• Matthew 24

    by Published on 01-27-2011 12:06 AM     Number of Views: 3613 
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    2. Matthew 24

    Quote Originally Posted by larry2
    Have you even remotely considered the fact that the generation being referred to is during the events of the tribulation?
    "This generation" I am sure pertains to this continuing generation since Christ. I find it strained any other way. I guess that's why reading the Bible with the Holy Spirit and without the Holy Spirit are worlds apart. But let's see if I can put words to why.

    For example, if "this generation" meant just the 7 years of the Tribulation that would not make much sense since obviously 7 years is not a generation which is redundantly obvious for children born at the start of the Tribulation.

    And if "this generation" meant from the time Israel became a nation, well really, we are past a generation already considering a generation is usually 30 to 40 years. At the end of the Tribulation in the year 2022 is 74 years since 1948. Many will have passed away by then if they were born in 1948, so if this generation was meant to refer to when Israel became a nation Jesus would have returned likely by the year 2000 at the outside I am guessing which I am sure caused lots of people grief when Jesus didn't return back then. Let's not make the same mistake they did by extending outward the time for generation from 30-40 years to 70-80 years.

    So there can only be one interpretation.

    v.34 “This generation”—The Greek text is genea, not aion. How, then, should genea be explained? We should try to find the clue from the Old Testament:

    “Thou wilt keep them, O Jehovah, thou wilt preserve them from this generation for ever” (Ps. 12.7). This is a generation not in terms of a physical, but a moral, relationship.

    “They are a perverse and crooked generation” (Deut. 32.5). The genea (Hebrew, dor) here is not 30 or 40 years or even a lifetime. As long as perversity and crookedness last, just so is the duration of that generation.

    “For they are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness” (Dent. 32.20). The generation continues as long as unfaithfulness persists.

    “There is a generation that curse their father, and bless not their mother. There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness. There is a generation, oh how lofty are their eyes! And their eyelids are lifted up. There is a generation whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men” (Prov. 30.11-14). Obviously, such a generation is not limited to a few decades or a lifetime; rather, it points to a period marked by certain immoral characteristics.

    We may receive further light from the Gospel of Matthew itself:

    “But whereunto shall I liken this generation. . .?” (11.16-19).

    “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet . . . The men of Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, a greater than Jonah is here” (12.39,41).

    “The queen of the south shall rise in the judgment with this generation . . . Even so shall it be also unto this evil generation” (12.42,45 ).

    “All these things shall come upon this generation” (23.36).

    This evil generation will last just as long as evil and adultery remain. Hence the meaning of genea in 24.34 is a period of time characterized by evil, adultery, perverseness, and crookedness. Such a period has not yet passed away, and will pass away only after all these things are accomplished until Jesus returns. We can be certain mankind will continue in its evil until after WW III of the Great Tribulation.

    “This generation” includes three classes of people: (1) the Gentiles who worship idols and reject God; (2) those Jews who reject Christ; and (3) the apostates—the so-called modernists. Before all these people pass away, all these things will be accomplished. The Lord will come and destroy them. Before the coming of the kingdom, all these things shall be fulfilled.

    We should thus see the distinction among these three Greek words used in the Bible: kosmos is the world, aion is the age, and genea is the generation.