This
is a difficult chapter because it is difficult to know what the horizon of the
text is. What I mean is it’s difficult to know what the text looks forward to.
On the one hand, I tend to agree with commentators who think that the bulk of
the chapter looks only to the destruction of Jerusalem a generation after
Jesus’ death and resurrection. This works pretty well all the way up to verse
36. Even the bit about the sun being darkened could be understood as a
prophetic commonplace, a usual figure of speech for judgment.
But
when Jesus makes the comment in verse 36 about no one knowing the day or time,
it seems like He has moved on to something different. After all, in the
previous paragraph He had said that it was possible to know it was near. So,
the horizon seems to have shifted. Now Jesus seems to be talking about the Last
Day.
Why
is it important to sort through such a strange topic? Well, for example, a lot
of people read the first part of the chapter—wars and persecutions and false
messiahs—and they read about the fig tree, and they think that their job is to
figure out when the Last Day will arrive. But, of course, in those verses Jesus
isn’t talking about the Last Day at all; He’s talking about the destruction of
Jerusalem. When He does turn His attention to the Last Day, He’s all like, “No
one knows.” So, lest we take the wrong lesson from the text, we consider
carefully the text’s horizon.
There
are other complications. For example, especially with prophecy, it’s hard to
know exactly what is on the horizon because sometimes the prophets are looking
past the immediate horizon to a more distant one. Or sometimes we try to force
our horizon onto the text. This is a reminder that the Scripture is often not
easy. It’s worth our best effort, but it’s not easy.
I
feel like a broken record, but these are issues we can talk about in more depth
at our Wednesday Bible study on Facebook Live (7 pm).
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