Allofit Discourse

I never did get around to writing the second part of my book notes/review of Paradise Restored by David Chilton. There were so many interesting points I wanted to write about that every time I started writing, I ended up with a bunch of random jumbled thoughts or two rambling pages on one chapter or another. So, I decided to give up and just write about random eschatological things I think are interesting as I think of them.

In A Case for Amillennialism’s chapter on the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, Kim Riddlebarger suggests that the disciples were unknowingly asking different questions about the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the age and that Jesus gave them two different answers to their questions. He tells them of the end of the world in some verses, but then he is only talking about the A.D. 70 destruction of Jerusalem in others. And when he says that the generation he is speaking to will not pass away until all these things take place in verse 34, he is only talking about the things that apply to the destruction of Israel. When Jesus said all these things he just described would take place, he couldn’t really have meant all. After all, there hasn’t been a great tribulation in which the sun was darkened, has there? And Jesus hasn’t come on the clouds, has he? The gospel hasn’t even been preached to the ends of the world. No, Jesus could not have meant that all these things would take place, could he? 

I don’t think it’s that complicated. When Jesus says that all of those things that he just talked about in Matthew 24 would take place within that generation, I think we ought to very seriously consider that perhaps all of those things actually did take place within that generation. When we assume right off the bat that all of these things have not taken place, we don’t even bother trying find biblical or historical evidence that they may actually have taken place when Jesus quite plainly, I think, said they would.

At this point, I would like to copy several chapters of Paradise Restored, but I will just try to briefly summarize a few points here and encourage you to buy the book or see if you can get an inter-library loan or something so you can read Chilton’s discussion of the Olivet Discourse in its entirety.

• Paul tells the Colossians that the gospel “has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing” (Col 1:5-6). Similar evidence that the gospel had been preached in the whole world can be found in Romans 1:8 and Romans 10:18.
• Matthew 24:21 says of the great tribulation that none like it has occurred since the beginning of the world, “nor ever shall,” indicating that this tribulation is in the middle of history, not at the end.
• The “Abomination of Desolation” refers to the prophecy in Daniel 9:26-27 that Jerusalem and its Temple would be destroyed. The parallel passage in Luke says, “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near” (21:20). The Edomites surrounded the city in A.D. 68 and attacked it, which marked “the beginning of the destruction of the city” according to the historian Josephus.
• Immediately after the tribulation (which happened within that generation), Jesus said, “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (verse 29). When he says this, he is using prophetic language that is used in the prophecies of the Old Testament. When Isaiah and the other prophets foretold of the destruction of certain cities, they used very similar language. Isaiah said concerning the fall of Babylon that “the sun will be dark when it rises, and the moon will not shed its light” (Isa. 13:10). Did the sun actually go dark? Or is this figurative language that indicates in a very real sense the “lights going out” on Babylon? Other passages to note are Isaiah 34:4; Amos 8:9; Ezekiel 32:7-8.
• Jesus “coming on the clouds” is not a prophesy of the Second Coming. Coming on the clouds is language used through the Old Testament to symbolize God’s present, salvation, and judgment (see Ps. 104:3; Isa. 19:1; Nah. 1:3). Jesus’ literal “coming on the clouds,” foretold in Daniel 7, happened when he ascended to the throne at the right hand of God, and he figuratively came on the clouds in judgment against Israel in A.D. 70.
• After the judgment on Israel, Jesus sent out his angels to gather the elect from all over the earth. The word angels, Chilton says, means messengers and often means preachers of the gospel.