Essential Eschatology: Our Present and Future Hope by Phelan Jr. John E

Author:Phelan Jr., John E.
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2013-10-31T16:00:00+00:00

The Coming of the Son of Man: The Olivet Discourse

Mark 13 and its parallels in Matthew and Luke have occasioned enormous debate among biblical scholars over the last 150 years or so. Some have seen this passage as the key to unlocking Jesus’ understanding of his mission and God’s plan for the future. Others have insisted Jesus never said these words at all. Certainly the Evangelists saw Jesus’ warnings and predictions as enormously important. In what follows, I will argue that Jesus spoke these words for the benefit of his contemporaries but that they continue to speak a word of challenge and hope to disciples of Jesus today. They also speak to how the coming of God coincides with the coming of Jesus.

To understand Mark 13 and parallels, an even more difficult and controversial prophecy must be explored. Jesus alludes at least twice to the book of Daniel in the discourse. In Mark 13:14 he alludes to the “desolating sacrilege” (NRSV) or the “abomination that causes desolation” (NIV). This is a citation of Daniel 9:27 in the prophecy of the seventy weeks. In Daniel’s context, this is likely a reference to the desecration of the temple by the Greek king Antiochus IV in the second century B.C. Luke takes Jesus’ allusion to be a reference to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. He changes the “desolating sacrilege” in Mark to “Jerusalem surrounded by armies” (Lk 21:20). Jesus warns that a fierce time of suffering will break out in connection with this event. He tells “those in Judea” to “flee to the mountains” (Lk 21:21). During the Jewish revolt, this is exactly what the early Christians did. They clearly understood Jesus’ prophetic warning to refer to the crisis of the Jewish rebellion and its suppression by the Romans.

After his warning about the great time of suffering, Jesus declares: “In those days, after that suffering,

the sun will be darkened,

and the moon will not give its light,

and the stars will be falling from heaven,

and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

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