But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things.
But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things. He had just told them that the seduction of the elect would prove impossible; but since this would be all but accomplished, He bids them be on their guard, as the proper means of averting that catastrophe. In Matthew (Matthew 24:26-28) we have some additional particulars: "Wherefore, if they shall say unto you, Behold, He is in the desert; go not forth: behold, He is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." See the notes at Luke 17:23-24. "For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together." See the note at Luke 17:37.
The preceding portion of this prophecy is by all interpreters applied to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. But on the portion that follows some of the most eminent expositors are divided; one class of them considering that our Lord here makes an abrupt transition to the period and the events of His Second Personal Coming and the great Day of Judgment; while another class think there is no evidence of such transition, and that the subject is still the judicial vengeance on Jerusalem, ending not only in the destruction of the city and temple, but in the breaking up of the entire polity, civil and ecclesiastical, of which Jerusalem was the center. From the remarkable analogy, however, which subsists between those two events, they admit that the language gradually swells into what is much more descriptive of the events of Christ's Personal Coming and the final Judgment than of the destruction of Jerusalem; and in the concluding warnings most of this latter class see an exclusive reference to the Personal Coming of the Lord to judgment. For the following reasons we judge that this latter is the correct view of the Prophecy.
FIRST, the connection between the two parts of the prophecy is that of immediate sequence of time. In Matthew 24:29 it is said, "Immediately after х eutheoos (G2112) de (G1161) meta (G3326)] the tribulation of those days" - shall all the following things happen. What can be plainer than that the one set of events was to happen in close succession after the other? Whereas, on the other supposition, they were to be so far from happening "immediately" after the others, that after eighteen centuries the time for them has not even yet come. The inconvenience of this is felt to be so great, that "the tribulation of those days" is taken to mean, not the calamities which issued in the destruction of Jerusalem at all, but the tribulation which is to usher in the Personal Coming of Christ and the Judgment of the great day. But though this might do, as an exposition of the words of Matthew, the words of Mark (Mark 13:24) seem in flat contradiction to it: "But in those days, after that tribulation" emphatically х meta (G3326) teen (G3588) thlipsin (G2347) ekeineen (G1565)]. How can this possibly mean any tribulation but the one just described? And were we to try the other sense of it, how very unnatural is it-after reading a minute account of the tribulations which were to bring on the destruction of Jerusalem, and then that "immediately after the tribulation of those days" certain other events are to happen-to understand this to mean, 'Immediately after the tribulation of another and far distant day, a tribulation not here to be described at all, shall occur the following events!' What object could there be for alluding so abruptly to "the tribulation of those days," if that tribulation was not to be described at all, but only something which was to happen after it?
But, SECONDLY, at the conclusion of the second part of this prophecy, our Lord says (Mark 13:30), "Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass away until all these things be done," or "fulfilled" (as in Matthew 24:34; Luke 21:32). This, on the face of it, is so decisive that those who think the second half of the Prophecy refers to the Second Coming of Christ and the Final Judgment are obliged to translate the words х hee (G3588) genea (G1074) hautee (G3778)]. 'This (Jewish) nation,' or 'This (human) race shall not pass away,' etc. But besides that this is quite contrary to the usage of the word-just think how inept a sense is brought out by translating 'this race;' for who could require to be told that the human family would not have passed away before certain events occurred which were to befall the human race? and how pointless is the other sense, that the Jewish nation would not be extinct before those events! Whereas, if we understand the words in their natural sense-that the generation then running should see all those predictions fulfilled-all is intelligible, deeply important, and according to literal fact. But the exposition will throw further light upon this question.