Rapture: The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind (23 page)

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.