No One Knows The Hour (part 36)

Sticking with Matthew’s presentation for the purposes of this analysis, the reader is now in a state of superior comprehension of the words of Jesus when hearing such things as “Whenever they persecute you in one place, flee to another.  I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes” (10:23); “The Son of Man will send His angels, and they will gather from His kingdom everything that causes sin as well as all lawbreakers” (13:41); “For the Son of Man will come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and then He will reward each person according to what He has done” (16:27)---a clear Daniel seven reference; and “I tell you the truth, there are some standing here who will not experience death before they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom” (16:28).  It is now understood that the last of these mentions of the Son of Man can be equated with the fall of the Temple, as would be made clear later in Matthew.  For the followers of Jesus then, seeing the Son of Man coming in His kingdom was the same thing as seeing the Temple fall. 

Something mentioned within the previous analysis of second Peter, which was the fact that talk of “heaven and earth” was a common way of referencing the Temple, leads back to that which precedes Jesus’ statement that “as for that day and hour no one knows it---not even the angels in heaven---except the Father alone” (Matthew 24:36).  Just before Jesus says this, and immediately after He speaks about the generation that will see the Temple fall, Jesus says “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away” (24:35). 

This, as has been alluded to several times, is also identically reported by the three evangelists---a fact that, like the other identically reported statement that preceded it, should not escape attention.  Now, does one take this statement, allow imagination to wander about again, and hear Jesus going off on a tangent about the end of the world when He speaks these words, or is to be heard within context, speaking in a very understandable way?  Obviously, the latter option is the more prudent and proper choice. 

Jesus has not changed the subject.  Jesus has not gone off on a tangent.  He is speaking about the fall of the Temple.  He is continuing to answer the question posed to Him at the beginning of the chapter following His declaration that not one stone of the Temple would be left upon another, as to when this would happen.  He has given the bulk of His answer, telling His disciples and other hearers the types of things that they would see and which should prepare them for the Temple’s fall, and re-asserts the finality of His prediction when He says that “Heaven and earth,” the Temple, “will pass away, but My words,” this prediction, “will not pass away.” 

In other words, Jesus says, “Oh yes, the Temple is going to fall.  You can count on it happening.”  Beyond that, one can hear Him making an existential claim, in that even though the Temple will pass away, His words---words that spring from the true Temple, will never pass away.  Also, because it is coincident with the fall of the Temple that Jesus (the Son of Man) will be going before the Father (the Ancient of Days) to receive His kingdom, those who are listening to Him, and those who come to believe in Him through the preaching of His disciples, can have confidence that His words are words that will endure.  His words about the Temple will indeed prove to be true---they will never pass away.  History will prove Him correct and He will reign as the Son of Man.     

No One Knows The Hour (part 34)

As one hears the words of the second letter of Peter (as a perfect example, though one could also comb through Paul’s letters as part of this exercise) and considers the possibilities surrounding the potential interpretation of what is to be found there, while also considering the possibility that it was produced before the fall of the Temple, in demonstration of the church’s expectation of that fall and what it would mean for their faith,  it is appropriate to think about the time frame in which the written synoptic Gospels are said to have been produced. 

If indeed it was well understood that Jesus, as reported by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, was speaking of the fall of the Temple as something that would occur within the lifetimes of many of those that heard His answer to the disciples’ question about when the Temple would be thrown to the ground with not one stone left upon another, then this can also help to explain the time period that saw the relative explosion of Gospel narratives on to the scene in the first century. 

Though there are ongoing debates about the time frame for the production of the synoptic Gospels, and though there could certainly be written records that would be incorporated into the Gospels themselves that were composed at an early stage, it is generally accepted that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Mark preceding the other two) in the forms in which the church possesses them, were all composed roughly around the year seventy.  Some suggest an earlier dating for Mark, perhaps in the late sixties.  If true, this is not problematic for our suggestion. 

However, if the insistence of this study is correct, and the early church did indeed hold Jesus’ prediction concerning the Temple in very high regard (again considering that Jesus is reported to have made precious few predictions), giving it a place at the center of their teaching about Jesus as the thing that would bring about a great validation of His ministry, then it would be quite understandable to place all three of the synoptic Gospel accounts as being produced shortly after the very fall of the Temple that was predicted by Jesus as recorded by the Gospel authors. 

Remember, a great deal of weight has been placed on the fact that, despite numerous differences in details throughout the whole of their accounts of Jesus’ ministry and of His time and activities in the Temple, all three coalesce to identically report His talk about the generation that will see the fall of the Temple, along with the words that immediately followed.  This single fact should be endlessly fascinating.  It would make perfect sense for all three of the evangelists works to spring from the fall of the Temple, with all being produced after that event in a veritable rush to generate and disperse the written account that would include His words about the Temple’s fall. 

It is possible that, in the minds of the authors and the Jesus communities, the fall of the Temple would be the final piece of the puzzle, validating all that Jesus had said and done.  Now, with the Temple destroyed, which also meant that the Son of Man had most certainly gone before the Ancient of Days to receive His kingdom (for if one prediction was correct, then the prediction tied to it must be considered to be correct as well), all of the preaching and teaching about Jesus that had been taking place within the nascent church movement, and all of the persecution undergone by the church, primarily at the hands of the Temple authorities, could be seen to not have been done or experienced in vain. 

No One Knows The Hour (part 28)

Recall Mark’s account of the disciples’ question, as he reports their asking “when will these things happen?  And what will be the sign that all these things are about to take place?” (13:4)  In Luke, the disciples pose a similar question which, one can also recall, differed from Matthew’s report, as there they instead went on to ask “what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age” (24:3c).  As has been adequately demonstrated, this question was not making reference to Jesus’ return to earth, nor to the end of the world, but was a question that was ensconced in a worldview shaped by the presentation of Daniel seven, as the Son of Man comes to the Ancient of Days to receive His kingdom, thus ending the present age and ushering in the age in which the Creator God exercises cosmic dominion through the Son of Man. 

So how should this statement by Jesus be heard?  It should be heard as plainly as possible.  When Jesus says that “this generation will not pass away until all these things take place,” making reference to the fall of the Temple, what He means is that this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.  Simple.  Jesus is informing His hearers that the Temple will fall during the lifetimes of many of those that were listening to Him speak at that moment.  Seeing as how the Temple actually did fall in the year seventy, with not one stone left upon another, and with this taking place roughly forty years beyond the time of His speech, it appears that He was right.  As one contemplates that, it should be remembered that Jesus was very clear in His insistence that the fall of the Temple would coincide with “the Son of Man arriving on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (24:30b).         

So, pausing here for a bit before going on to the remainder of the statement about that generation and their capacity to witness these things, it’s now clear that Jesus was referencing the fall of the Temple when He spoke in this manner.  Would this really have been so clear to those that heard Him?  Was this really and truly clear to His disciples?  Were these words of Jesus unambiguously clear to the early church?  It would seem so.  The fact that identical language is in use at this point in the records of the three evangelists, when such a thing cannot be said up until this point, goes a long, long way in demonstrating that Jesus’ disciples and the early church well understood what Jesus meant, taking this speech about the Temple and about the coming of the Son of Man (presumably an earth to heaven movement) quite seriously.  Indeed, it would appear that a great amount of weight was placed on these words. 

This, in fact, when one gets right down to it, is one of very few places where Jesus can be seen offering up a prediction that could be empirically verified and tested by a watching world.  Yes, He often speaks about His pending death and Resurrection, but it is with these words about the Temple that He pushes His predictions (prophecies if you like) into a time in the future, with a determinate end-point (i.e. this generation).  Now, one could argue that these words, as recorded in the Gospels, did not actually come from Jesus, and that they are interpolations by later authors, placing words in Jesus’ mouth.  However, the univocal witness of the Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as Jesus reaches this point in His discourse about the Temple, forces one to consider that there was an expectation, throughout the time following Jesus’ ascension, that the Temple needed to fall, so that Jesus could receive a final validation as a prophet.