XXXIII - 12 (00)
- Excerpt
“Watchman,
what of the night?”
"The hour has come, the hour is
striking and striking at you,
the hour and the end!" Eze. 7:6 (Moffatt)
The Sign of the End
Of Time
(Excerpt from wwn12/00)
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In August of this
year a publication of questionable reliability issued its own interpretation on
a prophecy of Jesus, ignoring completely what Jesus Himself had said. The
defiant dictum read - "The Jews will not have regained control of
Jerusalem until they have supreme control over the
Temple
Mount."
This is a devious and deceptive statement. The State of Israel does have
control of the temple mount, but Muslims have jurisdiction over their religious
rites on the Temple mount. The play is on the word, "supreme."
This dictum is a very obvious attempt to blunt the force of the fulfilment of Jesus' prophecy as stated in Luke 21:24.
Jesus Himself had
stood on the Temple mount a few hours prior to the giving of His
eschatological discourse as recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.
There, in confrontation with the scribes and Pharisees, He had declared,
"Behold, your house is left unto you desolate" (Matt. 24:38). Then
"He went out, and departed from the temple" (24:1). No longer was the
temple, His "Father's house." It was removed from further
consideration. But not so the city. He warned the
disciples:
When ye
shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the
desolation thereof is nigh. (Luke 21:20)
What if the early
Christians who dwelt in Jerusalem
at the time of its siege in AD 66 had reasoned that it was the "temple
mount" that was to be surrounded, not just the city encompassed. Would
they have left the city when the Roman armies withdrew? No, they believed Jesus
meant what He said, and at the first opportunity fled the city. Though no longer
the city of God, and the people of
Israel no longer the people of God,
Jerusalem served as a sign in the fulfilment
of prophecy. It is still a sign and will continue to be so
until "Michael shall stand up." (See Dan.
11:45; 12:1) In the same Biblical paragraph in which Jesus gave the sign by
which the Christians of Jerusalem would know to flee the city, He also stated
that "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the
times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" (Ver. 24).
In this verse
(24) and the one following (25), the word, ta eqnh is used four times.
Twice it is translated "nations" and twice "Gentiles." This
word with the article is used for the Hebrew word,
hagoyim,
the pagan nations apart from
Israel. (See Thayer, p. 168, #4 under
eqnoV) Consistency
of translation would dictate that in each instance of its use in Luke 21:24,
25, it should be translated, "the nations." In other words, the second designation of
Jerusalem as a sign, would involve the probation of the
nations as corporate bodies.
This sign is
unique and was given by Jesus to answer a specific part of the question asked
by the disciples. The disciples were concerned about the destruction of the
temple, and had asked, "When shall these things be?" (Matt. 24:3).
But they, thinking that such an event would involve the end of the world, asked
further - "What shall be the sign (singular) of thy coming and of the end
of the world?" They asked not what would be the signs of the time of the
end, but the sign of the end of time. Thus the answer of Jesus, in which
Jerusalem is given as a sign marking both the hour for the
destruction of Jerusalem, "the days of vengeance" (Luke 21:22), and "the (probationary)
(kairoV
not
cronoV
is used) times of the nations" (ver. 24), is of major importance. In its
first use, the sign would be the surrounding of the city by alien armies, and
its second use as a sign would be the city's restoration once again to the
control of the nation of
Israel. The first was fulfilled in AD 66, and the second in
1967 and finalized in 1980.
Some History of the Interpretation of Luke 21:24
In 1898, James
Edson White published The Coming King .
It went through several editions. It was printed in the
United States by the Review & Herald Publishing Association, and in
Australia by the Echo Publishing Company. In the first edition
and the 1900 edition, the chapter on the "Destruction of Jerusalem"
closed with the following paragraph:
We also read that "Jerusalem
shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be
fulfilled." Luke 21:24. Jerusalem
has never again come into the possession of the Jews, and will not until
"the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." This will be when the work
of the gospel is finished.
(p. 98)
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When the
Australian edition was printed in 1904, this paragraph was enlarged and
modified. The last sentence was omitted, and previous sentence was made to
read:
Jerusalem has never again come into the possession
of the Jews, but when the "times of the Gentiles" are fulfilled, and
Christ comes to gather the faithful of all ages, then all who are Israelites
indeed, all the household of faith, will have a home in that city of which the
old Jerusalem was but a type, - the city for which Abraham looked, whose
builder and maker is God. Hebrews 11:10. (p.98)
When an enlarged
edition was published by the Review & Herald in 1906, the final paragraph
of the chapter was abbreviated to state:
We also read that "Jerusalem
shall be trodden down of the Gentles, until the times of the Gentiles be
fulfilled." Luke 21:24. This will be when the work of the gospel is
finished. (p.109)
Whether the above
interpretation of Luke
21:24 is James Edson White's is open to question. Inserted in the 1906
edition following the "Introduction" is this brief sentence:
"The author
gratefully acknowledges contributions on special subjects treated in this book,
from the pens of J. O. Corliss, M. E. Kellogg, and G.
C. Tenny." (p. viii)
Does this apply to all previous editions as well as to the 1906 edition?
During the time
of the publication of the various editions of Edson White's book, his mother
wrote in a letter to Dr. J. H. Kellogg the following insight:
In the twenty-first chapter of Luke, Christ
foretold what was to come upon Jerusalem; with it He connected the scenes which
were to take place in the history of the world just prior to the coming of the
Son of man in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. (Letter 20,1901)
Two factors need
to be carefully considered from this statement: 1) Luke 21 is singled out from the other two parallel chapters of
Matthew 24 and Mark 13 in the Synoptic Gospels. It is Luke alone who recorded
Jesus' prophecy - "And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the nations
until the times of the nations be fulfilled." 2) It was what "was to come upon
Jerusalem," not the
Temple
Mount,
which was connected to the final scenes "just prior to the coming of the
Son of man." While this statement was written in 1901, it was not until
1946 that this particular section of the letter to Dr. Kellogg became available
to the Church in the compilation, Counsels
to Writers and Editors, pp.23-25. By this time the publications coming from
the Church's presses were negating any possibility of a State of Israel which
would thus preclude the possibility of
Jerusalem coming under Israeli control.
In 1944, the
Voice of Prophecy published for their Book of the Month offer,
Palestine in Prophecy by J. C. Stevens.
He concluded his treatise with this paragraph:
The apostle Paul speaks of old Jerusalem
as being "in bondage with her children." Galatians 4:25. Had the Jews
been faithful, Jerusalem would have
been enlarged and beautified to become the center of the whole earth, beautiful
for situation. But throughout the generations [since] the fall of that city in
AD 70, Jerusalem has been "a
burdensome stone" and "a cup of trembling unto all the people"
(Zechariah 12:2, 3); and it will be so to the end of time. Palestine
and Jerusalem do not have a bright
future in this present world, and those who are holding out the hope of
national restoration for the Jews are following a theological will-o'-the-wisp.
(p.95)
In 1947, another
book appeared, The Jews and Palestine. It was published by the Pacific
Press and authored by Roy F. Cottrell. In a chapter on "Modern
Zionism," the author after quoting Jeremiah 19:10,11 - "Thus saith
the Lord of hosts, Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter's vessel, that it cannot be made whole
again" - wrote:
The God of heaven who overthrew the city and
nation and who because of their apostasy dispersed the inhabitants to the ends
of the earth forever settles the question of a complete return and restitution
in old Canaan by asserting that it "cannot
be." (p.61).
Yet within a
year, the State of Israel became a fact. This should teach the Church and its
writers on prophecy to be very cautious, recognizing that some positions held
may be faulty, and need to be carefully restudied. "God and heaven alone
are infallible."
The Church at the
first opportunity rectified its position and returned in principle to the
understanding suggested by Edson White in 1898. In 1952 a Bible Conference was
held in the
Sligo
Seventh-day
Adventist
Church in
Takoma
Park,
Maryland. Elder Arthur S. Maxwell, Editor of the Signs of the Times, was assigned the
topic, "The Imminence of Christ's
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Second
Coming." One section of his
presentation was devoted to "Areas of Unfulfilled Prophecy." He cited
three, one of which was "Developments in
Palestine." He noted that the "recent dramatic
restoration of the nation of
Israel" in 1948 has once more focused the attention of
the world on Palestine. Then he stated:
There is one prophecy concerning Palestine
that we should all be watching with special care. Said Jesus, "Jerusalem
shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be
fulfilled."
Citing "the
amazing prowess of the Israeli troops" in every other part of
Palestine, he noted that they "failed to take the most
dazzling objective of all."
Jerusalem remained in Arab hands. Then he asked the question -
"What could be the reason?" His answer -"Only that the times of
the Gentles are not yet fulfilled." Noting God's dealings in times past
that Israel was not permitted to enter
Palestine because "the iniquity of the Amorites" was
"not yet full," he stated:
It may well be
that the same principle applies today, on a wider scale. If so, then
Jerusalem is to remain trodden down by the Gentiles till the
probationary time of all Gentiles has run out. If this be correct, how much
hinges upon the fate of this ancient city and the power that occupies it! (Our
Firm Foundation, Vol.2, pp.230-231)
One means used in
Adventist evangelistic outreach has been Bible Correspondence courses. Among
them was one called the "20th Century Bible Course."
Lesson 5 of this course - "Time Running Out" - cited the prophecy of
Luke 21. Question #2 asked - "What sign did Jesus give that would indicate
when the destruction of the city was at hand?" The text given for the
answer was Luke 21:20. Question #3 continued - "How long did Christ say
that Jerusalem would be trodden down?" The answer, "verse
24" was followed by this note:
Old Jerusalem
and the temple site has been occupied largely by the
Gentile nations until 1967 when the Jews took possession of it in a
"lightening victory." This portion of Christ's prophecy was fulfilled
in our day!
In reflection it
would seem that providentially, the Adult Sabbath School Lessons for the second
quarter of 1980 were devoted to "The Witness of Jesus." The month
following the conclusion of these lessons, the Knesset of Israel on July 30,
voted that "Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capitol of
Israel," thus culminating the fulfilment
of the prophecy of Jesus. The author of these lessons, Dr. Jean Zurcher, wrote as a guide to accompany them the book, Christ
of the Revelation. In it he stated, noting Christ's prophetic discourse:
We shall not linger long over the numerous signs
given by Jesus in this discourse. Only one will occupy our attention, the one
that deals especially with time. Even in our day it constitutes a critical
point in the political world: Jerusalem.
In fact, Jerusalem is both the
beginning and the culmination of Jesus' prophecy. ... So having predicted the
destruction of Jerusalem and the
dispersion of the Jews "into all nations," Jesus declared, "Jerusalem
shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until
the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." (Emphasis his)...
This prophecy of Jesus was a sign for the
Christians of the Apostolic
Church,
who lived at the beginning of the times of the Gentiles, and it remains a sign
for us who live at the end of the times of the Gentiles. Again we must know how
to discern its meaning.
It is not a matter of seeing in the return of the
Jews to Palestine and in the
Israeli conquest of Jerusalem a
sign of the approaching conversion of the Jews, as so many Christians think.
Nothing in Jesus' prophecy allows such an interpretation. However, if we cannot
see that Jerusalem is an
exceptional sign of the times, then might we not be placing ourselves in the
same position as the religious leaders who knew how to "discern the face
of the sky" but could not discern the obvious "signs of the times"?
As I understand the Biblical language, the times
of the Gentiles is the period set aside by God for the evangelization of the
heathen nations. It is not the time needed for them to be converted to
Christianity, as some think but for them to hear the gospel. It is in this
sense that Jesus said, "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall
the end come" (Matt. 24:14).
I believe that the times of the Gentiles began in
AD 34, when the prophetic seventy weeks that God set aside for the people of Israel
ended. ... And if I have understood the prediction of Jesus properly, this time
will be "fulfilled" when Jerusalem
will cease to "be trodden down of the Gentiles." The fact that since
1967 Gentiles no longer have occupied [controlled] Jerusalem
means, therefore, that we are now living at the end of "the times of the
Gentiles."
Jerusalem
here constitutes the last sign of the times by which the Lord shows us that the
history of this world is coming to its climax and that the restoration of all
things is at hand.
(pp.71-72).
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What is the Fulfilled Prophecy of Jesus Saying?
The
very least that this fulfilled prophecy of Jesus is saying is that God is no
longer restraining the power of Satan in his control of the nations of earth. Even though Satan declared that he possessed such
power and could delegate it to whomever he chose (Luke 4:6), the book of Daniel
draws the curtain aside and reveals that God "ruleth
in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He
will" (Dan. 4:17). When kings and rulers resisted His purposes, Michael,
to whom all earthly authority is given (I Cor. 15:27), comes Himself to influence the outcome of human
events (Dan. 10:13). That time is
now past, and God has stepped aside and Satan is working his will in the
nations of earth.
We have not been
left in doubt as to what Satan is seeking to accomplish. In the Revelation of
Jesus Christ, the picture is drawn. "The spirits of
devils go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather
them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty" (Rev. 16:14).
But you respond, that is the sixth plague after the
close of probation. No, it is the cause for the sixth plague, not the plague.
Consider the first plague: a "grievous sore" on those who had
received the mark of the beast (16:2). Was not the mark of the beast received
prior to the close of probation? Just so, the sixth plague. Verse 12 describes
the plague - the drying up of the great river
Euphrates, and verses 13-14 give the cause in probationary time.
Note the use of
this text in
The Great Controversy,
pp.561-62. Observe the context - "the last remnant
of time."
The location of
this gathering is given as a place in the Hebrew tongue, called
"Har-Magedon" (16:16 ARV). This transliterates back into the Hebrew as Har-Mo'ed - Mount of
the Congregation. Here Satan will seek to realize his objective - "I will
sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north,"
or Jerusalem (Isa.
14:13; Ps. 48:2).
Even as the
sanctuary "was the key which unlocked the mystery of the
disappointment" in 1844 (See, Spirit
of Prophecy, Vol. 4, p. 268), so also it gives a further understanding as
to the significance of Jesus' prophecy as recorded in Luke 21:24. During the
daily ministration, confession of sin, both individual and corporate was made
in the court of the sanctuary. The distinct difference between these two
ceremonies was where the blood of confession was placed. For the individual,
the blood of his sacrifice was placed upon the horns of the Brazen Altar of the
Court, while for a corporate sin, the blood of the
sacrifice was placed on the horns of the Golden Altar of Incense in the
Holy Place. (See Leviticus 4). In the
yearly service on the Day of Atonement, the ministration of the High Priest
involved all three sections of the sanctuary. He moved from the Most Holy to
the Holy, and then to the Court to complete the atonement at the Brazen Altar
where the individual confessions were recorded. (See Leviticus
16). Thus the prophecy of Jesus would indicate in its fulfilment that the corporate bodies of earth have been
weighed in the balances of the sanctuary and found wanting. The time of
judgment has passed to the very last act of the Final Atonement - the cleansing
of the living.
What Warning
Has God Given? --
When God told
Moses, the nature of the Coming One, that He would be a Prophet raised up in the midst of the Children of Israel like unto
himself, and that He would put words into His mouth, He also sounded a warning:
And it
shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he
shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. (Deut. 18:19)
It was that
Prophet who declared that "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the nations until the times
of the nations be fulfilled."
Take heed to
yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and
drunkenness, and the cares of this life, and so that day come upon you
unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of
the whole earth. Watch ye
therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these
things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.
(Luke
21:34-36)
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