To this teaching the Disciples addressed their question as the small group (Jesus and the inner three or four Disciples) looked back at the beauty of the Temple in the evening light.
Once upon the Mount of Olives, they were more direct, though they did not realize then that Jesus had referred to TWO DIFFERENT time periods and destruction of the Temple in two separate epochs. They thought they could be more direct by asking about the end of the Age, yet they did not yet realize the 'Age' was just opening, the Church/Ekklesia Age.
I will cite the Luke Discourse:
Luke 21:5 Now while some people were talking about the Temple—how it was decorated with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God—he said, 6 “As for these things that you see, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another that won’t be knocked down.”7 Then they asked him, “Teacher, when will these things take place, and what will be the sign that these things are about to take place?”
8 He said, “Be careful that you are not deceived, because many will come in my name and say, ‘I AM’ and, ‘The time has come.’ Don’t follow them. 9 When you hear of wars and revolutions, never be alarmed, because these sort of things must take place first, but the end won’t come right away.”
10 Then he went on to say to them, “Nation will rise up in arms against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11 There will be great earthquakes, famines, and plagues in various places, and there will be fearful events and awful signs from heaven.”
12 “But before all these things take place, people will arrest you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. 13 It will give you an opportunity to testify. 14So purpose in your hearts not to prepare your defense ahead of time, 15 because I will give you the ability to speak, along with wisdom, that none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. 17 You will be hated continuously by everyone because of my name. 18 And yet not a hair on your head will be lost. 19 By your endurance you will protect your lives.”
20 “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then understand that its devastation is approaching. 21 Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, those inside the city must leave it, and those in the countryside must not go into it, 22 because these are the days of vengeance when all that is written will be fulfilled.
23 “How terrible it will be for those women who are pregnant or who are nursing babies in those days!—because there will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. 24 They will fall by the edge of the sword and be carried off as captives among all the nations [Here is a major clue as to which time period Jesus is referring in the majority of the Luke Discourse. Falling by the sword is precisely what more than a million had happen to them when Vespasian razed Jerusalem!], and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the unbelievers until the times of the unbelievers are fulfilled.”
Now we see how the Gisciples were clueless that there were TWO TIME epochs Jesus addressed. The Disciples assumed no doubt that the end of the Temple and Jerusalem would be 'The End'. Jesus left us the Matthew and Mark accounts so we could discern the differences.
Jesus ends the Temple Discourse, possibly during the walk over to the Mount of Olives, with the following in Luke 21: 25 “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and there will be distress on earth among the nations that are confused by the roaring of the sea and its waves. 26People will faint from fear and apprehension because of the things that are to come on the inhabited world, because the powers of heaven will be shaken. 27Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. 28“Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your deliverance is approaching.”[This prophecy is precisely for Israel, the nation, not the Body of Believers. The clue is the parable of the fig tree, for Israel is the fig tree, as found in Isaiah and Jeremiah.]
Allow me to point to a major clue in Matthew 24:
1As Jesus left the Temple and was walking away, his disciples came up to him to point out to him the Temple buildings. 2But he told them, “You see all these things, don’t you? I tell all of you with certainty, there isn’t a single stone here that will be left standing on top of another. They will all be torn down.”[This tells us where the small group was when Jesus gave the direct prophecy of Jerusalem's destruction. This also gives us a huge clue as to why the Disciples were clueless of two separate epochs.]After the group was resting on the Mount of Olives, then came a Disciple asking a more pointed question, indicating they still did not get it, and perhaps Jesus did not want them to know too much, what with the coming persecutions they were to suffer.
With this passage we can discern that the Disciples asked regarding the Temple and Jerusalem, before they reached the Mount, because they try to asked more pointedly when Jesus is sitting on the Mount of Olives.]4 Jesus answered them, “See to it that no one deceives you, 5 because many will come in my name and say, ‘I’m the Messiah,’ and they will deceive many people. 6You’ll hear of wars and rumors of wars. See to it that you aren’t alarmed. These things must take place, but the end hasn’t come yet, 7because nation will rise up in arms against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8But all these things are only the beginning of the birth pains.” [Birth pains of what? ... The Church Age.]
9 “Then they’ll hand you over to suffer and will kill you, and you’ll be hated by all the nations because of my name. 10 Then many people will fall away, will betray one another, and will hate one another. 11 Many false prophets will appear and deceive many people, 12 and because lawlessness will increase, the love of many people will grow cold. 13 But the person who endures to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”[ Here is yet another major clue: the Gospel of the coming Kingdom is what the 144000 are proclaiming during the Tribulation period! We are in the Age of Grace. The coming Kingdom Age will be hallmarked differently. Jesus tells you that AFTER the gospel of the Kingdom is preached in all nations THEN the end will come! The Rapture of the Church ends the Age of Grace for the Ekklesia, and the tribulation crushes out the fruit from those who did not receive the Grace of God in Christ without 'signs and wonders' as demanded by the seekers after signs exposed in John 6.]
During the Church Age we do not need or get signs of the imminent return of Jesus. Once the Rapture happens THEN folks will kno0w the first great sign of His setting foot upon the Earth to usher in The Kingdom Age. The signs are for those in the Tribulation period. Jesus lists what signs the Tribulation folks must look for:
Matthew 24:15 “So when you see the destructive desecration, mentioned by the prophet Daniel, standing in the Holy Place (let the reader take note), 16 then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. 17 Anyone who’s on the housetop must not come down to get what is in his house, 18and anyone who’s in the field must not turn back to get his coat. 19“How terrible it will be for women who are pregnant or who are nursing babies in those days! 20 Pray that it may not be in winter or on a Sabbath when you flee, 21 because at that time there will be great suffering, the kind that hasn’t happened from the beginning of the world until now and certainly won’t ever happen again. 22 If those days hadn’t been limited, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be limited. [The elect are not the Church, they are the elect who will go into the Kingdom Age and have families, etc. Note how Jesus refers to Messiah, the title Israelis would immediately identify.]
23 “At that time, if anyone says to you, ‘Look! Here’s the Messiah!’ or ‘There he is!’, don’t believe it, 24 because false messiahs and false prophets will appear and display great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 Remember, I’ve told you this beforehand. 26 So if they say to you, ‘Look! He’s in the wilderness,’ don’t go out looking for him. And if they say, ‘Look! He’s in the storeroom,’ don’t believe it, 27 because just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 28 Wherever there’s a corpse, there the vultures will gathered. 29“Immediately after the troubles of those days, 'The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of heaven will be shaken loose.’
30 Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all ‘the tribes of the land will mourn’ when they see ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’ with power and great glory. 31 He’ll send out his angels with a loud trumpet blast, and they’ll gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to another.”
22 If those days hadn’t been limited, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be limited.
“Once upon the Mount of Olives, they were more direct, though they did not realize then that Jesus had referred to TWO DIFFERENT time periods and destruction of the Temple in two separate epochs.”
I agree. Some parts of these passages refer to events in 70 A.D. Some parts refer to the end of the world which has not arrived. And, interestingly, there is some overlap. Like the destruction of the temple, there appear to be some things that are repeated.
“They thought they could be more direct by asking about the end of the Age, yet they did not yet realize the ‘Age’ was just opening, the Church/Ekklesia Age.”
I agree with a minor clarification. As you have indicated, the disciples did not quite comprehend some of the basic things we take for granted now. They did not grasp that Christ was going to literally die and rise again. They did not know He was leaving to Heaven. So what we understand as His second coming is not what they had in mind when they asked these questions. At least not in total. Only after the fact did they understand the ramifications of these prophecies.
When we discuss the end of the world / age, we are not talking about a dispensation of time. Dispensation is oikonomia in the Greek. World is aionos. It is not the end of the earth, or the end of a dispensation, but the end of the world or end of the age. The Devil is called the god of this world (aionos). We are discussing the end of this world system, corrupted and controlled by Satan.
“During the Church Age we do not need or get signs of the imminent return of Jesus.”
Hebrews 10:25
not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.
According to scripture, we can see the day approaching. This can not be signless.
There is no definitive passage or text that distinguishes the return of the Lord at the end of the Great Tribulation, as described in the Olivet Discourse, from the rapture of the Church. Yes, Paul did reveal the mystery of what would happen to the bodies of living believers. And the idea of being caught up to meet the Lord in the air is a New Testament concept. The Old Testament revealed there would be a resurrection of the dead and a final judgment.
The pre-trib position is argued circumstantially based on dispensations. But dispensations are based on the Bible. It is incorrect to assume that what God is doing in the Church must end before He can also fulfill His covenant promises to Israel. There were several decades in which the early church was operating simultaneously with the temple sacrifice. The early church and apostles gathered at the temple in some cases. The Jewish followers of Christ also participated in some of the temple sacrifices. So it is possible that God will continue the dispensation of the Gospel of Grace into Daniel’s seventieth week. Dispensationalism does not prohibit this.
I believe it makes more sense dispensationally that the Church will be raptured when the remnant of Israel, the 144,000, are sealed in Revelation 7. This appears to represent Israel’s national repentance in keeping with the Daniel 9 prophecy.
Daniel 9:24
Seventy weeks are determined
For your people and for your holy city,
To finish the transgression,
To make an end of sins,
To make reconciliation for iniquity,
To bring in everlasting righteousness,
To seal up vision and prophecy,
And to anoint the Most Holy.
Zechariah 12:10
And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.
The author sums up the analytical interpretation thusly:
"There are a number of prophecies in the OT which have a primary application to the millenial kingdom or the eternal kingdom, but are fulfilled in part in the church age. Furthermore, there are prophecies which seem to focus on the immediate historical context of the prophet, yet there is a more complete fulfillment later.
This tendency to speak of events that are separated by time, as though they were not, is called the principle of double reference.
The tendency of scripture to reveal God's plan by way of double reference is consistent throughout the OT. For example, the promise of a "son" and a "house" to David (II Sam. 7) is fulfilled in his son Solomon, but not wholly. The full effect of the promise is not realized until the "Son of Man" and his kingdom."
This is a very useful instance of interpretive view, which its opponents claim to be a use of eisegesis, but it is not.
A powerful and thorough treatment of the subject is given in the volume:
Showers, Renald E., "MARANATHA OUR LORD COME: A Definitive Study of the Rapture of the Church," The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, Inc., Bellmawr NJ (1995) 269 pp.
This is still available from Amazon (click here), and quite reasonably priced, especially for used copies. I highly recommend it, especially for the edification of those who wish to oppose dispensational/Covenantal thinking regarding the Pre-Tribulation Harpadzo its impact on mmaturing the 21st-Century regenerated believer. A rose by any other name is still a rose, and Biblical history is still history, regardless of the amillennialists. (Check the Customer Reviews.)
Thank you for your labors and scholarly demeanor, that fends off flame wars!