24:1 The connective "and"(NASB, Gr. kai) ties what follows to Jesus' preceding denunciation of the generation of Jews that rejected Him and the divine judgment that would follow (23:36-39). However the "apocalyptic"or "eschatological"discourse that He proceeded to give was not merely an extension of the address in chapter 23. This is clear because the setting, audience, and major themes changed. There is some continuity of subject matter but not enough to justify viewing chapters 23-25 as one discourse.
Jesus and His disciples left the temple complex (Gr. hieron) and proceeded east toward Bethany where Jesus was spending His nights during the Passover season. However before they had left the temple area the disciples commented to Jesus about the magnificent temple buildings (cf. Mark 13:1; Luke 21:5).
"They still focus on the temple, on which Jesus has pronounced doom, since the true center of the relation between God and man has shifted to himself. In chapter 23 Jesus has already insisted that what Israel does with him, not the temple, determines the fate of the temple and of Israel nationally."853
24:2 All the things to which Jesus pointed the disciples were the buildings that they had just pointed out to Him. He then prefaced an important revelation with a characteristic emphatic introduction: "Truly I say to you,"or "I tell you the truth."Jesus forecast the destruction of the temple complex that Herod the Great had begun building about 20 B.C. and was not complete until 64 A.D. He used Old Testament language (Jer. 26:6, 18; Mic. 3:12; cf. 23:38; 26:61; Luke 23:28-31).
"This statement is given with great force because of the aorist passive subjunctive of the verb to leave' with the double negative ou me(translated not')."854
"The temple was made of huge stones, some of them many tons in size, carved out in the stone quarries underneath the city of Jerusalem. Such large stones could be dislodged only through deliberate force. The sad fulfillment was to come in A.D. 70, only six years after the temple was completed, when the Roman soldiers deliberately destroyed the temple, prying off stones one by one and casting them into the valley below."855
The fulfillment was not complete, however. Many of these huge stones still stand on one another today. What Jesus proceeded to say about the destruction of the temple points farther ahead in history to the destruction of the Tribulation temple.
24:3 The Mount of Olives stands directly east of the temple area on the eastern side of the Kidron Valley that separates Mt. Olivet from Mt. Zion. The site of this discourse has given it its name, the Olivet Discourse. It was an appropriate place for Jesus to give a discourse dealing with His return. The Mount of Olives is where Zechariah predicted that Messiah would stand to judge the nations and establish His kingdom (Zech. 14:4). This prophecy is foundational to the discourse that follows.
The word "privately"as Matthew and Mark used it set the disciples apart from the crowds. Mark wrote that Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked Jesus the question (Mark 13:3). Whether He gave the answer only to them, which seems improbable, or to all the disciples, He did not give it to the multitudes.856This was further revelation for their believing ears only.
The disciples asked Jesus two questions. The first was, "When will these things be?"The second question had two parts as is clear from the Greek construction of the sentence. It linked two nouns, "coming"(Gr. parousias) and "end"(Gr. synteleias), with a single article, "the"(Gr. to), and the conjunction "and"(Gr. kai). The second question was, "What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"By asking the question this way clearly the disciples believed that Jesus' coming (23:39) would end the present age and introduce the messianic age. The first question dealt with the time of the destruction of the temple. The second dealt with the sign that would signal Jesus' coming and the end of the age.
What did the disciples mean when they asked Jesus about the sign of His coming? This is the first occurrence of parousia("coming") in Matthew's Gospel (cf. vv. 27, 37, 39). In classical non-biblical Greek this word meant "presence"and later "arrival"or "coming,"the first stage of being present.857In the New Testament, parousiadoes not always have eschatological overtones (e.g., 2 Cor. 7:6; 10:10). In the second and third centuries, writers used it to describe the visit of a king or other important official.858In view of Jesus' recent statement that the Israelites would not see Him again until they would say, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord,"it was undoubtedly to this coming that the disciples referred (23:39). They wanted to know when He would return to the temple having been accepted rather than rejected by the nation. Specifically they wanted to know what would signify His return, what would be the harbinger of His advent.
What did they mean by "the end of the age?"Jesus had used this phrase before (13:39, 40, 49; cf. 28:20). By the end of the age Jesus meant the end of the present age that will consummate in His second coming and a judgment of living unbelievers (cf. Jer. 29:22; 51:33; Dan. 3:6; Hos. 6:11; Joel 3:13; Zeph. 1:3). This will occur just before the messianic kingdom begins. The disciples used the phrase "the end of the age"as Jesus and the Old Testament prophets spoke of it. They understood that Jesus meant the present age, the one before the messianic age began, since in their question they associated it with Jesus' return to the temple.
Both of the disciples' questions, occurring as they did together, suggest that the disciples associated the destruction of the temple with Jesus' return to it and the end of the present age.859The Old Testament taught that several eschatological events would happen in the following order. First, Jerusalem would suffer destruction (Zech. 14:1-2; cf. Matt. 24:2). Second, Messiah would come and end the present age (Zech. 14:3-8; cf. Matt. 23:39). Third, Messiah would set up His kingdom (Zech. 14:3-11). The disciples wanted to know when in the future the destruction of the temple, Jesus' return to it, and the end of the present age would occur. They probably did not ask Him when He would inaugurate His kingdom because they knew this would happen when He returned to the temple and ended the present age.
"Matthew's gospel does not answer the first question, which relates to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. This is given more in detail in Luke, while Matthew and Mark answer the second and third questions, which actually refer to Christ's coming and the end of the age as one and the same event. Matthew's account of the Olivet discourse records that portion of Christ's answer that relates to His future kingdom and how it will be brought in, which is one of the major purposes of the gospel."860
