This Generation

    In Matthew 24 (and Mark 13 and Luke 21) Jesus spoke to His disciples about a "great tribulation" which would come upon Jerusalem. It has become fashionable over the past 100 years or so to teach that He was speaking about the end of the "Church Age" and the time of His Second Coming. But is this what He meant? We should note carefully that Jesus Himself gave the (approximate) date of the coming Tribulation, leaving no room for doubt after any careful examination of the Biblical text. He said:

Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place (Matt. 24:34).

    This means that everything Jesus spoke of in this passage, at least up to verse 34, took place before the generation then living passed away. "Wait a minute," you say. "Everything? The witnessing to all nations, the Tribulation, the coming of Christ on the clouds, the stars falling…everything?" Yes—and, incidentally, this point is a very good test of your commitment to the principle we began with in this chapter. Scripture interprets Scripture, I said; and you nodded your head and yawned, thinking: "Sure, I know all that. Get to the point. Where do the atomic blasts and Killer Bees come in?" The Lord Jesus declared that "this generation"—people then living—would not pass away before the things He prophesied took place. The question is, do you believe Him?

    Some have sought to get around the force of this text by saying that the word generation here really means race, and that Jesus was simply saying that the Jewish race would not die out until all these things took place. Is that true? I challenge you: Get out your concordance and look up every New Testament occurrence of the word generation (in Greek, genea) and see if it ever means "race" in any other context. Here are all the references for the Gospels: Matthew 1:17; 11:16; 12:39, 41, 42, 45; 16:4; 17:17; 23:36; 24:34; Mark 8:12, 38; 9:19; 13:30; Luke 1:48, 50; 7:31; 9:41; 11:29, 30, 31, 32, 50, 51; 16:8; 17:25; 21:32. Not one of these references is speaking of the entire Jewish race over thousands of years; all use the word in its normal sense of the sum total of those living at the same time. It always refers to contemporaries. (In fact, those who say it means "race" tend to acknowledge this fact, but explain that the word suddenly changes its meaning when Jesus uses it in Matthew 24! We can smile at such a transparent error, but we should also remember that this is very serious. We are dealing with the Word of the living God.)

    The conclusion, therefore—before we even begin to investigate the passage as a whole—is that the events prophesied in Matthew 24 took place within the lifetime of the generation which was then living. It was this generation which Jesus called "wicked and perverse" (Matt. 12:39, 45; 16:4; 17:17); it was this "terminal generation" which crucified the Lord; and it was this generation, Jesus said, upon which would come the punishment for "all the righteous blood shed on the earth" (Matt. 23:35).

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