Convulsions Preceding The End
CONVULSIONS PRECEDING THE END
MATTHEW 24:1-14
This chapter tells us what to expect before Jesus returns as king and how to prepare for that coming.
The fifth and last discourse in this Gospel, dealing with the consummation of the kingdom (chapters 24–25), begins with the Olivet prophecy (paralleled in Mark 13 and Luke 21:5ff.), which is concerned largely with events associated with the destruction of the temple (24:2). Whatever the disciples’ ideas of the future were in AD 30, it was possible by the time this Gospel was written to distinguish “this” (24:3)—ie the destruction of the temple, which had taken place—from Jesus’ coming (parousia) and “the close of the age” (cf. 13:39,49), which still lay in the future. In the following verses we expect an answer to both parts of the disciples’ question, but we cannot divide the prophecy neatly so as to make part refer exclusively to the nearer event and part to that which was more remote.
The temple restored by Herod from 19 BC onwards was internationally renowned for its architectural splendor. The lower courses of masonry on the western wall survive to bear witness to its vanished glories. No wonder that the disciples drew their Master’s attention to the buildings (24:1). It was his predictions of the overthrow (24:2) that prompted their question as they looked across to the city and temple from the slopes of Olivet (24:3). His reply in the first instance warns them not to be misled by false messiahs (24:4f.), many of whom attracted large numbers of enthusiastic devotees in the period between AD 44 and 70, and encourages them not to be dismayed by wars and natural calamities (24:6f.; cf. Revelation 6:2-8). These will be but harbingers of the birth-pangs of the new age (24:8). Then he prepares them for persecution and apostasy (cf. Daniel 11:33ff.) amid increasing wickedness (24:9-12) but holds out the promise of final deliverance for those who maintain their loyalty to the end (24:13). 24:9-14 largely repeat 10:1-23; the assurance that the world-wide proclamation of the good news of the kingdom must precede the end (24:14) is parallel to the enigmatic 10:23b; but what was there restricted to “the towns of Israel” is here “a testimony to all nations” (cf. 28:19), which indeed became a historical reality in the decades before AD 70.
Plague, earthquake and famine, and tumult and war
The wonderful coming of Jesus declare.