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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 11. Clearing the Decks a Bit
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Clearing the Decks a Bit
Let us turn now to Matthew's Gospel. There are two classes of passages here. A few dealing directly with His coming again; and many more which deal with the subject of the Kingdom. These latter include a striking group of parables. These Kingdom passages should be included, because to these people the coming again was for the purpose of setting up the Kingdom; because Jesus speaks of the Kingdom in answer to their question about His coming; [Note: See Mat_24:3 with Mat_25:31.] and further because Jesus does not begin speaking about coming again until His rejection at this His first coming is clearly assured. This is the setting of all the Gospel teaching on the Second Coming,—it is because He is being rejected at the first coming. We will leave these Kingdom passages for the present, and look at those that speak directly of His coming again.
There are four passages in Matthew's Gospel where our Lord speaks directly of His coming again. The first is in the tenth chapter, where He is sending His disciples out on a preaching and healing tour. And He says that they will not have visited all the cities of Israel to which their visitation is restricted "till the Son of Man be come." [Note: Mat_1:23.] This is one of the really puzzling passages, as to just what it means. We shall be coming back to it after awhile.
The second passage is in the sixteenth chapter, at the time when Jesus was beginning to teach the small inner circle about His coming, suffering, and violent rejection and death. He refers to a time when He "shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels." [Note: Mat_26:27, Mat_26:28.] He adds that some of the disciples to whom He was then speaking would not "taste of death" till they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom. This seems to point to the Transfiguration scene occurring just afterwards, witnessed by three of those to whom He spoke. It was the only thing within the lifetime of these men to which the words could apply. The Transfiguration scene seems to be a bit of pictorial teaching regarding both the Kingdom and the coming again. Our Lord Jesus, with a glory shining out from His person so dazzling as to stupefy one's senses (even as Daniel was stupefied in the last of his visions), standing upon the earth, engaged in earnest conversation with two saintly men of the Old Testament time, one of whom had not died but been caught up into the open heaven out of sight of earth, these three talking about things on the earth,—this is the picture of the Kingdom of God coming in power.
The fourth is His reply to the high priest at His trial, "Ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven." [Note: Mat_26:64.]
The third of these is of yet greater interest in the amount of teaching it includes. It is in chapters twenty-four and twenty-five. These two chapters make up what may be called the Olivet Talk. It was a talk by the Master with four of His disciples, including the three leaders, on the top of Mount Olivet, one day during the last week, after His terrific denunciation of the Jewish leaders.
This Olivet Talk grew out of questions asked by these disciples. It was a private heart-to-heart talk with this inner group, three of whom had been admitted more intimately than any others into our Lord's life. Jesus is talking with the same three who had seen the glory on the Transfiguration Mount, and in the chamber of Jairus' daughter, and soon would be with Him in the Garden agony. Andrew has come this time with his brother.
Jesus had been speaking about the destruction of the magnificent temple of Herod. They asked two or three questions, namely, when would this destruction take place? What would be the "sign" of His coming? and of the full-end or consummation of the age? A rapid glance through the former talks with the disciples [Note: Matthew 10, 13, 16.] makes clear that these questions grew out of what He had said before. They are using His language in asking their questions.
Before looking at the teachings of this Olivet Talk, it will be good to clear the mind a little regarding it. It has been associated quite commonly with the destruction of Jerusalem under the Roman Emperor Titus in the year 70 a.d. Now it is true that this whole talk grew out of Jesus' remark about the destruction of the temple and so presumably of Jerusalem. And such a destruction did take place by the Romans in the year 70. But that destruction was not accompanied by all of the things named here.
There was terrific suffering among the Jews during that awful siege of Jerusalem. But there are at least three things spoken of here that did not take place at that time. The Gospel had not been preached "in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations" up to the year 70, though there is evidence that within the early centuries it had been taken as far as to India and China on the east and to Britain on the west. The general disturbance of the heavenly bodies, sun, moon, stars, and the powers that hold the solar system together, did not occur then. And the coming of the Lord in glory as openly seen as the lightning, did not of course take place then. These events are connected with a destruction of the temple and city, yet did not have their fulfilment in the Titus destruction.
One other thing will likewise help to clear the decks as we start into this bit of study. That is regarding the word "generation" in verse thirty-four, [Note: Mat_24:34.]—"this generation shall not pass away till all these things be accomplished." The word under our English word "generation" has different meanings, like most words in any language. It may mean all the persons living on the earth at any one time. Or, it may mean a race or stock of people. In all translation and interpretation the general sense of the passage decides which one of two or more suitable words to use in any given instance. In this case we are able to see, looking back, that it could not mean the generation of people then living, for the words, were spoken about the year thirty-three of our common chronology, and the Titus destruction took place about thirty-seven years later, so that, with the common reckoning of thirty-three years to a generation, that generation had practically passed away. If the words read "this race shall not pass away," the allusion would clearly be to the Jewish people, and would be a prophecy of the remarkable preservation of the Jew, distinct from all nationalities during these long centuries, a preservation that has been the puzzle of historian and philosopher alike.