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When the Old Testament prophets wrote about the coming of the Messiah, there was no hint in their predictions that He would be coming twice. The idea that the Messiah would come, leave, and then return again later was thus also a foreign concept to the early first century Hebrew mind-set. The doctrine of the second appearing of the Christ was a secret, not revealed until after Jesus came the first time. In fact, despite such passages as Isaiah 53, Jesus' disciples were slow to hear Jesus' predictions of His death. Thus, they slept while Jesus prayed in Gethsemane (Mk 14:37). They scattered when He was arrested (Mt 26:31). They cowered behind a locked door during the three days His body was in the tomb (Jn 20:19). They were sceptical at news of His resurrection (Mk 16:11). And, they did not remember His promise to rise from the dead until they themselves were convinced of Jesus' resurrection (Jn 2:22).
In Matthew 24:1-2, Jesus predicted that Herod's temple in Jerusalem would be utterly destroyed. In response to this, His disciples asked, "what will be the sign of Your coming?" (Mt 24:3). It is often assumed by modern readers that the disciples were asking about Jesus' second coming, but were they? At that point in time the disciples arguably were not even aware that there would be a second coming. Thus, the disciple's question about Jesus "coming" to destroy Jerusalem may not have been a question about the second coming as we commonly think of it. Rather, it could have been about another type of coming, a judgment coming. Judgment comings of the Lord were common throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, and their question to Jesus was rooted in good Old Testament prophetic theology. For instance:
Exodus 9:3 - "The hand of the LORD will come with a very severe pestilence on your livestock which are in the field, on the horses, on the donkeys, on the camels, on the herds, and on the flocks." (This judgment coming concerned Egypt and was fulfilled in the time of Moses as a part of the ten plagues.)
Psalm 144:5-7 - "Bow Thy heavens, O LORD, and come down; Touch the mountains, that they may smoke. Flash forth lightning and scatter them; Send out Thine arrows and confuse them. Stretch forth Thy hand from on high; Rescue me and deliver me out of great waters, Out of the hand of aliens." (This coming was requested by David against the foreign military enemies of his own day.)
Isaiah 19:1 - "The oracle concerning Egypt. Behold, the LORD is riding on a swift cloud, and is about to come to Egypt; The idols of Egypt will tremble at His presence, And the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them." (As is obvious from the quoted text, this coming was against the nation of Egypt and result in their military defeat by the Assyrians in 670 B.C.)
Isaiah 26:21 - "For behold, the LORD is about to come out from His place To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; And the earth will reveal her bloodshed, And will no longer cover her slain." (This prediction of the LORD's coming was made after a series of specific prophecies concerning the destruction of Assyria, Philistia, Moab, Aram, Israel, Cush, Egypt, Babylon, Edom, Arabia, and Tyre. The judgment on each of nations subsequently fell on these nations, primarily through the invading Assyrian army)
Isaiah 31:4 - "The LORD of hosts come down to wage war on Mount Zion and on its hill." (In this coming, the LORD protected Jerusalem from Assyrian aggression and ultimately destroyed Assyria's capital city, Nineveh, in 612 B.C.)
Micah 1:3-4 - "The LORD is coming forth from His place. He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth. The mountains will melt under Him, And the valleys will be split, Like wax before the fire, Like water poured down a steep place." (This coming concerned the destruction of Samara, and was fulfilled in 722 B.C.)
As demonstrated above, there are numerous non-bodily judgment "comings" of the Lord recorded throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. The Lord did not appear personally (i.e. in bodily form) in any of these historical comings. Instead, His coming was by way of sending judgment upon specific sinful groups. This idea of the "coming" of the Lord was much used throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, and usually resulted in the destruction of a particular city or nation (just as Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70).
Further, the Hebrew prophets had a unique way of describing their predictions, a sort of 'shop talk'. They used technical prophetical terminology concerning the destruction of various cities of the ancient world. Common phrases included such imagery as the sun darkening, the moon turning blood red, stars falling from the sky, the mountains trembling, the seas foaming, and statements that the would Lord "come." Jesus used many of these same figures to describe the coming destruction of Herod's temple. The disciples, well familiar with Old Testament prophetical language, immediately identified Jesus' predictions of Mt 24 as yet another judgment "coming" of the Lord upon a disobedient people.
It is interesting to compare Luke's version of the Olivet discourse to Matthew's. According to Matthew, they wanted to learn the sign of Jesus' "coming." Alternatively, Luke records that, upon hearing that the temple was to be destroyed, they asked for the sign "when these things are about to take place" (Lk 21:7). This strongly suggests that when asking about Jesus' "coming" (Mt 24), the disciples meant the destruction of the temple (Lk 21).
Perhaps the above references to multiple comings of the Lord has you wondering, "Just how many 'second' comings are there?" It would defy logic to proclaim more than one. Hebrews 9:28 confirms that Christ "shall appear a second time." The word "appear" in Hebrews 9:28 reveals an important truth: just as Jesus' first coming was in a body that could be seen, so too at His second coming Jesus will "appear" again in a body that can be seen. The angels, in Acts 1:11, told the disciples that "this Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven." They saw him go bodily into heaven and bodily he shall return. Paul promised the Thessalonians that "the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God" (1Th 4:16). John promised, "We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is" (1Jn 3:2). Paul wrote to Timothy about the future "appearing" of our Lord Jesus Christ (1Ti 6:14). The New Testament predicts only one more bodily coming of Jesus wherein He appears and can be seen (the second one).
In addition to the AD 70 judgment coming of Jesus and the future second bodily coming of Jesus, there are other types of coming as well. For instance, in John 14:23, Jesus promised that He and the Father would "come" to whoever obeys His teachings. Also, in warning the seven churches of Revelation, Jesus threatened several of them to straighten up lest He "come" and discipline them (Re 2:5, 16, 3:3). The implication was that if they did repent, it would not be necessary for Him to come and discipline them.
Thus, arguably, the essence of Matthew 24 was indeed fulfilled in the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies. It was a judgment "coming" of the Lord. However, Jesus did not appear bodily at that time. The fall of the temple was not accompanied by the second appearing of Christ in person. In the New Testament, we must distinguish between the judgment coming of the Lord and the second bodily coming of Jesus. Those statements about the coming of the Lord that have a near or soon time reference attached to them are probably tied in with the judgment coming of AD 70 (Mt 10:23, Mt 24:34, Re 1:1-3). Those without any time indicators could refer to the AD 70 judgement or to the actual second coming.
Of course it is possible that Jesus also answered a question that the disciples were not actually asking. That is, Jesus might have told them not only about the first century judgment coming against Jerusalem but also about a separate event: His far distant second bodily coming. This has good Old Testament precedent. Fee and Stuart note that in the Old Testament, "some of the prophecies of the near future were set against the background of the great, eschatological future, and sometimes they seem to blend . . . the Bible regularly sees God's acts in temporal history in light of His overall plan for all of human history . . . thus there are some things in the prophets that may belong to the final events of the age (e.g., Joel 3:1-3; Zeph. 3:8-9; Zech 14:9). But the temporal judgments that are often spoken of in conjunction with those final events must not be pushed into the future as well" (How To Read The Bible For All Its Worth, 1st Edition, p. 164). Thus Jesus may have interspersed some statements about his future bodily coming in among the statements regarding the judgment coming upon Jerusalem.
Hence, we must also be alert to the possibility that some prophetic statements of Matthew 24 have telescoping fulfillments. That is, some parts of Jesus' prophecies were fulfilled in AD 70 as part of the judgment coming and other parts yet to be fulfilled in our own future as part of the actual second coming. This can be illustrated by Jesus' declaration in Luke 4:17-21 that a certain prophecy from Isaiah 61:2a had been fulfilled in their hearing. Interestingly, Jesus stopped short of quoting the entire verse. Evidently, the latter half of verse 2 was not fulfilled in their hearing that day. The point to be observed is that a pre-Jesus reader of Isaiah 61:2 would have had no hint that the fulfillment of the verse would be in stages. The same may well be true of some of the Matthew 24 prophecies. Thus, the essence of the predictions made in Matthew 24 were fulfilled in the AD 70 destruction of the temple by the Roman armies. It does not necessarily follow from this, however, that the second coming of Jesus occurred in AD 70. Rather, that which befell the city was a judgment coming of Jesus.
Finally, another possibility is that the Matthew 24 "coming" may be a fulfillment of Daniel 7:13. If so, it refers not to the second coming down to earth, but rather to Jesus' ascension, coming up from the earth to the Father. The judgment upon Jerusalem was proof that He had ascended into heaven and was sitting as the right hand of the Father.
NAS Daniel 7:13 - "I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him.
NAS Matthew 24:30 - ...then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.
NAS Matthew 26:64 - Jesus said to him, "You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven."
02/11/05