Jesus and the Future

What He Taught about the End Times

Andreas Kostenberger, Alexander Stewart, Apollo Makara, Andreas J. Köstenberger

• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781683591641
• eBook ISBN: 9781683591658
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

The authors examine everything Jesus said about future events as recorded in the four canonical Gospels. This includes the famous Olivet Discourse along with many other parables and sayings. The authors situate Jesus's teaching in its original literary and first-century Jewish and Greco-Roman context.

Part 1

Jesus’ Major Discourse about the Future:
The Olivet Discourse

Introduction to Part 1

The Olivet Discourse is the foundation for understanding what Jesus taught about the future, so it is the best place to begin our study. As noted in the introduction, Jesus was widely viewed by his contemporaries as a prophet and, unlike many modern prophets who keep their prophecies vague to avoid falsification, Jesus wasn’t afraid to predict specifically both near and far future events. Although we’ll indicate our position in the discussion below, we hope to provide you with enough information to make your own informed interpretive decision concerning the meaning of Jesus’ teaching about the future.

Before looking at the Olivet Discourse, it’ll be important to understand how the accounts in Matthew, Mark, and Luke relate to each other and to the historical Jesus. These accounts are quite similar and often treated jointly as the “Synoptic Gospels.” The term “synoptic” means “to see together, to have the same view or outlook,” suggesting that these three Gospels present a rather similar picture of Jesus’ life and teachings. Nevertheless, the Synoptics are quite distinct in wording, content, and order.¹ John’s Gospel is also all about Jesus but for the most part features additional stories and teachings.

Most historians and biblical scholars think that Mark’s Gospel was written first, and the earliest Christian traditions connect Mark with Peter’s preaching in Rome in the early 60s.² Matthew and Luke subsequently wrote their Gospels with knowledge of Mark in addition to their own experience and knowledge of Jesus. Others believe Matthew wrote first and Mark and Luke both wrote their Gospels in dialogue with and dependence on Matthew. We don’t need to go into details here other than to point out that there is broad consensus that Luke was not written first and that he had access to Matthew, Mark, or both. This is significant because as we study the Olivet Discourse, we’ll often find that Luke clarifies what might otherwise be difficult to understand in Matthew and Mark, particularly regarding the “abomination of desolation.”

The reason for a parallel or synoptic reading of these three Gospels is to derive the maximum benefit from studying them together. Each evangelist was associated with Jesus or with an original eyewitness and wrote to preserve the memory of the teachings and actions of Jesus to strengthen the first-century churches and convince unbelievers of the reality of what God had accomplished in Jesus. Each Gospel contains unique stories and teachings, and in the case of overlap, the Gospels often provide different details and perspectives. The Gospel writers recorded what Jesus said and did, but their accounts are not video or audio recordings; they are written narratives. Because of this, each Gospel writer chose different stories to include and different details to highlight based on what they thought was important for fellow believers to know. They included some of their own comments to clarify difficult material and often arranged accounts topically rather than chronologically. Authorial selectivity explains most of the differences between the Gospels and provides a rich resource for us today. Reading the four different inspired accounts together gives us a fuller picture of what Jesus taught about the future and of how the earliest Christians understood and passed down his teaching to future generations.

The four chapters in Part 1 will lead you through an inductive study of Jesus’ Olivet Discourse section by section. We’ll provide the text of Matthew, Mark, and Luke in parallel columns so that you can compare the Gospels for yourself at each point.

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1. Andreas J. Köstenberger, L. Scott Kellum, and Charles L. Quarles, The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An Introduction to the New Testament, 2nd ed. (Nashville: B & H Academic, 2016), 175–77.

2. See, for example, 1 Peter 5:13.

Chapter 1

Jesus’ Prophecy and the
Disciples’ Questions

Matthew 24:1–2	Mark 13:1–2	Luke 21:5–6
Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple.	And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!”	And while some were speaking of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, he said,
^2 But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.	^2 And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”	“As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

The Olivet Discourse begins with a dramatic prophecy: The temple will be destroyed. The disciples were shocked, perplexed, and concerned and asked Jesus the question that would have been on our minds if we had been there: When would this momentous event take place? Jesus’ prophecy about the destruction of the temple and the disciples’ questions jumpstart the Olivet Discourse.

Jesus’ Prophecy

Both Matthew and Mark note that the conversation began between the disciples and Jesus as they were leaving the temple. Herod the Great’s rebuilding and restoration of the Jerusalem temple had transformed it into one of the wonders of the ancient world. The disciples’ admiration would have been similarly expressed by any Greek, Roman, or Jewish visitor to the temple. The disciples’ amazement is shared even by modern visitors who see the huge blocks in the remaining Herodian walls, and these were only the substructure, not the temple proper. Herod was quite famous for a provincial client king at the time, and the temple dramatically increased Greek and Roman tourism, particularly because it was built in such a way that non-Jews had partial access through the court of Gentiles.

Josephus, the most important Jewish historian of the first century, described the beauty and magnificence of the temple in these words:

The exterior of the building wanted nothing that could astound either mind or eye. For, being covered on all sides with massive plates of gold, the sun was no sooner up than it radiated so fiery a flash that persons straining to look at it were compelled to avert their eyes, as from the solar rays. To approaching strangers, it appeared from a distance like a snow-clad mountain; for all that was not overlaid with gold was of purest white. From its summit protruded sharp golden spikes to prevent birds from settling upon and polluting the roof. Some of the stones in the building were forty-five cubits in length, five in height and six in breadth.¹

The Jerusalem temple was a magnificent sight and an astounding architectural achievement: “Easily the tallest structure in the city, it dominated the urban landscape. At about 1,550,000 square feet (thirty-five acres), it was also the largest sanctuary site in the ancient world.”²

The religious importance of the temple for the Jewish people cannot be overestimated. This was the place where worship took place and God could be entreated. This was the ultimate symbol of God’s election of the Jewish people and of his commitment and promises to them: “The temple was thus regarded as the place where YHWH lived and ruled in the midst of Israel, and where, through the sacrificial system which reached its climax in the great festivals, he lived in grace, forgiving them, restoring them, and enabling them to be cleansed of defilement and so to continue as his people.”³

Jesus’ departure from the temple represents the end of his teaching ministry in Jerusalem. It is possible that this departure symbolizes judgment and the temple’s abandonment by God in the same way that the glory of God left the temple and came to rest on the mountain east of the city in Ezekiel’s vision (10:18–19; 11:22–23), but neither Matthew nor Mark make this explicit while Luke doesn’t mention Jesus’ departure at all.⁴

The disciples would have been shocked by Jesus’ prophetic response. In reply to their awe at the temple’s grandeur, Jesus prophesied that it would be razed to the ground. Jesus’ prophecy of the temple’s destruction would have made a profound impact on his Jewish listeners, many of whom viewed the temple as indestructible. During Jesus’ trial later that week, false witnesses distorted this prophecy and claimed that Jesus had personally threatened to destroy the temple (Matt. 26:61; 27:40). This is reminiscent of the way in which King Jehoiakim had the prophet Uriah killed for prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem (Jer. 26:20–23) and Jewish priests and prophets wanted Jeremiah killed for prophesying against the city (Jer. 26:11).

Jesus’ prophecy of the temple’s destruction was used at his trial to support the death sentence. This charge continued to linger after Jesus’ death and was also leveled against Stephen, one of his followers (Acts 6:13–14). For some Jews, Jesus’ prophecy of the temple’s destruction was enough to discredit him and his followers in subsequent generations. Jesus’ original listeners, of course, would have been familiar with Old Testament prophecies of the destruction of Solomon’s temple that had occurred in 586 BC, but they wouldn’t have viewed the current temple as susceptible to such judgment (Jer. 7:11–14; 26:1–23; Micah 3:12).

The statement that not “one stone” would be left “upon another” indicates utter destruction that reverses the building process (Hag. 2:15). Some stones still rest upon another from the substructure and retaining wall of the temple Mount (the Wailing Wall), so Jesus was either referring to the temple buildings or was using prophetic hyperbole to stress the reality of total and irreversible destruction. His prophetic statement receives extra weight by the phrase “Truly, I say to you,” which prefaces it in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus’ statement is emphatic and final: The temple is going to be destroyed.

This prophecy is significant for at least three reasons. First, by predicting the temple’s demise Jesus made clear to his disciples that he was fully aware of what lay ahead. His power to predict the future was also evident in his foreknowledge of Judas’s betrayal and Peter’s denial. Jesus was not merely guessing, and he certainly didn’t simply prophesy things people were itching to hear. He was a genuine prophet; in fact, he was “the” prophet of whom Moses spoke:

The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, “Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.” And the LORD said to me, “They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.” (Deut. 18:15–18)

Second, the fact that no Gospel writer mentions the fulfillment of this prophecy suggests that these accounts were written before Jerusalem fell and the temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. If any of them had known about the prophecy’s fulfillment, he would surely have commented on it. The Gospel writers weren’t making up prophecies after the fact (vaticinia ex eventu) but recording a legitimate prophecy uttered before the events transpired.⁵

Third, and perhaps most importantly, this prophecy sets the stage for the entire Olivet Discourse. Any interpretation of Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 that doesn’t relate in some way to the historical destruction of the temple is on the wrong track. This prophecy sets the topic for the discourse. This doesn’t mean that Jesus couldn’t talk about other things beyond the destruction of Jerusalem in the Olivet Discourse, but this event is surely the starting point as we seek to understand what else Jesus might have said about the future.

The Disciples’ Questions

Matthew 24:3	Mark 13:3–4	Luke 21:7
^3 As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents in Brief
• Contents in Full
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: Jesus and the Future
• Part 1: Jesus’ Major Discourse about the Future: The Olivet Discourse
• Part 2: Other Teachings of Jesus about the Future in the Gospels
• Epilogue
• Appendix 1: Cosmic Upheaval in the Old Testament
• Appendix 2: The Future at a Glance