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Predictions Respecting the Second Advent
of Jesus
Written By
Thomas Scott
The English life of Jesus, Part 6
1869
"The first attempt to assign all to
the destruction of Jerusalem until we reach
Matt. xxv. 31, is utterly untenable and indeed absurd. No words can be
plainer than those of Matt. xxiv. 29, 30, 31. If they do not denote the
visible coming of the Son of man in heaven to exercise judgment over all the
tribes of earth, no words whatever suffice to enunciate this doctrine.
Nothing but the extreme stress of the difficulty, extreme reluctance to
admit the ignominious failure of prophecy, could ever drive a sensible man
to pretend that these three verses mean nothing but the overthrow of one
city—the dissolution of one nation."
PREDICTIONS RESPECTING THE SECOND ADVENT OF JESUS.
It might be a rash thing to assert that, because
Jesus did not predict either the mode or the particulars of his death or
his resurrection, therefore he said nothing of his return to judge the
world at the time of the consummation of all things. It is quite
possible that a Messiah who anticipated no deadly opposition from
earthly rulers, and who looked forward to a quiet acceptance of his
claims from the great body of the people, might still declare that to
him was committed the office of judging the world when the day of the
great assize was come. In exact proportion to the weakening of the old
notions which (as in the philosophy of the three friends of Job)
imagined that all wickedness had its retribution in this present life,
the conviction would be strengthened that when the fields were ready to
the
harvest, the great Lord of the universe would send forth his angels, who
should gather the wheat into his barn and cast the chaff into the
unquenchable fire. Over this mighty work who could so worthily preside
as the chosen Messiah, who had once appeared in lowly form to preach to
the poor and meek in spirit the acceptable year of the Lord 1
Hence, before we can say whether these predictions
were or were not made by Jesus, we have to submit them to a critical
analysis.
These predictions form the subject of the great
discourse which fills Matthew xxiv., xxv., and which is given in a
shortened form in Mark xiii., and in a more fragmentary shape in Luke
xvii. and xxi.
According to Matthew, as Jesus went out from the
temple for the last time, his disciples call his attention to the
magnificence of its structure, and receive for answer the announcement
that the days should come when this temple should be razed to its
foundations, and not one stone be left upon another. To their second
demand for the time of these events, and the signs of their fulfilment,
Jesus replies by warning them against false Christs, and against
thinking that the wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes, which
should precede the great catastrophe, were the immediate tokens of the
final consummation. These are but the beginnings of sorrows (xxiv. 8).
They were, however, to be sure that the destruction predicted was about
to fall on the temple, when they should see the abomination of
desolation stand in the holy place (15), or, as the third Gospel puts it
(xxi. 20), when they see Jerusalem encompassed about with armies. Then
it would be time for all who wished to escape the great ruin to flee
from the city, and well would it be for those who were not then with
child, or mothers of young infants, or if this wretched time came not
during the winter. In those days the false Christs would again appear
(Matt. xxiv. 24), but they should produce no effect on all who
remembered that the coming of the Son of Man would be sudden and abrupt
as the flash of lightning which gleams across the heaven (27). Following
immediately on this fearful tribulation (29) the sun and moon should be
darkened, and the stars should fall and the sign of the Son of Man
should be seen in the heaven, and all mankind should be summoned to
stand before his great tribunal. On seeing these things they might be as
sure that the end was come as they know that summer may be looked for
when the fig-tree puts out its leaves. As to the time, thus much was
determined, that the generation then living should not pass away until
all had been fulfilled (34). Thus much was surer than the established
order of the universe (35): all that was left uncertain was the exact
day and hour (36), which was unknown even to the angels of heaven or to
the Messiah himself. Hence, although all should be accomplished within
the space of some thirty years, yet the uncertainty as to the precise
period would leave room for all the worldliness, sensuality, and
carelessness which marked the generation of Noah, and thus the advent of
the Messiah would come upon them as unexpectedly as if they had been
told that it might take place at any time within a thousand years. Hence
the paramount need of incessant watchfulness for all who would win their
Lord's approval at his coming.
This discourse, as given in Matthew and Mark, is to
all appearance eminently coherent; but if so, it asserts positively, not
only that the temple and city should be destroyed within a few years,
but that the existing order of the world should be brought to an end,
and the final judgment of all mankind be completed within the life-time
of the then present generation. But,
although the destruction of Jerusalem was
accomplished very closely in the manner described (so closely as to make
the predictions
read like a history of past events), yet after the lapse of 1800 years
the world continues much as it was in the days of Themistocles or
Nebuchadnezzar. Hence it follows that, in so thinking, Jesus was
mistaken ; and, therefore, we are brought to this dilemma. Either he
announced the destruction of Jerusalem
and the end of the world as events which would come to pass within
thirty years, and in this case his words have been falsified, or he did
not make this announcement, and in this case these discourses are a
fabrication after the destruction of the city but before the time
when the idea of an immediate advent was seen to be a mistake.
In a strictly historical analysis like the present
all consideration of the effects which our conclusions may have on our
conceptions of Jesus in his moral and spiritual character must be
rigidly set aside. All that we have to determine is, did he, as a matter
of fact, deliver the discourse in Matt. xxiv., xxv., or did he not. Yet
we may be pardoned for saying that, even if we decide in the negative,
no harm is thereby inflicted on Christianity unless we assume that
Christianity is an indivisible phenomenon, the same in the days of
Hildebrand and Innocent and Pio Nono as it was in the first century
after the ministry of Jesus. These predictions have nothing to do with
those " primal and indefeasible truths " which alone shall never pass
away, and of which, to adopt Dean Milman's words ('Latin Christianity,'
Book iv. ch. x.) " men may attain to a clearer, more full,
comprehensive, and balanced sense then has as yet been generally
received in the Christian world." If any will have it that their
Christianity is imperilled by the laying bare of historical
contradictions, the fault must be with them and not with the unchanging
law of Him who is the same yesterday and to-day and for ever.
To those who seek to reconcile
the phenomena of the Gospel with the popular ideas respecting
the Messiahship of Jesus, the inconsistency of these discourses with
the subsequent history of the world presents the gravest difficulty.
Efforts have accordingly been made to prove either that Jesus spoke
wholly of events now still future or of events all of which are
past, or that in different parts of his discourse he referred to the
destruction of Jerusalem, and to the
final judgment of all mankind. Of the first two pleas we need take
no notice, because neither opinion finds acceptance with any
religious bodies or schools in this country: of the third, which is
received by all self-styled orthodox persons, it is enough to say
that the theory stands or falls with the presence or absence of
definite notes of time assigning the several parts of the discourse
to the two different events of which it treats.
These marks of time are not to be found ; and the
commentators move at random, parcelling out the various portions of
the discourse to one or other event much at their own convenience.
The first attempt to assign all to the
destruction of Jerusalem until we reach Matt. xxv. 31, is
utterly untenable and indeed absurd. No words can be plainer than
those of Matt. xxiv. 29, 30, 31. If they do not denote the visible
coming of the Son of man in heaven to exercise judgment over all the
tribes of earth, no words whatever suffice to enunciate this
doctrine. Nothing but the extreme stress of the difficulty, extreme
reluctance to admit the ignominious failure of prophecy, could ever
drive a sensible man to pretend that these three verses mean nothing
but the overthrow of one city—the dissolution of one nation.
This attempt having failed, the next effort is to
throw back the point of transition, and it has thus been maintained
that the destruction of the city and temple is spoken of only to the
end of the 28th verse of ch. xxiv., the remainder referring
altogether to the
yet future judgment at the end of the world. The answer is that even
in the first Gospel the final consummation is announced as coming
"immediately after" the former tribulation ; and to
avoid this difficulty it is stated that the word translated
immediately implied not chronological sequence, but the abrupt
or unexpected occurrence of an event indefinitely distant. Thus
Matthew is taken to mean, " When the tribulation of the days in
which Jerusalem shall be destroyed shall have passed away, then
after some indefinite interval, which may amount to myriads of
years, all of a sudden the great consummation will fall like a
thunderbolt upon mankind." To this the reply is (1) that the
interpretation is ungrammatical, and that if this be the meaning of
the words translated immediately (tu6tue &t), any words may
be made to mean anything; (2) that the parallel passage in Mark
(xiii. 24) states distinctly that the signs of the final
consummation shall be seen in the very days which follow the former
tribulation ; and (3) that Jesus himself is described as saying that
everything should be accomplished within the limits of the existing
generation.
Driven to bay, yet not altogether despairing,
such writers have sought to show that the word generation (ytv'ta)
does not mean that which is popularly denoted by it, but either
a " nation," or a " dispensation." Some try to interpret it
of the Jewish nation. The answer is that Jesus, speaking to those
who had asked him for the signs which should precede the destruction
of the city and the second coming of Messiah, tells them (after
speaking of the darkening of the sun and moon and the sending forth
of the angels, 29-31), " Likewise ye, when ye see all
these things, know that it is near, even at the doors (33)" ;
and then follows the solemn assurance that that
gneration should not pass away till all be
fulfilled. / referring to another passage (Matt. xvi. 28) not only
do we find that the great consummation would come during that
period, but that some standing before Jesus should " not taste of
death till they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom."
It follows that in these discourses Jesus is
described as placing in the closest connexion the fall of Jerusalem,
the destruction of the temple, and the end of the world; and that
this connexion has been falsified by subsequent history. The efforts
made to resolve the signs of the last judgment into a series of
figures and metaphors, referring to the general education of
mankind, are not worth noticing. It may be enough to say that the
words could not possibly have been understood in this sense by any
who heard them ; and that if they had suspected this to be their
meaning they would have turned away with the painful conviction that
they had been cheated and cajoled. The idea that Jesus could thus in
one and the same discourse pass without sign or notice from one
subject to another, using throughout ambiguous and equivocal
phrases, while he knew that they would not be understood, would go
far towards exhibiting him as an impostor. We need only add that
this ignominy would be put upon him solely and wholly by orthodox
theologians.
On these grounds we might be compelled to say
that Jesus in thus coupling the final
judgment chronologically with the
destruction of Jerusalem, expressed
his own sincere conviction, and that this conviction was a delusion.
But the fact that we have not the slightest warrant for affirming
that Jesus predicted either his sufferings, his death, or his
resurrection, at once brings the historical character of these
discourses into the gravest suspicion : and to those who believe the
fourth Gospel to be the work of the apostle John, this suspicion
ought to be
B
heightened by the combination of certain
phenomena. For in the second Gospel (xiii. 3) these discourses are
delivered, not before the general body of the disciples, but
privately to Peter, James, John, and Andrew : hence John was the
only Evangelist who heard them, and he is the only Evangelist who
takes not the slightest notice of them. Is it then possible to
believe that these discourses were ever uttered at all ? The
desperate exigencies of the case have indeed driven some to say that
John was purposely silent on the subject, because he wished to give
no encouragement to a Gnostic or Docetic philosophy; but as we have
already seen (Chapter iv. p. 215) the fourth Gospel relates the most
Docetic of all these miracles, the walking on the sea ; and the
Evangelist would have poured disgrace on his calling and office if
he had suppressed what he must have felt to be vital truth merely
because he feared that the consequences might be not quite what he
should wish them to be. Hence, if the writer of the fourth Gospel
was the apostle John, that is, was the only Evangelist who heard the
question and reply about the fall of the temple, no reasonable
ground remains for believing that Jesus spoke the discourse about
that event and the second advent which the Synoptics put into his
mouth.
For the origin of these discourses we are in no
way bound to account. It is enough to have shown that they are
utterly unhistorical. Yet it may be worth while to note the singular
exactness with which every particular relating to the destruction of
the city and temple was realized in the overthrow of the city by
Titus. Thus one portion of the prophecy has been as signally
verified as the other has been contradicted by later history. This
exact correspondence between one prophecy and its fulfilment,
coupled with the complete failure in the further predictions, makes
it a matter of certainty that the utterances respecting the fall of
Jerusalem are pictures drawn after the
events which they are said to foretell, and that the predictions
respecting the final judgment belong to that period during which the
conviction of the immediate return of the Messiah was present with
an overpowering force to the little society of Christians. Thus we
see that these discourses were composed
while the incidents of the
destruction of Jerusalem were fresh in the minds of the
writers, and before the anticipations of an immediate general
judgment had been shaken by the lapse of time. May we not infer that
these discourses were drawn up before the writer of 2 Thessalonians
ii. 2 found it needful to inform his disciples that they were not
necessarily to expect the return of Jesus as the judge within their
own lifetime, and before the writer of 2 Peter iii. 8, was
constrained to affirm that with God one day might be a thousand
years ?
For those who are not hampered by the traditional
notions respecting the authorship of the fourth Gospel it is easy to
account for its silence on this vital topic. It was written not by
an apostle, nor in the circle of those who in the early ages of
Christianity looked for an immediate visible return of Jesus; but
after the scoffers had arisen who said that in spite of all
prophecies to the contrary everything continued as it had been long
ago. In short it was the expression of a later mode of thought,
which for visible and palpable signs had substituted a spiritual
presence. In this Gospel also there is a judgment, but it is in no
way connected with the fall of the Jewish polity; nor is the
judgment heralded by portentous phenomena on the earth or in the
heavens.
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