Doctrine of the Last Things (Part 10): Delay of the Parousia

Delay of the Parousia

We’ve been talking about the time of the Second Coming of Christ. In our last lesson we saw that we have on the one hand abundant evidence both in Paul as well as from Jesus that the Second Coming of Christ was not something that was going to happen soon. It looked as though a lot had to happen first. Yet we also have some very puzzling sayings of Jesus that seem to suggest that he was predicting his return within the lifetime of his hearers. This problem is known as the delay of the parousia. How can we best deal with this problem?

As you can imagine, there are quite a number of different suggestions that have been made.

For example, the preterist has no problem with these passages because the preterist says these predictions were all fulfilled in AD 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem. When Jerusalem was destroyed all that Jesus had predicted actually happened including the Son of Man’s coming into God’s throne room and receiving the Kingdom.

That is certainly a strength of the Preterist view. It just completely solves the problem of the delay of the parousia by saying that Jesus’ predictions were in fact fulfilled within the lifetime of his hearers. But I’ve already expressed my reservations about the Preterist view and why I just don’t find it to be a plausible interpretation of the biblical text. So, for me at least, it is not an option. I just don’t think that it solves the problem.

Another alternative is the revised prophecy view, which holds that Jesus’ prophecy was simply provisional and that it was susceptible to change. We have in the Old Testament certain examples of prophecies like this. Think, for example, of Jonah’s prophecy to Nineveh in the book of Jonah. What did God tell Jonah to proclaim to the Ninevites? “Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4). The Ninevites had forty days, a specific time limit, and then God’s judgment was going to fall on Nineveh. But the predicted judgement never came. Why not? Because Nineveh repented!^[1] They turned to God and so God stayed his judgment, so that Jonah’s prophecies never came true, much to Jonah’s displeasure, as you may remember.^[2] He wanted to see these pagan Ninevites judged by God. But the prophecy was provisional. If things change then God would not do what he had said he was going to do.

Another example is to be found in 2 Kings 20, the story of King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah. No less than the greatest prophet of the Old Testament – Isaiah – came to King Hezekiah and said, “Set your house in order. The Lord says that you are going to die.” It was an unconditional prophecy that Hezekiah received. But Hezekiah then turned to God in prayer, pled with the Lord, and the Lord said, “Because you have prayed and asked me, I will not end your life as I said I would. I will, in fact, prolong your life for another fifteen years.” So the prophecy was not fulfilled. Once again there was a prophecy given that something was going to happen within a certain amount of time, but then it didn’t happen because the prophecy was changed. It was provisional.

So we do have examples of prophecies that involve time limits that are malleable or changeable as it were. So the suggestion here is that perhaps this was also the case with Jesus’ predictions of his return. Maybe Jesus was prophesying that he would return within the lifetime of his hearers, but then for some reason or another that we don’t know about this return was delayed and delayed and delayed. And we still live in this period of the delay of the parousia. Maybe this is just another instance of prophecies of this nature.

Well, that is possible, I suppose. But the problem with this explanation is that in this case nothing seemed to change that would alter the prophecy. In the case of Nineveh, the people repented, so that God’s judgment of them became inappropriate. In the case of Hezekiah, he turned to the Lord and prayed, and so God stayed his judgment on King Hezekiah. But in the case of Christ’s coming again, it is not as though anything changed; he gave all of these signs, and everything seemed to be happening just as he predicted. So it seems implausible to think that what Christ was giving were merely provisional prophecies that were later revised.

I am going to suggest a different view that doesn’t have a name, so I’ll just give it a name myself – the apparent conflict is due to what I’ll call contextual ambiguity. The idea behind this proposal is the well-known fact that context critically affects interpretation. How a sentence or saying is to be interpreted depends crucially upon the context in which it appears. I think all of us recognize that this is the case. For example, take the statement, “That’s exactly what I think.” That is completely ambiguous unless you know the context in which it is spoken. Context is crucial to interpretation.

Now in the Gospels, it is a well-known fact among New Testament scholars that the Evangelists exercise considerable editorial freedom in giving back the teachings and sayings of Jesus. They will move them around, and sometimes these sayings will appear in different contexts. When they are in these different contexts, they can seem to take on a different meaning. I want to suggest that these passages about the Second Coming of Christ that appear to suggest that Jesus thought this was going to take place within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses is a false impression that could be attributed to this contextual ambiguity.

Let me give you an example in the Gospels that I consider to be a knockdown argument for this sort of contextual ambiguity. What I am referring to here is the mission of the Twelve on which Jesus sends the disciples to preach and to heal. This is a mission that occurs early in Jesus’ ministry. In fact, it is prior to the death of John the Baptist. We read about this mission in Mark 6:7-13.

And he called to him the twelve, and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. And he said to them, “Where you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. And if any place will not receive you and they refuse to hear you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet for a testimony against them.” So they went out and preached that men should repent. And they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them.

Now, there is nothing unusual so far about this mission of the Twelve. It is a preaching and healing mission that Jesus sent the twelve disciples on, and they went out and did what he said and came back, and the rest of the Gospel story continues. But now turn over to Matthew 10 and look at the way Matthew relates the story of the sending of the Twelve in Matthew 10:5-23. Remember that Matthew is using Mark’s Gospel. Mark was the earliest Gospel, and Matthew uses Mark as one of his sources. I want you to notice the editorial freedom that Matthew exercises in using material from Mark’s Gospel.

These twelve Jesus sent out, charging them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And preach as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying, give without pay. Take no gold, nor silver, nor copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor a staff; for the laborer deserves his food. And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it, and stay with him until you depart. As you enter the house, salute it. And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And if any one will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.”

So far Matthew is basically following Mark’s narrative with minor changes . But now look what he inserts in verses 16 and following:

Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men; for they will deliver you up to councils, and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you up, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel, before the Son of man comes.

Now here it sounds as though Jesus is saying that before the mission of the Twelve is completed – before they go through all the towns of Israel – the Son of Man will return.

Where does this extra material that Matthew inserts into the narrative come from? Well, it comes from the Olivet Discourse in Mark 13! Look again at Mark 13:9-13. This is Jesus’ prophecy about the end times:

But take heed to yourselves; for they will deliver you up to councils; and you will be beaten in synagogues; and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them. And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. And when they bring you to trial and deliver you up, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say; but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. And brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.

So what Matthew has done is that he has taken words from Jesus’ Olivet Discourse about the end times and he has inserted them into Jesus’ charge to the disciples for the mission of the Twelve when they go out preaching in the towns of Israel. As a result, it creates the bizarre impression that Jesus is predicting that before they finish their mission the Son of Man will return – the coming of the Son of Man will take place before they have completed their mission! We know that Matthew didn’t believe that, right? Matthew tells about how the disciples come back and report to Jesus. He relates the rest of the Gospel story of Jesus’ ministry and then his death and resurrection. So Matthew knows that the coming of the Son of Man didn’t occur prior to the close of the mission of the Twelve. But because of the context into which he inserts his material borrowed from the Olivet Discourse, it gives the false impression that before they have gone through all the towns of Israel on their preaching mission the Son of Man will return.

I think this is a perfect and remarkable illustration of the kind of contextual ambiguity that I am talking about. A saying about the return of the Son of Man can look as if it means different things when it is read in different contexts. Given the editorial freedom that the evangelists exercise, I’m suggesting that we can’t know for sure that Mark 13:30 meant that before everyone listening to Jesus at that time died, the Son of Man would return. Ironically, I think the best way to solve the problem of the delay of the parousia is not to try to soften the problem; rather you try to sharpen the problem. You point to what Matthew has done in Jesus’ charge prior to the mission of the Twelve in order to see exactly the kind of textual ambiguity that I am speaking of.

Next time we’ll look more closely at Mark 13:30 and Jesus saying about those of his generation to see how this is affected by the original context.^[3]