CRITICAL NOTES
Matthew 24:34. Be fulfilled.—The words do not necessarily imply more than the commencement of a process, the first unrolling of the scroll of the coming ages (Plumptre).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Matthew 24:32-35
The certainty of the end.—The more wonderful the character of any announcement, the greater the demand it makes on our faith; and the greater the degree, therefore, to which our faith in it stands in need of support. Our Saviour seems to recognise this in the passage before us. Wonderful is that great consummation of change of which He had just spoken. All things are to become different from what they are now (Matthew 24:30-31). This is difficult to believe—the more difficult because of the length of time in which they have gone on as they are (cf. 2 Peter 3:4). To meet this thought the Saviour speaks the parable now before us—in which He will be found to draw our attention, after the manner of parables, first, to certain familiar natural facts; and, secondly, to certain important spiritual verities which are illustrated thereby.
I. The natural facts.—These are found in the general region of vegetable life and development. “Behold the fig-tree and all the trees” (Luke 21:29). See how things are among them. These are exemplified, next, in the region in question, in one particular instance. “From the fig-tree learn her parable” (Matthew 24:32, R.V.). Few trees are better known or more valued than this. In this, therefore, you may see, as well with ease as with especial significance, what I ask you to note. Also, in this example, see, next, the special phenomena which I ask you to note—how the fig-tree, as the seasons come round, changes in appearance and condition, and puts forth its leaves and its buds, and then produces its pleasant fruits. Also, how she begins to do this—when summer is near—even before we see other indications of summer’s approach, and so proves, to those who observe this, that the breath of summer is already stirring within her; and that summer itself, therefore, is on its way to us already, and will be fully amongst us before very long. And this we argue, be it observed yet further, because of what we know of the year and its seasons, and of the unvarying order and regularity with which God has long ago appointed—and still brings about—the successions of day and night, and summer and winter, and seed-time and harvest (Genesis 8:22). On this same order, indeed, we rely with such certainty, that we speak with certainty of all it implies—of the speedy coming of summer; of its effects on the trees; of the sequence of these effects; of those to come first; of those to succeed; of the whole procession of events, in a word. Insomuch that when we see the first of them, we feel as sure of the rest of them as though we saw them as well. Also, sure of them, yet further and finally, within a very brief time. “We know that summer is nigh.”
II. The spiritual verities to which these familiar facts are applied. First of all, in the direction of sphere. The God of nature is the God of history too. As He does in the one case, so in the other as well. As He orders the fields and the gardens, so He administers nations and churches. As with the fig-tree, so with higher growths also. Next, in the direction of the causes at work. These are as secret to us in the one case as they are in the other. We cannot see the influences which are operating in the trees, in the spring-time, to alter their condition and look. Neither can we see the forces at work, in certain stages of the history of communities of mankind, to change their condition and look. We see the results only, not their origins; what is external only, not what is working within. At the same time, in these external consequences we see, in both cases, on this very account, what are tokens and signs. Such a change, for example, in the one case, as the appearance of buds on a fig-tree is a sign that forces are at work there which will bring about other like changes of greater magnitude before long. In other words, they are the results of the agitation of nature at the nearer approach of the sun. So with those changes in the appearance of human societies at certain critical seasons in their experience of those things of which the Saviour had spoken above (Matthew 24:29-30). That obscuring of the bright, and displacing of the high, and unsettling of what had long been stable, of which He there speaks, are things which, when they come to pass, mean much more than themselves. They are evidences of forces at work which will produce greater results in their turn. In one word, they are the unconscious agitations of society at the approach of its Maker. Consequently, as before, they are not only assurances of certainty, but of swiftness as well. The season that sees the “bud” sees also the “fruit.” The “generation” that sees the beginning sees also the “end” (Matthew 24:33-34). When the Son of man is thus “at the doors,” He will soon be inside them. When once inside them He will soon finish His work. Cf. Romans 9:28; 1 Samuel 3:12; Proverbs 29:1, etc., etc.
We see from these things, in conclusion, and that in an eminently cogent and striking manner:—
1. How to look on this world.—The present condition of things around us is a mere interregnum—a period of transition—having the seeds in it of its own passing away—something as “mortal” as we ourselves. That very feature in it which leads some to think otherwise is the strongest proof of this truth. “All things” for the present “continue as they were” (2 Peter 3:4), because the “season” for changing them has not arrived. As it were, it is “winter” with them at present; the Sun is away. There could not be a better proof that they will begin to be altered the moment the Sun begins to approach; and that they will be altered indeed then, and altered swiftly; and altered finally too.
2. How to look on Christ’s word.—As the only stable thing we know of; stable indeed; stable for ever, immovable itself, and therefore moving everything else. See Isaiah 40:6-8; 1 Peter 1:23-25. Hence also the derived stability of those who are conformed to that will (1 John 2:17).
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Matthew 24:32-33. Signs in the kingdoms of nature and grace.—
I. One God who is King of both.
II. He sends signs of natural changes and of moral events.
III. At signs in nature men prepare; much more should they make spiritual preparation for the greater event.
IV. The natural sign speaks of the faithfulness of the God of nature; so the moral sign speaks of His faithfulness as God of grace and King of glory.—J. C. Gray.
Matthew 24:35. The perpetuity of the words of Christ.—
I. Here we have a fair and bold comparison of two things: one which seems the slightest and most evanescent you can think of; another which seems the very ideal of all that is substantial and durable. Here are on the one side a few words, and on the other side the great solid world. Yet the Saviour dares the comparison. He invites the comparison between the endurance of the words He utters and the endurance of the stars, the earth, and the ocean.
II. It is approaching towards two thousand years since the days of Christ’s three years’ ministry on earth.—Though no magic was impressed on the syllables which flowed from the lips of the Redeemer to arrest their natural passing away, still it is true and certain that they have not passed away, and cannot pass away while the world stands. For one thing, they have not passed away, in this sense—that when they were spoken the simple narrative of the Evangelists took and perpetuated them; and in these four Gospels we have the words of Christ preserved.
III. But it is a little thing to say that Christ’s words were perpetuated on paper.—We should not set much store by the fact that upon printed pages by millions and millions the words of our Redeemer have outlived the storms and the wear of ages; we should not mind much about that if it stood by itself; but take it with this, that these words are so marvellously adapted to the needs of our immortal nature that those who have once felt their power would feel it was parting with life to part with them. Earthquakes, deluges, might sweep this world, but you must unpeople it before the words of Christ could pass away from it.
IV. Though the last Bible perished, as perish it may in the wreck and ruin of this world, though the blessed words of Jesus were to do what they never can—fade away utterly from the remembrance of the glorified soul—even then these words would live on in the effects they had produced.—A. Boyd, D.D.
CRITICAL NOTES
Matthew 24:36. But of that day and hour, etc.—“Neither the Son” is introduced in the R.V. Dr. Morison says, that though not in the great body of the MSS., these words were probably in the autograph of Matthew. They are found in the three oldest MSS., the Sinaitic, the Vatican, and Cambridge, and in many copies of the Old Latin Version; as also in the Harclean Syriac, and the Æthiopic and Armenian Versions. “The eternal Word in becoming flesh ‘emptied Himself’ (Philippians 2:7) of the infinity which belongs to the Divine attributes, and took upon Him the limitations necessarily incidental to man’s nature, even when untainted by evil and in fullest fellowship, through the Eternal Spirit, with the Father” (Plumptre).
Matthew 24:40. The one shall be taken, etc.—See R.V. The day of judgment will be, as by an inevitable law, a day of separation, according to the diversity of character which may exist in the midst of the closest fellowship in outward life (Plumptre).
Matthew 24:41. Grinding at a mill.—Two women sit at the mill facing each other; both having hold of the handle by which the upper is turned round on the nether millstone (Thomson).
Matthew 24:43. Broken up.—Broken through (R.V.). The houses were built largely of mud.