Mt 24:1 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.
2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
The Wailing wall is not the temple, Israel been seaching for the exact spot where the temple sat for years, their "digging around" on the mount looking for that spot has caused problems between them and the Muslims.
Matthew 24:1"And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and His disciples came to Him for to shew Him the buildings of the temple."
Buildings,Plural
We read in Matt. 24:1-2, “And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple; and His disciples came to Him for to shew Him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, ‘See ye not all these things: verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down'”. Was this prophecy fulfilled in 70 AD?
We will consider the following topics in order to come to a correct view of this prophecy:
“THE BUILDINGS”
THE CONTEXT
PROPHECY AND THE DISPENSATION OF THE MYSTERY
MAN’S REALITY AND GOD’S REALITY
“THE BUILDINGS”
We read in Matt. 24:1 that the disciples showed Jesus “
the buildings of the temple”. And our Lord told His disciples that “there shall
not be left here one stone upon another“. But the western wall, also known as “the wailing wall” proves that some stones were indeed left upon others, proving that
this prophecy was not fulfilled in 70 AD.
Some have suggested that the western wall was not part of the temple. Strictly speaking that is true, the western wall was part of the
retaining wall that surrounded the temple. But I believe a careful study of the phrase in Matt. 24:1 is called for. That phrase is, “for to shew Him
the buildings of the temple”. The Greek word translated “buildings” in this phrase is “kubia”. It is indeed a very interesting word. It is used eighteen times and is translated “building(s)”
six times and “edify” or “edification”
twelve times. It is clear that the basic meaning of the word is “edification”. The archaic definition of the English words “edify” and “edification” means
“build or construct“. The noun form then is “structure”
In fact, if we look again at Matt. 24:1 I think we may see that definition more clearly. “…..His disciples came to Him for to shew Him
the buildings of the temple”. Note that we do not read that they showed Christ “the temple” but the “
buildings of the temple”. In my opinion, because the Greek word is so often translated “edify” or “edification” this indicates the
structures of the temple as that is what “edify” means. (I never cease to marvel at how God used the
exact word so that we might know
exactly what He intended us to understand.) Let us continue with this phrase “the buildings
of the temple” with a consideration of the word “of”. In my opinion the “of” is the Genitive of Relation which the Companion Bible defines as “equivalent to ‘pertaining to'”.
In other words, the phrase “the buildings of the Temple” may be understood as
“the structures pertaining to the temple”.
So the Greek word tells us that it means a
structure. In that case, I believe that, as used in Matt. 24:1, the word
includes the retaining wall. Therefore, we must conclude that this prophecy was not fulfilled in 70 AD. It is as simple as that. God’s prophecies are always fulfilled
exactly, not approximately. It is
not true that there are no stones left upon another in the structures pertaining to the temple, therefore this prophecy was not fulfilled in 70 A.D. But let us continue in this study in order to be as thorough as possible.
THE CONTEXT
Let us consider verse 3 of Matt. 24, “And as He sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto Him privately, saying, ‘Tell us,
when shall these things be and what shall be the
sign of Thy coming, and of the
end of the world?” (The Greek word translated “world” is “aion” and should be translated “age”.)
First our Lord tells His disciples that the temple buildings will be destroyed and then they ask Him about the sign of His coming and of the end of the age. In other words,
the questions concerned the end times. Note the question, “when shall these things be?”. “These things” refers to the destruction of the temple buildings and their questions are associated with the events of the end times. If nothing else this tells us that the entire conversation concerning the destruction of the temple buildings
was of the end times.
Indeed we see three passages in Daniel that tell of the destruction of the temple
in the end times; “…..and the people of the prince that shall come shall
destroy the city
and the sanctuary....” (Dan. 9:26b, see also Dan. 8:11 and 13 and 11:31). Because the questions in particular, and the entire conversation in general, were of the end times, it is most natural to conclude that the destruction Christ spoke of concerns the destruction of the end times.
PROPHECY AND THE DISPENSATION OF THE MYSTERY
When Israel was set aside at the end of the Acts period prophecies concerning Israel were put in abeyance. In other words, during the dispensation of the mystery
no prophecies that are centered on Israel are being fulfilled. That being the case, the prophecy of Matt. 24:1-2 could not have been fulfilled by the Romans because that was accomplished after Israel had been set aside, therefore after the beginning of the dispensation of the mystery, i.e.
in a dispensation in which no prophecy centered on Israel is being fulfilled.
MAN’S REALITY AND GOD’S REALITY
The argument is made that our Lord was speaking of those very stones that would be destroyed and those very stones were destroyed in 70 A.D. But as we have seen above, those stones were
not totally destroyed because the western wall still stands.
That which has been shall be again...The destruction in ad70 was a type of what would happen in the future
I Corinthians 10:11 "Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come."
"Ensamples" in the manuscripts is the Greek word
"tupos", number 5179 in the Strong's Greek dictionary. "
a sample, or type; i.e. a model for imitation, a fashion, for manner, or form." So Paul is telling us that those things that we read about in the Old Testament, of the events of the prophets of old are examples of what we should be looking for in our day. This is written to alert all people to be aware of how it shall be before Christ returns. What was written in the Exodus, or in Amos is written as examples for our admonition or warning. All of the Scriptures is given as a warning to those who are living in the times of the ends of this world age of the flesh. We will see the end of the flesh age come to a close, and there are many things that will come to pass right before our eyes that were written about in detail way back in the Old Testament time, and Paul is telling you and I to wake up to those warnings.
Each of the events that took place, the opening of the Red sea, the building of the false religious forms, and so on. God is telling us "look little children that is what is going to happen to you at the close of this earth age". We are living in that age, and these things are happening now. Can you learn by this? It is so simple. God did not leave us helpless nor hopeless in these end times, and that is why we must become skilled in all of His Word. It is all an example of what is going to befall us in our generation.