Matthew 24.1-35

While I admit that I’m in a minority who hold this view, I don’t think it’s exegetically sustainable at all to read this passage as teaching about Christ’s return, for a number of reasons:

1. The context is Jesus talking about the destruction of the temple (v. 2), which the disciples then ask him about (v. 3).
2. We can’t just assume ‘the close of the age’ (v. 3) means ‘the end of the world’. Given that Christ is talking about the destruction of the temple, it is quite natural to read it as talking about the close of the Old Covenant era with the destruction of its apparatus.
3. Jesus is addressing those disciples immediately gathered before him. They are the ones who are not to be led astray, be alarmed and who will be delivered up to death and hated (vv. 4-9).
4. vv. 15-21 are clearly talking about AD70 and the destruction of the temple, and not solely as an illustration of the persecution that will characterise the period leading up to Jesus return - this is the climactic event in Jesus’ discourse.
5. The apocalyptic language of v. 29 doesn’t have to be speaking about the end of the world. In fact, it echoes language used of the destruction of Babylon in Isaiah 13.10, and appears to be making the point that is made at length in the book of Revelation: that Babylon is Jerusalem and is being destroyed.
6. The coming of the Son of Man (v. 30) is in its biblical context most emphatically not about his coming to earth to judge but about his coming to heaven in vindication over and against his enemies, and to receive authority over the whole earth (Daniel 7.13-14, 21-22).
7. Fig trees (v. 32) are symbolic of Israel (see e.g. 1 Kings 4.25)
8. All the things mentioned in Matthew 24.1-33 - including the coming of the Son of Man - will take place in the lifetime of those disciples to whom Jesus was speaking (v. 34).

Now, that doesn’t mean Matthew 24 doesn’t have application to the church today. We can still learn from the exhortations not to be led astray by false prophets and false Christs, not to fear at natural disaster, to stand fast in persecution, to remember God’s grace in restraining persecution for the sake of his elect, to recognize Christ’s authority over all things &c.

“The bridegroom was delayed”

We had a very helpful sermon on Matthew 24.36-25.13 last night. I’m still convinced ch. 24.1-35 is about AD 70 (more to follow in the fullness of time), but, following some of David Field’s comments on Matthew 24 I think a transition to the second coming in v. 36ff can be sustained. The disciples ask two questions - one about the destruction of the temple and the one about his coming and the close of the age - and it is quite reasonable to see that Jesus answers them in turn. There is a transition from references to “those days” to “that day” in v. 36. Moreover, the language of being cut in pieces and being put with the hypocrites in the place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, and of the bridegroom coming to the marriage feast is suggestive that Christ’s second coming is in view here.

One thing that was highlighted last night was that the point of being ready and keeping watch in light of Christ’s unknown return is to make sure we are serving God faithfully and relating to the Lord Jesus. The emphasis in the parables is on the bridegroom’s delay.

I merely want to add to that the further point that none of this requires the Christian to believe that Jesus could return at any moment. For example, Peter is told in John 21.19 that he would die before Jesus returns. He certainly wasn’t expecting Jesus to return in his lifetime. Yet that didn’t negate the need for him to be faithful and prepared in the present. Indeed, there’s a thought going round at the back of my mind that maybe the fact that the virgins in the second parable, having prepared (or not) beforehand fall asleep and are woken by the cry that the bridegroom has arrived suggests that Jesus’ hearers were even meant to expect that they would die and then be raised up to meet their Lord when he finally returned. A long delay is to be expected. Murray in The Puritan Hope also makes the point that the expectation that Jesus could return in the lifetime of each generation of Christians, from the first generation onwards, would mean that we have been misled for the past 2000 years.

Given that we have the promise, for example, that “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you” (Psalm 22.27), and since we don’t quite see that yet, on the basis of God’s word, we don’t have to live expecting that Jesus could return at any moment. Yet the master’s delay isn’t a license for unfaithfulness and unreadiness. We need to serve faithfully in the light of his eventual return, and make sure that we are obeying the gospel, and repenting of our sins and trusting in Christ.