Matthew 24: 32-51, More on the "Second Coming"

Jesus is speaking to his disciples regarding a future "coming of the Son of Man."

Matt 24:32-34
"Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.

A significant question about all of this passage: is Jesus speaking of a close upcoming event (for example, the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD) or a far off event, millennia away?  Or some combination of these?  At the beginning of this conversation, he is appears to be speaking of the generation of his listeners.

From the NIV footnotes: in verse 33, "it" could also be "he" as in "He is near".  And the word "generation" in verse 34 could also be translated "race", so this might not be describing the time frame of a "generation".

Matt 24:35-39
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

"As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

In verse 36 some manuscripts do not include the phrase translated here "nor the Son."

Jesus makes it clear that the "end" will come quickly, will be a surprise.

Matt 24:40-44
"Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.

But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him."

"Like a thief in the night," a favorite phrase for people discussing the endtimes....  I have to say that I am a bit immune to this phrase now and it is hard to go back to the first century and view this from their perspective.  (My college days included listening to Larry Norman's "I wish we'd all been ready.")

Matt 24:45-51
"Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.

"But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, `My master is staying away a long time,' and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This appearance of the "owner" or "master", the Creator of the house, will apparently be a complete surprise.  Of course, for most of us, it is Death that comes first, sometimes as a surprise.

Matthew 24:1-31, The Coming of the Son of Man

Jesus has just finished warning the religious leaders about the effects of their hypocrisy and their narrow view of righteousness.  He now uses the nearby temple to transition into teachings on the end times.

Matt 24:1-2
Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. "Do you see all these things?" he asked. "I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."

This will happen within 40 years!

Matt 24:3-8
As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. 

"Tell us," they said, "when will this  happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"

 Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, `I am the Christ,' and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains."

Are we still looking to the destruction of Jerusalem?  Or something much later?  Or both?

Matt 24:9-14

"Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved."

"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."

This now seems to be speaking of a period much further off than 40 years after this speech.

Matt 24:15-22
"So when you see standing in the holy place `the abomination that causes desolation,' spoken of through the prophet  Daniel--let the reader understand-- then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now--and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive,  but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.

The quote in verse 15 is from the Old Testament book of Daniel: Daniel 9:27, Daniel 11:31, Daniel 12:11.

The author of this book, Matthew, seems to insert the sentence, "Let the reader understand", as an alert of some kind.  If Matthew is writing just after the destruction of the temple (in 70 CE) then his readers would see some of this prophecy as already fulfilled. If Matthew is writing before the destruction of the temple, then this is presumably an alert to his readers.

Matt 24:23-28
At that time if anyone says to you, `Look, here is the  Christ!' or, `There he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect--if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time.

"So if anyone tells you, `There he is, out in the desert,'  do not go out; or, `Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.

Those inclined to pour over the first half of chapter 24, looking for special signs that fit their current history, should be discouraged by these warnings that there will be many false claims that "this is the end times!"  One need only have a passing familiarity with the history of Christianity to see many many false claims, "Here he is!"

Matt 24:29-31
"Immediately after the distress of those days "`the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.' At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

Verse 29 is a rough rephrasing of Old Testament prophesies in Isaiah 13:10 and Isaiah 34:4.

Surely now we are looking to an event deeper in time, millennia away from this conversation with the disciples on the temple grounds.

Matthew 23, Woe

This chapter collects a series of final teachings of Jesus, presumably occurring during the last week of Jesus's ministry.

Matt 23:1-12
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

"Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them `Rabbi.'

"But you are not to be called `Rabbi,' for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth `father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called `teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ.

"The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted."

This is Jesus's clearest teaching against the religious practices of the teachers of the law. The passage confronts the hypocrisy and dishonesty of the religious leaders.  In place of the religious hypocrisy, Jesus emphasizes that we are all "brothers" (and sisters); his universe seems fairly flat, without hierarchy.

Phylacteries are "boxes containing Scripture verses, worn on forehead and arm" (NIV footnotes).

Matt 23:13-22
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you  hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.

"Woe to you, blind guides! You say, `If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold  of the temple, he is bound by his oath.' You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? 

You also say, `If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.' You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 

Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven swears by God's throne and by the one who sits on it.

This sequence of "Woe" passages is a sequence of harsh warnings about the religious games of the times.  We practice different games in our modern culture, but the underlying hypocrisy is unchanged.

The hypocrites shut up the kingdom of heaven....  They count converts and then mislead them.  They play games with a sequence of oaths; some they call important, some they say are not.

Some ancient Greek manuscripts include, after verse 13, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Therefore you will be  punished more severely."  The NIV presumably does not include this verse as it is not in all of the ancient manuscripts.

Matt 23:23-28
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead  men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness."

The hypocrites, claim to tithe but care little for justice.  They "strain out a gnat but swallow a camel", an accurate metaphor for the absurdities of legalism.  They ignore the truly important parts of man, the soul, the heart.

23:29-35

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, `If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.  So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.

"Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers! You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered  between the temple and the altar.

These hypocrites claim to be righteous and willing to be persecuted, yet they would have killed the prophets (and will kill Jesus.)

23:36-39
"I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.   Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say,  `Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'"

The quote in verse 39 is from Psalm 118:26.

The sequence of warnings ends with a statement that these persecutions and accompanying desolation will occur soon, "upon this generation."  If Matthew was written after 70 CE, the reader would have recognized the destruction of Jerusalem that had recently occurred.

The warnings in this passage lead to a more detailed discussion of the "end times", as Jesus leaves the temple, in the next chapter.

The Synoptic Gospels

On Sundays we take a break from reading another chapter and spend a brief time summarizing what we've been reading (or will read.)

Even a cursory reading of the New Testament reveals that the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are very similar, with many common stories and parables.  Then the fourth gospel, the Gospel of John, is very different, with different events and a special collection of teachings by Jesus that do not appear in the other three.

Presumably, the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke had a common source for their accounts of Jesus's ministry and had personal reasons for deviations from that account.  Matthew, written to Jews, deviates from the common accounts to quote Old Testament prophecies, for example while Luke, written by a Greek to the Gentiles, adds observations and stories that might be of interest to the individual not aware of Jewish history.  (Luke is also careful to mention women in the Jesus ministry, naming women among his followers, both before and after the resurrection.)

One of the simplest explanations for the common passages in the first three gospels is that the Gospel of Mark was written first and that the other two gospel writers had access to Mark as an outline for their work.   (From the first few verses of the Gospel of Luke, we see that Luke interviewed individuals before writing his report, so one would expect that he would have access to Mark's gospel, if had had been written by that time.)

One can then explain the Gospel of John as deliberately different from the other three, since John, writing much later, probably assumes those other stories have been told and wants to add to, flesh out, the reports on Jesus's acts and teachings.

The term commonly used to identify the first three gospels, distinct from that of John, is "synoptic".  More information, in considerable depth, is available on this Wikipedia page .

Related to the 3+1 gospels in the New Testament is the issue of gospel harmony.  Can we, using the four gospels, create an orderly summary of the events of the life of Christ?  There is an old, classical tradition of this and I have several harmonies of the life of Christ in my personal library.  These attempts differ slightly since the different gospels do have different orders for certain events and teachings.  And, very likely, Jesus taught the same messages several different times, in different places.  The Wikipedia page on this, at the link above, does a pretty good job of outlining one version of a gospel harmony, giving a table with 161 events from the life of Christ, along with their references in the four gospels.  Those 161 events – with representative church artwork! – can be found here.

Tomorrow we return to Matthew, reading the growing challenges by the religious leaders, as Jesus spends the Passover Week in Jerusalem.