The Olivet Discourse: the fall of the temple, the coming of the Son of Man and the call to be ready

Matthew 24 is the fifth and last of the great discourses in the first Gospel before the passion narrative. It is known as the Olivet Discourse because Jesus speaks it seated on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem and facing the temple. It follows his final departure from the temple (24:1) and his lament over Jerusalem in 23:37-39. The disciples have just admired the buildings, and Jesus tells them that not one stone will be left on another. The temple Herod the Great rebuilt was a vast complex, and the prediction was shocking.

Church tradition names the author as Matthew the tax collector and apostle, on the report of Papias. Many critical scholars see instead a Jewish Christian scribe who used Mark. The question of date touches the chapter at once. The Romans destroyed the temple in AD 70, as the historian Josephus records. Scholars who doubt that Jesus could have foretold it date the Gospel after 70. Others accept the prediction and see no need to date after 70, and many place Matthew earlier. The chapter has details that fit a church still close to Judea and the Jewish Sabbath: Jesus tells them to pray that their flight will not be in winter or on a Sabbath (24:20), a detail found only in Matthew.

Mark 13 and Luke 21 have the same discourse in outline. Luke 21:20 speaks plainly of Jerusalem surrounded by armies where Matthew and Mark speak of the 'abomination of desolation', and Luke gives some of the material about the coming of the Son of Man in a different setting (Luke 17:22-37). Matthew has a longer ending with the lessons of Noah, the thief, the faithful servant and the two parables of chapter 25. The discourse answers the disciples' question: when will this happen, what is the sign of your coming, and what is the sign of the end of the age.

The discourse is apocalyptic prophecy, a form that uses pictures of cosmic upheaval to speak of historical and final judgment. The prophets did this regularly. Isaiah described the fall of Babylon and of Edom in terms of darkened sun and moon and falling stars (Isaiah 13:10; 34:4), and no one thinks the sun literally failed. Jesus uses the same stock of images, and the reader must ask in each case whether the language points to an event inside history, to the end of history, or to both.

The passage is also built on Daniel. The 'abomination of desolation' comes from Daniel 9:27, 11:31 and 12:11, which had a first fulfilment when Antiochus IV set up a pagan altar in the temple in 167 BC. Jesus says it will happen again. The Son of Man coming on the clouds is Daniel 7:13-14.

The chief difficulty is how the parts fit together. Christians have read the chapter in four main ways. A preterist reading holds that most of verses 4-35 concern the events up to AD 70, and that the 'coming' of the Son of Man in verse 30 is his vindication and judgment on Jerusalem; R. T. France argued this view in his commentary, and verse 36 on then turns to the final return. A futurist reading holds that much of verses 15-31 is still to come, with a final great tribulation. An idealist reading sees patterns that recur throughout history. Most interpreters, whatever their frame, find that the discourse speaks of both the fall of Jerusalem and the end, and disagree about where one passes into the other. The text moves between them without signalling clearly, and Jesus' own words in verse 36 reserve the timing of the end to the Father.

Verses 1–3

As Jesus leaves the temple, the disciples point out its buildings. He tells them it will be thrown down, stone by stone. On the Mount of Olives they ask privately: when will this be, what will be the sign of his coming (parousia) and of the end of the age? Matthew thus joins in one question what may be separate events: the temple's fall, his coming and the end.

Verses 4–14

Jesus first warns against being led astray. Many will come in his name saying that they are the Christ. Wars, rumours of wars, famines and earthquakes are only the beginning of birth pains, not yet the end. The image of labour pains was used in the prophets and later Jewish writing for the distress before the new age. Believers will be hated, handed over, and many will fall away; lawlessness will increase and love will grow cold; the one who endures to the end will be saved. The turning point of this section is the promise that the gospel of the kingdom will be preached to the whole world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come. The mission and the end are bound together.

Verses 15–28

When they see the abomination of desolation that the prophet Daniel spoke of standing in the holy place, those in Judea must flee to the mountains without going back for a cloak. The distress will be unparalleled, and for the sake of the elect the days are cut short. Jesus warns again about false messiahs and false prophets showing great signs, and says that when the Son of Man comes it will be public, like lightning that flashes from east to west. Josephus describes the Roman siege and the Zealots' desecration of the temple in AD 66-70, and the church historian Eusebius reports that the Jerusalem Christians fled to Pella, though some scholars question that tradition. The saying about vultures gathering around a corpse (24:28) is a proverb: when judgment comes, it will be unmistakable.

Verses 29–31

Immediately after the distress of those days the sun and moon will go dark and the stars fall, which are the prophets' images (Isaiah 13:10; 34:4), and the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven. All the tribes of the earth will mourn, echoing Zechariah 12:10-14, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds with power and great glory (Daniel 7:13-14). He will send his angels with a trumpet blast to gather the elect from the four winds. This is the climax of the discourse.

Verses 32–35

From the fig tree learn the lesson: when its branches become tender and put out leaves, summer is near; so when you see all these things, know that he is near, at the door. Then comes the saying that this generation will not pass away until all these things happen, and the promise that his words will outlast heaven and earth. The meaning of 'this generation' is disputed. It may mean those then alive, which fits the fall of the temple within about forty years. It may mean the generation that sees the signs, or the Jewish people, or humanity in its unbelief. Each reading has defenders among serious scholars.

Verses 36–44

Of that day and hour no one knows, not the angels of heaven, and not the Son, but the Father alone. (The words about the Son are in Mark 13:32 and in many manuscripts of Matthew, but some omit them in Matthew.) Because no one knows the time, the call is to be ready. The days of Noah are the pattern: people were eating, drinking and marrying until the flood came and swept them all away. Two will be in a field, one taken and one left. Whether 'taken' means taken away in judgment, as in the flood, or taken to be with Christ, as many futurists read it alongside 1 Thessalonians 4:17, is argued. The picture of a householder watching for a thief makes the same point: be ready.

Verses 45–51

The chapter closes with a servant set over the household. The faithful and wise servant is found at his work when his master returns and is set over all the master's goods. The wicked servant says the master is delayed and beats his fellows and eats and drinks with drunkards, and the master comes unexpectedly and puts him with the hypocrites, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. The prophecy ends not in a timetable but in faithfulness.

The chapter belongs to the biblical teaching on the last things.

• The first note is God's judgment on a temple that has failed its purpose. This is the same judgment announced by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 7; 26) and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 10-11), and the New Testament knows a temple not made with hands (Acts 7:48; Hebrews 9:11).
• The second is the return of Christ. The New Testament speaks of it with the same elements: a public, visible coming (Acts 1:11), a trumpet and the gathering of the saints (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17; 1 Corinthians 15:51-52), and the judgment of the nations (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10).

• The third is the pattern of the church's life between the first coming and the second. It is a time of mission to all nations (28:19-20), of suffering, of false teaching and of endurance. The book of Revelation expands the same pattern.
• The fourth is the limit on knowledge. The Father alone knows the day, and Acts 1:7 repeats this to the disciples after the resurrection. Attempts to calculate the date have failed repeatedly in church history. Jesus presses readiness, with Noah, the thief and the servant.

In this chapter Jesus claims to be the Son of Man of Daniel 7:13-14 who comes on the clouds with power and glory, and he places himself at the centre of the end of history. He speaks of his own words that will not pass away (24:35), of the elect as his, and of angels sent at his command. The prophecy moves from what Daniel and Zechariah had pictured to what he says of himself. This is promise moving toward fulfilment, in his own mouth.

The discourse also shows him as the judge. The master of the household returns and settles accounts, a role that Scripture gives to God, and the Son of Man is the one before whom the tribes of the earth mourn. Yet Jesus is also the one who does not know the day (24:36). The statement shows the real limits he accepted in his incarnate life (compare Luke 2:52; Philippians 2:7), and church fathers such as Athanasius and Augustine discussed it at length without denying his deity.

There is a quieter echo as well. As he leaves the old temple with its coming fall, he speaks of himself as the place of God's presence. John 2:19-21 makes this explicit when Jesus speaks of the temple of his body. Hebrews 9 and 10 take up the same thought that his flesh opens the way into God's presence.