This great principle and contrast is brought out in strong relief, and application to the hope and glory of Israel, in the passage that follows, for the sentence of Israel was now sealed. This one of the disciples rested on the outward form and power of the system. " What stones and what buildings? " The Lord at once gives their sentence: " Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down."
Nothing can be clearer than the Jewish character of this chapter. They were to be taken before councils and beaten in the synagogues; and then we get false Christs in the general history which began at the time. Then we get false Christs again after the specific epoch of the abomination of desolation. In the first case we know Christ is in heaven, but the desire for Him would be natural to Jews-a snare to Jewish Christians -for national deliverance; in the second case we shall be in heaven. In neither can there be application to the (Gentile) Church, as such. In Revelation, as in all prophecy, the Church is seen only in Christ; so the rapture in chapter 12, and the saints are seen in full distinctness in chapter 19. Only before the prophecy begins, their place in respect of the judgments is seen in chapter 4-kings on their thrones, though owning all glory to be the Creator's, the Almighty; in chapter 5, priests.
3. Sitting on the Mount of Olives-that place of judgment, departure, and return-looking over the loved but perverse and rejected city, these disciples, affected at what had been the center of all their thoughts, being destroyed and made void, ask, " When shall these things be, and what shall be the sign when all these things are going to be fulfilled? " The question here is presented to us by the Holy Spirit in a much simpler forth, and affecting the setting aside of the Jewish resting-place.
4. It is to be remarked here that the question is only as to " these things," and it is to be remarked that below (v. 11) the presence of the Holy Ghost is spoken of, which is the case neither in Matthew nor Luke, which first attracted my attention here. Thus Mark 1 apprehend, up to verse 14, speaks more of the then present time; nor does Mark say the end comes when the Gospel has been preached. In Matthew, the beginning of wars is also distinguished. In Luke the distinction is clearly made; Christ gives them a mouth there. But the destruction of Jerusalem is in view.
The first point the Lord noticed was the use Satan made of the rejection of Christ by the nation; many would arise: " saying, I am, and shall deceive many." They were to be aware of deception; next, the murmuring of the distant winds gathering the clouds for God's judgments, wars and rumors of wars. They were not to be troubled; they must be, but the end was not yet. For nation would rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there were to be earthquakes, famines, and troubles in different places; these were the beginnings of this world's throes for the bringing forth of judgment. All this, however, was to direct their progress and conduct in ministry, as the course of events went on. At the rumors they were not to be troubled. But there was another form of difficulty-they would be delivered up to councils, etc., and stand before kings " for a testimony to them; and the Gospel must first be preached to all the nations." This would have that form of trial which arises from enmity- of the father against the son, etc.-in a word, which broke through the closest ties. Here the rule of their service was to be, they were not to premeditate; it would be given them the same hour. They would be " hated of all " for Christ's Name's sake, but whoever endured to the end, in spite of all this, would be saved. This is the statement of a general principle- endurance by the divine power and grace. If it was on earth, and the end of the Jewish scene, the deliverance would be on earth. The point was, going on in patience till the Lord interfered. It runs then thus: "Lest anyone mislead you," "Be not disturbed," " Be not careful beforehand," " nor prepare "; all this was a matter of endurance to the end. This is the leading thought, what is to be guarded against and endurance. As to the time of this, it appears to me to be purposely general, giving the character and circumstances of the ministry, not a prophetic detail; only this, that it is connected with troubles apprehended by those conversant in Judaea or Israel, persons in the circumstances of the Lord's own disciples, the Lord gone, and His judgment not come. The whole period is embraced in one fact, here stated generally-the Gospel must first be preached to all the Gentiles. But this was in a measure, or rather in principle, true before the destruction of the temple so that it had its application coincidently with the Jewish part of the warnings. But the expression also opens it to the full fact, and thus leaves open the ministration which may take place at the close before the latter day destruction takes place. However the destruction is not the close of the ministry in the land, but another point which the Lord then notices.
-10. Here (unless abstractedly in principle, as in Colossians
: 6) that which is spoken of is not the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus merely; that was not " the end." It is impossible not to see a wider scene in the Lord's thoughts.
The Lord, it appears to me, designedly uses here the term " the end " (to telos). In His mind the true end was embraced, and in fact therefore, verse to swept over the whole period, or, at least, it was left open to it all, while all this served for direction to His disciples for their then emergencies, and the Gospel was, in a general sense, preached to all the Gentiles, before that took place which their thoughts rested on and were concerned in, having pretty nearly as great, in point of real power, a greater extent than it has now. Then prophetically, though the fact of verse to is stated as a plain simple fact, the whole of what is said supposes, whatever may be done among the Gentiles, the subsistence of a state of things in Judaea such as the disciples were immediately concerned in, and the Jews there. Having given directions for their patient ministry, of which we have seen the extent, including coming before the Gentiles, the Lord then notices what concerns their position in the land-the immediate question. " When ye see the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not "-it was a matter for him that read to consider-then those that were in Judaea were to flee to the mountains. There might be many occupied in testimony in far countries, but those in Judaea were to flee. They were at once, without the least delay, to escape; the door was now closing (in judgment) on unhappy Israel; it was no time of testimony then. " Where it ought not " (hopou on dei) I believe is purposely left open, as being instruction for ministry for what might happen to them, and when, in its stricter and fuller application, the abomination should be set up in the latter day. It was a time of sweeping and pure judgment; woe to the feeble and helpless woman! The people and place were given up to judgment and sorrow; they had refused mercy. The place of believers, in testimony, was to escape. It was matter of prayer, for the disciples, that their flight should not be in winter; for the ear of their Father and Lord was open to their cry for everything. How sweetly does this come in, in the midst of the terrible giving up to judgment! The Lord was not the least changed; His ear as calmly and as blessedly open to every one that sought, and cried, and believed; though He might be forced to give up a relentless people to relentless judgment, when they would have nothing else as the way of righteousness. He was still the same gracious, prayer-hearing God, nigh to them that called on Him, thinking even of the details of mercy for His people, and ready to make their necessary flight less painful and trying even for the flesh, but His warning easy to be acted upon.
-19. " For those days shall be distress, such as there has not been the like since the beginning of Creation which God created until now, and never shall be." Here the Lord's mind rests on the great accomplishment, and though there may be a partial anticipative fulfillment in that which Scripture does not notice historically-the capture of Jerusalem by the Romans, and those who were in that may have been providentially directed by it-the mind of the Spirit rests clearly on the great final catastrophe of God's house and people and city, that it may be purged by the Spirit of judgment and burning, and the unclean not pass through her any more. It was a giving up to misery; the abomination of desolation brought it in. It might last in the hands of man so or so long-that may be learned perhaps elsewhere-but the days were " distress," and known so to the people at large. The disciples were forewarned, and had the sign of their commencement for fleeing, not then for testimony. If the Lord had not shortened those terrible days, no flesh should be saved. This is a remarkable term even to the evil of their own hearts, and the Spirit of death and evil is amongst them; they would destroy themselves, and so has been seen in Jerusalem, and even elsewhere. This from within and without; but, for the elect's sake who were to be spared after the flesh, these days were shortened. Still, though they be forewarned, and those who had understanding escaped, it is a general scene of confusion coming on the inhabiters of the land (or earth) which might reach all found there, unless God interposed to stop its actual career. As regard the heavenlies, this, in a certain sense, had been no matter, but for the earthly Remnant was all-important for its continuing existence. We have then the elect Remnant of those days especially noticed and brought into view: " For the elect's sake... he hath shortened those days. And then if anyone say to you," i.e., in this time of affliction recognized by all, for they were all in it, i.e., the unbelievers. It was not then a subject of prophecy, but of actual trial: " If anyone say to you: Lo, here is Christ, or lo, there, believe it or not." " There will arise," saith the Lord, " false Christs and false prophets." How blessed to have all these forewarnings! And doubtless there will be a Remnant using them, and availing themselves of them in that day, for there will be the earthly things, when the others have had their course-not days of testimony now closed, but vengeance. These false Christs and prophets will give signs and wonders, so as, if it were possible, to deceive the very elect. God may keep them, but that is the only safeguard. For the elect here if fled (at least those of understanding receiving the testimony of Jesus as a Prophet, for the heavenly door is now, I presume, closed) from the place of vengeance, are still in the midst, morally at least, of the trials.
The hour of temptation which should come on all the world to try the dwellers upon earth, as Lot compared with Abraham, the heavenly man and family. " But," says the Lord, " do ye beware, lo, I have foretold you all things." For the Lord speaks here in the character of the Prophet of the Jewish Remnant, and so has to be received, not as the glorified Son of God, nor " Son of man who is in heaven "; for these necessarily the associations would be heavenly, not warning to flee and saving flesh; and " Whosoever will not hearken to " this Prophet (for this is as true of Christ as His being Son of God and all else) " shall be cut off from among his people." But in those days, after the tribulation of which the setting up the abomination of desolation was the leading sign to them for getting out of the way, every visible seat of power shall be cast down, and cease to guide and illuminate the world. " The powers which are in the heavens " offer a little difficulty to my mind. It is clear that the whole stability of governance will be shaken. That there may be a public witness in creation of the immense revolution, which is then taking place, is possible, as at the Lord's death. Its general import is plain, not only that the affected earth, but the sources of power will be touched by the divine hand and will; " I will shake not the earth only, but also the heavens." Satan is cast out at this time, but the principalities and powers in heavenly places cease to be the agents of divine ministration, and shake under this great action that transfers it to the hands of the Son of man; for who can stand in the presence of this power, unmoved? The evil was cast out, but the creature could not stand unmoved in the presence and acting of His power. His assumption of it for the subjection and order of the world to come is not that " of this age," not only in respect of evil but also of the instruments of His power. And this change is a mighty one, and introduces the Son of man in His manifested glory in royalty. The casting down of Satan was by predominance in those regions, according to the character of subsisting power. Then, Michael, the archangel, fought, and the dragon fought, and his angels, and his place was not found; but this was a shaking of the whole ministration itself. " And then they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then shall he send forth his angels " (servants of the Son of man) the angels of His power, not the messengers of His grace, to " gather his elect from the four winds, from end of earth to end of heaven." This seems to me to be purposely general, including the title of the place, in the power of which the Lord Jesus comes; compare Psalm 50. The fig tree, the habitual figurative representative of the Jewish people, would afford them the parable of this. When they saw the things He had spoken of, His coming in power, and the whole setting aside of the dispensation, was nigh at the doors. The Jewish (unbelieving) " generation " would not " pass away till all these things take place "; heaven and earth would pass away, but not the despised Son of man's, for He now spoke in the dignity of power. But of that day and hour none but the Father knew. It was not a subject of revelation, for here the Lord acted as a Servant; the kingdom was God's kingdom; what He heard He spake. " Take heed, watch and pray, for ye know not when the time is." It appears to me this was addressed to them as within the Jewish scheme, though it may be true that we may watch, not knowing the day; but that is not exactly our position. It was a day looked for to overtake them here, when there would be trouble, and great affliction, however they might be preserved, not being caught up out of it all to meet the Lord. They were waiting here, with guidance how to pass through the difficulties, and dangers, and that connected with Jewish circumstances and Jewish habits. It was not at all the Holy Ghost's witness of a glorified Jesus, and union with Him to be accomplished in His presence, that where He is they may be. The Lord, however, turns back to the general principle and application of it to ministry. They were to go on thus acting while He was away, absent, " as a man gone out of the country," and this He said not to them only, but to all.
The thing of which the day is not known extends, it seems to me, however, withal to this change in the sources of dispensation, the revolution that takes place in the heavens, and this it is that affects the condition of the Remnant here (this Red Sea of heavenly matters) for the casting out of Satan makes their state much worse, for he comes down to earth. But this brings in the day of the Lord. " Unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come whereof we speak," but to Man, in Jesus' Person, then accomplished; and here this revolution takes place.
-24. It is remarkable that neither here nor in Matthew, though announced at the first, and the occasion of the discourse, is there any hint of the (or a) destruction of Jerusalem. There is great tribulation, and then the coming of the Son of man.
Note, in this chapter, the dispensational character is not nearly so defined and precise as in Matthew; thus, it is not, " This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached... in all nations, and then shall the end come " (there is no question as to the end of the age) but we have in general, the Gospel must first be preached (compare chap. 16: 15, 20), and, in a part connected with the general testimony, Matthew to, which goes from Christ till He comes again, as far as Palestine and the Jews are concerned. The end is not spoken of here; verse 24 too is much more general, not so precise, though the same event.
" After that distress "; " but in those days "; the sun put out before the Lord comes, i.e., is seen. No question of the Church here, but of those in Judaea; He gathers the elect after He comes. The troubles come before the day; Joel, compare Rev. 6. The Lord appears for the Jews against the nations; Zechariah. The deliverance is in Zion and Jerusalem; Joel. The sun is darkened before the day; Jerusalem is taken in the day. The lawless one is destroyed " by the appearing of his coming "; but that is only an incident.
It is manifest that Luke was given to write with more explicitness upon the times of this prophecy than Matthew or Mark, whose accounts seem so worded as to bring it all very intelligibly within the destruction of the religious establishment and polity of the Jews, then of immediate and practical importance; as to the full import of it, I have still to receive it. In Luke 21, verses 25 and 26, seem fairly referable to what was after the destruction of Jerusalem, but I do not think I have ever found adequate importance attached to the dissolution of the economy of God's peculiar people-His first great dispensation-in fact, more important than the dissolution of the Gentile economy, though exceedingly parallel, save as that dissolution was attended by the re-admission of the Jews into the privileges of the kingdom, and was life from the dead to the world. I should, however, have been freely disposed to refer this to the dissolution of the Gentile dispensation, were it not for Matthew's " immediately " (chap. 24: 29) (eutheos). Reason indeed may be assigned for Luke's greater explicitness on this subject. Many of the terms are generical, and seem applicable to the dissolution of both fallen economies, and I cannot help thinking that Matt. 24:2727For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. (Matthew 24:27) applies to the Jewish dispensation. Perhaps, in the next verse, our Lord purposely generalizes it to suit both cases, for the carcass and the eagles seem clearly the sudden and devouring judgments on a body from which the spirit of life was gone, whatever form it might have. And I think it highly probable that, though obscurely, what followed runs more into the Gentile than the Jewish fulfillment of the statement. But, in those two evangelists, it was merely the glancing of the prophetic mind towards that which to them was not directly to the purpose, and, the dispensations being essentially similar, the terms had their fulfillment in power in that to which their immediate attention was directed, when the dispensations themselves had prepared the way. The larger scene might open, to which their minds were now enlarged, and in which the passage found fuller, and perhaps more literal, application, and which, in its appropriate place, was to be largely revealed. That the Spirit of God did so deal in editing these Gospels, I think quite manifest, for we must remember that, though not fully fulfilled in final results till His second coming, the Lord's coming was, with separate purposes, hidden from ages but made known by the Gospel in various revelation from the day of the angels' song till the day of the fullness of the glory of His kingdom, and that the whole Gentile dispensation forms a sort of parenthesis, necessary indeed to the filling up the whole mind of God, but in dispensation, as to Christ, intermediate between those great events which were held out from the first, and together formed the coming of the Lord—the mystery that that nation, to whom He was to come, and called without repentance, should be dispensatorily rejected, and so the glory of His coming suspended till, by the operations of the Spirit, the Gentile economy should have been given its times, and both, fallen through unbelief, be admitted in grace according to that full salvation which was from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning.
- 27. This is clearly the Jewish gathering.
- 30. Nor do I, though I think it intended to lead the minds of those to whom He addressed Himself to the immediate exercise of judgment on the Jewish company, by any means deny the truth of its application to the continuance of the Jewish race, till the whole mystery of God was complete, till that mechris hou (until that) should be come, when it should be said: " It is accomplished." Blessed thought that the word of faith which we preach should have the perfect stability of the Father of the everlasting ages! Its force in this full sense is evinced and drawn in the Spirit of prophecy from Deut. 32:5, 205They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation. (Deuteronomy 32:5)
20And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith. (Deuteronomy 32:20). The tribulation of the Jews embraced the whole time from their rejection of the Lord as the Messiah, to their acknowledging Him again, till they said: " Hosanna! " from the time they blamed the children, out of whose mouth God perfected it, for saying it.
There seems to be designedly a cloud thrown over the time in this and verse 31; immense importance attaches to the certitude of the event. It is a question of the truth of the word of God; compare 2 Peter 3. It is some great event; it is different from the seventy weeks are determined (nekh-tak; Dan. 9:2424Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. (Daniel 9:24)), The Gentile dispensation left this uncertain gap.
33. " Take heed, watch and pray."
- 34. " Leave his house "; the time is the return of the Lord to His house, sometime.