Concluding Words (21:29-38).
Jesus now sums up the conclusions which result from what He has been saying. In His summing up He stresses the signs that will indicate the ‘nearness' of the Kingly Rule of God, that is, the point at which there will be nothing between the sign and its fulfilment.
Firstly He is declaring that the eternal Kingly Rule of God cannot be manifested until the things that He has described have happened, for His coming (the timing of which He does not know - Mark 13:32) cannot take place until they have done so. Thus He makes clear both that there will be a delay before His coming. But secondly He stresses the fact of its imminence (as something that could happen at any time) once those things have occurred. The ideas are here held in tension as throughout the New Testament. In view of the fact that He clearly stated in an undoubtedly genuine saying that He did not know the time of His return we must certainly take that fact into account in our interpretation. It is not honest to suggest fallibility over something that He (quite remarkably) declared that while on earth He did not know.
First we shall analyse this passage:
a He spoke to them a parable, “Behold the fig tree, and all the trees, when they now shoot forth, you see it and know of your own selves that the summer is now near” (Luke 21:29-30).
b “Even so you also, when you see these things coming about, know you that the Kingly Rule of God is near” (Luke 21:31).
c “Truly I say to you, This generation will not pass away, until all things be accomplished. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Luke 21:32-33).
b “But take heed to yourselves, lest it happen that your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come on you suddenly as a snare, for so will it come on all those who dwell on the face of all the earth” (Luke 21:34-35).
a “But you, watch at every season, making supplication, that you may prevail to escape all these things that will come about, and to stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21:36).
In these final words Jesus applies what He has said to those who are listening. Note that in ‘a' the description of what happens in a season is described and in the parallel they are told to watch every season. In ‘b' His disciples are to see in the things that are coming the sign of the nearness of the Kingly Rule of God, and in the parallel there are those who will not observe these things and who will thus be caught up unexpectedly in judgment. And centrally in ‘c' the point is made that all ‘these things' prior to standing before the Son of Man (for even He did not know the time of the latter) will be accomplished within that generation. It is as certain as the existence of Heaven and earth.