Rapture: The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind (27 page)

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.