Most of Matthew 24 Was Fulfilled by AD 70

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Berean.ai · Accepted Answer

Did you know most of Matthew 24 — the Olivet Discourse — was fulfilled by AD 70, when Titus's Roman legion sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple? Jesus explicitly said "this generation will not pass away until all these things take place" (Matt 24:34) — and forty years later, exactly what He predicted happened. The Olivet Discourse — Matthew 24 // Mark 13 // Luke 21: Jesus is sitting on the Mount of Olives with His disciples. They ask about the destruction of the temple (Matt 24:1-3). Jesus responds with the longest continuous prophecy in the Gospels. Popular American reading: it's all about end times, the tribulation, the antichrist, the rapture. That's how most 20th-century dispensational teaching reads it (Scofield, Ryrie, LaHaye, Left Behind). Reformed partial preterism reads it differently — most of Matt 24 was already fulfilled. Matt 24:2 — the Opening Prophecy: "You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down." Jesus is looking at the actual temple that stood in front of them. Not a future rebuilt temple. Matt 24:34 — the Interpretive Crux: "Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place." The Greek hē genea hautē means "this generation" — Jesus's contemporaries. Dispensational attempts to read it as "the future generation that sees these signs" strain the natural language of "this." The AD 70 Fulfillment: Forty years after Jesus said this, during the Jewish-Roman War (66-73 AD), Titus (later emperor) led the Roman legion that besieged and destroyed Jerusalem. The temple burned on Tisha B'Av (August 30, 70 AD). Not one stone was left upon another. Literally. Matt 24:15-16 — Abomination + Flee to the Mountains: "So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place...