Matthew 24: A Primer in Prophecy

By Neil Earle

Matthew 24 is so powerfully vivid because the prophesied events really happened – here are the Roman movements from 66-70 AD. Click to enlarge.

Jesus’ prophetic declarations in Matthew 24 is one of the most gripping chapters in the Bible. His potent warnings against false teachers, warfare, famines, pestilences and earthquakes are often seen as warnings about specific events just ahead of us that will usher in the visible, bodily return of Jesus Christ. After all, had not the disciples asked him straightforwardly: “Tell us, when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age” (Matthew 24:3).

Was this chapter – as I and others used to believe and teach – giving an ironclad step-by-step forecast of signs to look for before the Lord’s dramatic and visible return? Or is there another way to view this which can guide us to a sounder view of the prophets?

“Travel Advisories”

Consider this – Jesus himself was very leery of giving signs. You can see that in Matthew 16:1-5. Some parts of Matthew 24 show him cautioning his disciples about date-setting. Matthew 24:36 quotes Jesus as saying that no man knows the day nor hour of Jesus’ return. And yet, and yet Matthew 24:3 says “This generation will not pass till all these things be fulfilled.”

So let’s back up a little and get some context here. An outline may help. Matthew’s is the most carefully arranged Gospel and this chapter is no exception:

Note that Matthew 24 continues on to include Matthew 25 which leads to a direct personal application to the kind of lives Christians should be living as they wait for their Master’s return. So it shows Jesus is not really expecting everything to be wrapped up – the Church will have a future and Christians have work to do in this world.

In fact, Jesus places as much stress on the state and condition of the church and his disciples as much as anything. This is often overlooked. The very complexity may be one reason why every “expert” on prophecy has flubbed up when trying to predict the Second Coming of Christ.

So here we go, with these cautions ringing in our ears.

The Roman target in the year 70 AD was the Jewish temple. Jesus described it in advance in Matthew 24.

I. Preface questions. It is possible to see three questions being asked here: When will the temple be destroyed? What will be the sign of your coming? When will come the end of the age? The word here is “age” (aionis) not “world” as in the King James. This is a very helpful point.

II. Initial Signs. The seemingly simple straightforward reading of the text which sees Jesus as issuing a series of chronological signs – deceptions, wars, earthquakes – is challenged slightly by Matthew 24:8. This verse makes a break in the narrative flow. Jesus interjects here that these signs are not final and cataclysmic but the beginning of troubles. Truly, earthquakes, wars and famines make up our nightly news. The First Century had them as well. The city of Antioch, where the name “Christian” originated, had earthquakes in 37, 42 and 115 and famines in 46 and 47 AD. These things rank as overall conditions not specific events. So Jesus is cautious here, as he knows how people get obsessed about “signs and wonders.”

III. Pause and Summary. This pause between verse 7 and 9 should make us see how careful we have to be in approaching this chapter. Fools rush in…

IV. Warnings for the Church

This is the section Matthew 24:9-14. “You’ll be persecuted, killed, and betrayed," Jesus warned. “Hang in there – many will not. This Gospel of the Kingdom will go out to the whole world. Then the end will come.”

These are familiar words to many of us.

Did these sober warnings occur? Absolutely. James of Zebedee died early in church history (Acts 12:1). Paul’s sufferings are legendary. Peter exhorted his followers to stand firm, as did Jude and John. But…did the Gospel go out to all the world in the first century? Yes. Check Romans 11:33-36. “But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they did: ‘Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world’…As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news’” (Romans 10:18, 15).

But the “end” that prophecy preachers talk about did not come in the year 95 or 98 or 99 AD. What “end” did Jesus have in mind? It was the end of that age, of the first period of proclaiming the Gospel. The next section shows us very clearly.

The Temple Mount looking toward Mount Olivet. In Matthew 24 Jesus used prophetic styles of address which must be understood to avoid misconceptions, for there have been many. Click to enlarge.

V. “The Outrage of Jerusalem”

Matthew 24:15-25 is a block of material that addresses the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70A.D. Jesus cites the famous Daniel prophecy of the “Abomination of Desolation,” an event Orthodox Jews know from Hannukah – a festival commemorating the liberation and cleansing of the Temple in the 160’s B.C. after its violation (Daniel 11:31). This strange “Abomination/Desolation” phrase had the force back then of “Hiroshima” or “9/11” to Jewish hearers.

Jesus advises his hearers to get out of Jerusalem. Some repetition of 165 BC will occur again. Total extinction of the city was in the offing. This event fell upon the Jews at the hands of the Roman general, Titus. The slaughter was horrific even by modern standards. The Temple was razed and the Romans leveled the city. Jesus had already alluded to this when he wept over Jerusalem in Luke 19:41. There won’t be one stone left on another he said then, showing it’s the destruction of the city he has in view. Check also Luke 23:26-31.

“A time of trouble such as never was or will be?” How about this as indicating some future holocaust? Remember, prophets commonly used hyperbolic speech to give force to their words. It was one of the “tools of the trade” (Joel 3:14; 2 Kings 21:13). But here Jesus was not exaggerating by much when he said it would be a time unlike any other. The Jewish writer Josephus describes the people’s suffering at this time when over a million may have died. Eusebius, the Christian bishop of Caesarea (c. 325 A.D.), confirmed this and recorded how the Christians at Jerusalem did evacuate before Titus arrived, as Jesus warned.

Eusebius also mentions the strange and eerie prophets and holy men who arose before 70A.D. even to the point of strange signs in the heavens such as a star shaped like a sword hovering over the city.

Eusebius and the early Christian church saw all this as fulfillment of Jesus’ words in Mathew 24 (Ecclesiastical History, Chapter VII, VIII).

It was the “end” all right – almost the end of Judaism and the end of Jewish control of Jerusalem for almost 1900 years.

VI. More Deception

The next block of material, Matthew 24:26-28, is a further reference to deception, very rife in the days before the fall of the Second Temple. Josephus records that the Zealots, who led the revolt against Rome, stirred people to holy fervor that the Messiah would not let the Temple fall. But they were wrong. The Messiah, Jesus, had already appeared to prophetically weep over the city, knowing its fate (Luke 19:41-44).

Incredibly, even after the total desolation of 70 AD, Jewish radicals rebelled again in 132-135 under another false messiah named Bar Kochba. After the Romans ploughed up the city this time Jews would wander for almost 2000 years.

Did Prophets Use
Special Effects?

In Matthew 24:29 Jesus shows he is a prophet for such was he regarded by the people of his day (Luke 24:19). In Matthew 24 he is citing such predecessors as Ezekiel 32:7, Joel 2:10, Amos 8:9 and others. These men often used over-the-top tactics to get God’s message across. R.T. France explains references to the stars falling from heaven like this:

“While such language may be taken as foreshadowing some final cosmic disintegration, its immediate reference is…to the fall of political powers…Similar language is used elsewhere of God’s judgment within history on cities and nations…If such colorful language is appropriate to the fall of pagan nations such as Babylon, it is surely still more suitable for the destruction of Jerusalem, with all the momentous implications that must have for the status and destiny of God’s people” (Matthew: Tyndale Commentary, pages 343-344).

Prophets used excited, colorful, “over the top” words and images both to make a point and to hold their audiences attention. Hyped–up language was their stock in trade, what we would call “special effects” today (Psalm 6:6). R.T. France and other commentators see Jesus using this prophetic tool here. “Verses 29-31 consist of a collage of Old Testament apocalyptic language which to modern ears sounds like a description of…’the close of the age’ (i.e. the second part of the question in verse 3). Yet the events so described are explicitly dated within ‘this generation’ (Matthew, page 343).

There is a clear need, then, to listen with one ear fixed on the Old Testament prophets when reading Matthew 24:30-31. A close and careful rereading yields some unexpected surprises.

VII. Heavenly Signs: Matthew 24:29 paints a picture of a darkened sun and moon, stars falling from heaven and even the astral bodies wandering from their orbits. Though many interpreters have rushed in to proclaim these as necessarily future events, Matthew’s emphasis can still fit the time he has just described: “Immediately after the distress (“tribulation” in the AV) of these days.” Matthew 24:34 clearly allude to “this generation.” But when did stars fall from heaven in the First Century generation? Here is where a better knowledge of how Biblical prophets spoke, wrote and did their work is invaluable.

In Matthew 24:29 Jesus the Prophet is citing such predecessors as Ezekiel 32:7, Joel 2:10, Amos 8:9 and others. R.T. France explains it like this: “While such language may be taken as foreshadowing some final cosmic disintegration, its immediate reference is…to the fall of political powers…Similar language is used elsewhere of God’s judgment within history on cities and nations…If such colorful language is appropriate to the fall of pagan nations such as Babylon, it is surely still more suitable for the destruction of Jerusalem, with all the momentous implications that must have for the status and destiny of God’s people” (Matthew: Tyndale Commentary, pages 343-344).

Prophets used excited, colorful, “over the top” words and images both to make a point and to hold their audiences attention. Hyped-up language was their stock in trade, what we would call “special effects” today (Psalm 6:6; see box at right). R.T. France and other commentators see Jesus using this prophetic tool here. “Verses 29-31 consist of a collage of Old Testament apocalyptic language which to modern ears sounds like a description of…’the close of the age’ (i.e. the second part of the question in verse 3). Yet the events so described are explicitly dated within ‘this generation’ (Matthew, page 343).

There is a clear need, then, to listen with one ear fixed on the Old Testament prophets when reading Matthew 24:30-31. A close and careful rereading yields some unexpected surprises.

Son of Man/Ancient of Days

The vivid word picture of “the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky” has been widely touted as the clearest possible evidence for reading Matthew 24 as an end-time prophecy for the days ahead of us. Yet N.T. Wright and other New Testament teachers maintain that the passage says no such thing. The reference in Matthew 24:30 is from Daniel 7:13-14. What is clearly portrayed there is not the Son of Man returning to earth in fiery judgment. Rather it is the Son of Man receiving his final vindication from the Ancient of Days. The scene is heaven, not the earth.

Professor T.W. Manson adds: “It cannot be too strongly emphasized that what Daniel portrays is not a divine [figure] coming down from heaven, to bring deliverance, but a human figure going up to heaven to receive it” says John A. T. Robinson in Jesus and His Coming. This is talking about what Christians call the Ascension (Ephesians 1:15-22), the ultimate confirmation of who Jesus was as divine Prophet and Priest. Jesus affirmed his identity to the High Priest in these very terms: “You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62).

They knew what he meant and what he was claiming! Right then and there!

Thus Matthew 24:30 is speaking more of the return of Jesus to his Father after his resurrection to “receive a kingdom” (Luke 19:12, A.V.) – a coming to God rather than a coming to earth!

Now, back to our chapter. From heaven, at the right hand of God, Jesus directs his multiracial, multiethnic church. This makes sense of the colorful but enigmatic “gathering of the elect” from the four winds (Matthew 24: 31). R.T. France puts it nicely, seeing through the symbolism: “The ‘Son of man’s people’ are no longer merely the members of the nations but a chosen remnant, drawn from all corners of the earth…The reference is…to the worldwide growth of the church which is [the consequence] of the ending of Israel’s special status, symbolized in the destruction of the temple” (page 345).

Once again, the “vision on the mount” has taken us back to the First Century Church, the far-seeing words of Jesus on the Mount of Olives, the end of the Temple system, and the vital beginning of the church as the primary agent of God’s plan to reconcile all nations.

Matthew 24, in other words, when stripped of much of its symbolism and Old Testament allusions, meshes with a New Testament central theme: the church as the carrier of God’s promises to all the nations. The key to prophecy is what is happening between Jesus and his church. A new era has arrived. The Church Age, some call it, before the Kingdom arrives.

VIII. Instructions for the Church

This conclusion seems verified by a battery of parables for the church – don’t fall asleep, keep working at the preaching and show mercy to all you meet. After all, Matthew 25 is the conclusion to Matthew 24 though few notice it. The marvelous unfolding known as Matthew 24 shows Jesus was a prophet. The early church had no doubt of the First Century fulfillment. As Eusebius wrote (c. 350): “To these accounts it may be proper to add the predictions of our Savior (that) there shall be great distress…All this occurred in this manner in the second year of the reign of Vespasian [70 AD] according to the predictions of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who by his divine power foresaw all these things as already present at the time…” (Book II, Chapter VII).

Jesus was a prophet. He is coming again as he said to end the mess we have made of thing and to rescue those who trust in him. That is part of the good news of the very thrilling words known as Matthew 24.