The Olivet Discourse is found in three passages of scripture: Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. There Jesus tells his audience what is to come in the future. Though the content of the Olivet Discourse differs in its predictions and descriptions of the events to follow, at the conclusion of the discourse, Jesus says this in all three accounts:
Truly I say to you, this generation will absolutely not pass away until all these things have happened.
Got that? Three passages all saying that the prophesies contained in the Olivet Discourse will happen within one generation, within the lifetime of some of those men and women listening to him speak those words. And at the conclusion of that generation—forty years—the Jerusalem was, in fact, sacked and the temple destroyed in 70AD. The prophecy was fulfilled.
So why do Christians repeatedly say that Jesus was wrong and the prophecy did not actually happen?
The disciples wanted this present evil Age to end and the blessings of the Messianic Kingdom to be real, so they asked Jesus about when the End of the Age would come. Jesus answered their question, and part of what he said was,
…
As it has turned out, what Jesus said was historically inaccurate.
…and…
I do not believe that Satan is reigning over Christ until the end. I believe that Jesus is reigning now and that he will bring his kingdom in its fullness at his second coming. Satan was defeated by the work of Christ but he is still on earth causing terror until he is cast into hell.
I do not know how the words of Jesus in Matthew 24:30-31 could be describing 70 AD because these things have not happened yet:
Just to be clear, there is no ambiguity here. Jesus absolutely said that this would take place within the one generation:
When we are faced with the problem of understanding a hard saying, it is always a safe procedure to ask, ‘What would it have meant to the people who first heard it?’ And there can be but one answer to this question in relation to the present hard saying. Jesus’ hearers could have understood him to mean only that ‘all these things’ would take place within their generation. Not only does ‘generation’ in the phrase ‘this generation’ always mean the people alive at one particular time, the phrase itself always means ‘the generation now living.’ Jesus spoke of ‘this generation’ in this sense several times, and generally in no flattering terms.
In saying that “these things have not happened yet,” these men are making the claim that either Jesus was wrong or that he intentionally deceived his listeners. Both are decidedly unpalatable, yet unavoidable. Some people have concluded from this that it falsifies Christianity by proving that Jesus was a false prophet (and thus deserving death under the Law). While most of the other so-called contradictions in the Bible are not to be taken seriously, this one is.
This is, rightfully, so distasteful that there have been many misguided attempts made to explain it away. The commentary for the Revised English Version gives five standard alternative ‘explanations’ for the Greek word for generation in the Olivet discourse. The first four are grammatical arguments:
The word “generation” refers to the “race” of Israel, the Jewish race.
The word “generation” refers to the “kind” of people (i.e., wicked).
The word genetai, “happened” can be taken as an ingressive aorist and can mean “will have started to take place.”
The word “this” in “this generation” refers to the generation at the time, not the one Christ was talking to.
The problem with these is that they simply do not work. They are grasping at straws. They are what theologians wish Jesus had actually said, not what he did say.
As F. F. Bruce noted, the grammar is rather unambiguous. The audience of these words would not have even considered any of the four explanations offered by theologians. The only reason anyone is attempting to use these explanations at all is because of their desire to rationalize why Jesus (supposedly) got it wrong.
You can read why these four explanations fail here.
After exhausting the grammatical explanations, we are left with a theological one:
The prophecy, like others, is capable of multiple fulfillments, some of which have occurred, and some have not yet.
This is not an impressive attempt.
The problem, of course, is that this begs the question. It just kicks the can down the road. It’s not really an explanation at all. As with the grammatical explanations, this one also is wishful thinking.
This should be painfully obvious: even if there were multiple fulfillments, Jesus said that they would take place within a generation, and he didn’t say some of them would and some of them wouldn’t. So even if the prophecy was to be fulfilled a second time, it still must have been fulfilled the first time. And by saying “some have not yet” this is the rather plain acknowledgment that this was not a dual fulfillment, as were many (most?) of the Messianic prophesies in the Old Testament.
The language that theologians typically use is “double fulfillment” or “dual fulfillment.” This commentary is using non-standard language—even among theologians—by calling it “multiple fulfillment” and hoping you will quietly equivocate between “it occurs more than once” and “it is split up across time.”
I did a sanity-check google search for ‘multiple fulfillment prophecy’ and found very little on multiple fulfillment. Almost everything returned discussed dual fulfillment. But even when a writer—like P.G. Nelson here—speaks of the multiple fulfillment of prophecy, he’s talking about a prophecy coming to pass more than once, of being repeated not deferred.
So if none of these explanations work, what is the explanation? It is rather simple. James Attebury’s claim…
I do not know how the words of Jesus in Matthew 24:30-31 could be describing 70 AD because these things have not happened yet:
…is false. What Jesus said did take place, and it took place within the one generation just as Jesus said it would. The events described in Matthew 24 took place between 30AD and 70AD, culminating in the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. The historical record—including Tacitus and Josephus—confirms this (see here, here, and here).
Jesus didn’t get it wrong. There was no partially deferred/split fulfillment scenario. Jesus said that those things would take place within one generation, and they did.
Unfortunately you probably go to a church or read from men like Attebury who are like blind shepherds. They admit their ignorance…
…and yet proceed to confidently tell you what did or did not happen:
You, dear reader, can know how the words of Jesus can be describing 70AD and how they actually took place. Don’t let your Christian leaders’ lack of belief in the words of Jesus lead you to conclude along with them that Jesus didn’t mean what he said.
However, there is no simple solution to this problem. There is no easy way to convince others to accept it. So, try to be wise and alert. If you can, gently correct your pastors, teachers, and other leaders when they err. But, failing that, simply be aware that Jesus didn’t contradict himself, he didn’t get it wrong, and he didn’t deceive his audience.
James Attebury
I do not know how the words of Jesus in Matthew 24:30-31 could be describing 70 AD because these things have not happened yet:
“Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
So in other words James Attebury doesn’t believe Origen either as well as JESUS, the 1st century AD jews in Jerusalem & Paul?
225AD Origen (On The Significance of A.D. 70) “Therefore he, also, having separated from her, married, so to speak, another, having given into the hands of the former the bill of divorcement; wherefore they can no longer do the things enjoined on them by the law, because of the bill of divorcement. And a sign that she has received the bill of divorcement is this, that Jerusalem was destroyed along with what they called the sanctuary of the things in it which were believed to be holy, and with the altar of burnt offerings, and all the worship associated with it. And a further sign of the bill of divorcement is this, that they cannot keep their feasts, even though according to the letter of the law designedly commanded them, in the place which the Lord God appointed to them for keeping feasts; but there is this also, that the whole synagogue has become unable to stone those who have committed this or that sin; and thousands of things commanded are a sign of the bill of divorcement; and the fact that “there is no more a prophet,” and that they say, “We no longer see signs;” for the Lord says, “He hath taken away from Judaea and from Jerusalem,” according to the word of Isaiah, “Him that is mighty, and her that is mighty, a powerful giant,” etc., down to the words, “a prudent hearer.” Now, He who is the Christ may have taken the synagogue to wife and cohabited with her, but it may be that afterwards she found not favour in His sight; and the reason of her not having found favour in His sight was, that there was found in her an unseemly thing; for what was more unseemly than the Circumstance that, when it was proposed to them to release one at the feast, they asked for the release of Barabbas the robber, and the condemnation of Jesus? And what was more unseemly than the fact, that they all said in His case, “Crucify Him, crucify Him,” and “Away with such a fellow from the earth”? And can this be freed from the charge of unseemliness, “His blood be upon us, and upon our children”? Wherefore, when He was avenged, Jerusalem was compassed with armies, and its desolation was near, and their house was taken away from it, and “the daughter of Zion was left as a booth in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, and as a besieged city.” And, about the same time, I think, the husband wrote out a bill of divorcement to his former wife, and gave it into her hands, and sent her away from his own house, and the bond of her who came from the Gentiles has been cancelled about which the Apostle Says, “Having blotted out the bond written in ordinances, which was contrary to us, and He hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross;” for Paul also and others became proselytes of Israel for her who came from the Gentiles.” (COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW, Book 2., sec. 19.)
So in other words James Attebury doesn’t believe Origen either as well as JESUS, the 1st century AD jews in Jerusalem & Paul?
I can’t really explain it.