MarkT said:
Mt. 24 is all about the end -as the disciples asked him, 'what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?' Mt. 24:3 And Jesus told them what must take place; in order. But 'the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven' before all the tribes on earth will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. Paul gives us the same order.
No.
Matthew 24 has already happened. There is a long tradition of Matthew 24 (and its parallels) being read as prophecies about the second coming. However, there is every reason to challenge such an assertion. Consider the opening text of Matthew 24:
Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him. 2And 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?"
In verse 2, Jesus makes a clear allusion to a coming destruction of the temple. Which temple? A future temple thousands of years in the future? Of course not. The disciples point to the temple they are asking about – it is the one they (and Jesus) are looking at. The disciples then ask about the timing of this. What is Jesus’ answer?:
Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
It should be obvious that the reading that I am advancing allows us to take Jesus at his word – 70 AD is one generation away. The 2nd coming hypothesis is forced to awkwardly rework the meaning of this statement. What is the justification for such a rework? Has Jesus given the listener any reason at all to think that He is talking about another generation? No, He has not.
What about this statement? Doesn’t this statement tell us that Jesus is talking about the end times and not 70 AD?
But immediately after the (AI)tribulation of those days (AJ)THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND (AK)THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
Well, Jesus is here quoting Isaiah 13, where this exact same language is used. And what is the prophetic material in Isaiah 13 all about? The end of the world? No. It is about the defeat of
Babylon, something we know has
already happened. Conclusion: “end of the world†language is not to be taken literally. So this statement by Jesus in Matthew 24 does not requires us to think that the discourse is about events in our future.
One needs to remember the context. Jesus has come to Jerusalem with His followers. What are the followers thinking? They are thinking that Jesus will be installed as King. Despite repeated attempts on the part of Jesus to indicate that He is going there to die, the disciples simply do not seem able to take that on board. Given the inability of the disciples to understand that Jesus has to die, it is hardly likely that they can even get their minds around the matter of a 2nd coming – they have not come to terms with the need for Jesus to die and leave them in the first place. Perhaps some will dispute my claim that the disciples did not understand that Jesus needs to die. Fair enough, but my argument does not depend on this point in order to succeed.
There is still the matter of the “parousia†– the coming of Jesus. An objector to my assertion will no doubt argue that the Matthew 24 material cannot be about the events of 70 AD since we all know that Jesus did not “come to us†in 70 AD. Well, one needs to understand that “parousia†means “presence†– the word in and of itself does not necessitate a reading where Jesus descends to us from the heavens. And the word is often used in relation to the visit of a royal person. The important point for present purposes is that “parousia†can legitimately be seen to denote enthronement, and need not connote literal travel from point A to point B.
Remember now what the disciples are waiting for. It is that Jesus be enthroned at King. Remember also what has recently happened in the Temple. Jesus has gone in and upset the tables of the vendors. Most people see this as a protest against “commercialization†of the holy temple. Although I will not argue the point here, I believe that Jesus is pronouncing symbolic judgement on the temple, enacting its imminent destruction through the agency of Rome.
Either way, Jesus’ action in the temple would have clear Messianic interpretations for any Jew familiar with the Old Testament and with recent Jewish history. It is specifically the King who is the one who has authority over the temple (think of David ordering the building of the temple and Solomon completing, not to mention other similar figures in the Jewish tradition, such as Simon Ben Kosibar). So when Jesus does His thing in the temple, his disciples will see this as a claim of kingship.
All this works together to help us see that when they ask Jesus about his “coming†(parousia), they are really asking about the time when He will be installed as King – they are not asking Him when He will return to earth in a 2nd coming (they have no concept of a second coming to begin with) And lest there be any misunderstanding, it is clear from the New Testament that Jesus is not waiting to be enthroned at a second coming – He has already been installed 2000 years ago as a sitting King. So my hypothesis about the meaning of the material in Matthew 24 is entirely consistent with the disciples’ question about the parousia – Jesus comes into His Kingship as the old age of the temple passes away.
Much more should be said. Another key argument in support of my hypothesis is the reference to the “son of man coming on the cloud†reference later in the chapter. This is an image drawn from Daniel 7 which does not refer to a
downward descent from heaven to earth (as the 2nd coming hypothesis would require). It is instead an
upward movement from earth to heaven followed by enthronement. As should be clear, this is entirely what my hypothesis demands – the son of man coming on the clouds is a reference to enthronement, not a 2nd coming.
