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MAKING SENSE
OF JESUS'
PROPHECY INTRODUCTION In the Bible "the last days" refer to thousands of years. After establishing that point I will show that Jesus' prophecy of Matthew chapter 24 makes sense when taken literally. Jesus gave his
prophecy
to
four disciples
on the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem.
THE LAST DAYS – THOUSANDS OF YEARS The New Testament teaches that Christ's return and the end of this world would delay. For
example
Jesus said
to
Peter the Apostle: Truly,
truly I say to you, when
you were young you girded yourself and walked where you would; but
when
you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go. (John 21:18) The subsequent verse explains: Obviously Peter
would
grow old and die
before Christ returned.
The apostle Paul
also
knew
he would die before
the end of this age. (Acts 20:17-38)
In the parable
of the
wise
and the foolish
virgins Jesus said:
As the
bride
groom was delayed
they all slumbered and slept. (Matthew 25:5)
In the parable of
the
talents Jesus said:
Now after
a
long
time the master
of those servants came and sealed accounts with them. (Matthew
25:19)
How long would the Christian era be? On the day
of
Pentecost
Peter quoted the
prophet Joel of the Old Testament: And in
the
last days it shall
be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and
your
sons
and your daughters will prophesy... And I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke; she sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and manifest day. (Acts 2:16-21) Later in life Peter
explained: But do not
ignore
this one fact, beloved,
that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years
as one day. (2
Peter 3:8)
The "last days",
therefore, are "days"
of a thousand years. The plural suggests at least two such "days". THIS GENERATION In his prophecy
on the
Mount of Olives Jesus
spoke of wars, earthquakes, famines, pestilences, persecutions,
world-wide
evangelism and a "great tribulation" and then said: Truly, I
say to
you,
this generation
will not pass away till all these things take place. (Matthew
24:34;
Mark 13:30; Luke 21:32) The problem is that the phrase "this generation" meant Jesus' own generation and "all these things" seemingly includes Jesus' second coming. Had a future generation been intended he should have said "that generation". On other
occasions when
Jesus said "this
generation" it also meant his generation. (Matthew 11:16;
12:41-45;
23:36)
MATTHEW 24:4-14: MANY CENTURIES SUMMARIZED
Jesus had just predicted that the Temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed and: ...there
will not
be
left here one stone
upon another, that will not be thrown down. (24:2)
1 "When will this be? (or When shall these things be?)" 2 "What will
be
the sign of your
coming and of the close of the age?" (24:3)
Jesus
foretold
of false
Christs, wars, famines
and earthquakes but stressed:
Such events, therefore, are not signs of "the end". The
imminent
"end" or
"close of the age"
would be indicated by worldwide preaching: And this
gospel of
the kingdom will
be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations;
and then the end will come. (24:14)
We
have in
verses
4-14
a broad summary
of the centuries – fake Christs, wars, famines, earthquakes and
persecutions – culminating
in: …this
gospel…preached
throughout the
whole world.
At this stage Jesus has not answered either of the two questions but has merely summarized the future in a general sense. GENERAL DESCRIPTION FULFILLED The period 29 BC to 160 AD was relatively peaceful. The major conflicts were the Wars of the Jews and the Roman invasions of Britain and Mesopotamia. Mostly the Pax Romana or Roman Peace prevailed. However, Jesus' general survey of the centuries showed this would change. WARS – DATES AND DEATHS
FAMINES – DATE, PLACE & DEATHS
DISEASE EPIDEMICS
(LUKE 21:11)
The accompanying
charts list some major events.
There were earthquakes and famines in the first century and some are
mentioned
in the Bible. Bubonic plague and pneumonia recurred in Europe about 60
times between 1346 and 1720!
There were
also new
pandemics which had a
continuous, gradual attrition rate. Syphilis may have killed 100
million
per century from the 16th century onwards. Smallpox
destroyed
the Aztecs and Incas. In the 18th century smallpox killed 60
million Europeans! Currently, worldwide, 3 million die annually from
tuberculosis,
2 million from malaria and 3 million from sexually transmitted diseases.
Similarly with famine and war. The charts give only the biggest events. Walford (1878) listed 350 major famines from 6 AD to 1878 AD! According to De Castro (1973) 400 widespread famines occurred in Europe between the 10th to 16th centuries. World wars are
not
just
a 20th
century phenomenon. Strayer et al (1974) wrote: "The War of the
League
of Augsburg was waged in India and America as well as in Europe, so it
may be called the first of the modern world wars." That war
lasted
1688 to 1697.
The
following
century
saw a further three
world wars and the start of a fourth: 1702 to 1713 Repeated population crashes in Europe, Asia and the Americas through many centuries make modern times seem tame. For example: ...the
invasion of
China in 1280 by the
Mongols, and the Black Death about 30 years later...reduced the
population
from about 140 million to 80 million over a period of 50 years.
(Llewellyn-Jones
1974)
Jesus spoke of
the
"increase of lawlessness"
or "wickedness is multiplied". (Matthew 24:12) The stimuli for
widespread
decline of peace and order included famine, pestilence, climate change
and impacts of asteroids/meteorites. Such impacts (of the size that
occurred
in 1908 in Siberia) may have occurred in Asia in the 5th century
(Gribbin
& Gribbin 1996) and set Barbarian nations in motion against
established
empires like Rome and China.
An example of climate change (one of many) is given in Lamb (1982): across Asia to trade luxuries from China. But by the fourth century AD, as we know from changes of level of the Caspian Sea and studies of the intermittent rivers and lakes and abandoned settlements in Sinkiang and central Asia, drought developed on such a scale as to stop the traffic along this route. (p. 151) Information about
earthquakes (Matthew 24:7)
appeared in Investigator No.37 (with one correction in No.41
p.
50) and need not be repeated here.
Space
constraints
preclude summaries of events
fulfilling Jesus' other words – regarding persecutions, false prophets,
preaching, etc.
Next we'll discuss the disciples' first question: By "these things" is meant the destruction of the Temple. (24:1-3) In verse 15 Jesus answered: The Romans withdrew for several years. Believers in Jesus then obeyed the words: …then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains… (24:16)In 70 AD the Romans returned. Jerusalem was jammed with Jews visiting for a festival. Josephus, a Jewish historian, wrote: (Wars of the Jews Book 6 Chapter 9) Jesus describes this as: Interpreters then have problems with verses 29-31 describing Christ's return: Many get around
the
problem
by having two fulfilments
and therefore two great tribulations. However, Jesus didn't even hint
at
such an idea! A few interpreters place Christ's Second Coming in 70 AD
or 73 AD! However Revelation, written about 90 AD, makes Christ's
return
still future.
An explanation
that
makes sense is to assume
that the great tribulation is a long period – many centuries long.
Luke's
version of the prophecy gives the added detail:
and be led captive among all nations; and Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. (Luke 21:23-24) The tribulation,
then,
lasts all the centuries
that the Jews are dispersed and Jerusalem is ruled by Gentiles i.e. by
non Jews. The tribulation and the 'times of the Gentiles" overlap
for most of their duration.
The
tribulation is the "great
tribulation" upon "this
people" (Luke 21:23), i.e. upon the Jews because it is their
longest
exile from Israel with the greatest persecution. Other tribulations
such
as Israelite slavery in Egypt and the exile in Babylon were shorter and
less traumatic.
The tribulation would see many false Christs and false prophets: Several false
Christs had
thousands of Jewish
followers around 70 A D. After that the more-famous Christ-pretenders
included:
Until the 1930s Jehovah's Witnesses promoted an invisible false Christ who returned in 1874! The tribulation would end as follows: those days will be shortened. (Matthew 24:22) The phrase "no
human
being" is an interpretation
of the translators of the RSV Bible. Most Bibles say "no flesh
would be saved". And since the tribulation is upon the Jews "no
flesh" would refer to the Jews. In other words the tribulation
ends
after the Jews face extermination.
At present
the
only event matching
such words is the Holocaust which ended with the Second World War.
Hitler
exterminated about 1/3 of the world's Jews. Had Adolf Hitler won his
war
probably "no [Jewish] flesh" would have survived.
Jerusalem is currently in Jewish control again except for the site of the Jewish Temple which is occupied by the Dome of the Rock. Therefore the 'times
of the Gentiles" seem
fulfilled or almost so – as judged by current appearances –
because
the Jews have Jerusalem. (Luke 21:24)
We have now answered the first of the disciples' two questions. THE SECOND QUESTION AND SECOND ANSWER To
recapitulate:
Christ's preliminary words
(to verse 14) described the centuries until the "end" in a general
sense.
Christ's answer to the first question "when shall these things be?"
described
66 to 70 AD and then on through centuries until the finish of the
tribulation.
In Matthew 24:29-31 Christ answered the second question which was: The answer is: 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. (24:29-31) the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. (21:25-27) The prophecy of
Jesus so
far makes good sense
taken literally. Therefore let's take the words describing the time "after
the tribulation" literally as well.
The darkening of the sun and moon could occur if clouds of dust/smoke/water fill the atmosphere. "Nations in
perplexity at the roaring
of the sea and the waves" would literally be the case if the ocean
levels rose and threatened all the coastal cities around the world.
I made this connection in 1971 upon reading Wilderness and Plenty (1971) by Sir Frank Fraser Darling: is 9000 feet thick, so if that were to melt, with an equivalent melting of the Antarctic ice, the level of the oceans would rise considerably. Our ports would go under quite literally, and with them vast tracts of fertile soil. (p. 63) When the Bible
discusses
events in the "heavens"
it discusses them from the view or observation of earthbound observers
of ancient times. "Heavens", therefore, refers to the sky.
"Stars"
in the Bible can refer to what we too call "stars" – the twinkling
objects
in fixed positions relative to each other. To an ancient Jew, however,
the word "stars" would include the planets – these being "wandering
stars"
(Jude 13) – and also "shooting stars" or meteors.
An impact of
an
asteroid
around five kilometres
wide would "shake" the atmosphere causing massive winds and storms – in
effect shaking the sky or "heavens". The debris thrown up around the
Earth
by such an impact would fill the sky with "shooting stars". Dust and
debris
and shooting stars filling the sky would blot out the sun and moon.
Such an impact would shake the entire planet and wreck cities worldwide. There would be: THIS GENERATION Consider now: The phrase "these
things"
refers to the Temple
and surrounding buildings and their destruction (24:2, 3) and also to
fake
Christs, wars, famines, etc. (24:8)
The generation
of
Jesus
lived to see the
Temple and Jerusalem destroyed as well as early examples of the other
things – false Christs, famines, earthquakes, etc.
In the
prophecy Jesus
repeatedly used the
pronoun "you". This suggests that the four disciples
directly
addressed
would live to experience what he spoke about. (24:4, 6, 9, 15, 20, 23,
25, 26, 34)
However,
when
Jesus
described the time "immediately
after the tribulation" he said …they will see the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven. (24:30) The statement "this generation will not pass away till all these things take place" therefore excludes the "immediately after" period. It refers to "all these things" – fake Christs, wars, famines, etc – up to the early stages of the tribulation. CONCLUSION Numerous sectarian groups try to fit the prophecy of Jesus into the 20th century. They argue we've had greater famines and wars and pestilences than before. The statistics prove this approach wrong. Such approach also ignores simple grammar by confusing "this generation" – of the person speaking – with "that generation" meaning a generation other than the speaker's generation. Until verse 28 of his prophecy Jesus described all the centuries until his return. We can't identify any particular war, or famine or precise other event after 70 AD to the end of the tribulation, from Jesus' words. This gives meaning and significance to his repeated command to "watch therefore". However, the
current
existence of Israel
and the preaching of the gospel in thousands of languages (24:14)
suggest
we're near the period Jesus called "immediately after the
tribulation". We
even have scientific explanations of how the "stars" could
fall,
the sun be darkened, the sea and waves cause "distress of nations" and
the "powers of the heavens (=sky)" be shaken. De Castro, J. 1977 The Geopolitics of Hunger, USA, p. 50 Darling, Sir F. F. 1971 Wilderness and Plenty, Ballantine Books, USA/UK, p. 63 Gribbin, J. & Gribbin, M. 1996 Fire On Earth, St. Martin's Press, USA Jonsson, C. O. 1987 The Sign Of The Last Days, Commentary Press, USA Lamb, H. H. 1982 Climate History And The Modern World, Methuen, Great Britain Llewellyn-Jones, D. 1974 Human Reproduction and Society, Faber & Faber, Britain, p. 51 Peris, G. H. 1909 History of War And Peace, Williams & Norgate, Britain Strayer, J. R. Gatzke, H W & Harbison, E H 1974 The Mainstream of Civilization Since 1500, Second Edition, Harcourt Brace Javanovich Inc., USA, p. 452 Walford, C. 1878/1879 The Famines of the World: Past and Present, Journal of the Statistical Society, Vol 41 pp. 433-434; Vol 42 pp. 79-275 |