Amillenarians, who do not interpret literally any prophecy concerning a future millennial reign of Christ, tend to take the prophecies in this discourse in a general rather than a particular way, and frequently try to find fulfillment in the first century in connection with the destruction of Jerusalem. The discourse that follows depends for its interpretation on the question of whether these prophecies should be interpreted literally. How did the temple’s future destruction relate to the promise of the coming kingdom and their hope that Christ would reign over the nation of Israel? Matthew 24:3 records, “And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” The disciples had in mind, of course, that the destruction of Solomon’s temple, in 586 b.c, preceded the time of captivity. According to Mark 13:3, questions were asked by Peter, James, John, and Andrew. Matthew 24:3 records that when Christ sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples then came with their questions. Questions of the Disciples, 24:3Īs they walked from the temple area through the Kidron Valley and up the slope of the Mount of Olives, the disciples, no doubt, were pondering these solemn words of Christ. Recent excavations have uncovered some of these stones. 70, only six years after the temple was completed, when the Roman soldiers deliberately destroyed the temple, prying off stones one by one and casting them into the valley below. Such large stones could be dislodged only through deliberate force. The temple was made of huge stones, some of them many tons in size, carved out in the stone quarries underneath the city of Jerusalem. When the disciples pointed out the temple, according to verse 2, Jesus said, “See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” The disciples apparently received these solemn words in silence, but their thoughts were sobering. To the disciples, the temple seemed an impressive evidence of the solidarity of Israel’s religious life and of God’s blessing upon Jerusalem. 64, its main buildings apparently were largely finished. The temple had been under construction since 20 B.C., and, though not actually completed until a.d. Prediction of Destruction of the Temple, 24:1-2Īfter delivering the denunciation of the scribes and the Pharisees, Christ left the temple, according to Matthew 24:1-2 and as He left, His disciples pointed out the magnificence of the temple buildings. The Olivet discourse was delivered after Christ’s scathing denunciation, in Matthew 23, of the hypocrisy and false religion which characterized the scribes and Pharisees, closing with His lament over Jerusalem, where the prophets of God through the centuries had been rejected and martyred. By contrast, the discourse on the Mount of Olives contains Christ’s teaching on the end of the age, the period leading up to the second coming of Christ to set up His kingdom on earth.
The discourse of Christ on the Mount of Olives is one of the four major discourses of Christ and should be compared in its content to the Sermon on the Mount, dealing with the moral and ethical principles of the kingdom (Mt 5-7) the discourse on the present age the kingdom in its mystery form while the King is absent (Mt 13) and the upper room discourse, dealing with the church as the body of Christ in the present age (Jn 13-17).
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