Faith First Media

Luke 21 Commentary

by Matthew Elton

copyright 2009 Matthew Elton

Elizabeth wrote:

First of all i just want to say that i greatly appreciate the work you have done to reveal that there are no contradictions in the Bible. These so called contradictions are merely translation errors or mis-interpretation by the reader. Before I present my question I just want to say that I am a full believer in Christ, but I am having trouble understanding this particular verse in the Bible. I would like to understand the meaning just in case this question comes up again.

I am using the the (NKJV) and Luke chapter 21 verse 32 sates, "Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all thing take place."

Obviously, this wouldn't make sense if He is speaking about that exact generation alone. My question is--What generation is Jesus speaking of exactly if not their generation which has passed away before the coming of Jesus in a cloud, as it says in the next few verses.

Is he possibly speaking of the new found generation of Christianity? Well, I'm not sure so i hope you can assist me with my lack of understanding. Thank you Matthew.

Matthew Elton wrote:

I've wondered about this myself. In Luke 21, Jesus talks about the End Times and says that “this generation” of people that were with him right then will live to see the fulfillment of his prophecies. But every last member of that generation has died, and the End Times are not yet over… Jesus hasn’t returned and the world hasn’t ended. So what’s the deal?

Jesus often referred to his generation as a “wicked and perverse generation”. It's possible that by “this generation” Jesus is referring not just to his generation but to all the people of the End Times (the generation of people alive at the time of Christ through our generation and beyond to the final generation before Christ's return).

However, I think there is a much more likely explanation for Luke 21:32. I think the key to understanding this passage is understanding what Jesus meant by “all things”. It is logical that Jesus was referring to all the things he had just spoken about when foretelling the End Times. Let's read Luke 21 again and review what Jesus said.

First, Jesus comments on a poor widow's offering at the temple:

And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. And He saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins. And He said, "Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them; for they all out of their surplus put into the offering; but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on."

--Luke 21:1-4

Then Jesus begins to prophecy regarding the future destruction of the temple:

And while some were talking about the temple, that it was adorned with beautiful stones and votive gifts, He said, "As for these things which you are looking at, the days will come in which there will not be left one stone upon another which will not be torn down." They questioned Him, saying, "Teacher, when therefore will these things happen? And what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?" And He said, "See to it that you are not misled; for many will come in My name, saying, 'I am He,' and, 'The time is near ' Do not go after them. When you hear of wars and disturbances, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end does not follow immediately."

--Luke 21:5-9

There are two things here that are important to note. First of all, Jesus does not answer the man’s question about when the temple will be destroyed. Instead, he says “See to it that you are not misled; for many will come in My name saying, ‘I am He,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not go after them. When you hear of wars and disturbances, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end does not follow immediately.”

In these few verses, Jesus prophecies and tells the people some events that will happen in the near future:

• The temple will be destroyed.
• False prophets will claim to be Jesus.
• False prophets will claim that the world is about to end.
• There will be wars and disturbances.

When asked when the temple will be destroyed, Jesus does not answer, but he does indicate that even after these things are fulfilled (destruction of the temple, false prophets, wars and disturbances) the end of the world won’t come immediately. Jesus says, “do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end does not follow immediately.”

This is quite true when we note that all of these things did indeed occur just as Jesus prophesied, but the end of the world didn’t come immediately afterward. In fact, it’s been almost two thousand years since Christ’s ministry and the end of the world still hasn’t come, which is fortunate for us, because it gives us time to repent of our sins and accept Jesus as Lord before he returns as King of Kings to judge the living and the dead.

Then Jesus continues and prophecies of more things to come. Here is a list of the future events which Jesus foretells in this chapter:

1. The temple will be destroyed (verse 6)
2. False prophets will claim to be Jesus (verse
3. False prophets will claim that the world is about to end (verse
4. There will be wars and disturbances (verse 9)
5. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom will rise against kingdom (verse 10)
6. There will be earthquakes, plaques, and famines (verse 11)
7. There will be “terrors” (verse 11)
8. There will be signs in the sky (verses 11, 25)
9. Christ’s disciples will be persecuted and thrown in prison (verse 12)
10. Being thrown in prison will be an opportunity for Christ’s disciples to share their testimony (verse 12)
11. Jesus will give his disciples “utterance and wisdom” that their opponents will not be able to refute (verse 15)
12. Christ’s disciples will be hated because of Christ’s name and some will be betrayed and put to death by their own relatives (verses 16-17). But even if they die, they will not perish (in other words, they will not be destroyed completely because they are still going to be resurrected unto eternal life when Christ returns) (verse 18-19).
13. Jerusalem will be surrounded by armies and the people will be killed or taken captive, and Jerusalem will be controlled by the Gentiles “until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” (verses 20-24)
14. There will be “dismay among nations” (verse 25).
15. The waves of the sea will roar (verse 25)
16. Men will faint from fear (verse 26)
17. The powers of heaven will be “shaken” (verse 26)
18. They will see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (verse 27)

Most Christians believe that all these things Jesus foretold here are things that have not yet happened, and things that will happen in the future, right before Jesus returns.

I don’t think so. I think that every one of these things has already happened. I think every one of these prophecies was fulfilled in the first century A.D.

Now obviously, Christ has not yet returned. But pay careful attention to the wording. Jesus did not say that he would return when these other things he prophesied happen. He said that they would SEE him coming in a cloud.

So the question is… did the people of that generation see Jesus coming in a cloud?

I believe that they did. Jesus did not return in that generation, but believers of that generation did indeed SEE him coming. In Joel 2:28, God says, “I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.” This prophecy was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost, when God poured out His Holy Spirit to all believers. Because the book Joel 2:28 associates visions with the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, it’s not farfetched to think that many first-century Christians experienced visions, possibly visions in which they saw Jesus coming in a cloud with power and great glory. We know for a fact that the apostle John saw a vision of Jesus coming in the clouds with great power and glory, because he wrote about that vision in the book of Revelation. Did others of John’s generation also see visions of Jesus coming? Probably. According to Joel 2:28, after the pouring out of the Spirit, both the young and old would experience visions. John was a very old man when he wrote the book of Revelation in approximately 80 A.D. If our interpretation of Joel 2:28 is correct, younger men must experienced similar visions.

So Jesus wasn’t lying when he said that people would see him coming before the generation passed. But what about the other seventeen things he prophesied in Luke 21? Were those prophecies fulfilled during that generation also?

Yes. In 70 A.D., the Roman army surrounded Jerusalem and destroyed the temple, just as Jesus had predicted about forty years earlier (prophecy 1 on the list above). Many who were alive when Jesus prophesied the destruction of the temple were still alive when it was actually destroyed. In that same generation, there were many false prophets (prophecies 2 and 3) who claimed to be Jesus but were really leading people astray (that’s where many of the Gnostic gospels come from). In that time period, there were wars, and there were disturbances (prophecy 4). Nation rose up against nation, and kingdom rose up against kingdom (prophecy 5). The region of Palestine was a particularly volatile area because, prior to Christ’s birth, the Romans had conquered the nation of Israel and turned it into the Roman colony of Judea. During the time of Christ, many Jews were fighting against the Romans in a war for independence from the Roman Empire. Those Jews were called zealots. A few decades after Jesus ascended into heaven, the Romans went on the offensive and conquered the zealots once and for all, destroying the Jewish temple and causing widespread destruction in Jerusalem and throughout Judea. Ever since then, Jerusalem was controlled by the non-Jews, also known as Gentiles (prophecy 13) until May 14, 1948, when the United Nations created the Jewish state of Israel.

Jesus said that the powers of heaven will be “shaken” (prophecy 16). There’s no way for us to verify whether or not the powers of heaven were really shaken, but Jesus said that all of “these things” which he foretold in Luke 21 had to happen within in the generation he was speaking to. If Jesus is telling the truth (and as a Christian, I trust that he is) then the powers of heaven must have been shaken while members of that generation were still alive.

As for the “earthquakes, plagues, and famines” which Jesus prophesied (prophecy 6), the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D. (still within the generation Jesus prophesied to) caused all three of those. Not only did the eruption cause earthquakes, but the volcanic ash settled over hundreds of miles of land and caused widespread crop failure. It even buried the Roman city of Pompeii. But Vesuvius is just one example. Its likely that during the generation Jesus prophesied to, there were many other earthquakes, plagues, and famines as well.

Jesus also said that there would be “terrors” (prophecy 6). I don’t know exactly what he meant by that, but I think there was plenty of terror and “dismay among nations” (prophecy 13) due to all the war and natural disasters going on. I bet a lot of men fainted from fear (prophecy 15).

As for signs in the sky (prophecy 7), there were probably plenty of those. Nowadays when Christians read that verse they think of the moon turning to blood or something dramatic like that, and while John did tell us that those sort of dramatic signs will indeed happen in the Last Days, I think that the “signs in the sky” that Jesus is referring to in Luke 21:25 are probably more general signs. The people of that time were extremely superstitious and watched the various constellations every night to track their movements. That’s why the appearance of the star of Bethlehem that announced the birth of Christ was such a big deal to them. Nowadays we probably wouldn’t even notice if one star was brighter than the others, but back then, people had nothing else to do at night except look up at the stars, so they would notice even minor changes. Besides the star of Bethlehem, what other sorts of signs in the sky occurred in the first century? I can only imagine, but I bet there were many of them.

Jesus prophesied that the waves of the sea will roar, causing “perplexity”. I don’t know how perplexed Paul and the early evangelists were when they became shipwrecked in the Mediterranean (as recorded in the book of Acts), but the sea was definitely roaring.

Jesus prophesied that his disciples would be thrown in prison (prophesy and being thrown in prison would provide them with an opportunity to share their testimony (prophesy 9). Jesus also prophesied that his disciples be hated and betrayed because of their faith in Christ, and some of them would even be killed (prophecy 11). But they would receive “utterance and wisdom” that their opponents will not be able to refute (prophecy 10). All of these things happened in the book of Acts, EXACTLY as Jesus foretold. And they happened to members of the same generation Jesus preached to in Luke 21.

In conclusion, everything that Jesus prophesied in Luke 21 happened before the passing of that generation, just as Jesus had foretold. People saw Jesus coming in the clouds. There were earthquakes. There were wars. Jerusalem was surrounded by the Roman army and the temple was destroyed. It all happened just as Jesus predicted.