Limapela Education Project
Faith in Action
This project aims to provide quality education to children in Zambia's Copperbelt Province.
It is sometimes forgotten that Jesus was not only a great teacher, but the last and greatest of the Jewish prophets. He accurately predicted not only the destruction of the Jewish nation in his day, but its remarkable restoration in our time, and several features of the intervening course of history. In this seventh message in his series on biblical prophecy, preached at Greyfriars' Classical Service on 19 April 2009, Senior Minister Rob Yule shows how Jesus' prophetic teaching reflects a distinctive aspect of Hebrew prophecy - the interplay of near and distant events.
Jesus was the last and greatest of the Jewish prophets. Moses foretold that a prophet like himself would later arise in Israel, and that the Jewish people should heed his words. 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people. You must listen to this prophet.' (Deuteronomy 19: 15).
Jesus' awareness that he was a prophet to Israel is evident in Luke 13. He told a story about a landowner who had planted a fig tree in his vineyard. He went to look for fruit on it, but didn't find any. So he said to the gardener who took care of the vineyard, 'For three years I have come looking for figs on this tree, and I haven't found any yet. Chop it down! Why should it take up space?'
The gardener answered, 'Master, leave it for another year. I'll dig around it and put some manure on it to make it grow. Maybe it will have figs on it next year. If it doesn't, you can have it cut down.' (Luke 13:6-9, CEV).
The fig tree represents the nation of Israel. For the three years of his public ministry Jesus looked for a response from the Jewish leaders. The parable indicates that he knew God was giving them one last chance to respond. If they didn't, then the fig tree would be cut down - the Jewish nation would be destroyed.
Jesus took no delight in this situation. It is commonly thought that prophets are harsh, judgmental and lacking in compassion. Nothing could be further from the truth. It pained Jesus that the Jewish leaders of his day were so unresponsive. Aware that he came in a long line of prophets who the Jewish people had similarly rejected, he nonetheless showed great compassion and wept over the city of Jerusalem, just as Moses had once interceded for the Jewish nation to be spared (Exodus 32:11-14):
'Jerusalem, Jerusalem! Your people have killed the prophets and have stoned the messengers who were sent to you. I have often wanted to gather your people, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you wouldn't let me. Now your temple will be deserted. You won't see me again until the time when you say, "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord."' (Luke 13: 34-35, CEV).
In Luke 13 Jesus alludes to the three years of his public ministry, foretells the destruction of the Jewish temple, and warns that they won't see him again until they welcome him gladly in the words of the Hallel psalm, 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord' (Psalm 118:26). Jesus was a prophet to Israel.
Soon after this, Jesus foretold the destruction of the temple even more graphically. He was sitting with his disciples on the Mount of Olives - over the valley from the Temple Mount.The disciples were talking about the splendour of the temple being built across the valley below them, with the majestic stones and massive expense going into its construction. King Herod the Great had started building it in BC 19. It wasn't finished till AD 64 - a mere six years before it was destroyed.
So the temple was still being built when Jesus and his disciples saw it and had this conversation. Jesus said to them, 'Do you see these stones? The time is coming when not one of them will be left in place. They will all be knocked down.' (Luke 21:6, CEV).
Jesus used this opportunity to talk to his disciples about other future events, as recorded in the three synoptic Gospels (Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21). He did so in response to two questions the disciples asked him, one question recorded in Luke's account, one in Matthew's:
'Teacher, when will these things [the destruction of the temple] happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?' (Luke 21:7).
'Tell us, when will this [the destruction of the temple] happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?' (Matthew 24:3).
The disciples seem to have thought that the destruction of the temple would coincide with the end of the age. But Jesus was speaking of two distinct and different events, one near, the other distant, separated by an unspecified interval of time:
He foresees a near event - an imminent catastrophe in Jerusalem, the destruction of the city and its famous temple.
He envisages a long interval, a turbulent period of history marked by 'wars and revolutions', which 'must happen first' but don't indicate that the end of the age is near (Luke 21:9).
Then he foretells a final great tribulation - what David Pawson calls 'the big trouble' - the tumultuous events and sufferings that will mark the end of the age.
Jesus seems to see the two great catastrophes, the immediate and the far distant, together as though the near event, the destruction of Jerusalem, is a picture of the latter event, the great tribulation at the end of the age. The temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70, but the events of the end are still to happen.
We have here, therefore, an example of something that biblical scholar George Ladd points out is very characteristic of Old Testament prophecy: the foreshortening or telescoping of near and distant events. The prophets, says. Ladd, often view distant events like 'the day of the Lord' through the 'lens' of closer calamities in history (Theology of the New Testament [Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1974], p. 198).
Prophetic perspective is like the view of the Southern Alps from the Canterbury Plains, in the South Island of New Zealand. As you drive up the West Coast Road from Christchurch towards the Alps, the foothills of the Torlesse Range fill the horizon. Only when you cross Porters' Pass and enter the Broken River Basin do you see the even vaster range of the Southern Alps and the main divide towering up ahead. From a distance it looks like one range. Only when up close do you realise there are two.
In Jesus' conversation with the disciples, the near foothills of prophecy concerned the destruction of the temple. For us - with this event behind us, the events of the end of the age and the return of Jesus fill the view ahead.
In his prophetic discourse, Jesus first outlines some signs of the end of the age (Luke 21:8-11). Then he returns to events that must happen 'before all this' (Luke 21:12-24). Finally in verse 25 he picks up again where he left off in verse 11, giving more detail about the signs of the end. The intervening sequence of historical events, from the time of his conversation with the disciples to the end of the age, is what Jesus talks about in Luke 21:12-24:
Everything described here actually happened to the apostles in their lifetime, in the course of their bearing witness to Jesus and preaching of the Gospel, and is described in other parts of the New Testament, especially the book of Acts. Paul, especially, took the Gospel to synagogues, prisons, kings and governors. The promises of God's prompting and protection apply to all emissaries of the Gospel, of course, but these prophecies began to be fulfilled in the opposition experienced by the early Christians in the first century.
This took place exactly as Jesus foretold. In AD 70 the Roman legions under Titus advanced against Jerusalem, then temporally withdrew their siege. Christians remembered Jesus' words, fled the city, escaped to Pella in trans-Jordan, and survived. Shortly after, the Roman armies returned - four legions in all, numbering about 80,000 soldiers. They laid siege to the city, and ultimately destroyed it and the temple.
The horrors of the six month siege fulfilled exactly what Moses (Deuteronomy 28:52-57) and Jesus (Luke 21:23) had foretold. Josephus Flavius, the Jewish historian, records how Mary, daughter of Eleazar - a Jewish woman from wealthy family - became so desperate with hunger that she killed her nursing infant son, roasted his flesh, and began to eat it. Attracted by the smell of cooking, a group of defenders broke into her house to loot her food. When they saw what she was eating, they turned away revolted.
By decree of Titus, all the citizens of Jerusalem were taken captive, and its buildings - including the temple - levelled to the ground. Nearly a million Jews in Judea and Jerusalem were killed. More than 90,000 were captured, taken to Rome (as depicted on the famous frieze on the Arch of Titus), sold in Rome's slave markets, and 'taken as prisoners to all nations' (Luke 21:24a).
This was the beginning of the Jewish Diaspora, which lasted nineteen centuries, marked by much suffering and persecution, until the rise of Zionism and the return to Israel in modern times.
Jesus predicted a period of Gentile ascendancy, which he called 'the times of the Gentiles' (Luke 21:24b) - a time when Gentile nations would rule Jerusalem. For nineteen hundred years Jerusalem has been ruled by at least ten Gentile nations: Romans, Byzantines, Persians, Arabs, Crusaders, Ottoman Turks, British and Jordanians.
According to Jesus' prophecy, the end of the age of the Gentiles would be marked by the return of Jerusalem to Jewish control. This happened dramatically on 7 June 1967, when the Old City of Jerusalem (which includes the temple site and the Mount of Olives) was unexpectedly restored to Jewish sovereignty during the Six Day War. Apart from the continued Moslem control of the Temple Mount, this brings us very near to the close of the times of the Gentiles and the events of the 'end of the age'.
The 'times of the Gentiles' is also the period of the worldwide proclamation of the Christian message in obedience to Jesus' Great Commission. 'This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come' (Matthew 24:11). The end of the age and the coming of the Son of Man cannot occur until the Gospel has been preached in all the 'inhabited earth' (oikoumene) and to all ethnic groups (ethnesin). Today we are seeing the Gospel being presented to every subculture and people group.
These prophecies of Jesus carry two important implications:
What Jesus' prophesied has come awesomely true for the Jewish people. He predicted both their loss of statehood twenty centuries ago, and their amazing restoration of statehood in our time.
If Jesus was right about these events, we should pay attention to everything else that he said and did.
Today many mission-minded Christians - particularly those concerned with Muslim evangelism and outreach in the Muslim world - minimise or deny God's ongoing purposes for Israel, to avoid provoking Muslims. On the other hand some involved in Jewish-Christian dialogue and support for the state of Israel say we should refrain from proclaiming the Gospel to Jews, so as not to cause offence to Jews.
These concerns are understandable, but cannot be allowed to shape our mission or our theology. Our role model should be the apostle Paul who took the gospel 'to the Jew first' as well as to the Greek (Romans 1:16). According to Jesus, it is our failure to make known the gospel of the kingdom that is holding up God's purposes for the end of the age.
Rob Yule, 19 April 2009
© 2009, Greyfriars Presbyterian Church
