April 13, 2003 / Volume 7, Issue 15
An Analysis Of Matthew 24 (Part 7)
Matthew 24:28-31
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Matthew 24:28
For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together. |
"These lamented those that were put to death by Herod, because they had cut down the golden eagle that had been over the gate of the temple."
(Josephus, The Wars Of The Jews, Book 2, Chapter 2, Section 5)
"...he was accused by Judas and Matthias; for the king had erected over the great gate of the temple a large eagle, of great value, and had dedicated it to the temple."
(Josephus, The Antiquities Of The Jews, Book 17, Chapter 6, Section 2)
"...Now, as Titus was upon his march into the enemy's country...came the ensigns, with the eagle; and before those ensigns came the trumpeters belonging to them; next to these came the main body of the army in their ranks..."
(Josephus, The Wars Of The Jews, Book 5, Chapter 2, Section 1)
"Then came the ensigns encompassing the eagle, which is at the head of every Roman legion, the king, and the strongest of all birds, which seems to them a signal of dominion, and an omen that they shall conquer all against whom they march..."
(Josephus, The Wars Of The Jews, Book 3, Chapter 6, Section 2)
Israel was a dead nation (spiritually). They had rejected the chief cornerstone (Psalm 118:22), and thus had been rejected themselves by God (Jeremiah 7:29-ff). Though the practice of Judaism continued, God had departed from the temple (Mark 16:38; Hebrews 9:11). Jerusalem, the center of the Jewish religion was nothing more than a carcass, awaiting final destruction by the eagles (the Roman army).
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Matthew 24:29
Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
Parallel: Mk 13:24-25 / Lk 21:25-26 |
Jesus employs figurative language depicting destruction, as is used in other places of the Bible:
"Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and He will destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine."
(Isaiah 13:9-10 the fall of Babylon to the Medes and Persians, 540 B.C.)
"When I put out your light, I will cover the heavens, and make its stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. And the bright lights of the heavens I will make dark over you, and bring darkness upon your land, says the Lord."
(Ezekiel 32:7-8 the fall of Egypt to the Persians, 527 BC)
"Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the LORD is coming, for it is at hand; a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like the morning clouds spread over the mountains. A people come great and strong, the like of whom has never been; nor will there ever be any such after them, even for many successive generations. A fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns, the land is like the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness, surely nothing shall escape them... The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble; the sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness... And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth; blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD."
(Joel 2:1-3, 10, 30-31 destruction of Jerusalem by Romans foretold)
"All the hosts of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll; and their host shall fall down as the leaf falls from the vine, and as fruit falling from a fig tree. For My sword shall be bathed in heaven; indeed it shall come down on Edom, and on the people of My curse, for judgment."
(Isaiah 34:4-5 destruction of Edom by Nebuchadnezzar, ref. Jeremiah 25:8-21)
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Matthew 24:30
Then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
Parallel: Mk 13:26 / Lk 21:27 |
"The burden against Egypt. Behold, the Lord rides on a swift cloud, and will come into Egypt; the idols of Egypt will totter at his presence. And the heart of Egypt will melt in its midst."
(Isaiah 19:1 the conquering of Egypt by Sargon, the Assyrian, 720 BC)
Some insist that Matthew 24 (entirely) must be about the second coming of Christ, especially in light of the reference to the "Son of Man" coming in verses 27 and 30. However, this very same type of language is used in the Old Testament to refer to judgments waged by the Lord upon different nations. In the text above, "...the Lord rides on a swift cloud, and will come into Egypt..." did the Lord Himself physically come upon Egypt? No, but rather the Lord's will was fulfilled through the victory of the Assyrians over Egypt. Likewise it was in 70 AD when Rome came upon Jerusalem.
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Matthew 24:31
And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Parallel: Mk 13:27 / Lk 21:28 |
Regarding the angels sent, "...it might here refer to the deliverance granted to his people in the calamities of Jerusalem. It is said that there is reason to believe that not one Christian perished in the destruction of that city, God having in various ways secured their escape, so that they fled to Pella, where they dwelt when the city was destroyed..."
(Barnes New Testament Notes, Online Bible Millennium Edition)
Regarding the gathering together of the elect, "...if this refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, it means, God shall send forth his messengers whatever he may choose to employ for that purpose signs, wonders, human messengers, or the angels themselves, and gather Christians into a place of safety, so that they shall not be destroyed with the Jews..."
(Barnes New Testament Notes, Online Bible Millennium Edition)
Commenting on Mark 13:27, "Providence, is here held forth as the agency by which the present assembling of the elect is to be accomplished. LIGHTFOOT thus explains: When Jerusalem shall be reduced to ashes, and that wicked nation cut off and rejected, then shall the Son of man send His ministers with the trumpet of the Gospel, and they shall gather His elect of the several nations, from the four corners of heaven: so that God shall not want a Church, although that ancient people of His be rejected and cast off: but that ancient Jewish Church being destroyed, a new Church shall be called out of the Gentiles.' But though something like this appears to be the primary sense of the verse, in relation to the destruction of Jerusalem, no one can fail to see that the language swells beyond any gathering of a human family into a Church upon earth, and forces the thoughts onward to that gathering of the Church "at the last trump," to meet the Lord in the air, which is to wind up the present scene. Still, this is not, in our judgment, the direct subject of the prediction, for Mk 13:28 limits the whole prediction to the generation then existing."
(Jamieson, Fausset, Brown Commentary, Online Bible Millennium Edition)
"...the members of the Jerusalem church, by means of an oracle given by revelation to acceptable persons there, were ordered to leave the city before the war began and settled in a town in Peraea called Pella."
(Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 3:5)
Though the words between verses 29-31 may seem to some more applicable to the second coming of Christ than to the destruction of Jerusalem, verse 34 clearly declares that "all" the foregoing material would occur in that generation.
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We will continue to chart through Matthew 24 next week...
Click here for this week's Answering The Atheist
Is polygamy OK? Several verses say "yes" (Gen 4:19, 16:1-4, 25:6, 26:34, 28:9, 31:17, Ex 21:10, Deut 21:15, Jdg 8:30, 1 Sam 1:1-2, 2 Sam 12:7-8, 1 Kgs 11:2-3, 1 Chr 4:5, 2 Chr 11:21, 13:21, 24:3, Mt 25:1, 1 Tim 3:2, Tit 1:6-7). Other verses say no' (Gen 2:24, Mt 19:4-5, Mt 19:9, Mk 10:11, 1 Cor 7:2). Is there a contradiction?
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