PARTIAL-PRETERISTIC HERMENEUTICS

The Olivet Discourse

I. CONTEXT:
- Matthew’s Gospel’s Olivet Discourse account follows Christ’s seven
woes to the Pharisees and promise of judgment upon both their
generation and Jerusalem itself...

A) The seven woes pronounced upon the Pharisees from Matthew 23:1-35
culminates in the blood of all the saints being on them.

“...so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood
of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you
murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.”
-Matt. 23:35

B)This indictment was not to be distantly removed from the immediate

audience who received it.

“Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”
-Matt. 23:36

C) It is interesting to note the similarities here (23:37) between Jesus’ lament

over Jerusalem and the woman who is drunk on the blood of the saints in
Rev. 17:6.

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are
sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen
gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!”
-Matt. 23:37

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“The name written on her forehead was a mystery:

BABYLON THE GREAT

THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES

AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of God’s holy people, the blood of
those who bore testimony to Jesus.”

-Rev. 17:5, 6

D)Chapter 24’s Olivet Discourse commences when the disciples wanted to

draw Christ’s attention to the Herodian Temple, which was still in
existence at the time...

“Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out
to him the buildings of the temple. 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."
-Matt. 24:1, 2

E)So, the immediate context from the beginning of chapter 23 to the

beginning of chapter 24 is a pronouncement of judgment upon the
contemporary city of Jerusalem and its religious leaders and the Herodian
Temple.

II. THE DISCOURSE: FULFILLMENT IN THE JEWISH WARS OF

66-70AD.

A) False christs and false prophets working deceit...(v.5)

1) Judas of Galilee - led a violent tax revolt as a zealot leader (Acts 5:46
2) Menahem Ben Judah - Judas’ of Galilee grandson, captured Masada

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3) Theudas (46AD) - led his followers into a short-lived revolt (Acts 5:36)
4) Unnamed Egyptian Jew - led a following of about 4000 into the desert of Egypt
to revolt against Rome
5) John of Gischala (70AD) - was a key rebel in the destruction of Jerusalem
6) Simon Magus- was called the ‘Power of God’ (Acts 8:9, 10)

“After Christ’s ascension into heaven the devils put forward certain men who said
that they themselves were gods”
-Justin Martyr (First Apology 26)

“Deceivers and impostors, who under the pretense of divine inspiration fostering
revolutionary changes, they persuaded the multitude to act like madmen, and led
them out into the desert under the belief that God would there give them tokens of
deliverance.”
-Josephus (Wars 2.13.4)

B)‘Wars and rumors of wars’ (v. 6)

1) To modern readers it is not uncommon to hear threats of both war and violence.
However, wars had all but ceased to exist in the early first century AD.

"Caesar has obtained for us a profound peace. There are neither

wars nor battles"
-Epictetus (Discourses 3:13:9)

2) There was an extended period of peace known as ‘Pax Romana’ (or ‘Roman
peace’). During this period the Roman emperors had secured peace on a global
scale.

“In the Roman Empire proper, this period of peace remained

comparatively undisturbed until the time of Nero.”
-Bo Reicke, historian, “The New Testament Era”

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C) Famines and earthquakes (v. 7)

1) Luke mentions predictions of great famines that were fulfilled during the reign
of Claudius, who was Emperor of Rome between 41AD and 54AD.

“One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted
that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. (This
happened during the reign of Claudius.)”
-Acts 11:28

2) Tacitus refers to a time of both great famine and great earthquake in the first
century that left the population in great calamity.

“...houses were thrown down by frequent shocks of earthquake, and as the

panic spread, all the weak were trodden down in the hurry and confusion
of the crowd. Scanty crops too, and consequent famine were regarded as a
token of calamity.”
-Tacitus (Annals 12)

3) In addition to the above citation, Tacitus also refers to a great night quake that
leveled a dozen cities.

“The same year twelve populous cities of Asia fell in ruins from an
earthquake which happened by night...”
-Tacitus (Annals 47)

D)Persecution and death (v. 9)

1) In Acts 4, 5, 6, 7, 16, and 24, we see fulfillment of this prophecy in the early
church where the same cycle was repeated several times.

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a) Arrest (4:3; 5:18; 6:12; 16:19; 23:31)

b) Trial and hearing (4:5-7; 5:27; 6:13-15; 16:20-21; 24:1-10)
c) Gospel was defended (4:12; 5:28-32; 7:1-53; 16:25-34; 24:10-21)
d) Verdict of punishment or death (4:13-18; 5:40-41; 7:54-60; 16:22-24;
24:22-27)

“And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem,
and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except
the apostles.”
-Acts 8:1
“For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that
are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they
did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us
out...”
-1 Thess. 2:14-16

E) Apostasy (vs. 10-13)

1) The largest contributor to the falling away was the fact that so many
false prophets and teachers were leading huge followings away from the
truth.

“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false
teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even
denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift
destruction.”
-2 Peter 2:1

2) John, also present for the Olivet Discourse, speaks of the many apostates who
were assuaged by the ‘spirit of antichrist’...

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“Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is
coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is
the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they
had been of us, they would have continued with us.”
-1 John 2:18-19

3) Christ’s promise in verse 13 that “the one who endures to the end will be
saved” comes alive in the same letter from John when he writes...

“Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard
from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in
the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us eternal life.”
-1 John 2:24

4) The same concern of cautioning believers against apostasy was also present in
the book of Hebrews...

“And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our
boasting in our hope....For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we
hold our original confidence firm to the end.”
-Hebrews 3:6, 14

F) Whole world hearing the Gospel (v. 14)

1) Many would argue that the word ‘world’ epexegetically refers to the Roman
‘world’. An example being the way that the ‘world’ is referred to here...

“For we have found this man a plague, one who stirs up riots among all
the Jews throughout the world and is a ringleader of the sect of the
Nazarenes.”
-Acts 24:5

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2) Paul states that the faith of the believers in Rome has been heard throughout
the world.

“First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your
faith is proclaimed in all the world.”
-Romans 1:8

3) To the church at Colossae was reassured that the preaching of the Gospel not
just to the roman world, but to ‘all creation’ had been completed.

“If indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from
the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all
creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.”
-Colossians 1:23

G) The Abomination of Desolation (v. 15)

1) The abomination was to be a desecration of the temple and fortress...

“Forces from him shall appear and profane the temple and fortress, and
shall take away the regular burnt offering. And they shall set up the
abomination that makes desolate.”
-Daniel 11:31

2) This prophecy was fulfilled by Caligula (here called Caius) and later by the
armies of Titus...

“Now Caius Caesar did so grossly abuse the fortune he had arrived at, as
to take himself to be a god, and to desire to be so called also, and to cut
off those of the greatest nobility out of his country. He also extended his
impiety as far as the Jews. Accordingly he sent Petronius with an army to
Jerusalem to place his statues in the temple, and commanded him that, in

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case the Jews would not admit of them, he should slay those that opposed
it, and carry all the rest into captivity.”
-Josephus (Wars 2.10.1)

"After the five month siege they breached the wall, burned the temple
down and worshiped Caesar at its eastern gate"
-Josephus (Wars 6.6.1)

3) Because the temple was desecrated by Gentiles entering into it and setting up
statues of Caligula Caesar and the eastern wall (or fortress) being desecrated by
Titus’ army, they had become an absolute abomination and thus merited
judgment.

H)Unparalleled distress (vs. 21-22; cf Revelation 8:8-11)

1) There was an unprecedented amount of death, approximately 1.1 million. In

addition 97 thousand were taken away as slaves.

“Now the number of those that were carried captive during this whole war
was collected to be ninety-seven thousand; as was the number of those
that perished during the whole siege eleven hundred thousand...”
-Josephus (Wars 6.9.3)

2) Speaking of the 42 hundred that were killed in the port of Joppa Josephus
writes...

“...although the greatest part of them were carried by the waves, and
dashed to pieces against the abrupt parts of the rocks, insomuch that the
sea was bloody a long way, and the maritime parts were full of dead
bodies...”
-Josephus (Wars 3.9.3)

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3) A naval assault on Jewish ships near Joppa was described in great detail here...

“...they were killed by the darts upon the lake; and the Romans leaped out
of their vessels, and destroyed a great many more upon the land: one
might then see the lake all bloody, and full of dead bodies, for not one of
them escaped. And a terrible stink, and a very sad sight there was on the
following days over that country; for as for the shores, they were full of
shipwrecks, and of dead bodies all swelled; and as the dead bodies were
inflamed by the sun, and putrefied, they corrupted the air...”
-Josephus (Wars 3.10.9)

4) Josephus also goes on to describe the putrid sight at the Jordan River and the
Lake Asphaltiris...

“...because not only the whole country through which they fled was filled
with slaughter, and Jordan could not be passed over, by reason of the dead
bodies that were in it, but because the lake Asphaltiris was also full of
dead bodies, that were carried down into it by the river...”
-Josephus (Wars 4.7.6)

5) About the sacking of Gamala he rights...

“...some of them caught hold of their children and their wives, and drew
them after them, and fled away to the citadel...others of them went to meet
Titus, and were killed perpetually... the groans of those that were killed
were prodigiously great every where, and blood ran down over all the
lower parts of the city, from the upper...A great number threw their
children and their wives, and themselves also, down the precipices, into
the valley beneath...”
-Josephus (Wars 4.1.10)

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6) The joint assault made by the Idumeans and Zealots on Jerusalem and the
Temple also was very graphic.

“...as they were driven one upon another in heaps, so were they slain. And
now the outer temple was all of it overflowed with blood; and that day, as
it came on, they saw eight thousand five hundred dead bodies there...But
the rage of the Idumeans was not satiated by these slaughters; but they
now betook themselves to the city, and plundered every house, and slew
every one they met...they sought for the high priests, and the generality
went with the greatest zeal against them; and as soon as they caught them
they slew them, and then standing upon their dead bodies, in way of
jest...”
-Josephus (Wars 4.5.1-2)

7) Josephus talks of an assault by arrows on Jerusalem and the gory aftermath...

“...many persons who came thither with great zeal from the ends of the
earth, to offer sacrifices at this celebrated place...fell down before their
own sacrifices themselves, and sprinkled that altar which was venerable
among all men...with their own blood; till the dead bodies of strangers
were mingled together with those of their own country, and those of
profane persons with those of the priests, and the blood of all sorts of dead
carcasses stood in lakes in the holy courts themselves...”
-Josephus (Wars 5.1.3)

8) There is a particular account where the Romans actually were so startled in

mid-battle by the discovery of famine-starved corpses they literally left the area
scared.

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“But when they went in numbers into the lanes of the city with their
swords drawn, they slew those whom they overtook without and set fire to
the houses whither the Jews were fled, and burnt every soul in them, and
laid waste a great many of the rest; and when they were come to the
houses to plunder them, they found in them entire families of dead men,
and the upper rooms full of dead corpses, that is, of such as died by the
famine; they then stood in a horror at this sight, and went out without
touching any thing.
-Josephus (Wars 6.8.5)

J) The absolutely cataclysmic wording of the prophesy (vs. 29-30)

1) Such descriptions of impending Divine judgment are not uncommon...

“Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never
done before and will never do again. Therefore in your midst parents will
eat their children, and children will eat their parents.”
-Ezekiel 5:9-10a (Prophesy of Babylonian exile)

“See, the day of the LORD is coming—a cruel day, with wrath and fierce
anger—to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it. The
stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The
rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. I will
punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins.”
-Isaiah 13:9-11a (Babylon’s destruction by the Medes)

“The floodgates of the heavens are opened, the foundations of the earth
shake. The earth is broken up, the earth is split asunder, the earth is
violently shaken. The earth reels like a drunkard, it sways like a hut in the
wind; so heavy upon it is the guilt of its rebellion that it falls—never to
rise again.”
-Isaiah 24:18b-20 (Judgment on the known world)

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I) The “Coming of the Son” and the Gathering of the Elect (vs. 30-31)

1) Christ promised later in chapter 26 that he would come in clouds in judgment

of Jerusalem and He implies that Caiphas, the High Priest and his generation
would be alive to see it.

“But Jesus remained silent. The high priest said to him, “I charge you
under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of
God.”
“You have said so,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: From now on
you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and
coming on the clouds of heaven.”
-Matthew 26:63-64

2) Terms such as “Coming with clouds” are metaphorical images of Divine

judgment, not visible appearance of a cloud-riding god.

“See, the LORD rides on a swift cloud and is coming to Egypt. The idols
of Egypt tremble before him, and the hearts of the Egyptians melt with
fear.”
-Isaiah 19:1 (Judgment of Egypt)

“Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice
are the foundation of his throne.”
-Psalm 97:2 (clouds are paired with righteousness)

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“Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of heaven moved and
shook, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils,
and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. He bowed the
heavens also, and came down; and darkness was under his feet. And he
rode upon a cherub, and did fly: and he was seen upon the wings of the
wind. And he made darkness pavilions round about him, dark waters, and
thick clouds of the skies. Through the brightness before him were coals of
fire kindled. The LORD thundered from heaven, and the most High uttered
his voice.”
-2 Samuel 22:8-14 (Judgment on David’s enemies)

3) The meaning of the word “angel” or ‘angelos’...

“This is the one about whom it is written: “‘I will send my messenger
ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.”
-Matthew 11:10 (Written ‘messenger’ in reference of John)

“...as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “I will send my messenger ahead

of you, who will prepare your way...
-Mark 1:2 (Also in reference to John the Baptist)

“After John’s messengers left, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about
John:”
-Luke 7:24 (Referring to those relaying a message for John)

4) The imagery of the ‘loud trumpet call’ was a fulfillment of the Year of Jubilee.

“Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the
seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout
your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the
land to all its inhabitants.”
-Leviticus 25:9, 10

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5) Christ satisfied atonement for men himself judged Jerusalem, ended the Old
Covenant and sent out his messengers to proclaim liberty through the Gospel to
the ends of the earth. Notice the wording of this passage from Isaiah, which
was carefully selected by Christ when He preached for the first time in the
Synagogue in Luke 4.

“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has
anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up
the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from
darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and
the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn”
-Isaiah 61:1-2

III.CONCLUSION:

A) Application to Modern Readers...

1) Should convey a message of hope, because all prophesies of Divine

judgment within the passage have been satisfied.

2) Should increase the believers faith in the accuracy of Scripture and the
truth of the words Christ spoke.

3) Should encourage us to live the more for Christ seeing as He and the
good news of Him are already victorious in our own time.

B) Summary of this study...

After having prophesied of future judgment upon the existing self-righteous

religious teachers of the day and having given an empathetic prophesy of the
devastation that would come upon Jerusalem itself, Christ is approached in the
following Chapter by His disciples who would have Him marvel at the
grandeous architecture surrounding the Temple. Christ then commences to

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reveal to them the ‘soon to pass’ judgment of the Temple and how that ‘not one
stone’ of the then standing Herodian Temple would be left upon another.
Once the Disciples ask when all of these promises of Divine judgment
would take place Jesus responds by immediately telling the Disciples themselves
to be certain that they are not lead away into apostasy; warning that there would
be many that would arise shortly who would claim divine authority as prophet,
Christ, or Messiah. All of these would have followings whether great or small
that would lead men astray from the true Christ. We have learned that many such
men indeed did exist in the first century: such being men like Judas the Galilean,
Menahem Ben Judah, Theudas, and Simon Magus.
After preparing the Disciples’ hearts for the onslaught of many false
prophets and false Messiahs, He tells of semi-apocalyptic Acts of God such as
earthquakes, famines, and international distress. All of these elements have
found their fulfillment as we have seen in the confines of the 50 to 70AD world.
Once these Acts of God had reached their full potential, the “tribulation”
would bring injustice on a world-wide scale, hatred of Judaeo-Christian
principles and teachings, along with a Church-wide problem of Apostasy. The
Neronic persecutions were predicted in detail. Along with that, Clear-cut
evidence is seen through the Epistles that many people who once professed
Christ were doubting and leaving the faith or being swayed by false teachers.
Thus, the promise that perseverance will ultimately result in salvation. During
this period we are told that the “Gospel of the Kingdom will be proclaimed
throughout the whole world”, as it obviously was in Acts 24, and as was
claimed by Paul in both Romans 1 and Colossians 1.
All of these things: massive numbers of apostates, natural disasters, world
hunger, civil unrest, etc., were merely signs of the end that was yet to come.
The ‘end’ is said to be signaled by the abomination that causes desolation.
The Book of Daniel is the origin of this idea. We see in the ninth chapter of
Daniel that this was to be a desecration of the holy temple and the “fortress”, or
the temple’s surrounding fortification. This occurred when Caligula Caesar,
declaring himself divine, ordered that his image be placed in the despised Jewish
people’s Temple. The unclean, Gentile hordes came into the Temple and thus did
as they were commanded. Later, in fulfillment of the latter half of the

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abomination, the armies of Rome placed the images of their gods along the
sacred eastern wall and worshipped them, thus further desecrating the fortress.
The resulting desolation would be vehement hatred from Rome against the
Jews and thus the “great tribulation” would commence as the armies of Rome
march in war against the nation of Israel. Christ gives us cataclysmic imagery
and tells us that destruction on this scale has never and will never again occur.
This imagery was also adopted by David in describing divine judgment against
his enemies. By Isaiah in describing both the judgment of God on the Egyptians
and the sacking of Babylon by the Median Empire, along with conquest of
Jerusalem by Babylon in Ezekiel.
Again, we are warned that in the midst of the Tribulation there would be
false messiahs still claiming divine authority. As there were all the way through
sacking of Jerusalem itself. The unifying opinion of all of these deceivers was
that God intended to restore an earthly kingdom to Jerusalem. They attracted a
politically motivated following, and, in at least one case the prophecy of
messiahs being in the wilderness came to fruition when an unnamed Egyptian
Jew led about 4,000 men into the desert to war against the Roman occupation.
(Josephus, Wars 2.13.4; Acts 21. In contrast, Jesus clearly articulates that His
Kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36).
Christ promises that His coming in judgment against Jerusalem would be a
“gathering of the eagles” (symbolic of the Roman eagle ensign) to “where the
corpse is” and that it would happen expeditiously like lightning (see also
Matthew 22:1-10)
The judgment of Jerusalem would not only serve as confirmation that
Christ was indeed standing at the right hand of the Father in Glory and Power
(Matthew 26:64), but it would also symbolize the obsolescence of the Old
Covenant (Hebrews 8:13) and the ushering in of the New Covenant: The result
would be Christ sending his messengers and missionaries to the four corners of
the earth to gather the elect. We live in the time after the Old Covenant, where
ritualistic laws, land ownership, political systems, ethnicity, heritage, socio-
economic grids, culture, and language no longer divide, because we are one
through the saving grace given to us by Christ if we just believe! We must tell
everyone the good news! This is the message of the Olivet Discourse. This is the
message of Revelation!

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The truth expressed through this passage ultimately culminates in a new

song being sung to the Glory of Christ forever!

“You are worthy to take the scroll

and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth.”
-Revelation 5:9, 10

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