Fulfillment of Expectation of Soon Return

The secular world has recently unleashed a barrage of ridicule against the Christian belief that our Lord Jesus Christ is soon to return. One example of this ridicule is the song “Delta Dawn,” depicting the Church as a decrepit old lady who still clings to the faded rose of her lover’s promise to return for her.

Many theologians also have attempted to deal with the fact of the “non-fulfillment of the promised return of Christ” which the Christians of the first century expected within their lifetime.[1] Was this promise truly left “unfulfilled?” If so, how was it that the Church grew, prospered and indeed conquered the entire Roman world in those first few centuries? Did her Lover jilt the Church at the altar? She did not appear to be so; rather, she triumphed gloriously and brought forth multitudes of sons and daughters. Is this any way for a jilted Bride to act? No! Christ was “revealed” in the complete and final destruction of Jerusalem. He “came” as Lord and Judge, and the Church, His Body, was fully aware of it. It is the distortion of the book of Revelation that creates the mistaken notion that Christ did not “come” as promised.

On the other hand, if Christ did indeed return, where, when and how did it happen? Was it an historical event, or only a spiritual return? Luke 21:27 seems to link the time of his ‘coming’ with the event of the destruction of Jerusalem:

And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. (Luke 21:27)

This passage indicates an ‘appearance’ or ‘coming’ that is visible to men fainting with fear.
Scripturally, the revelation or coming of Jesus Christ was to be in connection with the destruction of Judea and Jerusalem according to the following texts:

Matthew 23:29 – 24:51; woes upon the Pharisees; vengeance for the righteous blood of the prophets; destruction of Jerusalem; the appearing of the Son of Man; that this generation will see the fulfillment.

Mark 13; tribulation upon the land, Judea; the coming of the Son of Man; that this generation will not pass till all be fulfilled.

Luke 17:22 – 18:8; a time of trouble, a time to flee from Judea and a time of the Lord’s vengeance when the Son of Man is revealed;

19:41-44; 21:5-36; days of vengeance, the destruction of Jerusalem, the Son of Man coming in a cloud; that this generation will see the fulfillment.

The destruction of Jerusalem occurred in AD 70. The time of trouble, tribulation and vengeance of God was fulfilled upon the unbelieving Jews; their nation was destroyed and the survivors were dispersed as slaves. This was Christ’s vindication as a true Prophet as well as Lord and Judge. Was there a visible fulfillment of the coming, revelation, or appearing of the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, at that time?

We do know that Jerusalem was “compassed with armies” (Luke 21:20) from the historian Josephus (Wars Books 4 and 5). We do know also that the Holy Place was defiled and profaned by the warring factions of Jews who were fighting for the office of High Priest. They slaughtered one another on the Holy Altar and defiled it with human blood. This was an “abomination of desolation” or “desolating sacrilege” (Mark 13:14; Matthew 24:15). That these signs occurred together warned “those in Judea” to flee.

Two things prevent many from seeing this event as a fulfillment of the prophecies in the Gospels. One is that the Gospel should have been preached among “all nations.” The other is that these things should come upon the “whole earth.”

The resolution of this problem lies in the understanding that the Hebrew word ’eretz may be translated either ‘land’ or ‘earth’. Thus it may be said that these things will come upon the ‘whole land,’ that is, the ‘land of Judea’, or, equally correct, upon the ‘whole earth.’ The intention here is that the immediate, signal fulfillment was upon ‘the whole land of Judea’, whereas the ultimate fulfillment shall be upon ‘the whole earth.’

The Gospel was preached to ‘all nations’ of the Jews of that time period, (Col. 1:23). The twelve tribes are referred to as ‘nations’ in several references in the Old Testament.[2] The resolution of the problem then is that what happened upon the Jews and their land was the type for what will happen in the future upon the whole world when they too have had the full Gospel.

The question remains: Was there a visible coming or revelation of Christ at this time in history? Josephus records:

On the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, …a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared; I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armour were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities (Wars, 6.5.2).

For Christians familiar with Christ’s prediction in Luke 21:27, this would certainly qualify as the visible fulfillment of His words. There was an immediate and visible fulfillment of the promised ‘coming’, ‘revelation’, ‘appearance’, of Jesus Christ during the destruction of Jerusalem!

Later Christians, however, have felt that this appearing did not meet all of the requirements set forth in other Scriptures for His coming. Perhaps this was indeed the fulfillment of His coming in connection with the destruction of Jerusalem, but it is the surety of a further fulfillment in the end of the Gentile Age, when the whole unbelieving world will suffer the wrath of God according to the pattern established by the destruction of Jerusalem. At that time Christ will again appear in power and great glory to rescue His saints throughout the entire world.

There is also an account in secular history of a ‘catching away’ or ‘rapture,’ of the band of Christian Jews who survived in Jerusalem up to this period of time, probably called ‘the synagogue of the saints.’ It is said that, after the City was under siege and Titus offered their life to anyone who would voluntarily come out to him, the warring factions of Jews inside the city stood guard at the gates and did not allow anyone to pass out to Titus. Some they robbed and some they ripped open in order to obtain any gold pieces they might have swallowed in their effort to get it out of the city. It thus became impossible to leave the city. However, this band of Christian Jews was found in another place across the desert from Judea.[3] This may have been the signal fulfillment of the ‘catching away,’ or ‘rapture’ that points to the greater, future fulfillment when the Christians of the whole world are surrounded and closed in by their enemies, when Christ will translate them, not to another city in the world, but to the clouds.

[1] “The most serious problem of all confronting the Church in the first century of its existence was that its expectation that Christ would be revealed as Lord and Judge was not realized. Since the exaltation of the risen Christ was one of the fundamental claims of the kerygma, and since the purpose which lay behind his ministry of humiliation and his promise of redemption was the establishment of the kingdom of God, the next great event that would be awaited was his disclosure as Lord and the bringing into complete and visible reality the reign of God over the world which he created. But the apostolic generation passed away, and the consummation of the kingdom did not occur. What then was one to think of the kerygma or of the hope of redemption that it held out?” (Kee, Young, Froelich, Understanding the New Testament, p. 66). See also Davies, Paul, 285-6.
This mistaken notion that the Christians were somehow disappointed and unfulfilled because Christ was not revealed fails to take into account the fact that the New Testament Scriptures depend upon “fidelity to the kerygma” for their canonization, the belief that the kerygma had proven true! If they had believed that the teaching had proven false, there would have been no enduring New Testament! The whole episode would have been forgotten, covered by the dust of time.

The Church after AD 70 was triumphant. Christ’s kingdom had prevailed over its enemies. Christ had been exalted and His kingdom established. It was a visible reality in that it had achieved the overthrow of its arch-persecutor, Pharisaism. It had become the only survivor of the kingdom of God which had been called “Israel.” It was more visible as the kingdom of God than the old national Israel had been for now it had no other polity.
The later writings of the politicized Church may reflect a distorted view of the kingdom of God and its “non-fulfillment.” But the witness of the New Testament, especially the book of Revelation, is that the Church, in Christ, was victoriously fulfilled and Christ is a Living, Reigning King!

[2] It is used of the nation of Israel in: Exod. 19:6; 26:5; 33:13; Deut. 4:6; Joshua 3:17; 4:1; 5:8; 10:13; Ps. 33:12, 83:5; Isaiah 26:2, 15; 58:2; 60:11; Jeremiah 25:11; 31:36; 33:24; Ezek. 2:3; 37:22; 35:10; and Micah 4:7, (among other references.)

[3] “Furthermore, the members of the Jerusalem church, by means of an oracle given by revelation to acceptable persons there, were ordered to leave the City before the war began and settle in a town in Peraea called Pella. To Pella those who believed in Christ migrated from Jerusalem; and as if holy men had utterly abandoned the royal metropolis of the Jews and the entire Jewish land, the judgement of God at last overtook them for their abominable crimes against Christ and His apostles, completely blotting out that wicked generation from among men” (Eusebius p. 111, Book 3.5).

Eusebius further says that the war began in the twelfth year of Nero, which Williamson says was AD 66 (note 5, p. 105). If the Christian exodus was at or near that time, allowing for the parts of the year in which they left and the five months of AD 70 before the city fell, it could well have been 3 1/2 years from the time of their exodus to the fall of the city – – the last half of the great tribulation described in Dan.7:25; 12:1, 7 – and referred to by Jesus in Matt. 24:21. (But see my article “Flight to Pella” Commentary at 18:4.) Eusebius word for the departure (‘migration’) of Christians from Jerusalem was the Greek word metokismenon, a form of Strong’s #3350, meaning a change of abode, specifically expatriation. Sometimes translated “carried (or carrying) away”. It is possible, therefore, that the word indicates a bodily translation of the saints from Jerusalem to Pella, a “rapture” of the church, as was prophesied in 1 Cor. 15:51-52. These Jerusalem saints returned to Jerusalem and were “flourishing in the faith and working great signs, healings and other wonders.” This was reported by Aquilla in De Mensuris et Ponderibus Chapter 15 in about AD 129. (Craig Koester, “The Origin and Significance of the Flight to Pella Tradition”, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 51.1 (January 1989):90-106.