26/03/2024
Shared by Mike Spaulding ....
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Here's another historical reason why the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD did not fulfill the "abomination of desolation" prophecies of Jesus in Matthew 24 and Luke 21.
Simply put, because Jesus said when this event takes place his disciples will see Jerusalem "surrounded by armies" and will then "flee to the mountains" (Lk. 21:20-21), which never happened in 70 AD.
Of course, Jerusalem was "surrounded by armies" in 70 AD.
Everyone knows that.
However, and this is the key point, Jesus' disciples left the city many days, if not weeks/months, before the Roman army reached Jerusalem.
On this point, the Church historian Eusebius writes:
"The people of the Church in Jerusalem were commanded by an oracle given by revelation BEFORE THE WAR to those in the city who were worthy of it to depart and dwell in one of the cities of Perea which they called Pella. To it those who believed on Christ traveled from Jerusalem, so that [...] holy men had altogether deserted the royal capital of the Jews and the whole land of Judea..." (Church History 3, 5, 3).
Notice how Eusebius says all of the righteous believers in Jerusalem had already left the city long before the Romans arrived.
This detail proves that Jesus was not speaking of the events of 70 AD in Luke 21:20-21, because in this passage Jesus assumes that his disciples will still be in the city when the abomination of desolation takes place, and see it surrounded by armies at that time as well, yet still have time to flee, which simply did not happen in the first century.
In 70 AD there was never a time when Jesus' disciples saw Jerusalem surrounded by armies and then fled according to Luke 21:20-21.
Only a smaller contingent of Jewish rebels was still in Jerusalem when the Romans arrived in 70 AD, most of whom were then starved to death or massacred in short order.
So, either Jesus got his prediction wrong in Luke 21:20-21, or these verses concern end-time events.
A point, of course, that Jesus confirms in the very next breath when he says in Luke 21:22 that Jerusalem being surrounded by armies will bring the "days of vengeance, so that all things which are written will be fulfilled."
This is a clearly apocalyptic statement that implies the fulfillment of prophecy at the end of the age, which again proves that Jesus has the end times (i.e., eschatology) on his mind in Luke 21, not merely the events of 70 AD, a point that is even further proven when Jesus speaks of "the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory" a few verses later (Lk. 21:27).
One of the reasons so many Christians have been confused over the timing of events in Matthew 24 and Luke 21, and therefore opted for a 70-AD fulfillment of the Olivet Discourse, including the abomination of desolation, is because they fail to see how Jesus moves from the historical horizon to the eschatological horizon in these passages.
In other words, there should be no doubt that Jesus did in fact predict the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
He absolutely did in Luke 19:42-44 and Matthew 23:34-38 & 24:2 (the historical horizon).
However, like all of the prophets, Jesus often built eschatological prophecies about the end on top of historical prophecies concerned with near-term events, and this is exactly what we see in Luke 19-21 and Matthew 23-24.
This is not an either/or scenario, as though Jesus had to choose between 70 AD or the future eschaton.
He spoke of both, but by the time he gets into the Olivet Discourse in Luke 21 and Matthew 24, his primary focus is not 70 AD.
Rather, it is future end-time events that are still yet to come, which were, of course, in many ways prefigured by the events in 70 AD.
In the days ahead, it will become increasingly important for the Church to be able to sort out fact from fiction in the realm of Bible prophecy, and to avoid the errors of a strict 70-AD fulfillment of the Olivet Discourse.
If you want to equipped to do this and dive deeper into prophecy, I recommend my book The 70 Weeks Jubilee, which was the inspiration for this post.
