5 Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, 6 "As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down."
7 "Teacher," they asked, "when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?"
8 He replied: "Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am he,' and, 'The time is near.' Do not follow them. 9 When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away."
10 Then he said to them: "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11 There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
12 "But before all this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you. They will deliver you to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. 13 And so you will bear testimony to me. 14 But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. 15 For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. 17 Everyone will hate you because of me. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 Stand firm, and you will win life.
Dig Deeper
We have always expected our two sons to do a few chores around the house and to chip in with things and we have never given them an allowance but just expected that they would help out. This summer, however, we decided to crank things up a bit for the season and told them that we were going to give them each an allowance. They immediately got extremely excited and started to chatter over the things that they could save for and buy and try to figure out how long it would take them to save for certain items that they really wanted. In their excitement, though, I had to step in and tell them not to get too carried away. The allowance would come but the amount of chores that they had to do each week was going to greatly increase. In other words, the thing that they really wanted would come but it would not be immediate and there would be a whole lot of labor and hard work in between their present excitement and the actual fulfillment. They just needed a good stiff dose of reality.
I think the above example is important to understanding this passage because it is so easy for us to get off on the wrong foot. We have a great tendency to misunderstand the meaning and language within this passage and the parallel passages in Mark 13 and Matthew 24 and to find them to be dark, mysterious, and ominous. Yet, that is not entirely how the disciples would have heard theses words. In fact, it seems that throughout the passage, at least in the early going, Jesus wants to comfort his disciples, but he really wants to keep them grounded and to understand that it’s not quite time to get over-excited yet. A lot of tough times are ahead. But why would Jesus have to do that at all? Why would talk of the Temple being utterly destroyed and the final end of the Old Covenant coming be something that would excite Jesus’ disciples. Why would he need to hit them with a good stiff dose of reality? Once we discover the full meaning of Jesus’ words here, the answer to those questions become relatively clear.
The first thing that we have to get out of the way when we read this chapter is the idea that Jesus is somehow talking about the end of the world or the end of the present age. When we consider the context of the book of Luke going all the way back to chapter 9 and look at what is actually said here, we realize that the idea of this being about “the end of the world as we know it” is more due to the fanciful imaginations of modern American writers and televangelists looking to bilk well-meaning people out of a quick buck than anything that is actually said here. What does confuse matters a bit for modern readers is the first century apocalyptic-style figures of speech that are used throughout this passage, especially in the portion that we will consider in the next section. We will consider these figures of speech when we get to them and examine why they shouldn’t automatically lead us to thinking about the end of the world. It is true that passages like this that speak of the coming judgment of the Son of Man on Israel certainly carry echoes of his ultimate return and Matthew’s gospel seems to play to that element of foreshadowing more than the other gospels. But Luke is particularly careful to make sure that his primarily Gentile readers don’t make any such misunderstandings. This passage is a clear and important prophecy from Jesus about the coming destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, an event that would take place nearly forty years after Jesus first uttered these words.
The previous passage has clearly set the table for the meal that we are about to eat for the rest of chapter 21. Those who had come in control of the Temple and the direction of the nation of Israel had turned it from a house of prayer into a den of rebels, the very charge that Jesus made when he symbolically took authority over the Temple. So now that Luke has adequately set the table, he tells us that the disciples were walking along marveling just how stunningly beautiful the Temple was (and by all accounts it was one of the most beautiful buildings ever constructed). But Jesus makes it clear once again that the Temple will be destroyed. He begins by declaring that the “days are coming” (the TNIV renders it “the time will come”) which connects this with the common Old Testament prophetic declaration of judgment (see Jer. 7:1-14; 22:5; 27:6; 52:12-13; Isa. 39:6; Hos. 9:7; Amos 4:2; Zech. 14:1). The Temple has been judged. It is no longer the place where heaven and the will of God will be revealed. Jesus is the true Temple and the false Temple must tumble. But in order for that to happen, it goes almost without saying that something cataclysmic must happen to Jerusalem as well.
As Jews it might have been a sad thing in some respect to hear that this beautiful building would be brought to the ground but it was also a source of great joy. The destruction of the old Temple meant the vindication of the Messiah as the true Temple. It meant a clear marker to those with open hearts that those who were in Christ and had put their faith in him by entering into his life would also be vindicated as the true people of God. One of the great arguments of the first century was who were the true people of God. Both the Jewish people and the early Christians claimed this distinction. But the Jewish Temple fell, never to be rebuilt, and Jerusalem along with it. The Temple that was the Messiah, however, would be “destroyed” but rebuilt in three days (John 2:19-20) and he would be declared to be the Son of God through his resurrection (Romans 1:1-4). The combination of the fact that the Jewish Temple would be utterly destroyed just as Jesus predicted, while Jesus, the true Temple, would be killed but resurrected three days later and would continue to live on in the Temple of his people, the body of Christ (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:21), were clear and exciting demonstrations that Jesus’ people really were the true family of God.
When would all of this happen was the obvious and expectant question. How long would they have to wait? In fact there was a common belief in the ancient world that major socio-political events would be portended by great celestial signs or similar phenomenon. Should they expect something like that, or even another messenger from God to declare that the moment had come? Jesus wouldn’t give them any signs of that sort, although he would give them some signs, of sorts, later on in this passage for which they could keep a look out. But the time itself will happen quickly. It will be a time of war and great tumult. There will be terrible things going on all around them.
The point of all of this is that as exciting and encouraging as the thought of Jesus and his people being vindicated as God’s true people and the Temple, the very thing that had now become a symbol of opposition to God’s true purposes in the world, it would not be a pleasant process. Some would come claiming to be Messiahs or to be messengers from God but they need not be fooled by all of that. It would be a time of earthquake, famine, war and destruction. These were all things that were commonly associated in the Old Testament with great periods of God’s judgment.
These terrible events, however, need not cause them fear. When all of this breaks loose, they could rest assured that the time was near, but it wouldn’t happen immediately. This would be a process that would take awhile. In fact, before this all happened and they would be shown as God’s true people, they would be devastatingly persecuted. When the going got tough for Israel, they would soon turn things around and come down on Jesus’ people, and the non-Jewish world would quickly pick up that example and persecute them as well. They should not take this constant persecution as a sign of God’s disfavor with them or his favoring of the Jews who would also claim to be the true people of God. They could rest assured that this was all part of the process. Just as Jesus was persecuted before his ultimate resurrection and vindication, so would they be persecuted before the Temple would fall and they would be justified as God’s true family (that would not, of course, mean that their persecution and suffering for the name of Christ would be over).
They would be persecuted. That was a fact. In fact, much of what Jesus predicted will be described by Luke in the book of Acts (Acts 4:16-18; 8:1-3; 12:1-5). But as was already made clear in 12:11-12, they need not worry about whether they will be faithful during this time. Some of them would be put to death and would be betrayed by their physical families and brought before the authorities to renounce their loyalty to the Messiah, but they need not worry about how to prepare for that. When the time came, Jesus would be with them (in chapter 12 the promise was that God would be with them, showing just how closely the work of Jesus and the Spirit would be) and would guide them in what they needed to say. Notice in all of this how it related to the disciples within the lifetime of many of them. Jesus was not talking about some far off future events, still in the future for us. He was talking about very real things that would happen during that generation that had rejected the Messiah (see Matt. 11:16; 12:41-42; 23:36; 24:34; Mark 13:30; Luke 11:30-32, 50-51: 17:25; 21:32).
Although Jesus’ words to his followers that they would soon be persecuted was specific to his first-century disciples, the principles continue to apply to Jesus’ family wherever they are persecuted right down to this very day. We don’t need to worry about finding the right words or doing the right thing at the right time. As long as we are committed to follow Christ wherever it leads, the Spirit will guide us when the worst of times comes. Of that, Jesus’ brothers and sisters can always be assured.
Devotional Thought
The amazing thing about this passage is that Jesus was telling them that they would go through many difficult times in waiting for it to be made clear that they were truly the people of God. That can be a long and tempting wait. God’s people today have a similar wait as we look forward to Christ’s return and his resurrection. What can you learn from this passage that helps you to stand firm and faithful in our waiting time?
No comments:
Post a Comment