I agree 100%. I will provide mine first:
I believe Jesus and the apostles were speaking directly to their immediate audiences, and not to us, except in a general sense. For example, when Jesus said to his disciples:
"Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." (Mat 24:34 KJV)
I believe he meant exactly what he said: not only because of those words, but the context, which was this from Matthew, Mark and Luke:
"And Jesus said unto them, 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. 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?" (Mat 24:2-3 KJV)
"Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?" (Mark 13:4 KJV)
"And they asked him, saying, Master, but when shall these things be? and what sign will there be when these things shall come to pass?" (Luke 21:7 KJV)
The "end of the world" part in Mat 24:3 was confusing at first, until I associated it with this:
"And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." (Mat 12:32, KJV)
Even then the talk of two worlds was confusing. Only recently, when I obtained a Strong's Concordance, did I realize the disciples were referring to their "age", and not the "world."
The notion that Christ was not coming in the generation of his disciples, as he promised them, never crossed my mind.
In a nutshell, I try to avoid all opinions and doctrines of men. I let the "scripture interpret the scripture." I confess that I only recently began to use that quoted expression after I heard John Otis use it in one of his lectures.
Philip
"Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." (Mat 24:34 KJV)
OK ... since you brought it up ... go back to Matt 23:36 ... you will see that 'this generation' cannot mean what you are claiming. If 'this generation' meant the generation that Jesus was speaking to right then and there ... when did they proclaim "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord?" (in the verses that follow). ... BTW ... that proclamation is Messianic ... blessed is the coming one ... since Matt 23 happened after the Triumphal Entry (TE), the fulfillment of that proclamation had to come after the TE. So the natural question is ... if all these things happened in 70 AD, when did the Jews living in Jesus day make that Messianic proclamation? ... they didn't !! And 'they' haven't made that Messianic proclamation to this very day!
The 'they' has to refer to something else ...
If you go back to Matt 23: you will find the statements of Jesus to the Pharisees ...
35 so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.
Do you see how Jesus used a collective 'you' to refer to the Jews as a people? ... The leaders as representatives of the entire Jewish race and nation? Those Pharisees were not present when Zechariah was slain ... yet Jesus said ... 'whom you murdered' ... So when Jesus used 'you' in 23:35 ... He did not mean 'you whom are alive now and that I am speaking to' since they were not alive when Zechariah was slain. This is a very important larger contextual item in the Matt 23-25 discourse.
I happen to disagree with most dispensationalists on what 'this generation' means ... most take it as the generation that is alive in the future ... when all these things will be fulfilled. I dont see it that way ... it makes the most sense, in the larger context of the Matt 23 discourse with the Pharisees that 'this generation' is a collective type phrase that encompasses the entire race of Jews. This generation will not pass away ... the collective 'you' in Matt 23:35 that Jesus said murdered Zechariah IS the collective 'generation' of Matt 23:36 and 24:34.
What do I think this means? It means that the Jewish nation will not be eliminated (the Jews still exist) before the events of the second coming can take place. Despite Satan's attempt at eliminating the Jews under Hitler, they still remain ... and WILL remain as a race of people until the second coming.
I think I am done with this thread ...