Making sense of the Second Coming

I've come up to realise that there is one verse in the gospels which can unlock our whole understanding of what to await in looking for Jesus' render, the 'second coming.' The poesy is Matt 24.34:

'Amen I tell you, there is NO Way this generation will pass abroad until all these things have come to laissez passer.' (my translation)

There are several ways to make sense of this verse:

1. Jesus meant what he said, just the things he describes in the preceding verses didnot come to pass, and Jesus was a deluded apocalyptic prophet whose mission failed, but was revived by the Church building who invented stories most his resurrection in order to rehabilitate his teaching. This has been a fairly widespread view amongst critical scholarship, and was expounded most powerfully by Albert Schweitzer.

2. The phrase 'this generation' (Gkhe genea aute) tin can be translated 'this people', in other words, information technology refers to the Jews, non to this detail generation. Unfortunately, this does not stack upwards for several reasons. First,geneaconsistently refers to a 'generation' pregnant a people live at a particular time in the other 42 occurrences in the New Testament. (One possible exception to this is in Luke 16.eight, 'The people of this world are more than shrewd in dealing with their own generation…). But the second, and compelling set of reasons why this cannot exist read in this way is Jesus' emphasis on timing in these verses. The phrase 'will not laissez passer away' is a mutual term for 'to die' (and we use the same euphemism in English); Jesus has just talked almost reading the signs of the times with the analogy of the fig tree coming into fruit (Matt 24.32), and he draws the conclusion that the 'fourth dimension is nigh' for all these events; he and then goes on to contrast the immediacy of 'these things' (v 34) with 'those things' in Matt 24.36, whose timing no-1 knows.

iii. A common 'escape route' is to fence that when Jesus says 'all these things' he really means 'some of these things.' I was taught that prophecy is like looking at a mountain range from a altitude, or looking through a telescope. It is difficult to see the distance between things which are relatively near and things which are quite far off, equally they all look at though they are next to 1 another. The trouble with this view is that it assumes we know ameliorate than both Jesus and Matthew what Jesus meant in the preceding verses, and that both of them were confused in what they said and recorded.

4. I rather extraordinary arroyo (which I was offered this week) is that 'this generation' refers to the generation who are reading it at present. To believe this, y'all accept to remember that the meaning of language changes almost at random depending on who is reading it, and that in fact the statement was meaningless for Jesus' hearers and for Matthew and his readers.

This really only leaves one disarming selection: Jesus meant what he said.

There is in fact good evidence for assertive this. When Matthew records this piece of didactics, he makes some significant changes from Mark's earlier business relationship. In Mark, the disciples enquire Jesus a single, compound question:

Tell united states of america, when will these things happen and what will be the sign that they are all nearly to be fulfilled? (Mark 13.three)

(Some English translations unhelpfully carve up this into two, but it is one sentence in Greek.) But in Matthew, this has become two questions about ii different events:

Tell us, when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?

In Matthew, the disciples' question at present has a supplementary, about the 'sign of your coming' [Gkparousia] and the cease of the age, separate from the timing of 'this' i.e. the fall of the temple. And Matthew and so goes on to structure what follows appropriately: verses i to 35 answer the starting time question, about the all of the temple and the devastation and trauma associated with it, which will happen before 'this generation pass away'; then verses 36 to 51 accost the second question about Jesus'parousia and the terminate of the historic period, a subject which receives a summary treatment only in Mark thirteen.32–37. This makes perfect sense if Marker was written in the 60s prior to the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD, and Matthew written after information technology in the 70s or 80s; Marker is focussed on this as a looming disaster on the horizon, whereas for Matthew, the devastation of the temple has happened and is confirmation of Jesus' words, and the focus at present shifts to the 2d question, the finish of the age. To make this point even clearer, he then goes on to record a whole serial of parables, about the end and Jesus' coming, in the post-obit chapters.

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This has some massive implications for our understanding of eschatology and what we are and are non looking for in Jesus'parousia.

First, we arenot looking for 'sign of the times.' Jesus explicitly contrasts what the disciples'south mental attitude should exist to the ii events. For the showtime, they are to expect for the signs of the times, as they look on a fig tree for fruit when the time is right. Only for the 2d, 'no-one knows the twenty-four hours or hour.' Jesus will come at an hour that we practice non expect (Matt 24.44), as a 'thief in the dark' for those who do not know him, but as a friend in the day for those who are his followers.

Second, the things Jesus mentions in Matt 24.29–31take already happened. Peter is quite clear about this in his Acts ii spoken communication. He declares that the events the people are witnessing are precisely those foretold by Joel ii, including:

'The sun volition exist turned to darkness and the moon to blood earlier the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.' (Acts 2.20–21, compare Joel ii.32 and besides Romans 10.13).

And this ways that the Son of Man has come on the clouds (to the Power = Aboriginal of Days), the trumpet has sounded (announcing a royal proclamation of skillful news) and the elect are being gathered.

The Son of Man (Jesus) 'coming on the clouds' uses a different Greek give-and-take erchomenos for 'coming' than is used in Matt 24.3 and Matt 24.37, where we findparousia, Jesus' royal return as male monarch afterward his period of absence. In Greek texts, this phrase is actually put in italics, pregnant that it is a quotation, in this case from Daniel 7.thirteen. The consistent position of all the New Testament texts is that this has been fulfilled in Jesus' death, resurrection and ascension, and that in fulfilment of Dan 7, Jesus is now seated at the right hand of the Father. Jesus himself predicts this in Mark 14.62; he is clear that the High Priests volition see it in their lifetime. Peter confirms it in his speech in Acts 2, which concludesnot with the testify of Jesus' resurrection, simply with the exaltation of Jesus to God'south right hand, equally fulfilment of the Scriptures (Acts 2.32–36). This is what Stephen sees at the end of his speech in Acts seven, and (every bit with the High Priests at Jesus' trial) is what provokes his listeners' wrath and leads them to rock him:

But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right manus of God. "Look," he said, "I encounter heaven open up and the Son of Man standing at the right mitt of God." (Acts 7.55–56)

And of form Paul heard this—and realising the truth of this is what leads him to incorporate Jesus into his Jewish profession of the i God, the Shema of Deut 6.iv, in 1 Cor viii.four–6. This is a perfect reflection of the ambiguities in Dan seven; information technology becomes unclear whether the worship of the nations and the power of the everlasting kingdom vest to the Aboriginal of Days or the Son of Man, or both. (Inside Daniel, the Son of Man is a corporate representation of the people of God, but in the NT, equally Jesus takes up the destiny of Israel, it comes to refer again to an private.)

The sounding of the trumpet in Matt 24.31 is therefore something quite dissimilar from Paul's trumpet in i Thess 4.16; information technology is a metaphor for the proclamation of the practiced news of Jesus and the kingdom spilling out from State of israel into the whole known world, as recorded by Luke in Acts. And the 'gathering of the elect' doesnon refer to an 'terminate times' render of Jews to the geographical land of Israel; as Revelation 7 makes clear, the numbered members of the tribe of State of israel (Rev 7.four) are in fact an unnumbered multitude from 'every tribe, language, people and nation' (Rev 7.9), just as Dan 7.14 had predicted.

All this suggests that nosotros should not be trying to discern the time of Jesus' coming from events in world history, and it confirms the truth reinforced over and over in the NT: that all God's promises to his people are fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus' second coming is not about an 'end times' timetable of events similar the rapture (which cannot be institute in the NT) or tribulation, which is in fact the lot of all who follow Jesus, equally Paul makes clear in Acts 14.22, John is clear about in Rev 1.9, and Jesus himself teaches in the parable of the sheep and the goats.

When Jesus returns, he volition bring to completion the work begun through his perfect offering of himself, his resurrection and his rise. That's what nosotros have to look forward to.

(This is the summary of part of a seminar given at New Vino i in July 2014)

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