The Discourse comes to us in three parallel passages and one passage that describes the same tumultuous days of the Son of Man. They have overlapping, but they all contain unique details.
Matt 24:1-51
Mark 13:1-37
Luke 21:5-38
Luke 17:22-37
The fact that Luke writes about the same prophecy at two different occurrences, tells us that Messiah gave this sermon more than once. Luke’s order of events has both versions of the teaching occurring before the Last Supper.
FYI: Luke has James’ death [Act 12:2] a full three chapters before James leads the Jerusalem Council [Act 15:13]. So his ability or desire to put things in chronological order is suspect.
Hebrew, Greek, and the English Translation
Some acknowledgment of the differences between Greek, Hebrew, and English is required to understand this Discourse. Most scholars believe that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew and very early translated into Greek. Luke and Mark wrote in Greek, but the original words were spoken in either Aramaic or Hebrew. The point is that these passages were written by men who thought and wrote from a first-century Mediterranean perspective, not at all in the way English readers think.
English verbs are only past, present, or future. This grammar forces us to always think and write chronologically. We become obsessed with putting all things in the order of what happened, whereas the Hebrew mind tends to order things by importance. Greek or Hebrew verbs and grammar are not at all obsessed with chronological order, so the Hebrew or Greek writers do not adhere to a chronology of events. A timeline of events is what English readers are familiar with. When Biblical events are not in clear chronological order, many English readers can become frustrated or confused. It just sets our teeth on edge that they cannot be bothered to organize their thoughts in a proper English way! This is true throughout the Bible.
CONTEXT
Our Messiah made His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem just 3-4 days before this. He stood in the Temple and explained who He was and what He was about to do. He told the spiritual leaders their kingdom was forfeit. They were not expecting that. They were expecting that the messiah would defeat the Roman Empire and a glorious Jewish age would begin.
“Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it.”Matt. 21:43
It is in this context that He now explains how their kingdom and temple would be taken away. His disciples viewed the temple with admiration, as Messiah explained its utter destruction. There is no other context. There is no other topic.
Messiah’sCurse
1 Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. 2 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
1 And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!”2 And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down.”Mark 13:1-2
5 And as some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, he said, 6 “As for these things which you see, the days will come when there shall not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”Luke 21:5-6
The history is straightforward: the temple was destroyed by four Roman Legions under General Titus in 70 AD. All the stones were indeed dislodged from their positions. Much has been written about the stones being overturned as the Roman soldiers were looking for gold. The burning of the temple had melted the gold, and that gold had run down into any gaps, and the Romans dug up every last stone to get at the gold! Horrible reports were written about those in the besieged city and those who tried to escape. The Jews taken captive by the soldiers would be marched to Rome as slaves and then scattered to the four corners of the earth. There would be some among the disciples who would live to hear about the Roman armies surrounding Jerusalem and destroying the very temple they had talked to Messiah about. We know from Josephus’ accounts of 70AD that Christians taking heed of this prophecy fled Jerusalem before the armies came.
FYI: For some reason, the Dispensationalists who claim to interpret the Bible literally do not see the literal curse here! They teach that this is about some future temple that will be rebuilt and that all this destruction will happen again by a future political anti-christ. They also point to the Wailing Wall, and claim that it is not torn down, but still standing. However, if one looks at the wall closely, they will see that the wall is made up of mismatched stones from different time periods. It is just a retaining wall reassembled from the original rubble, sometime after the destruction.
The Temple is gone. There is no prophecy of it coming back. We are now the temple of the Holy Spirit. [1Cor. 6:19] The Kingdom Age started with our Messiah. It is a Kingdom that is partly corrupt and partly pure.
