THE OLIVET DISCOURSE A Comment

Thomas Alderman, November 29, 2025

All three Synoptic Gospels – Mark, Luke, and Matthew – contain Jesus’ discourse concerning future events, known as “the Olivet Discourse” because He delivered it while gazing from the Mount of Olives at the magnificent Herodian Temple across the Kidron Valley.

The Discourse poses a number of hermeneutical challenges, but one in particular causes some to stumble.  Jesus predicts the destruction of the Temple.  He also predicts His own return “in clouds with great power and glory.”  But then He emphasizes that “this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”  Manifestly, the generation living when Jesus spoke has been gone a long time – yet Christ has not returned.  Did Jesus make a mistake?  Or did the Gospel authors err in recording what He said?  And if He or they erred in this instance, where else might they have erred?  Is the New Testament reliable at all?

According to William L. Lane, author of the New International Commentary on the New Testament (NICNT) Book of Mark,¹ “In the Gospel of Mark there is no passage more problematic than the prophetic discourse of Jesus on the destruction of the Temple.”²  Other scholars concur: Hans Bayer, Professor Emeritus, Covenant Theological Seminary, declares it to be “one of the more difficult things to understand in the Gospels.”  At the same time, since the Olivet prophesy is among the most difficult New Testament texts, its vindication, if that were possible, would be of interest to the honest seeker.  Many have therefore attempted to rescue the Discourse with various explanations as to how Jesus’ predictions could all have been true.  I set myself to understand those attempts in the hope of reaching an opinion on the question.

Let me just say by way of preface that having made something more than a cursory review of the matter, it does not appear to me that there is any simple, easy answer.  Does that trouble me?

It does not trouble me, and let me explain why.

For one thing, I am happy to be able to say that I have reached an opinion.

Also, while the integrity of the New Testament in general is a matter of great importance, the specific question whether there is some esoteric way to uphold the veracity of Mark 13:30 need not make much difference, if any, in the life of a believer.  There have been many such cases where, lacking a persuasive solution, theologians frankly acknowledge that we do not have a solution and place the matter on the shelf for future reconsideration in the hope of further developments.  Indeed, there have been scores, or even hundreds of such instances of Bible difficulties where eventually a satisfying solution was found.  Often the solution arises out of archaeological discovery.

Thirdly, recent scholarship has delivered very impressive gains in our appreciation of the accuracy of the NT generally, such that it is no exaggeration, in my opinion, to say that it is miraculous.  See, for instance, Lydia McGrew’s Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts (Deward 2017) and Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Eerdmans, 2d ed. 2017).  These authors do not directly address questions raised by the Discourse, but their findings show the NT to be amazingly accurate.

Finally, Bible scholars generally, including skeptics, acknowledge that while the New Testament through thousands of copying errors was extensively compromised, there has been a 300-year collaboration among scholars world-wide by which the original text has been fully recovered – with known exceptions, none of which affect the doctrine of the faith.  See Bruce Metzger’s The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (Oxford University Press, 3d ed. 1992; 4th ed. with Bart D. Ehrman 2005).

As a result of this wonderful scholarship, my confidence in the NT is stronger now by far than it was five years ago, despite the challenge of the Olivet.  So let’s dive in!

The Disciples’ Questions

Near the end of His ministry, as Jesus and His disciples were leaving the Temple, His disciples drew His attention to the magnificence of the very recently-completed Temple; and He replied,

Do you see all these great buildings?  Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.³

Later, some of His disciples ask Him privately when these things will occur, and Jesus then elaborates on his prophesy:

²⁴ “But in those days, following that distress,

“‘the sun will be darkened,
    and the moon will not give its light;

²⁵ the stars will fall from the sky,
    and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’”

Then the return of the Son of Man:

²⁶ “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. ²⁷ And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

²⁸ “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. ²⁹ Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. ³⁰ Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.  (My emphasis.)

³¹ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

Finally, the admonition to be awake:

³² “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³³ Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. ³⁴ It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.

³⁵ “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. ³⁶ If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. ³⁷ What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”

“This Generation”

Mark 13:30, Luke 21:32, and Matthew 24:34 all record in identical terms Jesus’ use of the phrase, “this generation,” as follows:

“I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”³

Again, the passage seems to say that Christ should have returned within the lifetimes of those then living; but they are gone, and He has not returned.  We know this, because as Matthew tells us, “As lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.”⁴  There will be nothing secretive about the Second Advent. We haven’t missed it.

The Proposed Solutions

Several interpretations of the text have been offered.  Each proposal has its problems.  My review of the literature leads me to think that novel proposals have not been made for centuries.  Thus the conversation among scholars seems to have reached stasis without any expectation that anything like a consensus will be reached any time soon.  But then, there is nothing compelling us to wait for consensus: we can still try our best to come to our own understanding.

Here are the interpretations that I have come across, in ascending order of plausibility in my estimation.

1. Jesus was mistaken.

This interpretation will obviously be unattractive to believers.  It will at the same time be attractive to those nonbelievers who dismiss prophecy out-of-hand due to a bias for naturalism.  If there is no God, then it is not much of a surprise that Jesus may have erred – nor, then, would it matter.  But why be biased in favor of naturalism?  Naturalism is not true, as modern science has shown, along with many other lines of evidence.  A Creator exists.  If a creator exists, then Jesus could be His son, and He presumably would be infallible.

2. The Parousia has already occurred.  (The “preterist” view.)

According to this view, the Parousia (the return of Christ; lit., arrival) occurred at the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.: with that, Christ was enthroned in Heaven.

“Preterist” is a grammatical term meaning completed at a particular time in the past.  Preterists hold that the Parousia was invisible and occurred with the sack of Jerusalem and the Temple.  This constituted Jesus’ vindication, and He was enthroned in Heaven at that time.

William Lane Craig identifies R. T. France as a leading proponent of this view.  France was the author of the commentary on the Book of Matthew in the NICNT series.⁵  France argues persuasively that the cosmic disturbances described in Mark 13:29 are to be taken symbolically, not literally.  In support, he observes:

The “cosmic” language of Matthew 24:29 [which is identical to Mark 13:24] is drawn directly from OT prophetic passages where it functions not to predict the physical dissolution of the universe but as a symbolic representation of catastrophic political changes within history. . . .  [T]he coming destruction of the temple . . . will mark the end of the old order, to be superseded by the sovereignty of the vindicated Son of Man.⁶

France cites several Old Testament prophesies portraying doom in very similar language – prophecies which were indeed fulfilled, but without the stars falling from the sky.  For example, Ezekiel 32:7 describes the judgment of Egypt in similar terms:

When I snuff you out, I will cover the heavens

and darken their stars,

I will cover the sun with a cloud,

and the moon will not give its light.

And compare the Markan poem of cataclysm with Isaiah’s prophecy against Babylon:

But in those days, following that distress,

the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,

and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’^[c]

          Mark 13:24-25

The stars of heaven and their constellations
    will not show their light.
The rising sun will be darkened
    and the moon will not give its light.

Isaiah 13:10

Also cf. Acts 2:28-32.

What we are seeing is that Jewish apocalyptic literature employs language of universal blessing or universal cataclysm symbolically to convey the seriousness of what are “merely” historic events.  What Jesus is saying is that the coming of the Holy Spirit will be of great, even cosmic, significance, whether or not the stars fall from the sky.

Another way to view Mark 13:24-25 is as hyperbole.  The OT prophesies of doom could be viewed this way.  In the case of Babylon, for instance, the sky didn’t fall, but the changes that were taking place would have made you think the sky was falling, as it were.  Maybe Mark 13:24-25 is also hyperbole, or maybe it really is about the end.  In either case you might hear people saying, “The sky is falling!  It’s the end of the world!”  How could we know?  As the argument would go, the text doesn’t really afford us a basis for distinguishing Mark from Ezekiel.  We would just have to wait and see.

Dismissing the cosmic disturbances as symbolism or hyperbole could indeed tend to validate the solution of collapsing together the two predictions – the destruction of Jerusalem and the Return of the King; but the issue is not whether the cosmic disturbances of Mark 13:24-25 should be taken literally, but whether Mark 13:26 should be taken literally:

At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.

If that language is not to be taken literally, then it is not obvious what the literal reality that it is supposed to represent might be.  This is not a picture of the destruction of Jerusalem, and it is not parallel to the OT passages pronouncing doom on certain kings.

And that is not France’s argument anyway.  France’s argument is that the destruction of Jerusalem constituted the vindication of the Son of God, whose reign now supplanted the old order, and the “clouds and glory” represented Christ’s appearance not on Earth, but in Heaven to assume the throne.

Thus the preterist’s argument depends on the invisibility of Christ’s return – invisible to the survivors of the Jewish War and also to us as we read the Gospels.  But Mark says that “men will see” it, and as noted earlier, Matthew tells us Christ’s return will be “as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west.”  As Craig observes, France’s claims, if true, would solve the puzzle of “this generation”; but they are too ad hoc – appearing contrived for the sole purpose of accomplishing that very feat – to be entirely persuasive.

3. The “Futurist” view.

In this view, “this generation” refers to a future generation that will be alive when the final end-time events begin to unfold.

Some scholars regard this as the oldest view, ascribing it to Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Hilary, and Cyril of Jerusalem. 

This perspective contends that since many of the signs Jesus predicted — celestial disturbances, the coming of the Son of Man in glory — did not occur in 70 A.D., they therefore must refer to future events leading up to the Second Coming.  “This generation” is the one which will witness the events culminating in the Parousia.

The premise that “this generation” is not the one Jesus was addressing would resolve our difficulty, but there is no apparent basis for preferring a future generation, other than the fact that it solves our hermeneutical problem.  We find this solution very ad hoc also.

4. “This generation” is a reference to the human race, or to the Jewish race, or to the faithful, or to the stiff-necked.

The New International Version of the Bible (NIV) notes that the Greek here can be translated “generation,” or it can be translated as “race,” so that Jesus could have been referring to the Jewish race.  Dispensationalists tend to be sympathetic to this view.

Alternatively, in both Old and New Testaments, the word translated as “generation” is often used in reference to persons of a certain kind – that is, to persons of a particular disposition, whether good or bad.  Thus, in Psalm 24, the psalmist describes “he who has clean hands and a pure heart” as being of “the generation of those who seek him.”  Conversely, in Matt. 12:39, Jesus responds to the Pharisees’ demand for a miraculous sign by saying, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign!  But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.”

Joel B. Green, author of the NICNT commentary on the Book of Luke, agrees:

This “generation” refers not to those living at a particular time, but to those “who stubbornly turn their backs on the divine purpose.

In the Third Gospel, “this generation” (and related phrases) has regularly signified a category of people who are resistant to the purpose of God [footnote omitted].  Verse 32, then, long a centerpiece in eschatological debate, actually has less to say about the eschatological time-table and more to say about the motif of conflict related to the presence and expected culmination of the kingdom of God.  “This generation” refers in Luke’s narrative not to a set number of decades or to people living at such-and-such a time, but to people who stubbornly turn their backs on the divine purpose.  Jesus’ followers can expect hostility and calamity until the very End, Jesus teaches, for the old world, “this generation,” does not easily give way to the new.⁸

This view may or may not seem less ad hoc than the futurist view.  Neither can be considered to be conclusive.  But it bears noting that Jesus considered Himself free to use language both to reveal or to conceal, as suited his purposes and the occasion from time to time.  Elsewhere He tells His disciples, for instance, that His employment of parables is sometimes specifically directed to that latter end, as we learn from Matthew 13:10.  The disciples ask Jesus why He speaks to the people in parables, and He responds by saying, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you [his disciples] but not to them (etc.)” – that is, it is not given to those who harden their hearts.  See also Mark 4:10-12.  Sometimes Jesus lets ambiguities remain ambiguous.  John’s Gospel affords the very best example.  After Jesus drives the moneychangers out of the Temple for the first time, the Jews demand a sign to demonstrate His authority to do so.  He replies, “Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days” – knowing that the Jewish leaders would assume He was referring to the Herodian temple, when in fact He was claiming the ability to rise from the dead.  His disciples didn’t figure this one out until after the Resurrection; if the Jewish leaders ever did, they weren’t saying.  (John 2:12-22.)

5. The prophecy has a dual fulfillment in the fall of Jerusalem and in the Parousia.

Dual fulfillment prophecy takes a prominent role in biblical interpretation.  Such prophecies have both an early fulfillment and also a later, ultimate fulfillment.  For example, the Immanuel prophecy (Isaiah 7:14: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel”) is understood to have been both a sign of imminent destruction to King Ahaz, Israel’s wickedest king (destruction will come “before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right”), and a prophecy about the birth of the Messiah.  In 2 Samuel 7 the promise of an everlasting kingdom is seen as fulfilled in Solomon (the physical kingdom) and also in Christ (the spiritual kingdom).

It is no stretch at all to suppose that Isaiah’s prophesy was fulfilled in the destruction of Babylon and will be fulfilled again.  Babylon becomes in chapters 17 and 18 of the Book of Revelation the symbol of all human corruption and rebellion, and is to be overthrown at the end of the age.

I think this view is almost self-evidently true: Jesus is (somehow) holding in view both the fate of the City and the Parousia.  The problem is that it does nothing to answer the question at hand: did Jesus predict that those in his immediate audience would see the Parousia, or not?

6.The fall of Jerusalem is a type of the eschaton, the Day of the Lord, so Christ could speak of them together despite the existence of a potentially indefinite temporal gap between them.

Typology has a long and deep tradition in Bible hermeneutics.  It is the study of how Old Testament persons, events, and institutions “prefigure” or foreshadow their fulfillment in the New Testament, especially in the life of Jesus Christ.  For example, the story of Jonah being in the belly of a great fish for three days is seen as a type of Christ’s three days in the tomb. Adam is a type of Christ, and the Israelites’ forty years of desert wanderings foreshadowed Jesus’ own forty days in the wilderness. 

Discussion

I believe that a compelling argument can be made that the dual fulfillment and the typological models are both probably true, but that it is the racial model which contains the key for unlocking this puzzle – the race being the human race – and that this becomes highly plausible when we widen our perspective just slightly.

The Olivet Discourse doesn’t begin with Jesus’ prediction of the downfall of Jerusalem: it begins with His cleansing of the Temple.

Each of the authors of the Synoptics tell us that the Olivet Discourse was given shortly after the cleansing of the Temple:

                     Mark      Matthew        Luke

     Cleansing      11:15     21:12          19:45

     Olivet         13        24             21.5

Matthew states (21:15) that the chief priests were indignant over the cleansing of the Temple.  Luke says (19:47) that at the time, the chief priests were trying to kill Jesus.  But Mark claims (11:18) that when the chief priests heard about the cleansing, that is when they plotted to kill Him.

All of this – the Triumphal Entry (more commonly known as Palm Sunday), the cleansing of the Temple, and the Olivet – take place in the last four days before Passover and Jesus’ arrest.

Now compare Matt 12:38-45, where earlier in His ministry JC is talking about “the judgment” and repeatedly employs the phrase, “this generation”:

³⁸ Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”

³⁹ He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

⁴⁰ For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 

⁴¹ The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here. 

⁴² The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now something greater than Solomon is here.

Cf. also Luke 11:29-32; Mark 8:11-12.

One thing seems clear: the “judgment” to which Christ here refers is the final judgment.  How do we know this?  The Queen of the South died 1,000 years before Christ, Jonah 800 years before Christ.  In this pericope, the Pharisees, the men of Nineveh, and the Queen of the South, are all together, alive, at the same time — that is, “at the judgment.”  That will not happen again until we are all together before the judgment throne of God.  All the Jews, all of them through all time, including Jesus’ immediate audience but not limited to them, are together with the men of Nineveh, all of them through all time, the Queen of the South, and us.  This generation – humanity – will not pass away until all these things have been accomplished.

Will Jesus’ immediate audience see the Parousia?  They certainly will.

Conclusion

The Olivet Discourse is one of a great number of the Lord’s mysterious sayings.  Sometimes he is intentionally opaque, as when He allowed the Pharisees to continue to think He was claiming He could rebuild the Temple in three days, when He was actually claiming He could raise Himself from the dead.  Our trust in Jesus is based on the “many convincing proofs that He is alive” (Acts 1:3) and not on our ability to understand everything He said. He is smarter than we are, and there is a seventh possible interpretation, namely, that Jesus may just have been intentionally elusive: He may not have wanted us to get this straight, or at least not yet. 

But if the question is whether Jesus predicted that those in his immediate audience would see the Parousia, I think the answer is yes: they will see it along with everyone else.

END NOTES

¹Eerdmans 1974.

²William L. Lane, The Gospel according to Mark (New International Commentary on the New Testament (NICNT), Eerdmans 1974), 444.

³Mark 13:30; Matthew 24:34; Luke 21:32.  The most widely held view is that Mark’s Gospel was written first and was among the sources for portions of Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels.  Clearly, this material is among those sources.

⁴Matthew 24:27.

⁵R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (NICNT, Eerdmans 2007).

⁶France, 891.

⁷Cf. also Luke 11:29.

⁸Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke (NICNT, Eerdmans 1997), 742.