Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:
So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.(Matthew 32-33)
The FigTree becomes fruitful and indicates that Summer is nigh...this is connected to the fig tree He cursed in Matthew 21 and the Fig Tree which was to be cut down in Luke 13
As for the”LastDays” I agree that Peter and the Apostles knew that they were in the Last days as of Pentecost(Acts 2), but Paul , who also knew that, wrote of a final period, the “Latter Days” the time of the end, the final days before the Parousia
You’re right, Bill, Mt. 24.32-33 speaks of a fig tree, and Mt. 21 does too, but again, it’s pure assumption to assert they’re the same tree, and that this is a prophecy of that same fig tree returning to life.
What passage in Paul are you thinking of where he wrote of the final days before he Parousia?
Bill, I appreciate your entertaining my questions, but your material and your responses to me are just one baseless unscriptural assumption after another. Let me give you a few examples:
1. In Part 1, in the second paragraph, you assert that Jesus speaks of a judgment coming on the whole world at “the end of time.” Are you aware that the Bible nowhere uses the term “end of time”? It’s easy to prove a larger context to Mt. 24 if we grant that assumption. Can’t you prove it?
2. You assert that the Jewish state was dissolved until the very last of the last days. Please tell us what the term “last days” means to you. What is it the last days of?
3. In Part 3, you assert that the fig tree was an emblem of Israel, but you don’t make such an assumption in Lk. 21.29 when Jesus speaks of “all the trees.” To be consistent, why don’t you?
4. You assert that the fig tree would return to life at the dawn of the final generation. I asked when Jesus EVER said the fig tree would return to life, and you gave us silence. Just another assumption.
5. You assert that when Jesus spoke of “this generation” he was speaking of the final generation, like we don’t know what “this” means. Jesus never spoke of the final generation.
6. In Part 4, you say that Mt. 24 extends from Jesus’ own day all the way to the very end of time as we know it (the Bible knows nothing of it) and the final judgment. Where does the term “final judgment” occur in the Bible? If you can’t find it, it’s just another assumption.
7. You speak of Rabbinism, where an unwritten “oral” law actually superceded the Law of Moses. If you can’t find where the “end of time” and the fig tree “coming back to life” occur in the Bible, isn’t that you just giving your own “oral law” instead of the Bible? To top it off, you quote Edersheim calling such “blasphemous self-assertion”! Still later, you disparage the Jews of Jesus’ day of “multiplying rival sources of authority (Oral Law) and neglecting to teach scripture itself.” With every baseless assumption you make, aren’t you doing the same thing? You’re old enough to know that “he who slings mud loses ground.” More seriously, you’re doing what Jesus accused the Jews of, “making void the Word of God for tradition,” your own tradition.
8. In Part 6, you resolutely refuse to accept the equivalence of “these things” in Mt. 23-24, and Jesus’ prophecy that “all these things would be fulfilled in this (his) generation.”
I’m truly interested in your material on Mt. 24, and have learned things from it, but I think everyone would like less “blasphemous self-assertion” and more scripture.