Perhaps no other part of the Gospels has caused the casual reader as much confusion as has the Olivet Discourse. It undoubtedly contains important information, because all three of the synoptic Gospel authors (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) deemed it important enough to include.

Because of its complexity, we will focus on Matthew’s account. It is a long passage, encompassing all of Matthew 24 and 25. There are slight variations from Matthew in both Mark and Luke, but once Matthew is understood, the other two are not difficult to understand. We will borrow an insight from Mark or Luke when it sheds further light on Jesus’ meaning, but I will leave it to you to investigate the other two passages further.

C. S. Lewis was a former agnostic who became one of the most eloquent apologists of the twentieth century. His books on Christianity have helped thousands; I am one of them. I first read Lewis in college, and over the years his books have helped me answer many questions.

Lewis defended Christ and God’s Word when most intellectuals scoffed. But when it came to the Olivet Discourse, Lewis was embarrassed by some of Jesus’ predictions. Of Matthew 24:34 he wrote, “It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible.” (“World’s Last Night,” 1960 essay in TEL, 385).

What in the Olivet Discourse could embarrass a faithful Christian apologist such as Lewis?

The Olivet Discourse contains Jesus’ answers to two very short questions asked by the disciples: “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the close of the age?” (24:3).

In response, Jesus predicts many signs and events. About halfway through this long passage, Jesus promises the coming of the Son of man within a generation by stating, “They will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of Heaven with power and great glory.… Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place” (24:30, 34).

This was the source of Lewis’s embarrassment. He believed that Jesus had not kept His word to return within a generation. As far as Lewis could tell, the signs and the coming that Jesus had predicted did not occur within His generation either. Lewis believed that Jesus was God, but that in this case He was showing the “man side” of His personality. Lewis could not understand how Jesus could be anything but wrong in this case.

With all due respect to Lewis, I believe that his view of the Olivet Discourse insults Christ. But Lewis was not the only person who found the promises of Jesus to be ingenuine. In his book Why I Am Not a Christian, Bertrand Russell cited the Olivet Discourse as one of the reasons Jesus could not have been God. Russell pointed to what he considered the obvious fact that the “coming” that Jesus foretold had not happened within a generation. To make matters worse, Jesus did not stop at predicting certain signs and events within a generation. To add emphasis, Jesus continued, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (24:35). Jesus seemed certain these events would transpire before His disciples all passed away.

Perhaps without knowing it, Russell was actually using the Old Testament criterion recorded in Deuteronomy for determining the trustworthiness of a prophet. “When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you need not be afraid of him” (18:22). Russell was right to hold Jesus to the same standard. In fact, he was being more consistent than was the Christian apologist Lewis.

But that leaves the issue unsettled. Was Russell correct in his conclusion? Was Jesus a false prophet? Or is this an unfair insult? You probably know what my answer will be, but we need to work our way through the evidence.

We will look at two ways of handling Lewis’s embarrassment and Russell’s skepticism. The first is the rapturists’ method. Rapturists agree with Russell that the events Jesus foretold in the Olivet Discourse did not come to pass within the generation of the Apostles. This is in spite of Jesus own words: “This generation will not pass away till all these things take place” (24:34).

They squirm out of the situation by claiming that Jesus did not mean exactly what the Gospels record Him as saying. They usually take one of two mutually exclusive tacks. Rapturists propose both of them in the hope that you might find one or the other plausible.

Both tacks can be found in the New Scofield Reference Bible, in a footnote under Matthew 24:34. “The word ‘generation’ (Gk. genea), though commonly used in Scripture of those living at one time, could not mean those alive at the time of Christ, as none of ‘these things’—i.e., the worldwide preaching of the Kingdom, the tribulation, the return of the Lord in visible glory, and the regathering of the elect—occurred then. The expression ‘this generation’ here 1) may mean that the future generation which will endure the tribulation and see the signs, will also see the consummation, the return of the Lord; or 2) it may be used in the sense of race or family, meaning that the nation or family of Israel will be preserved ‘till all these things be fulfilled,’ a promise wonderfully fulfilled to this day” (emphasis mine).

First, rapturists claim that the “generation” of which Jesus was speaking is not the one that heard Him say these words. Jesus gave various signs to warn His followers of a tribulation about to break over them. Rapturists say that the generation Jesus refers to is the one that first sees the signs Jesus has described.

Most rapturists today believe that this generation began when Israel was formed as a modern state in 1948, although some maintain 1967 is a more likely date. They call the people who saw this event the “final generation” or the “generation of the fig tree.” This expression comes from this same passage: “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near” (Matt. 24:32). Rapturists unequivocally claim that we, the people of the early twenty-first century, are the final generation.

This solution has its problems. The reinterpretation of the word generation is just plain dishonest and inconsistent with the Greek word’s meaning. Jesus uses the phrase “this generation” many times, as does the rest of the New Testament. The word generation is used thirty-four times in the New Testament, and the phrase “this generation” is used twenty times. Without exception, it always refers to the people who were alive, listening to the speaker. In fact, Jesus uses this same word just a few verses before the Olivet Discourse to refer to His own generation. No one tries to reinterpret the meaning of this word on that occasion (Matt. 23:36).

Further, the word generation is not used in a vacuum. Jesus continually speaks during the discourse in the second person, you (Matt. 24:9, 15, 20, 25, 32, 33, 34). He obviously meant the generation of those hearing Him. One of these references within the Olivet Discourse is particularly interesting: “You will be beaten in synagogues” (Mark 13:9). It would be hard to imagine this prophecy being fulfilled anywhere in the twenty-first century. When was the last time you heard of a Christian taken away to the local synagogue for a good, old-fashioned whipping? Jesus must have been referring to the generation of those listening, the “you.” That is the meaning of the word and the implication of the context.

The second rapturist attempt to explain this word is to say that Jesus did not mean generation at all, but race. In other words, the Jewish people would exist as a distinct race within humanity until these signs were fulfilled. They hold to this position even though the Gospel writers had other words they could have used to express race more clearly. If they understood Jesus to mean something other than the people living at the same time as His disciples, they could have used the Greek words ethnos (“nation”), genos (“kindred”), or suggenes (“kinsmen”).

This second solution seems to imply that Jesus was pulling the wool over the disciples’ eyes with virtually meaningless statements. His prediction could wait almost forever, as long as there remained a distinct Jewish race.

Yet Jesus was specifically answering a when question from His disciples. Just as in Daniel, we must be very careful about interpreting any passage in such a way that it makes it seem as though a straightforward question regarding time is answered by God in a deceitful way. The listener at that time would have thought Jesus was claiming that these events would occur in forty to sixty years, yet rapturists push them back two thousand years or more. That presumptuous parenthesis rears its ugly head again.

The most obvious conclusion from all of this is that Jesus really did mean the generation that included His disciples. To explain that away clumsily is no less insulting than is Russell’s claim that Jesus was simply wrong. Indeed, Christians deserve to be the objects of scorn when they propose the type of word-parsing that rapturists perform on this statement of Jesus. It comes across as dishonest, because it is. It is insulting to the original speaker’s intent.

Both of the attempted solutions are demolished by a parallel passage in Luke. In Luke’s version of the Olivet Discourse, specifically Luke 21:20–24, there are details that were entirely fulfilled in 70 A.D. Even the New Scofield Reference Bible admits this. But the rapturist tries to claim that Matthew and Mark, because they omit some of the identical details of Luke, are actually talking about a different event! In notes on Matt. 24:16 and Luke 21:20 Scofield writes, “The passage in Luke refers in express terms to a destruction of Jerusalem which was fulfilled by Titus in A.D. 70.… Two sieges of Jerusalem are in view in the Olivet Discourse, the one fulfilled in A.D. 70, and the other yet to be fulfilled at the end of the age.”

We would not interpret other parallel passages in Scripture in this way. For example, there are multiple descriptions of Jesus’ Resurrection, each containing different details. Do rapturists believe in more than one Resurrection as well? Of course not, but that heresy would be entirely consistent with the hermeneutic they employ in the Olivet Discourse. Isn’t it much more likely that Luke merely chose to add a few details of the Olivet Discourse that Matthew omitted?

Besides relying on a faulty hermeneutic, both rapturist solutions are based on circular reasoning. They claim Jesus could not have meant His generation, because the events didn’t pan out (from their perspective) as He had prophesied. They are forced to twist the obvious meaning of Jesus’ statement because the prediction did not come to pass.

When Jesus predicted the events of the Olivet Discourse, He fully expected those in the first century to understand that they would see the events transpire. He didn’t expect them to have to reinterpret the meaning of simple, common words. Jesus never intended us to question our understanding of what “is” is.

The only convincing response the rapturist can muster is Scofield’s note referenced previously—namely, that “none of ‘these things,’ i.e., the worldwide preaching of the Kingdom, the tribulation, the return of the Lord in visible glory, and the regathering of the elect,” has yet occurred anytime in history (SRB).

But what if there has been a fulfillment of the Olivet Discourse? That would destroy the rapturist argument at its root. Russell would be proven wrong, and Lewis would be relieved that His Savior was not a false prophet.

A different and potentially more satisfying solution to the problem is to understand correctly the two questions asked by the disciples in Matthew 24:3.

Two questions combined into one sentence can cause confusion if we are not careful listeners. For example, suppose your teenage daughter asks for permission to go to the prom, because she and her date would like to go afterward with a group of friends to a summer cottage for a sleepover. Contained in that sentence are two very distinct questions: First, can I go to the prom? Second, can I go to a sleepover with my date? I do not know about your home, but for our children, the answers to those two questions would be very different indeed!

The key to understanding the Olivet Discourse is to understand that it contains two distinct questions. Jesus gives distinct answers to each, but some people insist on confusing them. They really have no excuse. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record this discourse with essentially the same responses. Luke, however, places the two questions, with their two answers, in entirely different chapters. In other words, if someone is confused about which question is being answered at any given point, he need only turn to Luke, where the separation is crystal clear.

The early Church knew there were two questions with different answers. The fourth-century archbishop of Constantinople, St. John Chrysostom, split this text into two sections. “When the Lord had finished all that related to Jerusalem, He came in the rest to His own coming” (cited in GCC in Matt. 24:23).

St. Augustine agreed: “In answer to the disciples, the Lord tells them of things which were from that time forth to have their course; whether He meant the destruction of Jerusalem, which occasioned their question … or the end itself, in which He will appear to judge the quick and the dead” (EPA, CXCIX:9).

The division between these two questions is still recognized by many scholars. It should be. It is really quite obvious. Keeping their distinctly different answers separated in our minds will overcome Russell’s objections in this passage. We need to determine what events Jesus claimed would be fulfilled within a generation, and whether they actually were. If they were fulfilled within the generation of those listening to Jesus, then Russell is dead wrong in using this prophecy to question the divinity of Jesus. Furthermore, if the fulfillment is apparent, the rapturists’ parsing of words will be unnecessary.

The first question of the disciples was “When will this be?” Jesus had just condemned the Temple to destruction. The disciples were anxious to know when this would occur.

The second question was “What will be the sign of Your coming and the close of the age?” This is a very different question, pertaining to events separated from the first question by thousands of years, and requiring an entirely different answer. The simplest and most straightforward method of understanding this passage is to accept that Jesus answered these questions one at a time, in the order in which they were posed.

I propose that Matthew 24:4–35 (along with Mark 13:1–31 and Luke 21:5–33) answers the question of when the Temple would be destroyed. Matthew 24:36–44 (along with Mark 13:32–37 and Luke 17:22–37) answers the second question, which is essentially “What signs can You give us that history is coming to its eschatological climax with the second advent?”

We will take the two questions in order, one at a time. If the early Church was right, and Russell was wrong, then all the details of the first question should be fulfilled in one generation, as Jesus predicted, and the details of the second question are awaiting the future coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

We will proceed verse by verse through the two answers of Jesus. Then we will look at four stories immediately following the Olivet Discourse that will help explain how we should live given the events that Jesus foretold. We will briefly glean some lessons from those also.

As we would expect, Jesus answers the disciples’ the first question first. The opening verses of the Olivet Discourse set the scene for the first question: “Jesus left the Temple.… When His disciples came to point out to Him the buildings … He answered them … ‘Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down’ ” (24:1–2). No one disputes the historical fulfillment of this prophecy within that first generation of the Church. Some modernists try to avoid any real prophecy by claiming that the early Church was merely inserting history into Jesus’ mouth, after the fact. (Remember GR1!)

But rapturists and loyal Catholics can agree that prophecy is real and that Jesus was absolutely trustworthy in this prediction. He was speaking to His disciples just before the Passion. This places the event at the halfway point of Daniel’s final week. Jesus is predicting the events that will transpire at the end of those seven decades of covenantal transition.

Between 70 and 73 A.D., the Temple complex was destroyed by the Roman army. In their rage in 70 A.D., the Roman legions disobeyed General Titus’s orders and set fire to the Temple. As a result, the gold in the Temple melted down between its huge stones. To their chagrin, these same Roman soldiers were then ordered to dismantle everything stone by stone over a period of three years. By the time they had finished recovering the gold, nothing was left but a field. The Romans then plowed the field under.

The Jewish Talmud understood the defeat at the hand of Titus to be the final fulfillment of Micah 3:12. It states that the Romans “ploughed up Sion as a field, and made Jerusalem become as heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest” (cited on Matthew 24 in XGM). Micah 3:12 and Jeremiah 26:18 predicted the destruction of the Babylonian conquest. The Babylonian destruction, in turn, stood as a prophetic event pointing to the Roman destruction (GR3).

The fourth-century Church historian Eusebius would have agreed with the Talmud on this issue, with the caveat that he believed that Jesus elaborated on the message of Micah and Jeremiah. Eusebius believed that we can take the prophecies of the Olivet Discourse at their straightforward best. Jesus made certain predictions and claimed that His disciples’ generation would live to see His words fulfilled. “All this occurred in this manner, in the second year of the reign of Vespasian [70 A.D.], according to the predictions of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ” (EH, III:7). Yet he also still firmly believed in the future second advent. These are not mutually exclusive beliefs.

Much of the Olivet Discourse involves a discussion of the signs leading up to the destruction Jesus has just predicted. This is the extended answer to the first question. This makes sense when we realize that the defeat of Jerusalem could very well have also meant the destruction of the early Church in Judea. So the eight signs that Jesus said would lead to the Temple’s destruction were important for the Apostles to recognize. They are important for us, too.

“Take heed that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray” (Matt. 24:4–5). During the period leading up to the Jewish-Roman War that culminated in the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., there were several supposed messiahs in Judea who collected an army to fight the Romans. Every one of these messiahs was hunted down and killed by the Roman legions. Their followers were killed or sold into slavery.

Josephus mentions these false messiahs: “Imposters and deceivers persuaded the multitude to follow them into the wilderness, and pretended that they would exhibit manifest wonders and signs that should be performed by the providence of God. And many that were prevailed on by them suffered the punishments of their folly” (AJ, XX, 8:6).

In his fourth-century commentary on the Olivet Discourse, St. Jerome also discusses these deceivers: “At the time of the Jewish captivity, there were many leaders who declared themselves to be Christs, so that while the Romans were actually besieging them, there were three factions within” (cited in GCC). This is a reference to the armies of Simon and John, who fought each other and the Sanhedrin’s followers inside Jerusalem while the Roman siege was underway outside the walls.

In the eighth century, St. Bede also recognized this prediction as fulfilled in the crisis of 70 A.D.: “For many came forward, when destruction was hanging over Jerusalem, saying that they were Christs” (on Mark 13:6, cited in GCC).

Jesus gave fair warning to Jewish Christians of that first century that they should avoid following these deceivers. False messiahs were sign 1. The Temple destruction that Jesus had just predicted was on its way, although not imminent.

“You will hear of wars and rumors of wars” (Matt. 24:6). The decade before 70 A.D. began with rebellion in Britain and ended with rebellion in Judea. The Pax Romana, the Roman-imposed peace that reigned throughout the ancient world, was deteriorating. As if that were not bad enough, there was civil war within the city of Rome itself, among generals fighting for the throne. This fighting was one reason Vespasian suspended his efforts in the war with the Jews in 68 A.D. He “foresaw already the civil wars which were coming upon them, nay, that the very government was in danger” (WJ, IV, 8:1). He was also maneuvering into position for the throne himself. His troops declared him emperor on July 1, 69 A.D., when word reached his army headquarters that civil war was raging within the city of Rome itself.

This was sign 2. Amazingly, Jesus said Christians should not be disturbed by these wars. “See that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet” (24:6). Imagine that! The civilized world is disintegrating into civil war, and Jesus tells His followers not to let it bother them. The fighting was only a necessary preliminary stage before “the end,” meaning the end of the wait for the Temple’s demolition (GR9).

Signs 3 and 4 each merit only a word each in the text. “There will be famines and earthquakes in various places” (24:7). Many Christians today are aware of the famine that plagued the Jews in Jerusalem. St. Paul wrote about it in his letter to the Corinthian Church. He seems to have been regularly collecting donations from the gentile Christians to ameliorate the suffering of the Church in Judea (2 Cor. 8).

Eusebius also documents the famine: “Under [Claudius] the world was visited with a famine, which writers that are entire strangers to our religion have recorded in their histories” (EH, II:8).

Modern Christians seem to be less aware that earthquakes frequently erupted during the decades leading to the destruction of Jerusalem. The city of Colossae was totally destroyed in an earthquake in the 50s. That was the end of the Church there, the same Church that St. Paul addressed in the letter to the Colossians.

Perhaps the most famous earthquake of ancient times was the one in 63 A.D. in Pompeii. The ruins have been excavated by archeologists in our own day. (This earthquake is now famous because Pompeii was utterly destroyed by volcano in 79 A.D.) The earthquake of 63 A.D., along with others, would have been a warning to the Christians about three or four years before the Jewish-Rome War began.

These were signs 3 and 4, but Jesus was careful to let His disciples know that this was not yet the time for action: “All this is but the beginning of the sufferings” (Matt. 24:8). As we will see, the time would come when immediate obedience would mean the difference between life and death, but not just yet. These signs are preliminary, and the situation could get much worse before it got any better.

In the very next sentence, Jesus tells His disciples that it does get much worse. Up until now, the signs have been rather general and impersonal, but now the tone changes: “They will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake” (Matt. 24:9).

Sign 5 is a prediction of religious persecution. Christians would be called upon to endure tribulation and even death. This must have been a chilling prospect for the disciples. In Matthew 10:17–21, Jesus had predicted that even family members would turn their Christian relatives over to the authorities for punishment.

Actually, persecution came early, very early, in the Church’s life. The Sanhedrin persecuted Christians in Jerusalem and used the synagogues as a base for persecution elsewhere in the empire. But the persecution of sign 5 would come not only from the Jewish leaders in the synagogues. Jesus tells His followers, “You will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.” The Gentiles enthusiastically joined in persecuting the young Christian Church.

Nor would this persecution be an anomaly within certain parts of the empire, escaping the attention of the emperors. Mark 13:9 and Luke 21:12 add that the Christians would be hauled before the highest authorities: the gentile governors and kings. The persecution Jesus predicts would be sanctioned by the government itself.

This was a new development. Ever since the day of Pentecost, the Christians had been persecuted by the Jewish religious leaders. But Rome had viewed this as a squabble between two groups of Jews and had not taken sides. As far as Rome was concerned, both groups were a bit of a problem because of their resistance to emperor worship.

In July of 64 A.D., that all changed when two-thirds of Rome burned to the ground. Nero, in his desire to deflect the anger of Rome’s citizenry, singled out the Christians as the scapegoat. Rome officially sided with the Sanhedrin: the Christians were declared seditious. In this new persecution, the entire weight of the Roman political bureaucracy was brought to bear against the tiny Christian community.

The ancient Roman historian Tacitus has documented Nero’s persecution. Christians became hunted creatures in the empire. Many met their death in the Coliseum in Rome as the audiences cheered and jeered. Some were strapped to stakes in Nero’s gardens and burned alive as human torches (AIR, XV, 44). St. Peter and St. Paul seem to have been martyred in Rome during this time. In Jerusalem, Bishop James, the cousin of Jesus and the author of the New Testament book that bears his name, was martyred.

Although intense, Nero’s persecution did not last even three years. When Jerusalem revolted in 66 A.D., Nero’s attention was diverted to the Jewish-Roman War. Finally in 68 A.D., the Roman army, along with the Praetorian guard, rose in rebellion against Nero. He fled from Rome, committing suicide in June of that year.

Eusebius, along with the early Church writer Tertullian, points to Nero as the first Roman emperor to persecute the Christians as part of state strategy (EH, 11, 25). Nero would be followed by others even more ruthless than he, but Clement of Rome wrote that “the Neronian persecution had been a wholesale onslaught of reckless fury” (TBR, 28).

This sign was sure to get the attention of the early Church. The end—the destruction of the Temple, to which all eight signs pointed—was approaching when the gentile state turned on the Christian Church.

Jesus predicts the reaction of His followers to this new and concentrated form of persecution. “Many will fall away, and betray one another.… Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.… Most men’s love will grow cold” (24:10–12). Jesus emphasizes again the coming of false prophets. He was obviously concerned about His young Church holding fast to the Truth. But the main focus in this sign is the reaction of His followers. Many Christians would desert the Christian community; some would turn upon their fellow Christians; some would fall into heresy; and “most” would find their love abating. We can call this sign 6.

We find evidence of this apostasy in the letters to the seven churches that St. John includes in The Apocalypse. The letter to the Hebrews was written in the decade preceding 70 A.D. and gives further evidence that all of this occurred as Jesus predicted.

Times would be extremely difficult during the Great Tribulation of 64 to 67 A.D. But Jesus predicts that even the Roman Empire will not be able to snuff out His Church. The Christians that endure the trials all the way to the end are assured of salvation by the Savior Himself: “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 24:13). We will encounter this promise in The Apocalypse as well.

All this is well and good, say rapturists. Perhaps much of this did occur in the first-century Church. But rapturists claim that the seventh sign proves that this passage is still speaking of a future fulfillment. Jesus predicts, “This gospel of the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14). The rapturist rests confident in the belief that even today the gospel has not been preached throughout the whole world, and so the end spoken of by Jesus cannot have come yet.

Is that a truly scriptural perspective? No. St. Paul states that in his lifetime, the Faith of the Church in Rome “is proclaimed in all the world” (Rom. 1:8). In Colossians 1:5–6, he writes, “You have heard … the gospel … as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing.” There was certainly no doubt in St. Paul’s mind, while writing under inspiration, that the gospel had gone out into the whole world.

Although some Christians seem confused on this point today, the early Church certainly understood that the gospel had been preached to the entire world before 70 A.D. Clement of Rome was bishop when the signs of the Olivet Discourse were being fulfilled (67–73 A.D.). He wrote that Peter and Paul had been martyred, but not before they “taught righteousness to the whole world, and [they came] to the extreme limit of the west” (FEC). Since both Peter and Paul were martyred before the fall of Jerusalem, Clement must have believed the seventh sign was fulfilled before the fall of Jerusalem.

Justin Martyr, born around the turn of the first century, wrote that “from Jerusalem there went out into the world, men, twelve in number, and these illiterate, of no ability in speaking: but by the power of God they proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach to all the word of God” (FA, XXXIX).

Eusebius even connected the seventh sign to Jerusalem’s desolation: “The teaching of the new covenant was borne to all nations, and at once the Romans besieged Jerusalem and destroyed it and the Temple” (POG, I:VI). Eusebius reiterated the relationship Jesus enunciated. He said that the gospel would be preached, “and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14).

St. Bede adds that the Apostles determined to spend their lives fulfilling sign 7: “All the Apostles, long before the destruction of the province of Judea, were dispersed to preach the gospel over the whole world” (cited in GCC). They did this specifically to remove any obstacle to the fulfillment of Christ’s prophecy.

So, given this evidence from both Scripture and the early Church, how can rapturists be so confused about this point? In part, it is because they do not take stock of the two Greek words for world. The Olivet Discourse uses the word oikoumene at this point, which specifically means the civilized world, delineated at the time by the boundaries of the Roman Empire. In other words, the gospel would be preached throughout the entire empire. There is another word for world that designates the entire earth, kosmos. Rapturists act as though this word is used, but it is not.

Kosmos appears later in this same chapter: “from the beginning of the world until now” (Matt. 24:21). Since both words are used in the same passage, it seems quite certain that the Apostles were fully cognizant of these two concepts. Therefore, we can be confident that Jesus taught His disciples that the “end” of the Temple would follow the preaching of the gospel throughout the civilized world, the Roman Empire.

Sign 7 is the first sign that seems to be linked rather closely in time to the end of the Temple. It was also the only sign over which the followers of Jesus had any control. They proceeded diligently to do their part.

All the signs up to this point have been preliminary warnings to the Christians that the time of the destruction of the Temple was coming. Sign 8 is the last sign. It is so closely associated with the end of the Temple that Jesus exhorts His followers to immediate action when it appears. Jesus urges Christians, “When you see the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains” (Matt. 24:15–19). The previous signs have been a warning. Now danger is imminent for anyone near Jerusalem’s Temple.

We can easily miss the direct affront posed by this teaching to the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day. The Jewish scholars at the time taught that Daniel’s desolation had been fulfilled in 167 B.C. by Antiochus Epiphanes, and there would never be another abomination in the Temple. But as St. Jerome pointed out, the desolation in the second century B.C. lasted only for three years, not the three and a half years that Daniel specifically predicted (CID). Jesus specifically teaches here that there was yet another “desolating sacrilege” of Daniel that was still in the future.

The “sacrilege” Jesus spoke of in the discourse would be the result of the Jewish leaders’ rejection of the Messiah Himself. It would result in a change of covenantal relationship for ethnic Jews forever. Antiochus’s actions were a true abomination on the Temple, but at the same time they were merely a foretelling of worse things to come (GR3). The Seleucid Syrians of Daniel 8 and 11 were only a prophetic foretaste of the final desolation foretold in Daniel 9 and 12, when God allowed the Romans to destroy biblical Judaism forever.

Both Matthew and Mark add a phrase to Jesus’ prophecy that was obviously not spoken by Him: “Let the reader understand.” They evidently believed that this “desolating sacrilege” would be so obvious that the average Jewish Christian of the first century would automatically recognize it for what it was.

Luke gives us more specific direction as to what to look for in this “desolating sacrilege.” He writes, “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near” (Luke 21:20). St. John Chrysostom illustrates that the early Church linked the Matthew and Luke passages. “The abomination of desolation means the army by which the holy city of Jerusalem was made desolate” (ANF on Matt. 24:15).

Even casual students of history are familiar with the desolation that foreign armies leave in their wake. But to a devout Jew, the mere presence of any gentile army in Judea would be considered a sacrilege. Add to this the fact that the Romans marched under the banner of an unclean bird, the eagle. For the Roman legions, “the entire religion of the Roman camp consisted in worshiping the ensigns, in swearing by the ensigns, and in preferring the ensigns before all the gods” (APO, XVI, 162). The Jews knew that the Roman legions would worship their ensign and their emperor upon victory.

So what does history tell us about these eight signs? In the summer of 66 A.D., the Roman general Cestius Gallus attacked Jerusalem in response to the cessation of the sacrifices for Nero in the Temple. He actually led his soldiers up to the gates of the Temple, and many Jews thought the Romans had won the battle. The Temple was about to fall. For some unknown reason, however, Cestius unexpectedly retreated.

At this sign of weakness, the Jews pursued the retreating army and killed hundreds of Roman soldiers while acquiring a great amount of war materiel. The Roman garrison, now an island in a sea of hostile territory, was promised safe conduct, but the Roman soldiers were slaughtered once they laid their weapons aside. This repulsion of the Roman army left Jerusalem with the impression that God would continue to protect His Temple, and that they could defeat Rome when it came to battle (WJ, II, 17–19).

Nero was livid when he was informed of this fiasco. He immediately declared war and dispatched Rome’s best general to Israel in February of 67 A.D. General Vespasian set about subduing Galilee and the Judean countryside. He was not about to make the mistake Cestius had. Vespasian fought a campaign in the summer of 67 A.D., and then again the following summer. Upon the completion of these campaigns, he planned to bring his entire army to the siege of Jerusalem.

Suddenly everything changed. Nero committed suicide in June of 68 A.D. Vespasian immediately withdrew from the battlefield. He had something more important on his mind: the emperor’s throne in Rome. Although ultimately successful in that quest, he had to leave Jerusalem unconquered in the meantime. Vespasian fought a third, very brief campaign in the summer of 69 A.D. By then his first rival, Galba, had been murdered (January 69 A.D.), and his second rival, Ortho, had been defeated and had committed suicide (April 69 A.D.). His third rival, Vitellius, arrived in Rome in July. The legions of the east declared Vespasian the emperor, and Vitellius was killed in the fall of 69 A.D. by his own troops. Vespasian’s son, Titus, finally returned to Jerusalem in 70 A.D. to complete the job his father had left undone.

What does this have to do with the escape of the Christians? During the initial withdrawal of troops at the news of Nero’s suicide, it seems that the Romans had left Jerusalem entirely free from siege. This error was quickly remedied, but there was a short period during which no Roman army was surrounding Jerusalem.

Vespasian’s exit did not stop the outlaw Zealots from waging war against each other. One group of them had holed up in Jerusalem for the relative safety it offered. Those within Jerusalem would not allow anyone to leave for fear they would help those outside the city. The outlaw Zealots outside the city would not allow any to leave for fear they were spies.

When Vespasian had secured Rome and its throne for himself, Titus could turn his full attention on Jerusalem. Titus was not about to leave undone the job his father had been enticed to abandon by the death of Nero. By this juncture, the rest of Judea had either sued for peace or been conquered, and Titus was now free to turn his full attention to this rebellious city of Jerusalem (WJ, IV, 10:5).

He paused to let the factions of Jews within the city further decimate each other. The Temple itself was controlled now by one of the groups of outlaw Zealots, battling the priestly class and city residents. The Idumeans, who were the descendants of Esau, had gained entry and were rampaging through the city. And a band of lawless Zealots, who had been encamped outside the walls, eventually got into the city and joined the fray (WJ, IV, 6:2).

The Romans built ramparts to breach the walls, just as Jesus had predicted. “Your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground.… They will not leave one stone upon another in you” (Luke 19:43–44).

Many Jews tried to escape the city once this final siege by Titus was underway, but the opportunity to flee had long gone. It seems that the only opportunity had been either during the brief retreat and pursuit of Cestius, or during the moment when Vespasian decided to seek the throne after Nero’s suicide. Vespasian momentarily pulled his entire army from Jerusalem at that point. Then he thought better of it and sent a portion back.

Jesus knew the margin for error would be razor-thin. “Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house; and let him who is in the field not turn back to take his mantle. And alas for those who give suck in those days! Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath” (Matt. 24:17–20). The Christians had to escape without hesitation when the opportunity presented itself.

Eusebius recorded that the Christians fled en masse because of the prophecy of Jesus, probably in 68 A.D. “The whole body, however, of the church at Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine revelation, entrusted to men of approved piety there before the war, removed from the city, and dwelt at a certain town beyond the Jordan, called Pella.… And when those that believed in Christ had come thither from Jerusalem … the judgment of God at length overtook … and totally destroyed that generation of impious men” (EH, III, 5:86).

This area across the Jordan was primarily a gentile land, under the protection of King Agrippa. Most Christians escaped to Pella in Transjordan, but some traveled down to Alexandria in Egypt, and a few escaped to Asia Minor.

Josephus tells us that many Jews fled Jerusalem immediately after the defeat of General Cestius in 66 A.D. Were they Christian Jews? Eusebius places the flight in June of 68 A.D., when Vespasian temporarily pulled his troops away from the siege of Jerusalem.

It is really not important exactly which opportunity was seized. In either instance, there would have been a very short period in which to escape. Of course, both were at the precise moment when any clear-thinking Christian would have been least convinced he needed to flee.

But the Christians did not look at events without the benefit of a supernatural perspective. They remembered Christ’s words. St. Athanasius informs us that the revelation that Eusebius mentions was the very words of Christ that we have been examining. After quoting the warning of Jesus, Athanasius describes the actions of the Judean Church: “Knowing these things, the Saints regulated their conduct accordingly” (DHF). Without thought of possessions, they fled for their lives.

Virtually no one escaped the Roman army alive once the siege was staged in earnest. Those trying to escape Jerusalem were caught, whipped, and then crucified by the Romans: five hundred people or more each day. Titus “hoped the Jews might perhaps yield at that sight, out of fear.… Their multitude was so great, that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies.” (WJ, V, 11:1).

Eusebius records that not a single Christian was caught within Jerusalem when Titus successfully surrounded the city (EH, III, V)! The early Church had seen the signs of the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy. Their faith in Christ’s words had saved the fledgling Judean Church from extinction.

Some commentators have pointed to Jesus’ statement concerning the Sabbath as evidence of His loyalty to legalistic Judaism: “Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath” (Matt. 24:20). But this shows the typical modernist disregard for context. It is not that the Christians would be observing the Sabbath themselves. Rather, Jesus is concerned that nothing delay His followers in their flight from danger. The gates of Jerusalem would be locked for the Sabbath, and the prohibition on traveling would be enforced by the Temple authorities. This would slow the flight of the Christian community.

Jesus knew that when the eighth sign appeared, there would not be enough time to go back into the home for cherished belongings or even to retrieve a coat. Jesus felt particular pity for pregnant mothers or those slowed by a nursing child. Winter would slow their flight, as would the Sabbath restrictions on travel. All these statements signify the necessity for speed.

Thus far in the discourse, Jesus has predicted the total demolition of the Temple. More important, He has given eight signs to indicate when to flee to the mountains, to prevent the decimation of His infant Church when Jerusalem’s Temple was destroyed.

The first seven signs—the appearance of false messiahs; wars and rumors of wars; famines; earthquakes; state-sponsored religious persecution; the falling away of some Christians; and the worldwide preaching of the gospel—are not linked too closely in time with the Temple’s destruction. The disciples only knew they would happen while the Temple was still standing, as they were the warning of its demise. Here are the seven preliminary signs.

In contrast, the eighth sign—the desolating sacrilege of Daniel (gentile armies surrounding Jerusalem)—is accompanied by an urgent warning to flee immediately when it appears. Jesus stresses, “Let nothing delay you when you see this last sign.”

As we have seen, all of these signs appeared within a generation of Jesus’ prediction (30 A.D. to 67 A.D.). In fact, there were some “Rabbins alive at the time when Christ spoke these things, that lived till the city was destroyed, viz. Rabban Simeon, who perished with the city, Rabban Jochanan Ben Zaccai, who outlived it, Rabban Ishmael, and others” (CNT, II:320).

Could it be that Lewis and Russell are mistaken in their embarrassment and skepticism? Could it be that rapturists are just plain wrong in looking for some future fulfillment of these signs?

St. Bede would have thought so. Speaking of the Olivet Discourse in Mark, he wrote, “It is on record that this was literally fulfilled, when on the approach of the war with Rome and the extermination of the Jewish people, all the Christians who were in that province, warned by the prophecy, fled far away, as Church history relates, and retiring beyond Jordan, remained for a time in the city of Pella under the protection of Agrippa (cited in GCC).

Jesus has warned His Church with eight signs. He now elaborates on His descriptions of the events that will accompany the Temple’s destruction. We will refer to them as five amplifications on the eight simple signs He has already enumerated.

The first amplification elaborates on the nature and the intensity of the tribulation of sign 5. Rapturists assert that this first amplification proves that the Olivet Discourse is still unfulfilled. Jesus states, “There will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no and never will be. And if those days had not been shortened, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened” (Matt. 24:21–22). Rapturists believe that this Great Tribulation will occur during the seven years immediately after the secret rapture. But is that what the text teaches?

Jesus is borrowing the language of Daniel 12:1. This vision of Daniel (III:D) speaks of a severe tribulation during the reign of Antiochus. Daniel is told that the trouble during Antiochus’s time would be the worst ever experienced up to that point. But Jesus states that there is another tribulation that will be even worse than that of Antiochus. It would be the greatest tribulation “from the beginning of the world until now, no and never will be [surpassed]” (Matt. 24:21).

Although rapturists automatically assume this Great Tribulation must refer to Daniel’s final week—a future seven-year trial of ethnic Jews—they lost that part of their time line in Daniel. (Remember that the early Church viewed that week as seven decades of covenantal transition.)

Moreover, the text here in Matthew argues against that understanding. Jesus is speaking here to Christians. He is elaborating on the eight signs He has just given the disciples to protect His infant Church. Those signs were fulfilled before 70 A.D. He has already referred to tribulation in the fifth sign (Matt. 24:9). These all make it apparent that Jesus is referring here to the Great Tribulation of His Church under Nero from 64 to 67 A.D. Jesus is warning His new Church that they are on the eve of an intense battle for survival; the one mention in sign 5 wasn’t enough.

But even granting the severity of the trial under Nero, can we validly claim that this was the worst trial the Church would ever suffer? Was it really a “great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no and never will be”? I believe the answer is an unqualified yes. There has never been, nor will there ever be (until the final eschaton), anything rivaling it (GR3). The Church could have easily been smothered in its cradle if Nero had continued any longer or if the Jerusalem Christians had not escaped to Pella.

Look at the situation. The Christian Church was young and small. For the first time, under Nero, the full might of the Roman Empire was turned against this tiny group of believers. The Church at this time was primarily still Jewish in orientation, yet the Jewish leaders were using their power against the Church as well.

From a human standpoint, it was rather touch-and-go for the Church during this time. Of course, now we know that the Church would survive. But most contemporary observers would probably have given this new sect within Judaism less than even odds of survival. The forces lined against it were too formidable. One commentator has written that the only reason the Church survived at all is that Rome ran out of hungry lions.

Jesus gives us a different reason for the Church’s survival during the Great Tribulation of the first century; there is a supernatural explanation. He predicted that “for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened” (Matt. 24:22). In fact, that is exactly what happened. The Neronian persecution of the Church had begun after the burning of Rome in July of 64 A.D. For two years it progressed in full force, and might have succeeded in stamping out that minor Jewish heresy called Christianity. But in 66 A.D., Jerusalem revolted against Rome. When Rome subsequently declared war on Jerusalem in February of 67 A.D., the focus of Rome’s wrath shifted from the Christian community to its former ally, Jerusalem. With Rome concentrating on a rebellion on its eastern edge, it had decidedly less appetite for picking a fight with the Christians scattered throughout its empire.

Jesus imbues the timing of these secular events with supernatural meaning. The Church survived the persecution of the Jewish and Roman authorities because of God’s merciful intervention. Humanly speaking, the Church probably could not have endured the unabated wrath of Rome and Jerusalem much longer. It is too easy from our perspective in the twenty-first century to assume that the Church would have survived. The disciples did not have that perspective … yet.

This was the Church’s greatest tribulation, because never again would it be in such a vulnerable position. Thank God He “shortened” those days. By the time Rome again focused its hatred on the Church, it had grown stronger, able to survive future persecutions.

This means the Great Tribulation is history! While it can stand as a prophetic event of the final test of the Church (GR3), Jesus’ words cannot be used as a prediction of something still in the future. The Great Tribulation that Jesus prophesied has been fulfilled (GR3).

Jesus now turns the attention of His disciples to a danger more sinister than the Great Tribulation: heresy. “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Lo, here is the Christ!’ … do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will arise … so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Lo, I have told you beforehand” (Matt. 24:23–25).

The concern of Jesus for the survival of His Church extends well beyond it physical safety. He has given them eight signs that will warn them of the time to flee from Jerusalem. He has promised that the time of the Great Tribulation will be shortened. But what eternal benefit is gained in saving the physical lives of the Christian community, only to have them lose their faith through false teaching? As He said elsewhere, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” (Luke 9:25).

Tribulation can damage the Church from without, but heresy destroys from within. Jesus has already warned His disciples of the false messiahs in signs 1 and 6: “Take heed that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name” (Matt. 24:4–5). He is elaborating on His two major concerns for the early Church: tribulation and heresy.

At this point, Jesus seems to have detected an aura of consternation among His disciples. It is not difficult to discern what their problem was. Jesus promised to return at the final eschaton; how would they know that these false messiahs are not really the Lord come again? It is a good question that deserves a thorough answer, and Jesus gives them one: a litmus test for His second coming.

In the next two verses, Jesus contrasts His second coming with the arrival of the false messiahs. The heart of the message is this: “As the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of man” (Matt. 24:27). We will examine these two verses in more depth when we answer the second question, but the sum and substance of the contrast is this: when Christ’s second advent occurs, no one will need to be told about it; there will be no need for a public-relations campaign. False messiahs will have to build a base of support; Christ coming in glory as Judge will not. It will be obvious to all, both good and bad, that the final event of history will have descended upon them.

These two verses are a brief tangent. They contrast the true Christ in His return with the false messiahs who would come first. Jesus needed to assure His disciples that they need not worry about missing His second advent. We will examine these two verses later because they supply details concerning the second question of the disciples. (Remember that Luke’s account makes this division between questions very clear.) In a moment, Jesus will return to the topic of His eschatological return, but He is not done yet with the events of 70 A.D.

At this point in His discourse, Jesus further amplifies our understanding of the events accompanying the destruction of the Temple. He uses accepted Jewish apocalyptic language to describe what will happen to those who will persecute His people during the Great Tribulation: “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” (Matt. 24:29).

Rapturists look at these verses and claim that they must be fulfilled literally. They want to see the sun stop shining. They demand the spectacle of shooting stars. But this ignores how the Bible itself uses such language. Apocalyptic prophecy repeatedly uses heavenly disruptions to describe political upheavals (GR5).

Even the Jewish literature that described the fall of Jerusalem after the fact used this type of language to describe the events surrounding 70 A.D. The Sibylline Oracles, written sometime after 70 A.D., says, “He seized the divinely built Temple.… For on his appearance the whole creation was shaken and kings perished” (SO, 5:150–154; OTP, 1:396).

There is nothing here in Matthew that is at all unlike the language of Isaiah. “The stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising and the moon will not shed its light.… I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place” (Isa. 13:10–13). Isaiah is predicting the defeat of Babylon. Remember Belshazzar’s folly?

Jesus is foretelling the overthrow of those political dynasties that persecuted His Church. He draws a parallel between the “shaking” of Babylon (the conqueror of God’s Old Covenant people) and the “shaking” of Jerusalem (the persecutor of God’s New Covenant people). One disciple, John, will remember this parallel and use it as a backdrop for Vision III:D in The Apocalypse.

Actually, Jesus was not the first to draw this parallel. The prophet Haggai told Jerusalem that one day it would be “shaken” just as Babylon had been: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts” (Hag. 2:6–7).

What was this “splendor”? In explaining this Haggai passage, St. Augustine wrote that the “splendor” that filled this house was Christ, while the “house” was the New Covenant Temple, the Church. Haggai was predicting the shaking, or overthrow, of Jerusalem so that “the treasures of all nations,” the Church, could be revealed (COG, XVIII:48). The shaking of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. cleared the way for the unimpeded growth of the Church.

The New Testament book of Hebrews makes it clear that Christianity remained in a precarious position as long as the Temple sacrifices continued. Many Jewish Christians were turning back to the Temple worship as Jesus had predicted in sign 6. Hebrews reiterates a favorite passage (Hab. 2:3–4) calling for patience in the promises of God. “Do not throw away your confidence.… You have need of endurance.… ‘For yet a little while, and the coming one shall come and shall not tarry; but my righteous one shall live by faith …’ We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and keep their souls” (Heb. 10:36–39).

Jesus’ amplification on the political upheaval accompanying the end of Daniel’s final week in 70 A.D. is a message of hope designed to build up “confidence,” “endurance,” and “faith.” Any Jewish reader with an elementary grasp of his own history would have understood this at once. The nations that hate and persecute God’s people will be judged, but only in God’s good time (GR3).

In point of fact, both of the political dynasties that instigated the Great Tribulation of Christians were destroyed. Nero was the last in his dynasty. The next Roman emperor, Vespasian, was not of his lineage. Yet in just one more generation, Vespasian’s dynasty was also obliterated.

But this prophecy probably speaks even more directly to the end of the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem. This Jewish political machine had hounded the Christians since Pentecost. The Romans joined in the persecution only after three decades of pestering by the Sanhedrin. After the Temple’s destruction in 70 A.D., no high priest could lay legitimate claim to Aaron’s mantle. The Sanhedrin was uprooted forever, never to be validly re-established again.

We now come to the heart of the Olivet Discourse. It is here that Lewis, Russell, and rapturist all agree. Surely, they say, we cannot claim that this prophecy of Jesus has been fulfilled already! Yet because we did our homework in Daniel, that is exactly what we will discover.

Here is how the Revised Standard Version of the Bible translates this verse: at the judgment of Jerusalem, there “Then will appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, 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; and He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matt. 24:30–31).

When the context of Daniel is understood, a strong case can be made for its fulfillment in 70 A.D. Jesus uses the term “Son of man” to describe Himself. This ought to prompt us at least to investigate the possibility that this might be referring to the same event as in Daniel’s prophecy.

Neither the Jewish historian Josephus nor the Roman historian Tacitus ever claimed to be a Christian, nor was either particularly sympathetic to the Christian cause. Yet without ulterior motive, both recorded the appearance of strange heavenly signs at the time of the fall of Jerusalem (WJ, VI, 5:3; THI, 1:5–7, 1:2–3). These could have been “the sign of the Son of man in the Heaven.”

Lest we think that both historians were just gullible ancients, Josephus assures his readers that these events were hard to believe and credible only because of the eyewitnesses involved: “I suppose [this] account … would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those who saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals.

“There was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year.… Before the Jews’ rebellion … so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright daytime; which lasted for half an hour.… Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner court of the Temple … was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night.… The men of learning understood it, that the security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord.… So these publicly declared that the signal foreshowed the desolation that was coming upon them.… A few days after … before sunsetting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds.… Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner court of the Temple, as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, ‘Let us remove hence.’ ”

This cross-like star could easily have been the “sign of the Son of man.” Three centuries later, something very similar to this sign appeared to Constantine just before he fought the battle that made him emperor of Rome. Add the heavenly chariots and the angels that were witnessed in the sky in 70 A.D., and it seems even more likely that the “sign of the Son of man” really did appear above Jerusalem to warn them of their coming judgment by “the Son of man coming on the clouds of Heaven with power.”

We must be careful not to assume that the coming of the Son of man on clouds means that the Son must be coming to earth. Jesus lifted the “Son of man” language directly out of Daniel 7:13–14, so we must respect that context (GR3). We already determined that in Daniel it is perfectly clear that the Son of man is coming toward the Ancient of Days, not to earth!

We have already seen that Daniel’s “Son of man” was publicly recognized as the victor at the judgment of the Sanhedrin in 70 A.D. This is the point at which Christ was vindicated as Judge of His accusers, and the Kingdom was publicly given to the saints, as Daniel’s vision foretold. “The greatness of the kingdoms under the whole Heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom” (Dan. 7:27). What happened here on earth was just the by-product of the heavenly reality.

Of course, the “clouds of Heaven” symbolize the majesty and glory of the Son of man when He judges His enemies. It does not mean that this event of coming could not have occurred on a cloudless day (GR6).

Never lose sight of the fact that Daniel’s Son of man is a judge. In this case, there will be a judgment of the Sanhedrin of Jesus’ generation for what they had done to the Messiah. This is exactly what Jesus predicted when He stood before those very men: “You will see the Son of man … coming on the clouds of Heaven” (Matt. 26:64).

Luke 19:41–44 draws this connection clearly. “When [Jesus] … saw the city, He wept over it, saying … ‘The days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side … and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation.’ ” The Sanhedrin’s rejection of their Messiah had consequences.

When we start to understand the significance of 70 A.D., the words of Jesus at the Transfiguration take on new meaning. Jesus said to those present, “For the Son of man is to come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and then He will repay every man for what he has done. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of man coming in His Kingdom” (Matt. 16:27–28). If Jesus publicly came into His Kingdom in 70 A.D., then He was absolutely correct in telling His disciples at the Transfiguration that some of them would live to see that event. Notice that Jesus links His “coming in His Kingdom” to the fact that “He will repay every man for what he has done.” This need not be primarily a reference to the final judgment, but to the judgment of the Sanhedrin.

The view we are developing understands the prophecies in Daniel, in the Transfiguration, in the Olivet Discourse, and in the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin as all relating to the same event. They all occurred within the generation that Jesus had promised. At the same time, the judgment of 70 A.D. is also a prophecy of the final eschaton (GR3).

The modernist does not like this view. He enjoys claiming to the uninformed Christian in the pew that the Apostles expected the second coming very quickly. He points to these very passages as proof that even Jesus thought the final eschaton would occur within a generation. I hate to rain on the modernists’ parade (I take that back; I enjoy raining on their parade), but their exegesis of these passages lacks an in-depth understanding of Daniel’s “Son of man” prophecy.

We now come to the response of people who would witness this coming of the Son of man in judgment. As Appendix Three notes, this response reflects the language of Zechariah: “Then all the tribes of the earth will mourn” (Matt. 24:30).

What does Jesus mean by “all the tribes of the earth”? This certainly need not imply that the entire planet is mourning over the events in Jerusalem. The Greek word for earth here is ge. It is often better translated as “land.” In Jewish literature, it was common to use land as a reference for Israel and sea to refer to the gentile nations.

In other words, if these signs that Josephus and Tacitus recorded really occurred (and we have no good reason to doubt that they did, aside from our twenty-first-century rationalistic prejudices), then the mourning would be done by the tribes of the land of Israel. It is not at all hard to believe that the Jewish tribes would mourn the impending destruction of the Temple. In fact, they still commemorate that destruction on the ninth of Av every year, in a solemn day called Tisha B’Av.

Finally, Jesus completes the details of what will happen when the Son of man judges the Sanhedrin for their faithlessness: “He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of Heaven to the other” (Matt. 24:31). Rapturists are quite sure this has not occurred yet because they view this as some sort of physical resurrection. But if we understand the Old Testament use of this phrase, we will see that it clearly did occur in 70 A.D.

The “four winds of Heaven” is a common image in the Old Testament. When God providentially scattered a people, the Old Testament described it as being scattered to the “four winds” of Heaven. In other words, God was thorough. In Jeremiah, we read of God’s scattering Elam to the four quarters of Heaven with the four winds: “There shall be no nation to which those driven out of Elam shall not come” (Jer. 49:36). This can happen even to political dynasties, as Daniel describes the split of the kingdom of Alexander the Great as being “divided toward the four winds of Heaven” (Dan. 11:4).

Conversely, when God regathers His scattered people after tribulation, He is said to be gathering them from the four winds of Heaven. In Zechariah 2:6 and Isaiah 11:12, God regathers His chosen people after spreading them to the four winds (or “corners”).

In the Olivet Discourse, Jesus is reflecting the regathering language of Ezekiel. “Come from the four winds … and the breath came into them, and they lived” (Ezek. 37:9–10). In this passage, God resurrects a valley of dry bones (GR7). Ezekiel uses this resurrection language to predict the spiritual rejuvenation and regathering of the Jewish nation after the Babylonian exile. They will be renewed even though they were coming “from the four winds.”

The message of Ezekiel was one of hope to the scattered people of God. At this point, so is the Olivet Discourse. After warning the disciples about tribulation, heresy, flight, and destruction, Jesus predicts the revitalization and reunification of the young Christian Church. By 70 A.D., Christians had been disheartened by Jewish and Roman persecutions. They had been dispersed throughout the known world. First, they had fled the Sanhedrin in response to persecution, and then they fled from the surrounding Roman armies.

It is reassuring to note that Jesus’ message starts but does not end with the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple. Much had to be said about the tribulations and destruction that were to come. The very survival of early Christianity depended on this warning. But Jesus would not end on this hopeless note. He returned to a familiar Old Testament theme: after tribulation there is always a renewed outpouring of God’s grace and love. Jesus would not have His followers doubt that the end of His story would be filled with grace as well.

Once we understand its first-century context, we can say with confidence that Jesus kept His word in the Olivet Discourse. The coming of the Son of man in judgment can certainly be viewed as validly fulfilled in 70 A.D.

Much of my analysis here reflects the research done by David Palm for his master’s thesis at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (awarded “Thesis of the Year” by the faculty). After working with the Greek words and phrases of Matthew 24:30, Palm retranslated the verse as follows: “Then the tribes of the land will see in the destruction of Jerusalem an unmistakable sign that the rejected Son of man is in Heaven, enthroned. They will mourn. The Son will come in glory to the throne of God.”

Palm does an excellent job of making aspects of this prophecy very clear, while remaining absolutely loyal to the Greek text. As we have already seen, God came on “the clouds” in judgment to the Egyptians via the Assyrian army (GR6). Later, King Belshazzar witnessed God’s coming in the Persian army as it meted out His judgment on Babylon. Any educated Jew would have understood the Roman destruction as exactly that: the Messiah’s vindication. Since those who heard Jesus make this prophecy were well-versed in Old Testament usage, the advance of the Roman army and its victory over Jerusalem would have been universally understood as the fulfillment of this prophecy. Jesus promised He would come in judgment on His accusers within their lifetime.

There is good evidence that even the ancient pagan world understood the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans as God’s punishment for their treatment of Jesus. Mara Bar Serapion was a pagan Syrian Gentile who wrote a letter to his son sometime after 73 A.D., trying to encourage him in their struggle against injustice: “What advantage did the Athenian gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men” (cited in NTD, X). The events surrounding 70 A.D. were a pronouncement of the Kingdom of Christ that even the pagans of that day could understand. Jesus was recognized by all as the victor when the Temple was judged.

Our understanding of this prophecy dovetails with that of the early Church, which held that biblical Judaism was destroyed because of its rejection of the Messiah. Before 70 A.D., Christianity was assumed by most in the ancient world to be a small sect within Judaism. The Temple’s destruction cleared the way for the unimpeded growth of Christ’s Church.

The third-century bishop Clement of Alexandria wrote, “[Jesus] confidently set forth, plainly as I said before, sufferings, places, appointed times, manners, limits … and [that] this generation shall not pass until the destruction begins.… He spoke in plain words the things that were straightway to happen, which we can now see with our eyes, in order that the accomplishment might be among those to whom the word was spoken” (CLH, 3:15, cited in ANF, 8:241).

Origen challenged all doubters: “I challenge anyone to prove my statement untrue if I say that the entire Jewish nation was destroyed less than one whole generation later.… For forty and two years, I think, after the date of the Crucifixion of Jesus, did the destruction of Jerusalem take place” (CCE, IV:XXII).

Origen draws the right conclusion: only God could make the type of prediction that Jesus made and have it come true. “Consider how, while Jerusalem was still standing, and the whole Jewish worship celebrated in it, Jesus foretold what would befall it from the hand of the Romans.… At that time there were no armies around Jerusalem, encompassing and enclosing and besieging it; for the siege began in the reign of Nero [three decades after His death]” (CCE, II:XXIII).

Jesus finishes His answer to the first question with the famous fig-tree analogy. This final amplification elaborates on the certainty of the signs pointing to the Temple’s judgment. “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that He is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place” (Matt. 24:32–34).

Fig trees are plentiful in Judea, so Jesus uses this familiar image as an object lesson. When the fig tree puts out its leaves, summer is upon Israel. In like fashion, when the eight signs occur, the coming of the Son of man in judgment will be near as well. In fact, He will be at “the very gates.” What gates would those be? Jesus means the gates of the rebellious city of Jerusalem, of course.

Rapturists claim that the generation of the fig tree did not start with the people listening to Jesus that day. They believe that it did not start until the signs started, which they usually assume to have been in 1948 or 1967. But they do not accept, or have not learned, that all eight signs appeared, and were fulfilled, in the first century.

From our perspective, the entire discourse up to this point is history. This is a biblical perspective. St. John Chrysostom tells us that the reason St. John did not include the Olivet Discourse in his Gospel was that the events surrounding 70 A.D. had already been fulfilled by that time. “John wrote none of these things … (for indeed he lived a long time after the taking of the city), but they, who died before the taking, and had seen none of these things, they write it, in order that in every way the power of the prediction should clearly shine forth” (HOM, LXXVI on Matt. 24:16). There was no point in giving the eight signs to a reader who had already witnessed their fulfillment. The generation of the fig tree had already passed by the time St. John wrote his Gospel.

Ours is not the generation of the fig tree. That generation is long dead.

Perhaps the best indication of the belief of the early Church as regards the Olivet Discourse is not found in a book. We need only examine the actions of the Jerusalem Church in the years surrounding the Jewish-Roman War. It is unambiguous: the early Christians voted with their feet at the time of the Temple’s destruction: they fled. Discounting all the history of their nation, they fled. The early Judean Church believed this warning of Jesus; they fled. And they survived. There can be no clearer evidence of how the early Church originally understood this passage.

We have completed the answer of Jesus to the first question of His followers. “Tell us, when will this [the Temple’s destruction] be?” (Matt. 24:3). Jesus gave His disciples everything they needed to recognize the signs of the coming destruction of Jerusalem. He predicted the Great Tribulation. He predicted He would come as a judge upon their persecutors, the Sanhedrin, and He did. It all happened in the generation listening to Him that day.

As the father of Church history wrote, “If anyone compares the words of our Savior with the other accounts of the historian concerning the whole war, how can one fail to wonder, and to admit that the foreknowledge and the prophecy of our Savior were truly divine?” (EH, III, 7:7). We can trust the word of Jesus, even beyond the point when “Heaven and earth will pass away” (Matt. 24:35).

Here in the Olivet Discourse there is a marked change of tone. Until now, Jesus has spoken of the signs pointing to the destruction of the Temple. He has been very specific with eight signs and then expanded our understanding in five amplifications. He has presented a great deal of knowledge and detail. Now He speaks of the timing of an event of which no one, not even the Son, has any knowledge: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of Heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matt. 24:36).

This is clearly a different event; the verses that follow will answer the disciples’ second question: “What will be the sign of Your coming and of the close of the age?” (Matt. 24:3).

The answer to the second question reminds me of the song that laments, “No time left for you.” In this case, the eight signs refer to the first question, and there are no signs left for the second question.

While the disciples were promised that the events surrounding the Temple’s destruction would occur within their own generation, the events surrounding the eschatological second advent of Christ will occur at a time that even the Son could not pinpoint. I find this to be one of the most amazing statements in the Bible.

Notice how many times Jesus returns to this refrain in the next nine verses. “No one knows.… They did not know.… You do not know.… You do not expect” (Matt. 24:36, 39, 42, 44). Perhaps Christ was anticipating the voracious appetite of many Christians for any hint as to the timing of His second advent. Yet His advice is that we should not bother to try to determine the time. “No one knows.… You do not know.”

It certainly is startling enough to give the disciples warning that they were passing from the first question to the second. For readers who have difficulty sensing this change in tone, however, it is an easy matter to turn to the parallel passages in Luke. In Luke’s account, the two questions and answers are separated by more than three chapters. The first question is answered in Luke 21:5–36, and the second is briefly answered in Luke 17:22–37.

As the answer to this second question unfolds, the contrast between the first and second answers becomes even more evident. “As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man … until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the flood came” (Matt. 24:37–39). People will be living normal, happy lives, oblivious to the judgment about to befall the world. They will be “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,” just as they did just before the flood in Noah’s time.

The contrast between the events surrounding 70 A.D. and the events leading up to Christ’s second coming are striking. The second advent is unexpected, whereas eight dramatic signs presage the judgment upon Jerusalem.

Jesus earlier contrasted His second coming to the appearance of many false messiahs. These were parenthetical verses inserted into the answer to the first question. Let us now return to them.

The analogy then was one of lightning: “For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of man. Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together” (Matt. 24:27–28). These parenthetical verses tell us three aspects of the second advent of the real Christ.

• First, Christ’s second advent will be sudden. There will be no immediate warning preceding it. There will be no eight signs with five amplifications. As with lightning, we may be aware that storm clouds are gathering, but there is no way to predict precisely when or where the lightning will strike.

• Second, the return of Christ will be very public and unmistakable. There is nothing private or secretive about lightning; no one need tell anyone else about its advent. It is immediately experienced by all.

• Third, at the second coming, Christ will draw to Himself those who are His. I believe this is the best interpretation of the enigmatic statement, “Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together.”

Luke records this statement as an answer to the disciples’ question, “Where will those taken at the second coming go?” (17:37). The false messiahs must drum up support for their leadership through recruiting drives out in the desert. In contrast, Jesus’ followers will be inexorably, irresistibly, and immediately drawn to Him when He returns. In other words, don’t worry about finding Christ at the second advent: the connection will be automatic.

To summarize, the second coming of Christ will be unmistakable because it will be so public. Everyone will experience it firsthand. It will come with no immediate warning. Christ’s presence at that moment will draw His faithful people to Him automatically and immediately. This does not resemble a secret rapture in the least.

The entire thrust of Jesus’ message in this second question is readiness: there will be no signs, so we must live each day as though His coming could occur that day. “You also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matt. 24:44).

Matthew includes an interesting play on words. Jesus is recorded as saying, “You do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (24:42). Then He starts the very next sentence with the command “Know this” (24:43). We may not know the time, but we must know our duty: to “be ready.” It is our duty to wait watchfully, lest we be unprepared for the second coming. This second answer is written for you and me. We do not know, so we must always live as though we were ready for eternity.

The coming of Christ will be so sudden that two men will be outside doing chores together, and “one is taken, and one is left” (Matt. 24:40). Two women will be preparing food together and “one is taken, and one is left” (Matt. 24:41).

Now, we must give credit where credit is due. Rapturists have done a magnificent job in convincing Christians that this is a prediction of the rapture, when Jesus will return secretly for His Christians, take them to Heaven, and leave the unbelievers to suffer here on earth. They insert the word behind into the passage. They understand it as “one is taken, and one is left behind.”

But this is not what the verses say, nor does the Greek language support this interpretation. Jesus does not mean one of these people will be left behind. Jesus is speaking here of the second coming that will usher in eternity. It will be impossible to be left behind, because the world will come to an end. No, Jesus is saying they will be left out, left out of His eternal Kingdom when He returns.

The Gospel account uses the Greek verb aphiemi, which most commonly has the meaning of being left, left alone, forsaken, or even sent away. There is another Greek word that would have made it clear that Jesus meant “left behind.” This word is apoleipo, or hupoleipo. The idea that the first person will be taken to Heaven and the second left behind is not justified by the Greek text.

But the context of Jesus’ discourse argues even more strongly against the rapturist understanding of being left behind. How do we know this? Jesus proceeds to tell three parables. When we get to the second parable, we will see that the only reasonable understanding of Jesus’ meaning is not “left behind,” but “left out”—left out of the eternal marriage feast of the Lamb.

The “left behind” controversy should not obscure an important assertion of Jesus: the daily lives of loyal Kingdom subjects will remain entirely comingled with those of the disloyal. People are not sorted into or out of Christ’s Kingdom by physical or national boundaries. Christ’s subjects will be neighbors and friends with unbelievers until the very end, at His second coming. They will be working, living, and socializing together. Some will enter the Kingdom of Heaven in the end, and some will be left out of it. This is the part of these verses that would have shocked any first-century citizen of Rome. This is unlike the four earthly kingdoms that the Kingdom of Heaven replaces in Daniel’s vision. Christ’s Kingdom will not have physical boundaries, because it is spiritual.

Jesus was a master at using parables to clarify His meaning. This case is no exception. The next three stories illustrate how we must live in the light of Jesus’ teaching concerning the suddenness of His second coming.

The first story is about two servants. One of them is faithful and wise; when his Master returns, he is rewarded. The other servant is wicked, and he is punished for his wickedness when his Master unexpectedly returns to find him abusing his freedom. Notice that at the return of the Master, the judgment is the final one, and the return has no warning: “The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him … and will punish him, and put him with the hypocrites; there men will weep and gnash their teeth” (Matt. 24:50–51).

Jesus is clearly alluding to His second coming, which will usher in the final judgment of all humankind. The only thing after the judgment is eternity. Unfortunately for the rapturist, Jesus does not mention any hint of a seven-year tribulation or a Millennium after this coming. All that remains is either eternal bliss or eternal damnation.

Our lesson in this? Never do anything of which you would be ashamed if your Master caught you in the act of it at His second coming. He will come suddenly and unexpectedly. We will be judged. Eternity will immediately follow.

The second story is about ten maidens waiting for the bridegroom, an obvious picture of the Church waiting for the second coming. Five of the maidens were wise and took extra oil for their lamps, so that when the bridegroom was slow in coming, they were still ready. Oil in the New Testament is usually a symbol of the Holy Spirit. These five maidens had prepared themselves for a marathon rather than a quick dash to the final eschaton. The other five maidens were foolish. They ran out of oil before the bridegroom appeared and left to buy more. “While they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast; and the door was shut” (Matt. 25:10). When the bridegroom took the five wise maidens into the marriage feast, the five foolish maidens were left out.

The mention of the marriage feast is a hint that once again we are in eternity. The joy at a wedding reception is analogous to the joy of Heaven. We will encounter the marriage supper again in The Apocalypse.

The main message of this parable? Be ready. You may have associated with Christians your entire life. You may know all the right answers. But you must still remain prepared. Don’t be like the foolish maidens.

Notice how the parable expands our understanding of the earlier phrase “one is taken, and one is left” (Matt. 24:40–41). This parable substantiates our claim that Jesus meant “left out of the eternal Kingdom.” He never meant “left behind at the secret rapture,” as rapturists claim. Jesus is talking about the taking of Christians into eternal bliss. Two men will be working together. One will be taken, and the other left out of the marriage feast (Matt. 24:40). Two women will be together. One will be taken into the marriage feast of the Lamb, and the other left out (Matt. 24:41).

The third parable concerns three servants, each entrusted with a sum of money: one received five talents, another received two, and the third received one. The master left and did not return for “a long time” (Matt. 25:19). When the master returned, he rewarded the servants based on how they had managed the talents he had given them. The obvious message is that our talents—our material goods as well as our abilities—are God-given, and He expects us to use them for Him.

In addition, this third story states explicitly something at which the second story merely hinted. In the second story, the bridegroom came much later than the five foolish maidens expected. In this story, Jesus specifically tells us that the Master did not return for “a long time.”

Jesus was absolutely right; we have been waiting for His coming for a long time. It has been two millennia since the Master left His Church on earth to work for His Kingdom. We might easily wait for two or three more.

This parable is another blow to modernists who assert that Jesus led His Apostles into an unrealistic view of how soon the second coming would occur. In fact, neither Jesus nor His Apostles are guilty of this mistaken belief. Jesus taught that it would be a “long time,” and His followers believed Him.

These three parables are completed by Matthew 25:30. Jesus ends His discourse by giving His disciples a few more details concerning the second question.

First, we learn that at the second coming, the Son of Man will complete the work He set out to accomplish here on earth. How do we know this? Jesus tells us, “When the Son of man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne” (25:31). Sitting signifies the consummation of the Son of man’s work. All the battles are won at that point. All enemies have been subdued. All that remains is the final judgment. Need I say it again? There is no mention of a seven-year tribulation or a thousand-year kingdom after this coming.

“Before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matt. 25:32). Because Jesus mentions the gathering of “all the nations,” some rapturists have tried to read into this passage a judgment different from the final judgment each of us will individually experience at the close of history. Some rapturists foresee two or even three judgments.

But look carefully at the judgment being described. Although we are gathered as nations, we are sorted into the “sheep” side or the “goat” side on the basis of our individual actions: “He will place the sheep at His right hand, but the goats at the left” (Matt. 25:33).

Those who have exhibited the greatest gift, charity, are rewarded for all eternity: “Then the King will say … ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you … for I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you welcomed me; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me” (Matt. 25:34–36). These are the actions of individuals, not of nations, that are being rewarded. Our response to the needs of others will be credited to our eternal account, as though we had helped Jesus Himself: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:40).

Those who have not shown charity to the needy will experience the results of their rejection of God’s commandments: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink” (Matt. 25:41–42). Suddenly, the use of our talents for the Master in the earlier parable becomes apparently important. We must use our talents for the sake of the least of His—and our—brethren. Our eternal destiny depends on it.

Surely, by the end of the Olivet Discourse Jesus has given His disciples much more information than they had expected when they asked two short questions! They were wondering about when the Temple would be destroyed, and perhaps they assumed that the final judgment would occur at the same time. But as we have determined, by the time the Olivet Discourse was recorded for us in all of the synoptic Gospels, the distinction between the two events was well understood.

Jesus told the Apostles that within their generation, eight signs would point to the destruction of the Temple. He then detailed five amplifications. These all occurred. The signs warned of His judgment upon the Sanhedrin—the “Son of man” coming in judgment that Daniel foresaw six centuries earlier. The judgment occurred within a generation, as Jesus had predicted.

The reliability of Jesus’ first answer gives us confidence in His second answer, which is still unfulfilled. Of course, the events surrounding 70 A.D. can act as a prophecy pointing to the second advent, but the two events should not be confused (GR3).

Christ’s second coming will be sudden. It will be public and unmistakable. Christians will be irresistibly attracted to their Lord immediately. We cannot determine its precise timing, so we should live each day in anticipation, yet prepare for the long haul. Christians will be living and working alongside non-Christians when it occurs. Every person will receive his just reward in the end based on the charity he has shown. History itself will end because Jesus will sit on His throne, judge humanity individually, and take His faithful into eternal bliss with Him. Some will be taken into the Kingdom, and some will be left out.

This is nothing less than the Church’s traditional belief in the second advent of Christ. Nothing we have uncovered even remotely suggests the private rapture that rapturists try to deduce from these verses. Nowhere is anyone “left behind.” There is no secret rapture preceding a seven-year Great Tribulation; indeed, the Great Tribulation Jesus predicts here has already come to pass. There is no mention of a separate millennial reign of Jesus as Messiah after the judgment. And nowhere is there any hint of two or three future judgments. The beliefs integral to the rapturist system are conspicuously absent from the teachings of Jesus.