Mark 13:1 As he was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!" 2 "Do you see all these great buildings?" replied Je-sus. "Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down." 3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately, 4 "Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?"
My Interpretive Approach
Encourage One Another
This is a really hard chapter, and there are enough books written about it to sink a ship. They call this chapter Jesus’ Olivet Discourse, because it happened on the mount of Olives. Mostly the argument is over whether it’s a sermon about the Second Coming or a sermon about the destruction of the Tem-ple in 70 AD.
Now, before I describe the different views and tell you which one I hold, let me say a quick word about the importance of not fighting over this. In 1 Thessalonians 4:18 we find that the teaching about the end times is supposed to be something Christians use to encourage one another. But instead, we’ve come up with several different theological systems and ways of interpreting end times prophecies, and we fight each other over these passages and then divide up into separate groups and refuse to have fel-lowship with people who from the other camps. We take some of the most difficult passages in the whole Bible and say, “You have to agree with me on those passages or I can’t worship with you.”
This is an example of the how over-emphasis on systematic theology has done massive damage to unity in the Church. Few arguments will get people more riled up than differences about end-times systems. Pre-Trib, Post-Trib, A-Mill, Post-Mill, Pre-Mill—how often do you hear discussions about those that end up encouraging anyone?
If you’re in one of those systems and I’m in another, we think we’re so far apart doctrinally. But are we? What is the great hope we all look forward to? Isn’t it Christ’s glorious Second Coming, and the resurrection, the final judgment, and eternity with the Lord? No matter what system we’re in, don’t we all agree that the Bible assures us we will face tribulation and persecution and we must be prepared for that? And through that, we must be faithful to the gospel? If you look at the main point of each end times passage, when all the theological wrangling is all said and done, the bottom line application ends up being pretty much the same.
The reason there is so much debate about end times passages is because God purposely left many of our questions unanswered, and much of the language is vague and wrapped in figurative language. God doesn’t want us to know exactly what’s going to happen and when, and so much of prophecy about the future is intentionally mysterious and difficult. Some of it isn’t intended to be understood until after the events happen. You can see that in Old Testament prophecies of Christ. So many of them became clear only after Jesus fulfilled them.
So I say all that to urge you—let’s be humble in our approach to this chapter. No one has all the answers, no view is without significant problems, no system of interpreting this chapter answers all the questions. If you hold a view that doesn’t seem to have any difficulties, I assure you, it’s likely because you just haven’t met someone from the other side who can articulate the problems of your side. And that person has plenty of problems on his side, and I’ll tell you right up front, the view I hold has prob-lems of its own.
So here’s my challenge: as we go through this chapter, instead of laboring to figure out a big, per-fect, flawless end times scheme, or instead of trying to defend the scheme you’ve always been taught, how about we all just strive to obey 1 Thessalonians 4:18 and look for ways to encourage one another regarding the end times?
Preterism vs Futurism
So let’s take a quick look at the main debate over this chapter. As I mentioned, it’s mainly over whether the sermon is about the Second Coming or about 70 A.D. The 70 AD people say, “It has to be about 70 AD. because look what Jesus says in v.30.
Mark 12:30 I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.
Those people say, “Just take it at face value. ‘This generation’ means ‘this generation’—the peo-ple who were alive when Jesus preached the sermon. Case closed—all of it had to be fulfilled in the first Century. The seminary word for that view is “preterism.” “Preterism” means “This verse that most people think is about the Second Coming has actually already been fulfilled in the past.”
And the preterists argue that not only does v.30 demand a 1st Century fulfillment, but so does the context. Remember, this all started with Jesus saying the Temple would be destroyed. The disciples asked specifically about that—“When will that happen?” Jesus is responding to that question. And 70 A.D. is when the Temple was destroyed. Jesus said it would happen within that generation, a genera-tion is 40 years, and 40 years after Jesus spoke those words, every stone in the Temple was smashed to the ground.
So why isn’t everyone on board with the preterist interpretation? Why do people think it’s about the Second Coming? They think that because of v.26.
26 At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.
They say, “We need to take that at face value. Men will see him in clouds means men will see him in clouds—nobody saw Jesus in the clouds in 70 A.D.”
Also, I’ve never heard anyone make this point, but it occurred to me as I was studying all this. Pre-terism says the Olivet Discourse was intended to teach God’s people how to live for the next 40 years (from the time of Jesus until 70 A.D.). So it was all about that generation. We have a book of the Bible that describes that very generation—the book of Acts. Acts is a history book that covers that genera-tion—from Jesus’ ascension into the 60’s A.D. If the big event of the Olivet Discourse was 70 A.D., why isn’t that recorded in Acts? Jesus said that generation would not pass away before it was fulfilled. He said that to the Apostles, so presumably some of them were still alive in 70. And you also have younger guys like Mark who could have recorded those events. So it could have been recorded, but it wasn’t. Why not?
So all that to say, whichever view you take, there are some problems. If you take the Olivet Dis-course to be talking about the Second Coming, you have a problem with the statement about it happen-ing in Jesus’ generation. If you take it to be talking about the end of the Jewish age in 70 AD, you have the problem of parts where Jesus speaks of appearing in glory with the angels. Either way, you’ve got to interpret some parts of it in a way that differs from the face-value meaning. Either “this generation” isn’t what it sounds like, or seeing Jesus come in glory isn’t what it sounds like. Both sides have to do some gymnastics to make the whole sermon fit their scheme.
Third Option: Dual Fulfillments
And for that reason, most conservative scholars have opted for a third option—take part of the sermon as referring to 70 AD and part of it as referring to the Second Coming. What do we think about that approach? Is that just conservative Christians trying to rescue the text from itself to avoid interpre-tive problems? Or is that a legitimate way to interpret prophecy?
I would suggest that it is indeed a legitimate way to interpret prophesy. I’ll give you an example—the covenant God made with David.
2 Samuel 7:12 … I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be his father, and he will be my son.”
Who is that talking about? The Messiah. We know that because Hebrews 1:5 quotes this very verse to prove that Jesus is the Son of God. So the Bible itself tells us that it’s talking about the Messi-ah, but look at the rest of the sentence. 2 Samuel 7:14 I will be his father, and he will be my son.” When he does wrong, I will punish him Who’s that talking about? Other kings in the line of David. Half the sentence applies right away and the other half in the distant future.
That’s a property of Old Testament prophecy. Events that are separated by hundreds of years are mentioned together without any indication of a time gap because the purpose of the prophecy isn’t to provide a chronology. Prophecies like that are like a bullet point list. If I made a bullet point list of events:
• The Reformation
• The Enlightenment
• The Revolutionary War
• The Industrial Revolution
• The Black Plague
• Coronavirus
That doesn’t tell you anything about the timing of those events or the space between them. OT prophecy is sometimes like that. In fact, even when there is a time element, sometimes there can be a fulfillment in that time, and then a greater fulfillment much later.
Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin (or young woman) will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. 15 He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. 16 But before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste.
The virgin is the woman betrothed to Isaiah. The two nations threatening them were Aram and the northern kingdom of Israel. We see that in v.1. And the prophecy was fulfilled. They got married, she did get pregnant, and by the time the child was 2, those two nations were driven out. A clear prophecy, and specific time reference, and a clear fulfillment.
But then, hundreds of years later, Matthew points to the virgin Mary conceiving Jesus as a greater fulfillment of that same prophecy. So it’s possible for prophecies to have a near fulfillment, and then be fulfilled in a greater way later on.
A Prophecy of a Prophecy
Or to put it another way, you could say it’s a prophecy about an event, and once it happens, that event itself becomes a prophecy of a greater future event. An example is the Transfiguration.
Mark 9:1 And he said to them, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power."
Then the very next verse begins the account of the Transfiguration, where Jesus appeared in glory. There’s no question Mark is pointing us to the Transfiguration as the fulfillment of that statement. Later in the NT Peter would refer to that as when they saw the glory of Christ on the mountain.
But was that all there was to it? No, they fully expected a greater version of the fulfillment. In the chapter right after the Transfiguration, James and John are still expecting a future glorifying of Jesus.
Mark 10:37 They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory."
Jesus didn’t say, “My glory? What are you talking about? You already saw my glory in the previ-ous chapter up on the mountain?” No. His answer affirmed there would indeed be a more glorious kingdom in the future. The Transfiguration was a fulfillment of the prophecy, but it was itself a proph-ecy of a greater fulfillment in the future.
I believe that’s what’s the Olivet Discourse is. Jesus is prophesying about an event that was to take place in 70 A.D., and that event was itself a prophecy of the Second Coming. And so some statements in Mark 13 refer to 70 A.D. and others refer to the Second Coming.
In fact, you could even say the whole church age is a prophecy of the future glorious kingdom of God. All the glories of the future kingdom are already present in the Church in seed form. In the future kingdom, there will be no sin. In the Church age, deliverance from sin exists. It’s not in the final, per-fect, ultimate form, but isn’t it accurate to say we have be delivered from sin? Isn’t it true the Christ reigns over all today, in this age? Not like he will after the Second Coming, but still in a very real way. Isn’t it true that the Spirit has come? Hasn’t God gathered in the nations? Hasn’t Satan been defeated? Hasn’t the gospel triumphed? Isn’t the new Temple in place? Don’t we worship now by the Spirit and in truth? The eternal state is already here in seed form.
Definitely not in its final form. The creation still groans under the curse. But aren’t there even el-ements of the curse that are being reversed here and now in the Church? God told Eve her desire would be to control her husband but instead he would dominate her. Isn’t that being reversed in Christian marriages that follow the instructions of Ephesians 5? The glorious messianic kingdom we will enjoy for eternity is already inaugurated, it’s already in place in seed form, and so the whole church age is a living prophecy of the age to come.
So, I’m convinced many of the statements in the Olivet Discourse are about 70 A.D. only, others are about the Second Coming only, and others apply to both. But how do we know which is which? One way is to just force-fit everything into some theological system that you adhere to. I’m not a fan of that approach.
The only other approach I can think of is to let the Holy Spirit tell us which parts have a greater fulfillment. And there are two ways to do that. One is by looking at clues in the Olivet Discourse itself that might point to a near or far fulfillment.
The other way is by looking at how the parts of this sermon are used later on by other Bible writ-ers. The rest of the NT is nothing but an explanation of what Jesus taught. So whenever we find the language Jesus used in the Olivet Discourse later in the NT, we can get a feel for how the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of Scripture to interpret Jesus’ words about the end of the ages. For example, if Paul makes a reference to something Jesus said in the Olivet Discourse, how did he apply it? How did Peter or Luke apply it? If they take some phrases from this sermon and apply them to the resurrection or the final Judgment or the Second Coming, we’ll know those statements reach beyond 70 A.D.
So as we go through the Olivet Discourse, I’ll be on the lookout for both. I’ll watch for clues from Jesus and Mark and I’ll watch for ways the other NT authors interpret or apply Jesus’ words. What I won’t do is try to jam everything in the Olivet Discourse into one theological system or another to sup-port one of the end times schemes. I’m going to try my hardest not to have a dog in the fight of pre-terism vs futurism or any other “ism.” We’ll just take each paragraph as it comes and let the theologi-cal “ism” chips fall where they may.
Jesus Forsakes the Temple
Let’s take a look at what prompted the Olivet Discourse. Mark 13:1 As he was leaving the temple I think we’re meant to see more in this than just the fact that Jesus was exiting the building. Given all that’s gone on in the last two chapters:
• Jesus stormed the Temple and overturned tables.
• He rebuked them for making it a den of robbers
• He said, “You want to know what all that means? Watch this …” and he killed a fig tree and said it would never bear fruit again and it immediately dried up from the roots.
• Then he talked about “this mountain” being cast into the sea—a reference to judgment.
• Then he devastated the Temple authorities in public debate and told a parable about how God would take his vineyard from them, give it to others, and then come and kill them.
• Then he talked about how they will be punished most severely and receive the greater damna-tion.
After all that, when it says he left the Temple—that’s more than just him finding an exit. Jesus is forsaking the Temple for good, never to return. Even after his resurrection, he didn’t go back there.
He leaves and heads east to the Mount of Olives, which calls to mind the moment in Ezekiel when the glory of God abandoned the Temple. The chariot throne of God’s glory rises up from inside the temple, pauses at the east gate, and comes to rest on the Mount of Olives. And now once again, the glory of God in the person of Christ leaves the Temple, heads east, and comes to rest on the Mount of Olives. 3 Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple It could be translated “opposing the Temple” or “over against the Temple.” The Temple was on a hill and the Mount of Olives was a higher hill (about 200 ft. higher) and in between was a deep valley and Jesus stand above it and against it.
Announcement of Judgment
1 … one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent build-ings!"
We could spend the whole hour talking about how magnificent the Temple was. It was twice the size of Solomon’s glorious Temple, and was the greatest structure in the world at the time. Nothing in the Roman Empire or anywhere else compared to it, no pagan temple or any other kind of building compared to it. Some of the blocks in the wall were 60 ft. long and weighed over a million pounds.
2 "Do you see all these great buildings?" replied Jesus. "Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."
Shocking statement. First, it seemed humanly impossible. How do you tear down stones that weigh a million pounds?
Second, how could God ever allow such a thing to happen? It was the greatest building in the world. And it was the holiest site in the world. It was the place where God dwelt and met with his peo-ple. It was the only authorized place of sacrifice and worship of the true God. Not long after this, Ste-ven said the Temple would be destroyed, but he said it publicly and it cost him his life.
If you went to the White House and made statements about how it was going to burn to the ground, you might find yourself in jail. If you went to the monument they built in the place of the World Trade Center and said, “This will be reduced to rubble in the next several years,” you might get beat up. The Temple was a far bigger deal to them than the White House or any other building is to us. There really is no modern equivalent.
The Questions
3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately,
Not only did Jesus leave the Temple, he left the crowds too. From now on, he only speaks with his disciples—his public ministry is over. So four of his disciples ask him about this in private.
And the questions they ask are, I believe, are our first clue that there is more to this than a simple question about the Temple building.
4 "Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that these things are all about to be fulfilled?"
Two questions: When? And What will the sign be?
When?
The first question seems straightforward question. Jesus says the Temple will be destroyed, and they ask when. Simple. The second question, however, strikes me as odd.
What Will Be the Sign?
4 "Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that these things are all about to be fulfilled?"
The sign? Isn’t that kind of a strange thing to ask when you already asked when it will happen? If you know when, then why would you need a sign? If I ask a student, “When are you going to gradu-ate?” and he says, “May 23rd” and I say, “Okay, but let me ask you this—what will be the sign that it’s all about to happen?”
“Uh … the sign will be that your calendar will say it’s May 22nd, late in the day—then you know it’s just about to be May 23rd.”
So I find it strange that if they think Jesus will tell them when, that they also ask for a sign. It’s also a little curious that they use the plural—these things. Jesus had mentioned one thing that would happen—the Temple will be demolished. And they say, “When will these things happen?” and “what will be the sign that all these things will be fulfilled?” They are clearly asking about the destruction of the Temple, but they seem to have it in their minds that that destruction would not be an isolated event, but a complex of events.
So what else do they have in mind when they say, “all these things”? The most obvious answer to that question I can think of is all the glorious things Jesus had promised about his amazing kingdom that hadn’t yet materialized. That would fit what we know about these guys, right? They already asked Jesus about the seating arrangement when he comes in his glory. They wanted to know the pecking order in his glory. There’s a lot of stuff Jesus talked about that they were definitely eager to see.
- Things like Jesus appearing in his Father’s glory with the holy angels,
- Judgment Day when the Son of Man would approve of some and be ashamed of others,
- the kingdom of God coming in power with Jesus shining in brilliant, dazzling glory like he did at the Transfiguration,
- the least finally becoming the greatest and the last becoming first,
- the “age to come” when they would receive the fullness of eternal life.
If you think about it, Jesus has made some pretty grandiose statements about his kingdom. And James and John didn’t ask if they could be at his right and left right now—they said, “in your glory.” They’ve got all that in their minds, and so when Jesus announced such an earth-shattering, unthinka-ble, unimaginable event as the Temple being destroyed, it’s no surprise that they would naturally asso-ciated that with all these other end of the world type things Jesus has been talking about.
And that would fit not only the context of Mark, but the language they use in their question—"when will all these things be fulfilled?”
That language has a very end-times kind of ring to it. If you’re familiar with the end times prophe-cies in Daniel (which Jesus wants us to be, because he will quote Daniel down in v.14), then this word-ing might remind you of a passage like Daniel 12:6.
Daniel 12:6 One of them said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, "How long will it be before these astonishing things are fulfilled?"
And he gets that “time, times, and half a time” answer. The disciples’ question sounds a lot like that famous question in Daniel.
So it really does sound like they are asking about more than just the Temple. Is there any other ev-idence of that? How about the answer Jesus gives? If all they were asking for were a date and a sign, Jesus could have answered that in once sentence. “The date: 70 A.D. The sign that it’s about to hap-pen: when you see your calendar turn from 69 to 70.” But Jesus’ answer is nothing like that. They ask for a date and a sign, not for one thing, but for “all these things,” and Jesus gives them a whole ser-mon—the longest sermon in the book of Mark by far, and the longest answer Jesus ever gave to any question ever. And in the entire discourse, he never mentions the Temple once.
So both the way they word their question and the way Jesus answers the question seem to imply that more than just the destruction of the Temple is involved here. And as we have seen many times in this book, the things that Mark hints at, Matthew explicitly states. I see Matthew’s gospel as kind of like an answer key to Mark. Mark seems to imply something or hint at something, and I think, “Is Mark really implying that? Or am I just seeing things?” So I go to the parallel account in Matthew and sure enough, Matthew says that exact thing in plain language. And this is one of those times. You get the sense from Mark that there is more to their question than just the destruction of the Temple—that maybe it’s also about the end of the age, and sure enough, Matthew gives a fuller account of their ques-tion.
Matthew 24:3 … "Tell us," they said, "when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"
The Parousia
That phrase “the end of the age” only appears one other time in the Bible. It’s later in Matthew. In fact, the very last words of Matthew—it’s how the book ends. It’s at the Great Commission, where Je-sus wraps up by saying, “surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:20). Does that mean “I’ll be with you all the way up until 70 A.D.? No. He’s talking about the whole time the Great Commission is in effect. They whole time we’re carrying out the Great Commission, he’ll be with us. So the end of the age isn’t just the end of the Jewish age or the end of the Old Covenant age, but the very end, when the Great Commission will finally be done.
And what about Jesus’ coming? Does that seem strange to you that they would ask Jesus about his coming when he’s sitting right there? He had told them that he was going to die, but they didn’t get that. No matter how many times he told them, they just refused to hear it. They didn’t think he was going anywhere. So when they say “Tell us about your coming,” they don’t mean his return after death or after leaving them. They meant his coming in glory. They were talking about the day when he would finally kick off the glorious kingdom of God he was always talking about.
I said I would use the later Bible writers as my guide for how to take the statements in this ser-mon. And one of the most important words we need to do that with is this word for “coming.” That word translated “coming” is the Greek word parousia. When I typed parousia in my Word document it automatically capitalized it, because that word has come to be shorthand for the Second Coming of Christ. When theologians talk about the Parousia with a capital P, they mean the Second Coming.
Is that valid? Or are modern theologians getting carried away with a common word? Well, let’s ap-ply our system of checking to see how the NT authors used the word.
Connection with Judgment Day
70 A.D. was a day of judgement on Israel in the sense of a temporal punishment, but it wasn’t the day when believers would be evaluated by the Lord and receive their rewards. But the parousia is spo-ken of in those terms.
1 Thessalonians 2:19 For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the pres-ence of our Lord Jesus at his parousia?
1 Thessalonians 3:13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father at the parousia of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones.
1 Thessalonians 5:23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the parousia of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 John 2:28 And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his parousia.
Connection with the Resurrection/Rapture
The parousia is also the time of the rapture and the resurrection.
1 Thessalonians 4:14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the parousia of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
2 Thessalonians 2:1 Concerning the parousia of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, 2 not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come.
I take that gathering as another reference to the rapture. Sometimes people think of the gathering as God gathering unbelievers to salvation through the gospel, but here he’s talking about us being gathered—people who are already saved.
Splendor
The parousia will be a day of splendor.
2 Thessalonians 2:3 Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed. … 7 For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his parousia.
Deliverance
The parousia will be a day of deliverance.
James 5:7 Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord's parousia. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. 8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's parousia is near.
It’s hard for me to see how 70 A.D. was a day of deliverance for God’s people. It was a day of judgment on Israel—no question about that. But was it a day of salvation? It’s true that some of the people who persecuting Christians were eliminated, but not all of them. It’s not like after 70 A.D., per-secution ended. A lot of the Jewish persecutions were gone, but Rome also persecuted Christians, and they were still around after 70 A.D. And the Pharisees survived 70 A.D. and after 70, they kicked all the Christians out of the synagogues. So 70 A.D. really wasn’t a day of rescue or deliverance or salvation for the people of God. But the parousia will be.
New Heavens and New Earth
And the parousia will be the time when God creates a new heavens and a new earth.
2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. 11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its parousia. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13 But in keep-ing with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of right-eousness.
Here Peter is talking about looking forward to a new heavens and new earth that didn’t exist at the time he was writing, but that he was looking forward to. Peter was writing after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, but he was still looking forward to a future day when there would be a new heavens and new earth.
Conclusion
So all that to say, yes, the NT writers did see the parousia of Christ as referring to the Second Coming. Mark doesn’t use the word parousia. As I said, so many of the things Matthew states clearly, Mark only hints at. And as we go through the chapter, I’ll try to show you those hints and you can judge for yourself whether you agree or not that they are indeed hints. But I wanted to show you that term in Matthew because it becomes such an important term all through the New Testament.
Summary
I believe some of the Olivet Discourse applies to 70 A.D. only, some to the Second Coming only, and some to both. There are two guides for discerning which is which: 1) hints in the discourse itself, and 2) the way later NT writers used Jesus’ words from the Olivet Discourse.
