In the years after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, millions of abominable sacrifices were offered on those altars in rejection of Christ. At some point, the Zealots came into the temple, with the help of the Idumeans, and laid waste to their countrymen, destroyed the idolatrous priests, committed all kinds of abominable actions in the temple, and ended the regular sacrifice. Then, at the very end, the Romans came into the temple courtyard and finished the job by setting the temple on fire, robbing it of its treasures, and polluting its ashes with their idolatrous symbols. God’s judgment was complete by AD 70 and each of these four events played a part in its destruction.

As the sun was setting lazily in the western sky, the disciples were setting up camp atop the Mount of Olives, which overlooked the city to the East. With the tumultuous events of the day still ricocheting in their minds, none of them felt at peace, and all of them would have had more questions than they had answers. Not one of them, however, involved a new future temple.

Earlier that morning, Jesus went toe to toe with the Jewish elite in the city, riding in as the true King that they would reject (Matthew 21:1-10). Immediately after this spectacle, He defiantly cleansed the leprous temple, as the true Priest, whom they would soon be sacrificing on a Roman altar (Matthew 21:12-17). Before this happened, He took up the mantle of true Prophet, issuing three scathing parables of judgment, two humiliating rebukes at the leader’s woeful ignorance, and seven covenantal curses upon the city, all signaling its imminent demise (Matthew 21:28-23:39).

By these events, Jesus had more than certainly added jet fuel to the homicidal fires that were already smoldering against Him. Soon, the feckless Jewish aristocrats would succeed in butchering their creator and covenant God. Yet, by inflicting such malice upon God’s beloved Son, that generation unwittingly sealed its doom (Matthew 23:35; Matthew 24:34) and its temple, which was put under demolition order by the King of kings, would soon be reduced to rubble (Matthew 24:1-2).

But now, as the ephemeral rays of sunlight began dissipating amid their campsite, the time had come to pop the three biggest questions they had to their Lord. “Jesus”, the disciples asked, “When will these things happen? what will be the sign your judgment coming draws near? And will this be the end of the Jewish age?” As Jesus turned to see the last remaining photons of light dancing upon Herod’s magnificent temple, with a tear in His eyes He began to answer them accordingly.

Jerusalem Becomes the Mountain of Doom

Looking right at them, Jesus told them forty years had been set apart until the destruction of Jerusalem and that there would be many signs and evidence that the end was drawing near (Matthew 24:34). For instance, He told them that the people would appoint false messiahs to untangle them from Roman oppression and that the disciples must not be deceived when these things occur. He told them that the Roman empire, normally known for peace, would experience a heightened period of instability through an uptick in wars and rumors of wars that would shake the foundations of the entire known world. He alerted them that earthquakes and famines would also descend upon the land, signaling spiritually significant seismic shiftings were afoot as the old world lurched away from Jerusalem being the center of Yahwistic worship to Christ being the only Way, the only Truth, and the only pathway going forward to Life.

As these signs were happening, persecutions and tribulations would be ratcheted up against the fledgling church, who loved Jesus to the point of death. In the same way that a rabid dog attacks most furiously in the moments before the mercy-filled bullet enters its brain, so the Jews, led by various zealot factions, would lash out tirelessly in their final hours, beating, maiming, and executing Christians all throughout the Roman world for sport. And while in their staggering confusion, believing they were earning the favor of God, God mercifully put them down for their extreme lawlessness and hatred of love.

Yet, even while it seemed the entire world would be set against the earliest Christians, Jesus also promised that the Gospel would have a tremendous effect during those forty turbulent years. He predicted as Judah furiously protested like a king mackerel on the line, the Gospel would be preached in all the known world (Greek Word Oikoumene), which was an allusion to the Roman empire. And as we saw in the preceding weeks, this was fulfilled by the late fifties and early sixties AD as Paul tells us that the Gospel was preached to every creature under heaven and was having an effect in all the known world (see Colossians 1:6, 23; Romans 10:16-18; & Romans 16:25-26).

Jesus told them all of these signs would begin occurring before the final end was finally upon them, like labor pains setting an eventual delivery in motion. Today, we move from that initial phase to the active labor that immediately precipitated the end. When Jesus says “Therefore” in Matthew 24:15, He is narrowing His prophetic timeline to the events that would happen just before Jerusalem fell to the Romans, pushing us forward to the year 68 AD. This is what Jesus said:

15 “Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), – Matthew 24:15

Dispensationalism’s New Techni-Colored Temple

Now, for a bit of snark. As insurmountable evidence for a first-century fulfillment has been steadily stacked up high as heaven, the balking futurist will nimbly look right past that colossus towering over him to retort “Wait just a minute! How do you think the temple will be rendered desolate if it is no longer in existence? Can you tell me that?” Just then, with the kind of twinkle of their eye, normally found among a starving predator chasing down some maimed gazelle in the Serengeti, the dispensationalist lunges forward into the attack, asserting: “Clearly, Jesus is talking to you and me about a future Antichrist, who will rise upon the world stage, turn his back on a newly reconstituted Israel, by polluting their newly rebuilt modern temple, with such disgusting abominations that it will be rendered desolate”… “That must be what this passage is saying”, he proudly attests with an air of thinly veiled self-righteousness that was never meant to be hidden. He concludes: “clearly you do not know your Bible.”

I can think of nothing more Biblically illiterate, intellectually pathetic, or downright laughable than the exchange I just hypothesized and yet so many people believe this is exactly what Matthew 24 is talking about. Instead of Jesus answering the disciples’ first-century questions, He must be looking past them to answer ours. Instead of judgment upon that generation, it must be a punishment upon the modern world for some unknown reason. Instead of Herod’s temple being brought under specific covenantal curses for her specific covenantal trespasses and left desolate in a single generation (which is what the text actually says), hermeneutical hula hoops must be jostled incoherently about gyrating hip flexors to even come close to making Jesus mean a future temple. The absurdity, given the mountain of context in favor of a first-century view, is about as hard to stomach as drinking dishwater after the family ate a large Italian dinner.

To be fair, a new shiny temple is the only possible way a futurist could ever claim Matthew 24 applies to the future. It is essential to their entire theological schema. It is the thread, that if pulled, will turn the entire sweater back into a ball of yarn the cat will play with. That is precisely why they will ignore the contextual evidence we have shared that comes right out of this passage. That is why they will scour the recesses of the interwebs looking for evidence of temple blueprints and future construction projects that will begin at any moment. Yet, with the third holiest religious site belonging to the world’s most violent religion standing defiantly in their way, they must adopt the Babylonian mantle of Belteshazzar to ignore that kind of unmistakable writing on the proverbial wall standing right in front of them! And, that is by far the easiest problem standing in their way!

Beyond the unassailable issues found within the context and beyond the even more impossible geopolitical situations found in modern-day Israel is the theological issue created by a new temple, since it would entirely invalidate the Gospel. The New Testament tells us that Christ is the final and perfect sacrifice that was offered for our salvation. It tells us that the blood of bulls and goats were altogether ineffectual for the cleansing of our sins and that they were only types and shadows serving as placeholders until the perfect sacrifice had come! To revert to such a regressive system of lambs and bulls would be akin to a man divorcing his wife to marry the picture of her hanging over the mantle. It is insanity upon insanities to think God would so easily nullify the sacrifice of His dear child in favor of the future blood of smelly livestock and dumb animals.

With all of this evidence before us, we rightly approach Matthew 24:15 fully expecting it to have a first-century fulfillment. This is because we know that no new temple is coming. Second, the context in this chapter has unmistakably led us here. And third, we believe Jesus wasn’t playing games or lying to us when He said “All these things will come upon this generation” (Matthew 24:34). To that end, we will explore the abomination that causes desolation to the Jewish temple and we will begin with the meaning of the words.

Time for Some Definitions

According to the Old Testament, an abomination occurs when one of two deviant things takes place. First, when something sacred is used in the service of or is dedicated unto the worship of an idol, then it becomes an abomination unto God (See Deuteronomy. 7:25; 27:15 for examples). Yet, even when things are offered to the one true God, they may be offered in such an unregulated and disobedient way, that God considers them detestable in His sight (See Leviticus 7:18; Leviticus 10; Deuteronomy 17:1 for examples). Thus, an abomination can be right worship offered to the wrong god or wrong worship offered to the right God.

Knowing this, we can see exactly what Jesus was prophesied in Matthew chapter 24. He is not looking ahead to a twenty-first-century rebuilt temple that will need to be defiled. He is looking at the temple right in front of Him, prophesying that it will be defiled, so much so that it will be left desolate forever. The question we have to wrestle with is did such an event occur in the first century?

The Difference Between A Jewish and Gentile Gospel

The least shocking thing I may say in this blog is that when Jesus spoke to His disciples on the Mount of Olives, He was communicating to them in a very ancient and very Jewish way. It would only make sense for a Jewish Messiah, whose ministry existed 2000 years ago, to think, feel, and communicate to a very ancient group of Jews in ways that were profoundly consistent with their ancient context and Jewish orientation, right? This would naturally make the meaning of this passage much easier to come by if one were ancient, Jewish, or even better yet, both. Therefore, we must be very careful, as modern-day Gentiles, when reading this passage, so that tremendous confusion does not arise from our contextual ignorance.

When Jesus delivered His Olivet Discourse, He employed some of the most richly Jewish language found anywhere in the New Testament. This is especially true in the record given by Matthew, which is by far the most Jewish of all the Gospels.

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