In Luke 17:22 Jesus told his disciples that in times ahead of them they will wish they could see one of the days of the Son of man, but they wouldn’t be able to see any of Jesus’ days. Desiring to see one of Jesus’ days would tempt the disciples to run after folks who claimed to be the Messiah—perhaps the Spirit of Jesus returning in them (Luke 17:23), but all such occurrences simply reflect the erroneous Pharisaical teaching of the arrival of the visible Kingdom of God on earth (Luke 17:20). Such a thing would not come from God, nor would such an obscure event reflect the coming of Jesus into his office as Messiah (Luke 17:23-24).
On the contrary, Jesus commanded his people not to go after Messianic figures who point to themselves and not to Jesus (Luke 17:23). Rather the event that marks the coming of Christ would be known and understood by all. It wouldn’t be hid, rather it would be a worldwide event of such significance that knowledge of it would spread immediately throughout the earth, like lightning shines out from one end of heaven and is seen in the other (Luke 17:24).
Jesus claimed that one of the things that must occur before his coming was the nation of the Jews would, as a whole, reject him (Luke 17:25). Then his coming would occur. If his rejection by the Jewish nation was the event that would announce his coming, Jesus must have come into his office of Messiah sometime in the first century AD near or during the Jews’ war with Rome, because the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple was announced by Jesus before the Sanhedrin, who rejected him on the night before he was crucified (Matthew 26:64; Mark 14:62; cf. Matthew 23:38). If Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed, and they were destroyed by Rome in 70 AD, then this is the SIGN that Jesus is in the heavens—i.e. ruling as Messiah from his Messianic throne (Matthew 24:30; cf. Daniel 7:13-14).
Jesus compared the day of his coming with the days of Noah and Lot (Luke 17:26-29). Both Noah and Lot were rescued from an unrighteous society, and God poured out his wrath upon the unrighteous and overthrew their cities / world. Moreover, the preaching of the righteous had no effect upon the lives of the unrighteous. The unrighteous continued to live as they always had, completely unaware that judgment was near.
It would appear that Jesus was telling his disciples in Luke 17:24 that his unveiling would be a worldwide event. However, he seems to be speaking of himself as Judge in the vein of Jeremiah 4:13 and Isaiah 19:1, rather than his personal, physical appearance. The rabbis and Pharisees had rejected him as their Messiah, and, as authorities over the Jews, the nation would follow and believe them. Although Jesus would send out his disciples to preach his soon coming (i.e. into his office as Messiah), the Gospel of his Kingdom would go unheeded by the nation, just as no one believed Noah or Lot in their days.
Since the Jewish nation, as a whole, would not believe Jesus’ disciples, Jesus’ judgment upon the Jews would come as a surprise. Moreover, because the Jews of the Diaspora, as a whole, believed the word coming from the authorities in Jerusalem, they would also deny the truth of the Gospel. The judgment upon the Jewish nation was a worldwide event (Luke 17:30), and was understood by all to mean Jesus was indeed the Jews’ Messiah, ruling from heaven, because this is exactly what Jesus’ disciples said would occur. In other words, Jesus’ judgment upon the Jews in 70 AD was an event that vindicated the Gospel message.
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