When you read this verse, how do you interpret it?
Matthew 24:34 NIV Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.
Matthew 24 contains Jesus’s famous end times prophecy concerning the great tribulation, the fall of the Jewish temple, the signs of the end, the shaking of the heavens, and his return on the clouds in judgement. Luke 21 and Mark 13 also parallel this prophecy famously known as the Olivet Discourse. Did you know over 100 verses in the new testament like it clearly promise the end times are near? Not near today, but near 2,000 years ago! We are taught that these words don’t mean what they seem. The popular message in the American church is:
- “This generation” refers to a future generation that will see the signs of the last days.
- The word “generation” here means “race.”
- Only some of the things prophesied will happen in that generation but the rest is in our future.
- Jesus gives us a false expectation of imminence to motivate us to always be waiting, watching, and preparing for his arrival. Every generation must believe he is coming in their generation.
- Jesus is only guessing when his prophecies will happen.
- Jesus initially plans to come in this generation, but after he sees the Jews reject him, he worries too many potential believers will be lost, so he delays his plans until a greater majority of people come to the faith.
- We will never understand this, best to believe the end times are still ahead of us by faith.
Why do we have so many explanations for Jesus’s words? If we start from the assumption that none of his promises are fulfilled in that generation it takes less effort to imagine the promised timing is a mistranslation or some other explanation than the alternative. Unfortunately, most people are not familiar with their history and do not understand apocalyptic language. You probably have never heard of the Jewish temple’s destruction in 70AD, the angelic armies and flaming chariots flying in the clouds over the city before its destruction in 66AD, the great multitudes of dead people that rose out of the ground in 66AD at the sound of a trumpet blast, the moment two suns are seen in the sky at once, or two solar eclipses in the same week, the moment a giant beautiful face and sword are seen in the stars over Jerusalem, the miraculous events that happen between 62-79AD, the great slaughter of Christians in the Neronic persecution between 64-66AD, the eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius in 79AD that wiped out two Roman cities while people were still there and all the temples of their idols blotting out the sun across the continent, and the near perfect fulfillment of prophecies from the book of Revelation word by word.
Most of us never hear these stories or realize that the historians who record them are considered the most reliable and credible of their time. Most of us are not aware that many of the great earliest church fathers believe Jesus returned in the first century and raised the dead. We don’t see how Jesus could have returned in their generation, so we blind ourselves to the most obvious meaning of his promise.
You may be surprised to learn, the belief that all of Revelation is yet to be fulfilled in our near future has only been dominant since just before the 20th century. For hundreds of years, most of the church believed the vast majority of Revelation was fulfilled in the first century if not all of its promises.
If Jesus already returned, why is there still death, evil, and sin? Revelation isn’t the only place to talk about the new heavens and earth. The final chapters of Isaiah talk about them in more depth and it’s clear from these passages that although sin, death, and evil will always exist, we have the promise that God’s kingdom will perpetually increase in this world, filling the world with justice, peace, righteousness, and the gospel wherever it spreads. The exciting news is we get to partner with God in this, and instead of waiting for a rapture to take us out of here with as many people as we can convince to come to Jesus, we are part of the plot to make earth a little more like heaven while also saving as many as possible.
Can I still be a Christian and believe this? Yes! Those holding this view trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, believe he died for us on the cross and rose again and is the Son of God incarnate in the Trinity of God. We believe the Bible is the infallible word of God and we should trust it above man’s opinions. It is in fact, in pursuing our duty to study, uphold, and defend the faith that we realize that this recent 150-year fad of unfulfilled end times prophecy has been damaging to the church and makes us unproductive Christians.
If you’re willing to open your mind and heart, begin research that could change your life, and ask God to show you the truth about the last days, you may find greater peace, faith, security, clarity, and excitement than you currently experience under the fear of the end times and the cognitive dissonance that comes from trying to deny the clear words of scripture.
The journey is exciting and challenging and you may wish to turn back, but once you open these pages there’s no going back.
Want to open the door? Explore this blog or check out the first article: Does God use soon the way we do?