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Mat 24:1-22. PREDICTION OF THE FALL OF JERUSALEM
Mar 13:1–end. Luk 21:5-36
This chapter opens with the great discourse of Jesus, which is continued to the end of ch. 25. That discourse contains (1) a prediction of the fall of Jerusalem, (2) a prediction of the end of the world, (3) Parables in relation to these predictions.
It is difficult to determine the limits of the several portions.
(1) Some of the earliest Fathers referred the whole prophecy to the end of the world. (2) Others held that the fall of Jerusalem was alone intended down to the end of Mat 24:22. (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius.)
In an interesting monograph founded on this view the Rev. W. Sherlock has shown a parallelism between the two divisions:
THE FALL OF JERUSALEM (Mat 24:5-22). THE SECOND ADVENT (Mat 24:23-31).
1. False Christs and false prophets (Mat 24:5; Mat 24:11). 1. False Christs and false prophets (Mat 24:23-24).
2. Persecution and apostasy (Mat 24:9-10; Mat 24:12). 2. Dangers even to the elect (Mat 24:24).
3. Wars, famine, pestilence (Mat 24:6-7). 3. Distress of nations (Mat 24:29).
4. Great tribulation (Mat 24:21). 4. The sun and moon darkened (Mat 24:29).
5. The abomination of desolation (Mat 24:15). 5. The sign of the Son of man (Mat 24:30).
6. The escape of the Christians (Mat 24:16-18). 6. The salvation of the elect (Mat 24:31).
(3) Augustine, Jerome, and Beda, followed by Maldonatus, receive this view in a modified form, holding that while the two events were conceived by the Apostles as coincident in point of time, and while our Lord’s words appeared to them to be describing a single great catastrophe, it is now possible in the light of the past history to detect the distinctive references to the first and the second event.
(4) Another arrangement of the prophecy is: (i) A general answer of the question to the end of Mat 24:14; (ii) a specific reference to the fall of Jerusalem, 15–28; (iii) in Mat 24:29 a resumption of the subject of (i).