H. The eschatological discourse (21:5–36)
H. The eschatological discourse (21:5–36)
Each of the Synoptic Gospels contains an account of this discourse, though with some differences. There are some puzzling exegetical problems, notably those posed by the fact that part of the address seems to apply to the end of all things and part to the destruction of Jerusalem. In Luke the distinction between the two seems clearer than in the others and some scholars see in this Luke’s distinctive contribution to eschatology. Ellis notes that the discourse presents us with problems, but he sees two elements which must be taken into account: Jesus ‘did announce a coming end of the world, and he did reckon with a considerable and indefinite interval before the end’. The discourse expresses Jesus’ certainty of ultimate triumph, even though there were dark days ahead. And it concludes with a rousing challenge to his followers to be watchful and not let themselves be weighed down with the difficulties of this world. Much of the language is reminiscent of Old Testament passages (e.g. 2 Chr. 15:6; Isa. 8:21f.; 13:13; Jer. 34:17), which may be a way of emphasizing that what Jesus was describing was a divine visitation.
1. The sign (21:5–7)
The discourse is introduced by the disciples’ request for a sign of the coming destruction. As they were leaving the temple (Mark 13:1) one of them commented on the magnificence of the building. The noble stones were the great stones used in erecting the building (some huge stones can still be seen in the ‘wailing wall’, but this was part of the substructure, not of the temple itself ). According to Josephus some of them were as much as 45 cubits long. The offerings would be decorative gifts such as the golden vine Herod gave with ‘grape clusters as tall as a man’ (Josephus, Bellum v.210). Jesus responds by prophesying its total destruction. So the disciples ask when this will happen and what sign will precede it.
2. Conflict of the nations (21:8–11)
Jesus does not give any one sign, but he warns his followers not to be led astray in the tumultuous happenings that would in due course occur.
8. Jesus warns them not to be led astray and goes on to speak of false Christs, those who come in my name, i.e. claiming to be what I am. They will say, I am he! Though he is not defined it clearly means the Messiah. The claim to Messianic authority is followed by a prediction that the time, the end time, the time of national deliverance, is near. The significance of these words should not be overlooked. Jesus was not predicting the end of the world within the lifetime of men then living. He regarded those who make such forecasts as false prophets.
9–11. Not only will there be Messianic pretenders in Judea, but there will be trouble among the nations at large. Jesus warns his followers not to be terrified at wars and the like. Such troubles will come, as will physical phenomena such as earthquakes … famines and pestilences, and unspecified great signs from heaven, i.e. among the stars.
3. Persecution (21:12–19)
Clearly the troubled times of which Jesus was speaking will be periods of special difficulty for his followers. They will be persecuted; but they will have resources to meet all difficulties.
12. Before world trouble there will be church trouble. Jesus does not say who they are who will lay their hands on the disciples and persecute them; it is a general reference to unsympathetic authorities. We are apt to think of synagogues as places of worship, but we should not overlook their wider functions as centres of administration and education. They were the heart of Jewish life, and Jewish law was administered from them as far as applicable (cf. 12:11). The use of the term shows that Jesus’ followers must expect opposition from the Jews. Prisons points to the certainty of condemnation, while the reference to kings and governors shows that the persecuting authorities will be Gentiles as well as Jews.
13–15. This is not simple disaster; it is an opportunity to bear testimony. This does not mean virtuoso oratorical performances. It means witnessing to what God has done. And God will provide the means whereby they can do this. They are not even to prepare what they will say (the verb promeletan, meditate beforehand, is a technical term for preparing an address; see BAGD). This, of course, has nothing to do with sermons and lectures which the Christian must prepare as faithfully as anyone else. It refers to the replies believers will suddenly be called upon to give to hostile authorities in times of persecution. At such times Jesus himself (his I, egō, is emphatic) will give them a mouth and wisdom (cf. 12:11f.), both eloquence and understanding. And this will be so effective that the enemy will be unable to withstand or contradict.
16–17. Jesus does not minimize the seriousness of the trouble. Families will be divided and some will betray relatives to the persecutors, even close relatives. Jesus makes it clear that what he has just said does not mean that believers can rest assured that they will be delivered. Some of them will not. The believer can be sure that God is in control and that he will work out his purpose, but he cannot be sure what place he himself has in that purpose. He may be killed and come to his eternal triumph through death, or he may survive. His certainty is in the triumph of God, not in how this will be realized in his own life. Opposition will come not only from within the family, but also from the world at large. The world will hate Christ’s followers just as it hated him (cf. John 15:18ff.).
18–19. At first sight these words contradict the preceding. The reconciliation lies in the thought of God’s overriding sovereignty. God’s control is absolute. He can bring it about that not a hair of their head will perish. Bengel holds that we see the meaning if we make such an addition as ‘without the special providence of God, – without its reward, – before its time’. Others see a reference to spiritual safety (e.g. Plummer, Marshall), but this scarcely fits the language. Others hold that, while individuals (the martyrs) may perish, the church, the community of disciples, will be safe, but the same objection applies. It seems best to see Jesus as directing their minds to God’s strong control and purpose; it is this that determines whether they live or die, not the machinations of their enemies. In the light of that he exhorts them to endurance and constancy. Perseverance to the end, not some flashy but isolated piece of resistance, is what is required.
4. The destruction of Jerusalem (21:20–24)
Luke makes it clear that this section of the discourse refers to the destruction of Jerusalem and not to the end time. He has some matter not in the other Synoptists, while conversely he leaves out things they include, such as the reference to ‘the desolating sacrilege’ (Matt. 24:15; Mark 13:14), which would probably not have meant much to his Gentile readers.
20. It is hard to follow the reasoning of those critics who hold that this verse shows Luke was writing after the fall of Jerusalem. The prediction is quite general and there is no indication that Luke had any knowledge of the kind of detail found, for example, in Josephus. It is perhaps significant that, while Caird dates this Gospel later than AD 70, he refuses to see evidence for his date in this prediction. On the contrary he thinks that Luke is using a source written before the destruction of the city. He also says that ‘there can be no doubt that Jesus repeatedly foretold the violent end to which Jerusalem was hastening’. The participle translated surrounded means ‘being surrounded’ (cf. Rieu, ‘When you see armies closing round Jerusalem’). Were the encirclement complete, Jesus’ instructions could not be carried out.
21–22. In time of war country people would come into walled cities for protection. Jesus tells his hearers that in view of Jerusalem’s impending destruction they should keep as far from it as they could. The mountains would be inaccessible and the safest place. In fact, when the Romans were beginning to invest Jerusalem, the local Christians mostly fled to Pella, one of the cities of Decapolis and situated in trans-Jordan, south of the sea of Galilee (Eusebius says they went in response to ‘an oracle given by revelation’, which may mean Jesus’ words or a later injunction of a similar kind from a Christian prophet; see Historia Ecclesiastica III.v.3). Days of vengeance, or ‘the time of retribution’ (NEB; cf. Ps. 94:1; Isa. 34:8; etc.), are days when people will be punished for their sins. What is to happen to Jerusalem is not arbitrary, but due penalty. The fulfilment of Scripture shows that the divine judgment is being carried out.
23–24. A siege brought suffering to all, but especially to such people as pregnant women and those with young children. But the destruction will be total. Distress will be on all the land (so, rather than the earth) and wrath on the people. Josephus tells us that 97,000 were taken prisoner throughout the war and 1,100,000 were killed in the siege (Bellum vi.420). Even when we allow for exaggeration it is plain that the loss of life was staggering.5 Jesus goes on to speak of the times of the Gentiles. This is not an easy expression and a variety of explanations has been suggested: the time for the Gentiles to execute God’s judgments, or to be supreme over Israel, or to exercise the privileges hitherto belonging to Israel, or to have the gospel preached to them. The reference to these times as being fulfilled points to a divine purpose in them.
5. The coming of the Son of man (21:25–28)
In the opinion of most scholars attention now moves to the coming of the Son of man. There are, of course, many who hold that the reference is still to the fall of Jerusalem, as R. T. France, for example, in his discussion of the corresponding passage in Matthew.6 But the language seems more suited to the parousia (e.g. 27; cf. 35). Jesus is pointing to signs that will precede his coming and he is teaching his followers not to be discouraged.
25–26. In vivid apocalyptic imagery Jesus speaks of heavenly portents. It is not easy to see how literally the words are meant to be taken. Such language is often used in apocalyptic to denote sudden and violent change and the emergence of a new order. In any case this will be the main part of the meaning here. People will be perplexed and fearful. They will know that strange things are happening, but will not understand what is about to befall them.
27–28. Jesus says he will come with power and great glory. Tinsley and others think this means a going to God (as in Dan. 7:13). But this would be an unnatural meaning for the participle erchomenon, which means ‘coming’ rather than ‘going’.7 Coming with glory points to royal power. Luke alone preserves the command look up and raise your heads. When the perplexing signs begin to occur Jesus’ followers must not be downcast. Their deliverance is near. Redemption means release on payment of a price. There is a sense in which redemption has been finally accomplished on the cross; but the unfolding of its full implications is still future and it is this of which Jesus speaks.
6. The fig tree (21:29–33)
This little parable is in all the Synoptists, though only Luke adds and all the trees to the reference to the fig tree. The appearing of leaves on the trees shows that summer is near. Similarly the occurrence of the signs mentioned shows the approach of the kingdom. It is not easy to see what is meant by this generation that is not to pass away before all has taken place. Some see a reference to the people then alive and see the fulfilment in the fall of Jerusalem. The context seems against this, unless, with Plummer, we see the fall of Jerusalem as a type of the end (so Fitzmyer). Many think that Jesus was prophesying the end of all things within a few years and that he was mistaken. In view of his explicit disavowal of knowledge of this point (Mark 13:32), this seems most unlikely. Moreover, as many critics have pointed out, it is impossible to hold that Luke who recorded these words understood them to mean this. In the early church it was often held that the generation of Christ’s followers was meant, so that the elect would persist right through to the end. Others see a reference to the Jewish nation (e.g. Ryle). Some have thought that Luke means us to understand the term in the sense ‘mankind’ (Leaney, Harrington). Lenski draws attention to the frequent use of ‘generation’ in the Old Testament to denote a kind of man, especially the evil (e.g. Ps. 12:7), but also the good (e.g. Ps. 14:5). Similarly Ellis points out that in the Qumran scrolls the term ‘last generation’ apparently ‘included several lifetimes’. It seems that it is something like this that Jesus has in mind. This unusual use of generation concentrates on the kind of people that would persist through to the end. The expression ‘means only the last phase in the history of redemption …The public revelation of the kingdom is just around the corner, but its calendar time is left indeterminate’ (Ellis; cf. Schweizer, ‘since Easter all belong to the generation of the eschaton’). The paragraph concludes with the assurance that Jesus’ words have a permanence that does not attach to this material universe.
7. Be ready (21:34–36)
Jesus’ followers must live in the light of these exciting events to come and not give way to the temptation to imitate people of the world. Dissipation (kraipalē) is properly the hangover after a carousal, ‘the vulgar word for that very vulgar experience’.8 Dissipation and drunkenness are sins which are quite out of character for the Christian, but, as Ryle remarks, ‘There is no sin so great but a great saint may fall into it: there is no saint so great but he may fall into a great sin.’ The cares of this life are much more insidious, but either kind of failing can cause people to be unprepared. Verse 35 makes it clear that Jesus is talking about the end of all things and 36 that his followers have a special responsibility. The prayer he urges involves an attitude of life, an attitude that seeks to flee worldly sins as the believer concentrates on the service of God. To stand before the Son of man is to possess the ultimate salvation.