College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
Matthew 25 - Introduction
Chapter S TWENTY-FOUR AND TWENTY-FIVE
SECTION 60
JESUS DESCRIBES THE LAST DAYS OF THE JEWISH STATE AND HIS SECOND COMING
(24:1-25:46)
STUDY OUTLINE: CHRIST'S PROPHETIC DISCOURSE
I.
OCCASION (Matthew 24:1-3)
A.
Disciples Marvel At the Magnificence of Jerusalem's Temple (Matthew 24:1)
B.
Jesus Predicts the Temple's Destruction (Matthew 24:2)
C.
Disciples Ask For Clarification (Matthew 24:3)
Jesus-' answers: His prophetic discourse.
II.
THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM AND ITS TEMPLE (Matthew 24:4-35)
A.
General Warning Against Misleading Signs Not Related to the End (Matthew 24:4-13)
1.
False Christs are not the signal (Matthew 24:4-5)
2.
International war is not the signal (Matthew 24:6-7 a)
3.
Disturbances in nature are not the signal (Matthew 24:7 b, Matthew 24:8)
4.
Troubles inside the Church and out are not the signal (Matthew 24:9-13)
a.
Persecution of the Church (Matthew 24:9)
b.
Religious confusion and widespread faithlessness (Matthew 24:10-12)
c.
Individual perseverance one's only hope (Matthew 24:13)
B.
Specific, True Information About Jerusalem's Destruction (Matthew 24:14-28)
1.
The true signals of the nearness of Jerusalem's fall (Matthew 24:14-15)
a.
World-wide Gospel proclamation signals the approximate approach of the end (Matthew 24:14)
b.
Jerusalem besieged is the precise, decisive signal of the end (Matthew 24:15)
2.
Urgent, practical instructions for rapid escape (Matthew 24:16-20)
3.
Motivation: great, unprecedented tribulation (Matthew 24:21)
4.
Duration: short but terrible (Matthew 24:22)
5.
Warning: No hope of Christ's personal coming during the siege (Matthew 24:23-28)
a.
Despite apparently miraculous signs, all false hopes of deliverance raised by false prophets must unswervingly be disregarded (Matthew 24:23-26)
b.
Christ's true coming will be too obvious to require prophetic announcement (Matthew 24:27)
c.
Israel's hopeless deadness cannot but attract scavengers: no hope of deliverance, just punishment. (Matthew 24:28)
C.
The Theological Result of Jerusalem's Fall (Matthew 24:29-31)
1.
The time connection: Immediately after Jerusalem's great tribulation (Matthew 24:29)
2.
The collapse and removal of the old, established luminaries (Matthew 24:29)
3.
The Messiah's victorious, heavenly reign vindicated (Matthew 24:30)
4.
Worldwide proclamation of the Gospel and its resultsthe beginning of the Gospel year of Jubilee(?) (Matthew 24:31)
D.
Encouragement to Believe Jesus (Matthew 24:32-35)
1.
Leaves are a signal of summer's approach (Matthew 24:32)
2.
Similarly, the foregoing clues signal the arrival of God's Kingdom (Matthew 24:33)
3.
All these events must occur in Jesus-' generation (Matthew 24:34)
4.
The certainty of the predicted events (Matthew 24:35)
III.
CHRIST'S SECOND COMING (Matthew 24:36 to Matthew 25:46)
A.
The Date Known But to God (Matthew 24:36)
B.
Stories Illustrating Important Features of the Final End-Times (Matthew 24:37 to Matthew 25:46)
1.
Illustration from life before the flood: Business as usual (Matthew 24:37-42)
2.
Illustration of the burglar: The time is unpredictable, so be always ready! (Matthew 24:43 f.)
3.
Illustration of the Conscientious and the Hypocritical Servant (Matthew 24:45-51) Jesus-' Return may be delayed.
4.
Illustration of the Ten Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids: Adequate preparation must be made in time! (Matthew 25:1-13) The fate of the unprepared
5.
Illustration of the Wise and Foolish Stewards: The present is a stewardship of God's goods entrusted to us according to our individual ability, to be invested for His advantage, because an accounting will be given. (Matthew 25:14-30)
6.
Illustration of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46)
a.
The Second Coming and the judgment will be contemporaneous (Matthew 25:31)
b.
The judgment will be universal (Matthew 25:32-33)
c.
The basis of judgment will be our everyday usefulness and service to others (Matthew 25:34-46)
d.
The results of the judgment will be permanent (Matthew 25:46)
JESUS-' ESCHATOLOGICAL DISCOURSE VISUALIZED BY CONTRASTS
Marcellus Kik (Matthew XXIV) suggests the following helpful outline of Matthew 24:25 :
FIRST SECTION Matthew 24:1-35
CONNECTING LINKS Matthew 24:34-36
SECOND SECTION Matthew 24:36 to Matthew 25:46
THE FALL OF JERUSALEM DESCRIBED
THE END OF THE
WORLD DESCRIBED
TIME
Definite description of the period preceding the judgment on Israel. Disturbing events are just false alarms typical of this period.
TIME TEXT
This generation will not pass away till all these things take place.
TIME
The time of the world's end known only to the Father, therefore, no precise signs of the time given.
SIGNS GIVEN:
1.
General sign of the approximate approach of Jerusalem's end: worldwide Gospel proclamation (Matthew 24:14)
2.
Precise sign of Jerusalem's death-date: abomination of desolation, Jerusalem surrounded by armies (Matthew 24:15)
TRANSITION
TEXT:
But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels, nor the Son, but the Father only.
NO SIGNS TO BE GIVEN:
1.
Life going on as usual (Matthew 24:37-42)
2.
A thief gives no warning (Matthew 24:43-44)
3.
Jesus-' coming will be delayed; hence, cannot be expected with certainty (Matthew 24:48; Matthew 25:5; Matthew 25:19). The only possible preparation must be constant vigilance.
SCOPE
Prophecies limited to a geographically specific locality: Palestine. (Matthew 24:16-28)
1.
Destruction of Temple (Matthew 24:1)
2.
People in Judea must flee (Matthew 24:16)
3.
Only the land of the Sabbath is involved (Matthew 24:20)
4.
Events would not affect the nearby mountains (Matthew 24:16)
SCOPE
Prophecies universal in scope that concern the entire world. (Matthew 25:32; cf. Luke 21:34-36)
1.
Judgment of all men, not just Jews (Matthew 25:32)
2.
No warnings to flee as all escape now impossible.
3.
Final judgment not located on earth but in heaven.
ABNORMAL TIMES
those days (plural) Jerusalem died slowly, foreseeably
QUITE NORMAL TIMES
That Day (singular) Judgment to come rapidly, quite unexpectedly
In light of these significant differences between the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the world, it is unjustifiable to assert with many that the destruction of Jerusalem serves as a predictive type of the final judgment, so that what is affirmed of the one must also be precisely true of the other. How could one event which, in important details, is so radically different from another event be thought to fore picture the latter? By His clarity of language, Jesus separated the two events. The only true similarity between them is the astounding triumph in each case whereby the glory of Jesus shall be definitely revealed.
THE AUTHENTICITY OF JESUS-' PROPHECIES
Christian apologetic interest in this chapter can shout to the world, See? Jesus-' prophecies concerning the fall of Jerusalem came true, just as He said. We should believe His promises to come again, judge the world and bring victory to His followers, because of His reliability. Therefore, we must ask whether these predictions were truly uttered before the fact, or, as some claim, a clever rewriting of history to give Jesus undeserved credibility.
Our Lord's language is not perfectly free from some vagueness, as even modern Christian commentaries thereon illustrate by their difficulties in identifying precisely His allusions and references. But these very obscurities serve to guarantee the prophetic genuineness of His words. These Chapter s are not history penned after the fact and counterfeited as real prediction by its supposedly unknown authors. In fact, a forger, inventing this prophecy after Jerusalem's fall, would more probably have sidestepped all unclarity to exalt how precisely Jesus foresaw the events forty years earlier and how this prediction validates His prophetic claims.
Further, if these prophecies had been recorded following the events, the silence of the Synoptic Gospels themselves is without explanation, since none mention the fulfilment of Jesus-' prophecies. Luke, for example, is not averse to recording fulfilments (Acts 11:28). Why not here too? Because the events predicted had not yet occurred.
THE PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THIS DISCOURSE
Jesus-' purpose from first to last is practical. A detailed schedule of Last Days Events was not even a consideration for Him. Rather, the counsel of prudence with which He begins (Matthew 24:4), aims to take our eyes off speculation about future events and put our feet on solid ground to prepare ourselves and others in the Present in which we find ourselves. His goals for preaching this sermon touch the lives of His disciples immediately, not merely some yet unborn, future generation. Foster lists five important targets this message aims to hit:
1.
This message unmounts every goal the nationalistic movement of the Zealots and their sympathizers dreamed to realize. The worldwide proclamation of the Gospel was to substitute for materialistic materialism as the divine means of victory. In the program of God with regard to national Israel, Rome was to conquer, but the final Kingdom would be of God, not Caesar'S.
2.
Only the Word of Christ is permanent. Nothing men have thought, done or builtnot even the Temple of God in Jerusalemis permanent.
3.
Jesus proclaimed His own certainty that His fiercest enemies would go down in shame and defeat, even though they condemn Him to death and execute that sentence. Disciples, shaken by His death, could take heart and believe that unlimited victory would not belong to Caiaphas, Annas, Herod or Pilate, or to anyone else but to Jesus!
4.
This message furnishes proof of the validity of Christ's prophetic authority. Although the suffering and death of the persecuted Christians would strain their confidence to the utmost, this prophetic declaration of Jerusalem's doom, when vindicated by its historical realization, would prove Jesus correct and validate the believers-' confidence in everything else He taught.
5.
The priorities obvious in this discourse are two: to furnish His disciples with critical information whereby they could foresee and elude Jerusalem's downfall, and at the same time be ever prepared for Jesus-' return to earth.