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Catholic Bible Study
Matthew 24:1-28
00:29:57
This week Dr. Tim Gray and Dr. Michael Barber, professor of Sacred Scripture at the Augustine Institute Graduate School, continue their study of the Gospel of Matthew by diving into 24:1-28.
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to form. Now, I'm Tim Gray, president of the Augusta Institute, and Joining me is Dr. Michael Barber, professor of Scripture here at the Augusta Institute. And we're going to continue our ongoing Bible study on the Gospel of Matthew. Last time, we left off towards the very end of Matthew, chapter 23. So grab your Bibles and open up to Matthew chapter 23 with us. And we're going to cover, hopefully, Michael, maybe Even Matthew chapter 24 today.
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B
Let's do our best. That would be fantastic, I think. At the end of Matthew 23, we come to conclusion, the conclusion of those seven woes that Jesus had pronounced. And he explains that the scribes and Pharisees.
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Complain. They say if we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in the shedding of the blood of the prophets. And Jesus says that they testify against themselves because what's going to happen is, of course, they're going to shed his blood. Right. And so in acting this way, these scribes and Pharisees are participating in. In the sin of the righteous people who came before them that persecuted the prophets.
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A
It's so ironic because they're comparing themselves as better than their ancestors. And so.
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In a rabbinic way, they love to study Jeremiah and Isaiah and the prophets. But by studying the prophets, they say, well, that wouldn't happen now. We're much better than that.
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B
That's right.
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A
And yet they're going to be, as you point out, guilty. In fact, even guiltier than. Because it's not just going to be Jeremiah that they kill, it's going to be the Messiah. That's the great irony.
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B
Yeah. And what Jesus says is that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah Berechiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. And that's a story that we find in the historical books of the Old Testament. Jesus, of course, drawing together the story of Abel and the story from the historical books that describe Zechariah, this man who's killed in 2 Chronicles 36. And what Jesus is saying is that there is a climactic moment that is approaching, and that is everything that's taken place in human history has been leading up towards his death. And the scribes, the Pharisees, the leadership there in Jerusalem, and is going to bear the guilt of this terrible crime. And blood will, in a sense, be on them. And that's language of judgment that you find.
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A
It is. And also, ironically, it's also, the language of the blood, of being covered by is sacrificial cultic language. And in fact, in the very Next chapter, Matthew 24, Jesus is going to talk about the upcoming doom of the temple, which is the center of sacrifice and liturgy.
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B
That's correct. And so what happens at the end of Matthew 23 is Jesus says to the scribes and Pharisees that.
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He says, you house is desolate. And it's a key moment where Jesus explains that the temple has now, in a sense, been set up for judgment. And we see Jesus say Here in Matthew 23:38, See, your house is left to you desolate, which is language that's borrowed from prophets like Daniel and Jeremiah, his way of announcing coming judgment. And then we read something remarkable. Right after Jesus says, you house is desolate. At the beginning of Matthew 24, we read, Jesus left the temple. And those two things are related because Jesus has been identified in the Gospel of Matthew as Emmanuel, as God with us. So that temple being desolate is the sense that the temple has been.
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Evacuated by God, that God's presence has left the temple.
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A
So you're saying, Michael, that when Jesus says, your house will be desolate.
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B
Right.
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A
He's actually, we know from chapter 24, verse 1, he's actually in the temple when he says that. So the house that will be desolate is the temple, right?
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B
That's right. The house that is desolate is going to be the temple. He is leaving the temple to enact what is going to happen in the year 70 when the temple is destroyed. So anyway, that brings us to Matthew, chapter 24, which is an incredible passage. It's often described as the apocalyptic discourse. People use that language. Language because it has so many similarities with the Book of Revelation, of course, the Apocalypse. Right.
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A
And so for a lot of people, the idea of the eschatological. You'll hear that term as well.
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B
Yes, yes.
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And eschatological means the end things, the last things.
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B
Right.
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A
And this really, we're seeing a culmination here as we're going to transition into chapter 24 and the end of the temple. It also becomes a sign of the end of the world. And we'll talk about that in a minute. But Jesus has already said something really significant at the end of chapter 23 to the scribes and Pharisees and the chief priests, when he says that all the blood from Abel to Zechariah is going to come upon you. Jesus is bracketing what we would call the Old Testament era there by those two innocent People being murdered. And he's showing that there's a kind of a close to the age that's about to happen, the end of an age. The end of what we would know as the Old Testament era, the Old Covenant era is about to happen. And there's a climactic judgment that seems to be coming at the end of this age. That will then be the birth pangs for a new age that's going to come out of the.
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B
Or another term we might use is a new creation. So in Matthew 19, Jesus talks about the new creation, what will happen in the new creation. The 12 will sit on 12 thrones. You may remember this. And he uses the word palan genesia, which is Genesis again, the new creation, right. And so the old creation is passing away and a new creation is dawning. And that brings us to Matthew 24, where the disciples come to Jesus and they say, look at all these amazing buildings of the temple. They don't say this, but they're pointing out all these amazing buildings of the temple. And Jesus says something astonishing. He says, amen. I say to you, there will not be left here, one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.
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A
I like that. Mark gives us the perspective. You know, Matthew's setting it up with the link of what was just said before as you highlighted that Jesus left the temple. And Mark tells us that now at this point when the conversation starts up, they're on the top of the Mount of Olives, which overlooks it has a great vista overlooking the temple complex and Jerusalem. And so by looking at that perspective, the disciples are pointing out these magnificent, gorgeous, beautiful buildings that are really, it's a, you know, the temple was a 30 plus acre campus. And so it's kind of like when you go on to the, to Washington D.C. and you have the Washington Monument, you have the White House, you have all these buildings that make up the complex of the Mall, as it's called. And so you have to understand that this is not just one building. The temple is a set of buildings. Of course, there's the great sanctuary building, but then there's the building that holds the Sanhedrin, there's the treasury, there's many other buildings as part of this great temple complex. And that's the setting that they're looking at as they, as Jesus is going to speak to the fate of the temple.
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B
That's right. And this is also found in Matthew because he sits down on the Mount of Olives, right? So he goes to this place, which is really important because in The Book of Ezekiel. What happens is God's presence is seen leaving the temple and where does it go? To the Mount of Olives. And so now Jesus is identified as Emmanuel. He's God with us, and he's left the temple and now he's at the Mount of Olives. And Jesus has made this extraordinary pronouncement. There won't be one stone left upon another. And they come to him privately and they want to know what's this all about. And they say, tell us when will this be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age? Now notice that the disciples have grouped a couple of things together. When will this be? The destruction of the temple, when will this be and what will be the sign of your coming and the close of the age? So there are two things being linked here. The destruction of the temple and Jesus is coming at the close of the age. And so it's important to recognize they're asking about a couple of things here and Jesus is going to draw them together in his answer.
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A
That's so important, Michael, to frame that, because as we know, our patron here at the Augustine, St. Augustine had a great observation about what we typically call the eschatological discourse of this famous speech of Jesus about the end of the temple and also the end of the world. And that Augustine says it's very hard to distinguish in this chapter when Jesus is referring to the end of the temple and the city of Jerusalem, which happens, we know historically, in 70 AD at the hand of the Romans. And when is he talking about the end of the world and the close of the ages, so to speak? And so there's this tension between the two. But it's not really a tension one over and against the other, is it, Michael? It's really that what happens to the temple and what happens to Jerusalem in 70 AD is a precursor for what's going to happen at the end of the world.
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B
That's certainly true. So when God creates the world, right, we're talking about the end of the old creation, if you will. We've talked about how the death, you know, Jesus's Description In Matthew 23 marks a brackets out a period. And you point out the old age. Well, when God creates at the beginning of that age, right, what he does is he creates the world in a way that sounds a lot like a temple building project. A lot of people have noticed that in Genesis 1 there's all kinds of priestly language that's used. And you see in other places in the scriptures where the world is related to the temple, is connected to the temple. So Psalm 78 is one of my favorite examples of this. It says he built his sanctuary like the high heavens, like the earth, which he founded forever. So the sanctuary that's the temple is built like the world. So we gotta understand how these two things fit together to really understand what's going on in Matthew 24. So the world is basically more than just a structure for living. The world isn't just an aquarium. It's not like God creates the world. He's on the outside of the aquarium looking in, you know, look, come over here, Gabriel. Look at that funny looking guy. I call that Michael Barber. You know, it's not like God is on the outside looking in. We know from Genesis God is walking in the garden, God is present. He's. He steps into the aquarium, right. And so what do you call the place where God dwells? A temple. So since God is present in the world, the world is more than just an aquarium where God creates his, you know, creatures. It's a temple where God is present to the world. And so on the one hand, the world is a temple. And so that means that the temple is a kind of model of the world. It's a kind of miniature version of a world. It's a symbol of the world. And you actually see this in ancient Jewish writings.
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A
Josephus, Josephus and Philo are both describe this, that the temple is a microcosm of the cosmos. And they go back to even Solomon's description back in First Kings, chapter 6 and 7 of How Solomon builds the temple. And you have the bronze sea of, you know, of glass.
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B
That's right.
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A
For the flooring you have the, the table of the show, bread, which is like the land that's over the waters. And you have the candelabra with the seven great lights, which represents the seven great lights that they knew of the five planets they could see and the sun and the moon.
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B
That's right.
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A
So you, you see the. And then the temple veil for the holy of Holies is designed to look like the zodiac and the cosmos with.
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B
The constellations, the skies, the heavens. Yeah.
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A
And so the temple is depicted in the Jewish mindset as a microcosm of the cosmos. And that will be really crucial for what Jesus is going to say here.
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B
Before we move on. There's a pastoral implication of this, Right. The world is a holy place and we can often be led to forget that. We can often fall into a worldly mindset that wants to separate the secular from the religious, that would have been unheard of for ancient Jews. The entire God's intention.
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A
Right. So, yeah, the idea that there's a secular realm and then there's a little corner here for faith is against God. That's a rebellion. Wherever there's a secular area where that is apart from the sacred, that is where human beings are in rebellion to God. And God creates creation so he can be with us and so that creation could be ordered towards him. And he's a key part of it. He's not like the enlightenment view, a clockmaker who winds up the clock and leaves.
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B
That's right, yep. So God is present to the world and it's important for us to remember that always, because our culture is always trying to give us a different perspective on what the world is. And so Jesus is assuming that his audience, the disciples, will get this, that they'll. That the world is a temple, and that the temple is, well, to use a Disney expression, a small world after all. Right. It's a miniature version of what the world is supposed to be. So when the temple is destroyed, it's a symbol of the world being destroyed. So the world.
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And the temple are inextricably bound up. That being said, it does seem pretty clear that, that in the first part of Matthew 24, Jesus is talking about events that do materialize shortly after his death. He talks about, take heed. No one will lead you astray. That no one will lead you astray. Many will come in my name saying I am the Messiah. They will lead many astray. There'll be wars and rumors of war. He says the end is not yet. Famines and earthquakes, famines and earthquakes. And he says this is all the beginnings of the birth pangs. And this is imagery that is used in the Book of Daniel to describe the suffering of God's people, especially the suffering that's associated with the time when the temple was defiled and interrupted, the sacrifices were interrupted. And this is going to happen again with the Romans. Right? The Romans are going to come in and there's going to be a war with the Romans and lots of confusion will. Will.
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Emerge out of that period. And there are lots of fake messiahs, false messiahs, and in fact, earthquakes. Jesus talks about earthquakes. There's a famous earthquake that's actually a number of earthquakes that took place. So we can see that what Jesus is talking about, major famines.
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That's why Paul does the famine relief for the Christians in Judea.
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B
Right under Claudius, there was a famous famine. There was an Earthquake at Colossi and Pompeii. Those two cities were destroyed.
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A
So there was the Corona pandemic.
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B
The Corona. It wasn't that. Sorry. Did they all have. Okay, I'll leave it at that. Yeah. So. So we, we see this description of a coming period of tribulation, of suffering. And that can have, that can work on two levels, right? On the one side, it applies to what is going to take place in AD 70. But what happens around the Jewish war and the destruction of the temple can also be seen as a kind of foreshadowing, a type of what's going to take place at the end of time before Christ comes. So after that, then Jesus talks about. Yeah, go ahead.
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A
As we dive into those things, I just again want to look back at the big picture for people. So going back to what Jesus says in Matthew 23 about all the blood from Abel to Zechariah, it's the close of an age. And so in a sense, here is Jesus at the very end of his first coming. And in Jesus first coming, he comes to Israel and he proclaims the good news to them. They're going to reject his kingship in his way, and they're going to choose the way of revolt against Rome. And Jesus warns them not, he warns them not to go that way. And he knows it's going to be literally a dead end for them. And by rejecting Jesus in his way, Israel goes their own way and they end up antagonizing and rebelling against Rome. And Rome will come and crush Israel. So at the end of the old Covenant era, Israel is judged and the temple is judged and destroyed. And that becomes a microcosm. Going back to the temple analogy used, Michael, for what will happen at the end of the world. And at the end of the world, at the end of the new covenant, the new covenant is with all nations. And, and so now all nations will fall under the judgment of the gospel. And if all those nations reject the gospel and the good news, then they will stand like Israel before Rome in 70 AD, right?
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B
Yeah. And I think there's a pastoral lesson here, right, because what's going on around the year 70 when the temple is destroyed? Well, the temple is being threatened. And so Jews are reaching out to one another saying, come, help us defend the temple. Help us defend the sacred city, the holy city. And yet Jesus's disciples, according to Eusebius, they get out of the city, they leave. Why? Because Jesus announced that the temple is going to be destroyed. Well, I mean, this is an act of Great faith, right? Because here I can see the temple. I know that the temple has been established by God. Jesus talks about how holy the temple is. Jesus affirms the holiness of the sacrifices of the temple in Matthew 23. But now I've got to leave it for what you know, because I have to have faith. And the same is true of our relationship to the world. Right. The world is a good place. The world is a beautiful place. The world is our home. Right. And at the same time, we have to recognize, as St. Paul says, that it's passing away. And so we have to be detached from this world and be willing to.
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Abandon it, so to speak, and detach from it.
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A
And I love what Jesus gives. And Paul will talk about this a lot. Jesus gives us the hope of a new world and a new creation so that we are not attached to the old creation as it crumbles and falls. That our hope doesn't crumble and fall. Our hope is built in something that's greater. And of course, Paul will talk about this like in his letter to the Philippians, our citizenship is in heaven.
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B
That's right.
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A
And then the Epistle of the Hebrews, which I think is by Paul, but you think of Hebrews chapter 11, where it talks about Abraham and those of faith were looking for a city, right. They're looking for the city of God, not made by man.
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B
Right. And then in 12, you have the vision of the heavenly Jerusalem, Heavenly Zion, Right.
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A
And that's what we look for. And that's why Augustine talks about the city of God.
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B
Right. And so in Matthew 24, Jesus is basically preparing the disciples for a kind of dress rehearsal, might be one way of putting it, of what's going to happen at the end of time. Right. What happens with Jerusalem is going to foreshadow the kind of tribulation and suffering that's going to be at a worldwide level at the end of time. I think that's a good way of integrating the various elements of the Gospel and read it in the light of faith. We read in Matthew 24:9, Jesus goes on to say, they will deliver you up to tribulation. They will put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And he goes on to talk about false prophets coming. But Jesus warns that you have to endure to the end in order to be saved.
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A
And in fact, this is verse 13. He who endures to the end will be saved. And that's what we have to rally around.
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The early Christians had to rally around that when this was going on. And then Christians in the latter days and in difficult times have to rally. We have to endure. So I guess with Jesus, we shouldn't be surprised as Christians that the world doesn't like Christians.
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B
Right. Jesus warned us about that. Right. And in fact, you know, Jesus says here that this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world. What we do know that that happens. Some people say, well, this can't apply to what happens in AD 70 because Jesus says the Gospel is going to be preached to the whole world. Well, Paul uses that kind of language in his letters. So it was preached throughout the known world at that time. And in fact, we read in the book of Acts how the early Christians were persecuted right off the bat in Jerusalem and right after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. And that continues. And we read about the persecution of the church in other places, climaxing in church tradition with the death of Peter and Paul in rome in the 60s. So what Jesus is saying is actually quite applicable to the apostles.
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A
And that's such an important point, Michael, because I don't think people oftentimes think about Jesus as a prophet. Oh, yeah, he's giving. I mean, this isn't like, you know, I'm guessing the, the Dodgers are going to win the World Series. I mean, you might get lucky. You might guess that, you know, it'll probably be the Cardinals in 2020.
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B
He's already said, what do you think is probably. It's all right.
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A
But the, the point that Jesus is saying, no, the temple is going to be destroyed. Not only does he say the temple is going to be destroyed, you have to realize this was the greatest building edifice in all of the Middle east and huge buildings. I mean, the stone blocks. You could see the wailing wall today, that's actually not a building of the temple. That was the retaining wall for the temple complex. So the wailing wall that you see Jews go to, that's. Those are the people like, well, there's stones upon stone there. Well, it was the wailing. I mean, that was the retaining wall for the dirt for the complex. Jesus is talking about the buildings on top of that comple. And we know as a fact not one stone was left upon another. And to make that kind of a bold claim is radical.
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B
It's really interesting that Jesus gives us these kind of down payments, right? So we know that he is accurate in his prophecies because he predicts his own death. And that happens. Then Jesus predicts the temple will be destroyed. And that happens. Then Jesus also predicts things like on the last day, there will be people who will say, lord, Lord. And I will say to you, depart from me. He'll say to them, depart from me because I never knew you. Well, if he's right about the other two things happening, we know that he's probably going to be right about the other things as well. Right. And so Jesus gives us these little down payments, I think, on these prophecies. So is the world going to come to an end? I think so. How do we know that? Well, the Temple came to an end, and Jesus predicted that as well. And as part of that, Jesus goes on to describe how the temple will be made desolate. He says, when you see the abomination of desolation or the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place, let the reader understand. Let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. It's a remarkable line. It's the last thing Jesus says that the disciples are to do. In other words, he never says that they should come back to Judea after they flee from Judea. That's really amazing because in the Old Testament prophets, the idea is there's going to be a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. But at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus has basically said there's a day coming when everybody should flee from Judea. And when does that happen? Well, it happens, of course, in AD 70. And in fact, according to Eusebius, this is what took place. No Christian perished in the destruction of the temple because they did flee to Mount Pella. Yeah.
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A
And that's so important because, Michael, there's a lot of scholars who thought that Jesus was predicting here, not just the destruction of Jerusalem, but he thought that a lot of scholars read this and think Jesus thought that the Temple would be destroyed and the world would end all at the same time. And so there was a lot of people who read it that way. It became the great biblical question in the 19th century in France and then in a lot of places. And that's not accurate because if Jesus said, you know, flee to Judea, well, it wouldn't matter if fleeing Judea wouldn't matter if it was the end of space and time.
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B
Right. You're not going to be able to escape the worldwide cataclysm by going to the mountains.
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A
He says, pray that it doesn't happen in winter. Well, it doesn't matter if there's no if there's no place in the world Left, everything's obliterated. Then what difference if it's the summer or winter? But it makes a difference if it's the winter because then the Jordan river could be swelling with the winter rains and it could be hard to leave Israel. And so the idea of it not pray that it doesn't happen in the winter is so that you may have a way of escape, right?
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B
Yep. And then he also mentions pray that it doesn't happen on Sabbath, which is interesting. You know, if this is written after AD 70 and just being made up, some people say, well, Jesus didn't predict the destruction of the temple. The Gospel writers just, they wrote later and they made this all up and they put in Jesus. Why would they have Jesus say that? Why make it seem like, you know, it could happen in the winter? Or why not just say, and Jesus said it will happen in this month, on this day. You know, it doesn't read like a made up prophecy, at least in my, in my estimation here. And then we read and Jesus goes on to say, there'll be someone, say, here's the Messiah, there he is, don't believe it. There'll be false prophets who emerge. And then he says finally, for as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. So we know that at the end of time, before the coming of the Son of Man, there's going to be tribulation and suffering. The Catechism of the Catholic Church talks about this in Matthew. That's exactly what precedes the destruction of the temple. And the disciples are being warned that it is going to get quite intense and many people are going to fall away. And yet Jesus has warned them. So this doesn't become a surprise when it actually takes place.
- [26:07]
A
It's a great consolation to the remnant that Jesus predicted that many would fall away, that there would be a great apostasy, a great falling off of faith during this tribulation, during this suffering. But those who have faith have to endure until the end. That's the summons we have.
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B
And I think a lot of people don't realize how intense that destruction of the temple really was.
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A
Michael, why don't you address that? Because Josephus talks about this in his Jewish revolt or the war of the Jews. And he chronicles. He was a Pharisee who was of the upper class. We have a lot of his writings and he writes a history because he was a participant. He was a general in the war, captured and became an advisor, kind of a Benedict Arnold, an advisor to the Romans and to Titus. And he writes about some of the horrific things. And some of the things he writes about was that Jesus's prophecies, that there was many people who claimed to be the Messiah.
- [27:00]
B
There were that. Yep. He talks about. He talks about mothers who are cannibalizing their own children. It was horrible. And then when he describes what it looked like in the aftermath, he says the view of the city was a very melancholy thing. Those places which were before adorned with trees and pleasant gardens were now become a desolate country. He goes on to say, you could be standing right within the city and not even know that you were standing in what was once the city of Jerusalem. That's the extent of the devastation that took place.
- [27:33]
A
And the Romans sieged Jerusalem for over a year.
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B
That's right.
- [27:36]
A
And so, you know, you have the siege for over a year, and then you have different factions that, that arise out of the. Out of the. The Jews who are in Jerusalem. One follows this Messiah, another follows a different Messiah. They start warring with each other, they burn each other's granaries, they've run out of food. It becomes a horrific situation.
- [27:56]
B
It really is. And why does it all take place? Well, if you read the Gospel of Matthew, this is in part due to the fact that you saw in Matthew 23 of the shedding of blood. This is a response in judgment. And this is why Jesus can speak of the coming of the Son of Man in the Old Testament. Coming. The coming of the Lord is associated with the coming of judgment. And judgment is about to befall A.D. 70, as Jesus predicted.
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A
Yeah, that makes me want to go to a passage, but maybe we should do it next time because we only have a minute here. So the. But the passage I want to begin with next time is Isaiah 13.
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B
Oh, great.
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A
If you want to read about an example of exactly what Dr. Barber was just saying about the idea of coming judgment and what that looks like. A day of the Lord, the wrath of the Lord, a day of vengeance, day of judgment, and of course, the sun, the moon and the stars being darkened. We'll get that in Isaiah, chapter 13, verse 10. We'll pick up there next time. Because I think that imagery is really important to understand, and of course it's. It's important for us to understand so our faith will grow as we see what happened in the early church and what happened with Jesus, that our Lord understood these things were going to come. He foretold them in great detail. And he did it as an act of charity for his disciples, so that the remnant wouldn't fall away when these great tribulations that he saw coming would happen and befall. And, of course, this became a warning for the end of the ages, for the end of the world, so that a remnant can be faithful and have the faith to see. Jesus was faithful, in his words back in the first century. He'll be faithful in the last century, whenever that is. And that Christians can be comforted and their faith strengthened. And so that'll be really important. So thank you for joining us, and I want to especially thank everybody who joins us in our mission circle to support our mission. Your almsgiving to us is a great blessing, and we're deeply grateful. And I hope that you can get ahead and read the rest of chapter 24 and be prepared for our next Bible study. God bless you.