Mark begins his description of Jesus’ coming, by saying: “But in those days after the tribulation (G2347)…” (Mark 13:24). Matthew’s account has: “Immediately after the tribulation (G2347) of those days…” (Matthew 24:29). When it comes to the Lord’s coming, many folks are willing to jump through hoops, as it were, in order to maintain an understanding they’ve always held, but is denied in the text. The word immediately, for example, loses all meaning in the hands of folks wanting to put Jesus’ coming far into the future. For them, immediately must be understood in the phrase: “one day is as a thousand years…” (cp. 2Pter 3:8),[1] which means what in the context of: “immediately after the tribulation of those days?” The very words we read must take on a different meaning entirely, if we want to support a distant coming of the Lord.
The Greek word that both Matthew and Mark use for tribulation is thlipsis (G2347) and has to do with oppression, affliction and distress.[2] Mark uses the same Greek word in Mark 13:19 to describe the trouble the Jews were forced to endure during the days of the Jews’ war with Rome during the first century AD. In other words, Mark is speaking of the same trouble, namely the tribulation or affliction (G2347) of the Jews cir. 66-70 AD. So, no matter which account of the Synoptics we consider, they are describing the terrible effects of the Jew’s war with Rome, just prior to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of its Temple. That is what those days (Mark 13:24) refer to.
Try to imagine what life on earth would be like, if there were no sun, and one couldn’t see the light of the moon (Mark 13:24), which is actually reflected sunlight. What would it be like in a dark world? What would it be like if the stars fell from the heavens (Mark 13:25), and what does that have to do with “the powers of the heavens being shaken (Haggai 2:6-7, 21-23; Hebrews 12:26-28)?
Surely, it is illogical for this to occur literally. What life could survive without the light of the sun? Yet, life does survive at least long enough for everyone to see the Son of Man coming in the clouds, and for him to send his “angels” to gather his elect. None of this is possible, if these things must be taken literally. For example, when the Lord judged Babylon, what actually happened in the heavens (Isaiah 13:10), and when he destroyed Egypt (Ezekiel 32:7-8) was the land literally in total darkness? On the day of Pentecost, after the Lord had ascended into heaven, Peter described the coming of the Holy Spirit as the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel (Acts 2:16; Joel 2:28-29), which was to precede the Lord’s judgment upon Jerusalem (Joel 2:30-31). Therefore, the sun, the moon and the stars are signs that depict what actually occurred in the first century AD.
In his work The Wars of the Jews, Josephus described the veil of the Temple saying its colors and material was not only wonderfully done and unmatched anywhere in the world, but they also had a “mystical interpretation, (which) was a kind of image of the universe,” he went on to say: “This curtain had also embroidered upon it all that was mystical in the heavens, excepting that of the [twelve] signs, representing living creatures.”[3] With this in mind, and understanding that heaven is the place where God dwells, and knowing that God was supposed to dwell within the Temple in the Most Holy Place, if the veil of the Temple were torn or set on fire, couldn’t it be described as heaven on fire, or the stars fell from the heavens, and the sun and the moon were no longer seen and couldn’t give their light? Wouldn’t this be a more logical explanation of the apocalyptic signs given in the Olivet Prophecy than the interpretation offered by many wannabe prophets today? They all pointed to the Lord’s judgment upon Jerusalem and its Temple in 70 AD
If Jews in Jerusalem in 70 AD powerlessly stood by as the Roman military set the Temple ablaze and later began to tear down its walls etc. (cp. Matthew 23:36-39; 24:1-2), as we know they did, couldn’t that be understood as the Lord coming in the clouds with great power and glory (Mark 13:26; cp. Matthew 16:27-28; 24:30; Isaiah 19:1; 34:4-5)?
With the coming of the Lord comes a gathering of the elect from everywhere under heaven (Mark 13:27). According to Matthew the gathering comes at the sound of a trumpet (Matthew 24:31). A trumpet was used in ancient times to gather the people together, often before the Lord (Isaiah 19:13, 16, 19; Leviticus 23:24; Isaiah 27:13). So, when the Lord came in judgment against the nation of the Jews in 70 AD, all the kingdoms of the world became the kingdoms of the Lord (Revelation 11:15). This points to the harvest fields (Matthew 13:41-43, 40-50) into which the Lord had sent his angels, i.e., his messengers or his disciples. We have been sent into all nations with the Gospel to call out a people for our God. As the Old Covenant ended with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, the new age had begun, the never-ending Gospel age with the establishment of the New Covenant (Daniel 2:44; Ephesians 3:21).
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[1] See The Pulpit Commentary for Matthew 24:29 and Mark 13:24, also Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible for Matthew 24:29.
[2] See Thayer’s Greek Lexicon
[3] See Josephus; Wars of the Jews; 5.5.4 [212-214]; see also my earlier study in 2Peter 3 — The Heavens on Fire!
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