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Matthew 24:20 in a futurist paradigm

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  • #16
    Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
    Thanks for all the responses so far. It seems the majority of futurists see a double fulfillment there. Do you see more double fulfillments within the Olivet Discourse, at least prior to verse 30 (which I don't think anybody could reasonably place in the first century)?
    If v. 1-26 had already been fulfilled in AD 67-70, why look for a double fulfillment?
    When I Survey....

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    • #17
      Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
      Thanks for all the responses so far. It seems the majority of futurists see a double fulfillment there. Do you see more double fulfillments within the Olivet Discourse, at least prior to verse 30 (which I don't think anybody could reasonably place in the first century)?
      To be honest with you, I don't really see how a preterist can interpret anything from Matthew 24 as pertaining to the pre-70 era. Even wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes, famines... etc., have no special meaning in that era. IMO it fits much better into a 21st century scope where such technology exists that makes sense as actual signs of something special. There's always been these signs in every generation even before the first century, yet NO generation has had the means to observe these signs like we do, which makes our generation unique in the perspective of such naturally occurring signs.

      With that said, I think Luke's (21) version fits the first century a little better up to vs. 24, or at least gave them some guidance in what do in that situation. He gives a better and more clearer version of what happened during the 70 AD war (though even with Luke, there are some inaccuracies in comparison to the war which I won't get into).

      I would be willing to argue double fulfillment only as a byproduct of helping first century Christians to avoid that situation.

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      • #18
        Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
        What is your exegesis of Colossians 2:16 as it pertains to Paul's view of the Sabbath?
        It is a refutation of the legalism of the Pharisees. Following the law does not make you righteous, but that does not absolve one of following the law.

        Scripture Verse: Luke 11

        42 “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.

        © Copyright Original Source



        Christ came to fulfill and uphold the Law, not set it aside, except insomuch as He gives us something better by giving us a Spirit that can follow the Law perfectly as He did. And He also gave us the freedom to know that if we accidentally fail to follow some part of the Law, we are not condemned, but rather grace is allotted while we repent and correct our course.

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        • #19
          Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
          I tend to find preterism to be a rather non-intuitive way of interpreting Scripture, but there is one passage in particular that makes futurism very difficult for me...

          Matthew 24:20: "Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath."

          Since most Christians agree that rules that would prohibit movement on the Sabbath are no longer in effect, this would make little sense applied deep into the future. It's easy enough to understand this within a AD 70 paradigm; Craig Keener points out in his IVP Commentary that it was impossible to secure an animal for transport on the Sabbath in Jerusalem at that time.

          As best as I can tell, here are the possibilities I can think of that would preserve a futurist paradigm:

          1) This passage refers to AD 70 but switches to the end times later on (a sermon I heard on the Olivet discourse in church last month argued this, though the pastor used Mark 13, not Matthew 24).

          2) The Sabbath is, in fact, binding on Christians.

          3) This refers to Jews who will convert in the end times and who still choose to follow the Sabbath, sort of like how some Jewish Christians still saw circumcision as important in Paul's letters.

          Anything else I'm missing here?
          Possibly this - the chapter has in view both the near future of the Jewish War, and also the remote future nearer the Second Coming. And that verse belongs to the near future.

          α. One solution to that hypothesis is, to postulate that different discourses of Jesus have been edited together.
          β. Another is, to suppose that the whole Discourse derives in some sense from the same occasion, and that Jesus was “telescoping” the remote future into the near future, and speaking of both as though they were the same. This is similar to your 1), but not identical.
          γ. A third suggestion is, that the seeming prediction is a “prediction after the fact”.

          I’m sure there are other suggestions.

          Another possibility - the whole thing refers to AD 70, and is spoken of in apocalyptic imagery, which, to readers unfamiliar with it, gives the (inaccurate) impression that Jesus was talking of the end of the world. I like both this suggestion, and β.
          Last edited by Rushing Jaws; 11-30-2019, 06:49 PM.

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          • #20
            Originally posted by Darfius View Post
            It is a refutation of the legalism of the Pharisees. Following the law does not make you righteous, but that does not absolve one of following the law.

            Scripture Verse: Luke 11

            42 “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.

            © Copyright Original Source



            Christ came to fulfill and uphold the Law, not set it aside, except insomuch as He gives us something better by giving us a Spirit that can follow the Law perfectly as He did. And He also gave us the freedom to know that if we accidentally fail to follow some part of the Law, we are not condemned, but rather grace is allotted while we repent and correct our course.
            IMHO, He is not laying down a duty for Christians to observe, but, criticising the Pharisees while addressing His words to other Jews of His (and their) time & place. STM His words cannot legitimately be pressed beyond their immediate, Jewish, context. Jews were already commanded in the Shema in Deut. 6 to love God - that doctrine is taken up into, and re-inforced by, Jesus’ own Teaching, which is the supreme rule for the community He founded. The Pharisees, as Jews, were doing the right acts - but, it seems, forgetting the necessity of doing them from a motive of love for God, and in the righteousness that goes with that love. He is calling on them to act in a way that should have been their motive, and that is to be the motive for Christians.

            Having the right motive in dealing with God and neighbour, does not, of itself, entail observing the Law of Moses - for “love is the fulfilling of the Law”. The 613 mitsvoth are therefore irrelevant to Christians. The summary of the Law in the Two Great Commandments is OTOH permanent: for the Church of the New and Everlasting Covenant in the Precious Blood of Christ, no less than for the Jewish Church of the Old Covenant in the blood of bulls and goats. What is permanent, is the two-fold commandment of love, that is binding in both covenants; the acts by which the 613 mitsvoth were performed, were a temporary expression of this love. Now that Christ has come, these 613 mitsvoth have been “done away in Christ”, Who is, in every sense, “the end of the Law” - its conclusion, its goal, its purpose, its fulfilment. The love He requires, from Jew and Gentile alike, is not less but more stringent than that commanded in the Law. What He requires is both much simpler, and much stricter and more searching, than what the Law requires. In that inward sense, He has certainly not “abolished the Law”.
            Last edited by Rushing Jaws; 11-30-2019, 07:27 PM.

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