The purpose of this discussion is to remove a point of confusion and possible cause for doubt on an important prophetic Matthew.
In Matthew 24:3 the disciples ask Jesus, Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? In verses 4-33 Jesus describes the many aspects of the age which must come to pass before the end of the age. Then, in verse 34 he says, Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. So the question is what does he mean by generation? It is not a small question, and a quick or unthinking answer could lead us to either doubt the truth words of Christ or scripture's overall prophetic vision.
If we take generation's meaning to be that of ordinary use, prophecy is done, finished; scripture is false; and the hammer of destruction lies in Matthew 25 itself not in one verse, but rather many. In verse 10 Christ says, And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. This is part of the current generation, the current age. But this was simply not the case, for the generation of Christ's arrival was one of incredible growth and expansion for the gospel, not retreat. The gospel's retreat is the mark of the 19th and 20th centuries, not the 1st century.
In verse 14 Christ says, And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Again, this is the mark of the 19th and 20th centuries, not the 1st century.
In verse 15 Christ says, So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand) ... There is simply no believable abomination of desolation in the first century. Scripture paints the abomination of desolation as a construction symbolizing a powerful and persistent hostility to God and Gospel. It is erected by the power that causes many believers to apostasize Daniel says the power erecting the abomination of desolation will wear out belief. The actual historical fact is that Rome more or less collapsed in the face of the Gospel's assault, and the first century was the time of the Gospel's rollicking spread. Assigning verse 15 to the first century is absurd.
In verse 21 Christ says, For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. This is so pointed and specific that, even if we admit that prophecy sometimes poetically exaggerates, any attempt to assign verse 21 to the first century is preposterous.
In verses 29-30 Christ says, Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. This describes a serious disruption in the atmosphere, followed by a rain of meteorites (or some such), and attended by a very widespread (all the tribes of the earth) grief. Again, there is no record of this in the first century.
All of these events are to be seen by this generation. Individually these passages are each sufficiently strong to push the end of the age outside the bounds of the first century; together, their strength is overwhelming. There remains only two possible conclusions: either prophecy and scripture are false, or Christ is using the word generation in an unusual way. I believe it to be the latter because scripture contains strong and rational evidence that Christ is using the word generation in an out-of-the-ordinary way.
The first hint to the solution of our dilemma lies at the start of the discussion: Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? ask the disciples. This should raise an immediate question in our minds: exactly what system of ages (or epochs) exists in the minds of the disciples that enables them to formulate such a question? It is an important question, and the answer is both simple and critical to our understanding of all prophecy. But to answer it we have to go back to Deuteronomy 28-30 where Moses sketches the entirety of Israel's future history. In these chapters, Moses divides Israel's history into three ages: he titles these the blessing, the curse, and the return. The blessing (Deuteronomy 28:1-14) covers the period of judges and kings. The curse breaks down into two historical stages: the first part (Deuteronomy 28:33-57) describes Babylon's conquest up through the Roman destruction, while the second part (Deuteronomy 28:58-68) describes Israel's long, suffering, homeless exile. In Deuteronomy 29 Moses then takes some time to warn Israel against disobedience, and reiterates that its consequence will be the curse he just described. In Deuteronomy 30 Moses then resumes his history, asserting that both the blessing and curse will come to pass, and then goes on to describe (Deuteronomy 30:2-10) Israel's subsequent return to God's favor, which undoes all the effects of the curse and brings greater blessing. If we are any doubt of Israel's return (it is stated conditionally in Deuteronomy 30), we can turn to Deuteronomy 4:34-31 where it is stated as being certain.
Thus, here we have the answer to what Israel's ages are: the blessing, curse, and return, and we now know what was in the minds of the disciples when they asked the question. They knew they were in the midst of Israel's second age, the curse (long subjection to foreigners is part of the curse), and they were asking both when Christ would return and when the age of the curse would end and Israel's reconciliation would commence.
Our next question is why Christ used the word generation. Strangely (or not so strangely), the answer to this is also in Deuteronomy 28-30. In Deuteronomy 29:22-24 Moses warns the Israelites against disobedience, saying, And the next generation, your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, will say, when they see the afflictions of that land and the sicknesses with which the Lord has made it sickthe whole land burned out with brimstone and salt, nothing sown and nothing growing, where no plant can sprout, an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and wrath all the nations will say, Why has the Lord done thus to this land? What caused the heat of this great anger?
Notice Moses use of the word generation. The next generation is the generation of the curse the generation of the burnt out, abandoned land. And they are the generation after the current one, which is the you that is about to go into the land the generation of the blessing. It is perfectly clear that Moses is using the word generation in the sense of age, or epoch. Moses' title for these ages is blessing, curse, and return, but when presenting them as a noun, he uses the word generation he never calls them and age or epoch. Furthermore, Moses assignes to the curse a duration (and events) longer than an ordinary generation might contain (amongst other thing he assigns it an Egyptian magnitude).
Thus, Christ, in speaking of end of the current age (the curse), reverts to the word used by the man (Moses) who first described Israel's ages. It is the same word used the same way in the same context. It is as simple as that. This agreement between Moses and Christ should not surprise us, and this solution to our puzzle is both simple and perfectly rational. Also, it believably harmonizes scripture we no longer have to pretend that the contents of Matthew 24 fit into the decades immediately following Christ's first arrival.
If, however, we insist on the ordinary meaning of generation in Matthew 24, it creates enormous problems first, there are the incoherencies within Mat 24. After that we have to throw out Moses' prophetic structure. Then there are all passages in the prophets (the same guys who prophecized Christ's first arrival) which tell of Israel's return after its long exile; then there is the historical stuff like the temple mount being split in the three, etc, etc the problems are endless and they render prophecy incoherent. In fact, we are forced to throw out significant chunks of prophecy (in effect rewriting the Bible), rendering prophecy and the Bible unbelievable. Why create unnecessary problems for ourselves when there is a simple and rational explanation that causes all prophecy to cohere with itself and history?
Q.E.D.
The intended audience of this is twofold. First, it is addressed to those new to prophecy, and who, taking it seriously for the first time, have found themselves confused or in doubt about Christ's use of generation because it cannot (apparently) be squared with actual history (or the rest of prophecy).
The second intended audience is, of course, our preterist brothers. When it comes right down to it, Christ's use of generation is the only prop for their position. All the other preterist arguments are easily dispatched. Take away generation and the preterist position utterly collapses under the weight of prophecy and historical contradiction.
In spite of the fact that the preterist wanders about throwing away parts scripture, I want to be sympathetic, and I think I can. The preterist is enamored by the new covenant's universality. God promised Abraham a universal blessing for all the people of the earth, and its actuality arrived in Christ and his message, and it is a very great gift and a very great new truth. To the extent that the preterists perceives this and is awed by it, the preterist does well and is, in fact, correct; we should all rejoice in it, and in the spiritual equality that God grants in the new spiritual Israel.
But the simple fact is that the same prophets (including Moses) who say the Jew will fail miserably and go into exile, also say the God will reclaim the Jew and make him useful again. My guess is that the root of the preterist objection to much prophecy is that he perceives the Jew's return to be an offense against the universality of God's message and the new Israel. But it is not. The Jew's story is one of historical differentiation, not spiritual. There should be no real offense in the Jew's return, because it is not a return of spiritual distinction, but rather of spiritual unity within a historically differentiated new Israel. God says that in the millennium the Messiah will re-join the staff of Judah and Ephraim and wield them in unity. It is a picture of a united spiritual Israel, but one which contains a complex historical expression.
It is even possible to see humor in this. The Pharisee could not understand out how one God could have different parts it contradicted his conception of God's unity. Likewise, the preterist cannot understand how a unified Israel can be historically complex. But this historically complex Israel is what scripture describes a latter day Judah redeemed from its errors, stupor, and great failure. Tragically, the complex God was a stumbling block for many Jews, and equally tragically, it seems likely that a complex Israel may be a stumbling block to some Christians despite Paul's rather pointed warning. Thus, in the same way that a doctrine prevented most Jews from seeing that the eruption of belief amongst gentiles was the beginning of the promised Abrahamic universalism for the blessing of all mankind, likewise some Christians will fail to recognize the millennium's start because they have failed to subsume elements of Israel's prophetic story into their view of history. Thus, the Jew failed to understand the story of Israel's curse and the suffering servant, saw no need for it, and simply ignored it. Likewise the preterist does not understand the story of the Jew's return, sees no need for it, and simply ignores it. But both stories are there, and both are undeniable; in fact, the story of the Jew's return is far more prevalent than the story of the suffering servant. This, of course, does not absolve the Jew of his failure to penetrate scripture; but what is our excuse? especially when we have the Jew's disastrous example as our warning? If we are not careful their past failure will become an accusation against us.
God is not returning Judah to glorify the Jew, but rather to glorify himself. It was foreseen, stated from the beginning. It is not safe to oppose God's plans. How serious a sin preterism is can be debated; I think it very much depends on the preterist's motives and knowledge. At best, it may be entirely innocent a thing told by one's father and unthinkingly accepted, believed, and never examined. At its worst it is the profession of a vision willfully contrary to what scripture clearly states, an attempt to erect a God congenial to one's own purpose and will a form of idolatry, in fact. Each one of us has, at some point, to decide which we love more: God, or some theory of God (or prophecy). If we love God more, we will accommodate ourselves to scripture. If not, God has his answer, and his book has done its job.
We should all be able rejoice in Israel's universality and equality; likewise we should also be able to rejoice in its strange complex historical expression. God's fulfillments of prophecy's often have unexpected twists to them; they are surprises which should delight and amaze, but if we are not careful to align our doctrine to scripture's full prophetic story, they can become stumbling blocks (large or small).
In Matthew 24:3 the disciples ask Jesus, Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? In verses 4-33 Jesus describes the many aspects of the age which must come to pass before the end of the age. Then, in verse 34 he says, Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. So the question is what does he mean by generation? It is not a small question, and a quick or unthinking answer could lead us to either doubt the truth words of Christ or scripture's overall prophetic vision.
If we take generation's meaning to be that of ordinary use, prophecy is done, finished; scripture is false; and the hammer of destruction lies in Matthew 25 itself not in one verse, but rather many. In verse 10 Christ says, And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. This is part of the current generation, the current age. But this was simply not the case, for the generation of Christ's arrival was one of incredible growth and expansion for the gospel, not retreat. The gospel's retreat is the mark of the 19th and 20th centuries, not the 1st century.
In verse 14 Christ says, And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Again, this is the mark of the 19th and 20th centuries, not the 1st century.
In verse 15 Christ says, So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand) ... There is simply no believable abomination of desolation in the first century. Scripture paints the abomination of desolation as a construction symbolizing a powerful and persistent hostility to God and Gospel. It is erected by the power that causes many believers to apostasize Daniel says the power erecting the abomination of desolation will wear out belief. The actual historical fact is that Rome more or less collapsed in the face of the Gospel's assault, and the first century was the time of the Gospel's rollicking spread. Assigning verse 15 to the first century is absurd.
In verse 21 Christ says, For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. This is so pointed and specific that, even if we admit that prophecy sometimes poetically exaggerates, any attempt to assign verse 21 to the first century is preposterous.
In verses 29-30 Christ says, Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. This describes a serious disruption in the atmosphere, followed by a rain of meteorites (or some such), and attended by a very widespread (all the tribes of the earth) grief. Again, there is no record of this in the first century.
All of these events are to be seen by this generation. Individually these passages are each sufficiently strong to push the end of the age outside the bounds of the first century; together, their strength is overwhelming. There remains only two possible conclusions: either prophecy and scripture are false, or Christ is using the word generation in an unusual way. I believe it to be the latter because scripture contains strong and rational evidence that Christ is using the word generation in an out-of-the-ordinary way.
The first hint to the solution of our dilemma lies at the start of the discussion: Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? ask the disciples. This should raise an immediate question in our minds: exactly what system of ages (or epochs) exists in the minds of the disciples that enables them to formulate such a question? It is an important question, and the answer is both simple and critical to our understanding of all prophecy. But to answer it we have to go back to Deuteronomy 28-30 where Moses sketches the entirety of Israel's future history. In these chapters, Moses divides Israel's history into three ages: he titles these the blessing, the curse, and the return. The blessing (Deuteronomy 28:1-14) covers the period of judges and kings. The curse breaks down into two historical stages: the first part (Deuteronomy 28:33-57) describes Babylon's conquest up through the Roman destruction, while the second part (Deuteronomy 28:58-68) describes Israel's long, suffering, homeless exile. In Deuteronomy 29 Moses then takes some time to warn Israel against disobedience, and reiterates that its consequence will be the curse he just described. In Deuteronomy 30 Moses then resumes his history, asserting that both the blessing and curse will come to pass, and then goes on to describe (Deuteronomy 30:2-10) Israel's subsequent return to God's favor, which undoes all the effects of the curse and brings greater blessing. If we are any doubt of Israel's return (it is stated conditionally in Deuteronomy 30), we can turn to Deuteronomy 4:34-31 where it is stated as being certain.
Thus, here we have the answer to what Israel's ages are: the blessing, curse, and return, and we now know what was in the minds of the disciples when they asked the question. They knew they were in the midst of Israel's second age, the curse (long subjection to foreigners is part of the curse), and they were asking both when Christ would return and when the age of the curse would end and Israel's reconciliation would commence.
Our next question is why Christ used the word generation. Strangely (or not so strangely), the answer to this is also in Deuteronomy 28-30. In Deuteronomy 29:22-24 Moses warns the Israelites against disobedience, saying, And the next generation, your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, will say, when they see the afflictions of that land and the sicknesses with which the Lord has made it sickthe whole land burned out with brimstone and salt, nothing sown and nothing growing, where no plant can sprout, an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and wrath all the nations will say, Why has the Lord done thus to this land? What caused the heat of this great anger?
Notice Moses use of the word generation. The next generation is the generation of the curse the generation of the burnt out, abandoned land. And they are the generation after the current one, which is the you that is about to go into the land the generation of the blessing. It is perfectly clear that Moses is using the word generation in the sense of age, or epoch. Moses' title for these ages is blessing, curse, and return, but when presenting them as a noun, he uses the word generation he never calls them and age or epoch. Furthermore, Moses assignes to the curse a duration (and events) longer than an ordinary generation might contain (amongst other thing he assigns it an Egyptian magnitude).
Thus, Christ, in speaking of end of the current age (the curse), reverts to the word used by the man (Moses) who first described Israel's ages. It is the same word used the same way in the same context. It is as simple as that. This agreement between Moses and Christ should not surprise us, and this solution to our puzzle is both simple and perfectly rational. Also, it believably harmonizes scripture we no longer have to pretend that the contents of Matthew 24 fit into the decades immediately following Christ's first arrival.
If, however, we insist on the ordinary meaning of generation in Matthew 24, it creates enormous problems first, there are the incoherencies within Mat 24. After that we have to throw out Moses' prophetic structure. Then there are all passages in the prophets (the same guys who prophecized Christ's first arrival) which tell of Israel's return after its long exile; then there is the historical stuff like the temple mount being split in the three, etc, etc the problems are endless and they render prophecy incoherent. In fact, we are forced to throw out significant chunks of prophecy (in effect rewriting the Bible), rendering prophecy and the Bible unbelievable. Why create unnecessary problems for ourselves when there is a simple and rational explanation that causes all prophecy to cohere with itself and history?
Q.E.D.
The intended audience of this is twofold. First, it is addressed to those new to prophecy, and who, taking it seriously for the first time, have found themselves confused or in doubt about Christ's use of generation because it cannot (apparently) be squared with actual history (or the rest of prophecy).
The second intended audience is, of course, our preterist brothers. When it comes right down to it, Christ's use of generation is the only prop for their position. All the other preterist arguments are easily dispatched. Take away generation and the preterist position utterly collapses under the weight of prophecy and historical contradiction.
In spite of the fact that the preterist wanders about throwing away parts scripture, I want to be sympathetic, and I think I can. The preterist is enamored by the new covenant's universality. God promised Abraham a universal blessing for all the people of the earth, and its actuality arrived in Christ and his message, and it is a very great gift and a very great new truth. To the extent that the preterists perceives this and is awed by it, the preterist does well and is, in fact, correct; we should all rejoice in it, and in the spiritual equality that God grants in the new spiritual Israel.
But the simple fact is that the same prophets (including Moses) who say the Jew will fail miserably and go into exile, also say the God will reclaim the Jew and make him useful again. My guess is that the root of the preterist objection to much prophecy is that he perceives the Jew's return to be an offense against the universality of God's message and the new Israel. But it is not. The Jew's story is one of historical differentiation, not spiritual. There should be no real offense in the Jew's return, because it is not a return of spiritual distinction, but rather of spiritual unity within a historically differentiated new Israel. God says that in the millennium the Messiah will re-join the staff of Judah and Ephraim and wield them in unity. It is a picture of a united spiritual Israel, but one which contains a complex historical expression.
It is even possible to see humor in this. The Pharisee could not understand out how one God could have different parts it contradicted his conception of God's unity. Likewise, the preterist cannot understand how a unified Israel can be historically complex. But this historically complex Israel is what scripture describes a latter day Judah redeemed from its errors, stupor, and great failure. Tragically, the complex God was a stumbling block for many Jews, and equally tragically, it seems likely that a complex Israel may be a stumbling block to some Christians despite Paul's rather pointed warning. Thus, in the same way that a doctrine prevented most Jews from seeing that the eruption of belief amongst gentiles was the beginning of the promised Abrahamic universalism for the blessing of all mankind, likewise some Christians will fail to recognize the millennium's start because they have failed to subsume elements of Israel's prophetic story into their view of history. Thus, the Jew failed to understand the story of Israel's curse and the suffering servant, saw no need for it, and simply ignored it. Likewise the preterist does not understand the story of the Jew's return, sees no need for it, and simply ignores it. But both stories are there, and both are undeniable; in fact, the story of the Jew's return is far more prevalent than the story of the suffering servant. This, of course, does not absolve the Jew of his failure to penetrate scripture; but what is our excuse? especially when we have the Jew's disastrous example as our warning? If we are not careful their past failure will become an accusation against us.
God is not returning Judah to glorify the Jew, but rather to glorify himself. It was foreseen, stated from the beginning. It is not safe to oppose God's plans. How serious a sin preterism is can be debated; I think it very much depends on the preterist's motives and knowledge. At best, it may be entirely innocent a thing told by one's father and unthinkingly accepted, believed, and never examined. At its worst it is the profession of a vision willfully contrary to what scripture clearly states, an attempt to erect a God congenial to one's own purpose and will a form of idolatry, in fact. Each one of us has, at some point, to decide which we love more: God, or some theory of God (or prophecy). If we love God more, we will accommodate ourselves to scripture. If not, God has his answer, and his book has done its job.
We should all be able rejoice in Israel's universality and equality; likewise we should also be able to rejoice in its strange complex historical expression. God's fulfillments of prophecy's often have unexpected twists to them; they are surprises which should delight and amaze, but if we are not careful to align our doctrine to scripture's full prophetic story, they can become stumbling blocks (large or small).
