THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.:Matthew 24:30-31, Mark 13:26-27, Luke 21:27-28.
At first sight this appears to be and account of the second coming of the Lord. This is why futurists start here and work bakwards throgh Matthew 24, placing the tribulation, abomination of desolation, eahquakes famines, pestilences and wars to end time events. Thus destroying the very foundation of the prophecy, the destruction of the temple. Placing that far into another future.temple, But if we reaturn to the beginning of the chapter, Jesus had just told the Pharisees that their house (temple) was left unto them desolate.
1 ¶ And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.
The disciples looked on the temple and wondered how it could be left desolate during that generation and those great stones could all be thrown down in such a short time. (At that time the temple was not even finished, it was not completed until the time of Nero, shortly befoe it was destroyed.
2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
They went to the Mount of Olives and the disciples asked 3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be?
Carefully note, they were speaking of the then current temple, not some future temple.
The arguments for the historical fulfillment of this prophecy are so sound that some believe that the Lord did come as described, in AD.70. The weakness of this argument is complete lack of historical evidence, so let us look at alternative viws.
- 1.The Lord came spiritually or figuratively to Judge Israel. In a sense this is true as the Father has given Christ authority to execute judgement,
22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:
It is true that God has come at other times. Zech 1:16, 8:3, Genesis 11:38.Isaiah 19.1, and a number of other places. However no one saw him at that time, Although Josephus describes some signs in the Clouds (not seen by him. though)
- 2 It therefore means all this must be in the future.
The failure of that teaching is that it contradicts all that has gone before.
So what now?
- 3 Mathew 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
This, it is said never happened, however, Sun, Moon and Stars in prophecy can refer to people, or figuratively as judgements. Isaiah 13:9-21 Ezekiel 32:2-15 and other similar scriuptures;
To be continued