus’s messiahship, and were still living in a world which was looking for an avenging messiah in Matthew 24.
On the other hand, in Acts 1:6, Jesus has had time to teach the disciples more fully about the real nature of the kingdom of God (which was not to do with armed uprisings), which he did over an extended period - Acts 1:4. Presumably they needed it. So the question in Acts 1:6 is valid; but by now they have understood from Jesus’s teaching on the kingdom from Isaiah (of which the chapter is full of echoes and references), that it was not a national restoration which was coming to Israel, but a kingdom which would come by the Holy Spirit - Acts 1:7. This would be the restoration which God was intending. This was the kingdom of which Isaiah spoke, which would have a very different character from the nationalistic kingdom which the Jews (and probably the disciples in Matthew 24) had been expecting.