The Narrow Path Ministries

I am trying to understand the preterist take on Mathew 24: If Jesus is speaking to his disciples (vs. 1-3) and telling them their future and the future of the land of Israel (I have heard the word "world" could also be applied to or mean the "land" of in this case Israel) and Jesus's prophecies are earmarked to a generation (vs. 34 "This generation will not pass away until all these things take place") and if Jesus says in vs. 29 that immediately after the tribulation of those days...and if the tribulation refers to the Abomination of Desolation in the preterist view this is the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D., then how come the kingdom has not come? Jesus said that it was immediately after the tribulation the sign of the son of man would appear, the angels would gather the elect etc. In the preterist view, what are we waiting around for? Is the sign of the son of man constantines vision of "In this name conquer" then? Can a preterist please explain this passage for me, I usually think the preterist take is pretty solid, but I can't understand this passage in that light. The preterist take makes it look like Jesus never came when he said he would, which is hard because he was right about the other stuff, then why not about his return? He also said that it would be immediately after the tribulation but then goes on to say that no one knows. Another critique also enters into it and that is the critique by people like the Jesus Seminar who would say that matthew and the synoptics were written after the events of 70 A.D. and that is what makes those parts acurate, and they would go on to say that of course he didn't physically come because he didn't physically rise from the dead either, but that is another rabbit trail. I am just trying to understand this difficult passage in light of the preterist explanation of it. Any help would be greatly appreciated. THanks

There are two reasonable solutions to your difficulty, though I don't know which to prefer.

Since the tribulation mentioned by Jesus (Matt.24:21) is connected with the "abomination of desolation" (v.15), and since Luke's parallel identifies this abomination with "Jerusalem surrounded by armies" (Luke 21:20), and since Jesus said His disciples would see this, it makes sense to view 70 AD either as the fulfillment or as the beginning of a longer period of fulfillment.

Option #1:

The first possibility is to say that the "great tribulation" refers to the awful disasters that befell the Jews during the seige of Jerusalem by the Romans, in 70 AD. Upon this view, the expression "immediately after the tribulation of those days" refers to the time of the actual destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.

The language of that destruction is calculated to underscore that this disaster was a judgment from God—the vindication of Christ upon those who crucified Him. The mode of expression is apocalyptic and non-literal. It sounds like the end of the world, but it isn't. Such expressions as you find in vv.29-31 are found elsewhere in scripture, with reference to the downfall of important cities and empires. Here they refer to the fall of Jerusalem.

For example—

"The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars will fall" are images used of the fall of ancient Babylon (Isa.13:10), of Edom (Isa.34:4-5), of Egypt (Ezek.32:7-8), and of other historic (not cosmic) events.

"The sign of the Son of Man in heaven shall appear" (a possible alternate word order) may mean that the destruction of Christ's enemies on earth is the sign that the Son of Man is exalted and vindicated in heaven. Alternately, it may be a reference to the many signs in the heavens that Josephus (a witness of the calamities of 70 AD) recorded as having taken place. Josephus says a star in the shape of a sword stood over the city for about a year. He also mentions that "soldiers in armor" were seen running among the clouds over Jerusalem. These could possibly serve as candidates for the "sign...in heaven."

"The tribes of the earth shall mourn" can as properly be translated "the tribes of the land [Israel] shall mourn"—and would make more sense, since it is Israel, not the world, that is usually spoken of as divided into "tribes."

"They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds" is a typical image for judgment, such as that found in Isaiah 19:1: "The Lord rides upon a swift cloud, and will come into Egypt"—referring to the destruction of Egypt by Assyria in Isaiah's day. Jesus used the same language in Matthew 16:28 when He said, "There are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom," and when He spoke to the Sanhedrin, saying "hereafter you will see the Son of Man ...coming on the clouds of heaven" (Matt.26:64). Either He was talking about His second coming, and He proved wrong, or else He was not talking about His second coming, and we have been wrong in thinking that He was. I am more inclined to think that we have been wrong, than that He was.

The "angels" that go out and gather the elect may be translated as "messengers" and be a reference to the fact that, after Jerusalem fell, and ceased to be the center for Christianity, the latter was spread throughout the world by God's messengers (apostles, evangelists, missionaries, etc.).

In other words, there is nothing predicted to occur "immediately after the tribulation of those days" but such as really did happen, if we allow scriptural imagery to be interpreted by other scriptural occurrances of the same.

Option #2:

Since no mention is made of the length of the "great tribulation" (Matt.24:21) that would come upon the Jews, there is the possibility that it has lasted nearly 2000 years, and is still happening today (e.g., the pogroms, the holocaust, modern suicide bombings, etc.). If this were the case, then we might still place the actual second coming of Christ (and identify vv.29-31 with that event) "immediately after the tribulation of those days."

In favor of this possibility is the comparison of this passage with its parallel in Luke 21. Where Matthew 24 says "There will be great tribulation," the parallel in Luke says, "there will be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people" (21:23). Though Matthew does not mention the length of time that the disaster will last, Luke's version records that it will continue "until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled" (21:24).

Thus, if we would equate "the times of the Gentiles" with the period between the fall of Jerusalem (70 AD) and the second coming of Christ (still future), it would be reasonable to suggest that "the tribulation of those days" is largely coextensive with the age of the church, at the end of which, Jesus will return.

I know of no flaws in either of these suggestions, though they obviously cannot both be true. I leave it to every reader to weigh the evidence and to choose between the options. Both are preterist alternatives, and both make more sense than does the futurist approach.

Greetings everyone!
Interesting topic! I enjoyed reading the question and was trying to picture [in my mind] how I might have answered that.

Hmmm... I'm thankful for Steve's offer of "two reasonable solutions", which both continue to enrich my understanding. Amazingly, both solutions attend the same general "preterist" camp, and although the approaches vary, they can seemingly "cohabit" as two sides of the same coin!

Getting a good handle on the language, (tribes of the earth, angels, coming on the clouds, etc.) is also a big help in determining best [contextual] meaning of those passages.

Fun stuff to study, but I'm glad that we don't have to be dogmatic about pushing one [reasonable] interpretation over another. I'm sure that kind of behavior serves more to promote distrust and a quenching of the [holy] spirit than anything.

Any comments on that

Thanks,
Michael Borges

I don't want to be breaking the rules (I looked for them but could not find them - so a moderator may certainly smack me if I am), but I (an orthdox preterist) am almost done writing my commentary on Matthew 24 and I have dealt with this issue. My commentary can be found here:

http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12560

In addition to being a co-owner at that forum (TheologyWeb) - I have another site which is simply an index of preterist materials at www.preteristlist.com - I am in the process of recoding that site (and if you don't like framed sites too bad !!!!!) but the old design is still up and there is useful reference material linked there from many authors that would deal with this issue. Brian Schwertley's material is especially useful.

Dee Dee Warren wrote:I don't want to be breaking the rules (I looked for them but could not find them - so a moderator may certainly smack me if I am), but I (an orthdox preterist) am almost done writing my commentary on Matthew 24 and I have dealt with this issue. My commentary can be found here:

http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12560

In addition to being a co-owner at that forum (TheologyWeb) - I have another site which is simply an index of preterist materials at www.preteristlist.com - I am in the process of recoding that site (and if you don't like framed sites too bad !!!!!) but the old design is still up and there is useful reference material linked there from many authors that would deal with this issue. Brian Schwertley's material is especially useful.

Thanks for the commentary on Matthew 24!

Sean, I am doing some cleaning up of that commentary and posting it as a coherent whole over time at www.preteristlist.com/docs/warrenend.html

I did finish up on that thread

I finally learnt myself some html and CSS

Dee Dee,
Did you call in to BAM a couple of weeks ago and mention your web sites? I tried to find them based on that call and had no luck. Glad I found them here. Thanks.
-larry

Yes that was me. My two sites are TheologyWeb and the PreteristList. I have a thing for sites that take two words and shove them together with no space. Yet I don't like it when the space is omitted in Dee Dee - i.e. DeeDee

Go figure.

Dee Dee:

Thanks for the links! Nice job on Matthew 24, with excellent graphics to make it easier to navigate and follow. Convincing (not that it took anything since I'm already a partial preterist) and thorough.

Thanks for the time put into this and your web site as well,

In His Love,

Tim

Thanks Tim! I just learned html and CSS to get it going - however it is quite amusing sometimes to see me squint at the screen to try and find where I messed up my code - kina like seeing a futurist squint at Matthew 24:34 and make it mean somethng else.

I have got a lot of writing projects ahead of me