Luke 21:28-32

Applebury's Comments

Instruction About The Destruction of Jerusalem
Scripture

Luke 21:28-32 But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads; because your redemption draweth nigh.

29 And he spake to them a parable: Behold the fig tree, and all the trees: 30 when they now shoot forth, ye see it and know of your own selves that the summer is now nigh. 31 Even so ye also, when ye see these things coming to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh. 32 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all things be accomplished.

Comments

But when these things begin to come to pass.Luke 21:28 is usually treated as belonging to the paragraph about the coming of Christ. If, however, we make it the beginning of the new paragraph about the destruction of Jerusalem which ends at Luke 21:32, it refers to the things the disciples were to see as that destruction drew near.

There are good reasons for treating it in this way: (1) It does not contradict the plain suggestion that the coming of Christ will be at an unknown time. (2) It makes Jesus-' instruction to the disciples to look up and lift up their heads because their redemption was drawing near mean something to them, for some of them would be alive when the destruction of Jerusalem would occur. (3) It avoids the assumption that Jesus led the disciples to expect His coming in their lifetime.

your redemption draweth nigh.Redemption means release. It may refer to the release from slavery to sinthe most common use of the term in the New Testament. It may refer to the release from the conditions imposed on creation because of the sin of man (Romans 8:18-25). In this context, it refers to the disciples-' release from the distress that led to the destruction of Jerusalem. Those who were in Judea who fled from the approaching doom, as Jesus told them to do, were able to save their lives (Luke 21:21).

And he spake to them a parable.The parable of the Fig Tree is ordinarily interpreted as having to do with the second coming of Christ, In that case, the signs that Jesus had been telling His disciples about would indicate the approach of His coming, just as the new growth on the tree indicates the coming of summer. But if we make it a part of the paragraph that begins at Luke 21:28for the reasons given aboveit refers to the approaching destruction of Jerusalem which did occur in 70 A. D. The point of the parable is: There are signs that indicate the nearness of something that is about to happen. The distress signals that Jesus pointed out enabled His disciples to see the approaching storm that fell with terrible devastation on the city that rejected her King.

know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh.Consistency demands that this verse be interpreted in harmony with its context. If the whole context refers to the second coming of Christ, then the kingdom of God will naturally refer to the heavenly phase of the kingdom. But Luke used the expression The kingdom of God is come high unto you in a different sense in Luke 10:9; Luke 10:11. On their first mission, the disciples were to heal the sick and say to them, The kingdom of God has come nigh unto you. God's rule as King had come to bless those who accepted His messengers. But those who rejected their message were also to be reminded that the kingdom of God was nigh. That is, that the judgment of God was about to come on them is seen in the fact that Jesus continued to say, It shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city. It seems logical, then, to think of the coming of the kingdom of God in connection with the destruction of Jerusalem as His judgment on that city.

In the parable of the King's Son, Jesus told about those who rejected the invitation of the king and said, The king was wroth and sent his armies and destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. The kingdom of GodHis kingly authority and ruledid come upon that city in judgment.

Another problem is presented by the text as Matthew gives it: When you see all these things, know ye that he (or it) is nigh, even at the doors (Matthew 24:33). The subject of the verb is not given in the Greek. It may be the neuter pronoun as in the King James or the masculine as in the American Standard and R. S. V. If we say, he is near, we relate the whole context to the coming of Christ and are involved in the difficulties suggested by that interpretation. But if we say it is near, we relate it to the destruction of Jerusalem, the theme of the discourse, and avoid these problems.

If we translate Itmeaning the destruction of Jerusalemis near, We must interpret Luke's statement, the kingdom of God is nigh to mean that God's judgment was about to come on that wicked city.

This generation shall not pass away.Some assume that this refers to the Jews as a race and that they are to continue as a people until the coming of Christ. It is well known that they have continued through the centuries since the destruction of Jerusalem without a central governmentonly a few of them are now in Israeland without a common place of worship. They have undergone terrible persecutions. They are identifiable wherever they are found. But to use generation in this strained manner is to overlook the fact that Jesus was talking to His disciples about the generation to which they belonged. The destruction of Jerusalem was to occur within the lifetime of some of them.