Some months ago a wrote the result of my rereading of Matthew 24 and shared it with some friends.That study written in French is available (in two formats PDF and Word) and you may have it at your request. I have started to translate it in English and my intent is to progressively publish the translated version. I will be grateful to you and I highly wish you should react to that study and tell me the flaws and the possible errings you discover in my arguments and methodology.. I submit to you in this publication, the introduction, which is the way I involved in that study and the characteristics of Matt.24 prophecy. The subsequent parts, as I announced, will follow.
MATTHEW 24: REREADING THE SIGNS OF OUR TIME
(Ndombo Guy Josia)
What happened to my village ?
The campus of Cosendai Adventist University is at Nanga-Eboko; there also is my village. Whoever wants to study the story of Adventism in Cameroon cannot avoid Nanga-Eboko. It is the place chosen by the Adventist pioneers in 1926 as their missionary base. The place developed and grew over the years and now provides a base for the Adventist University. The problem is that if you come now to Nanga-Eboko, you will discover that the Advent faith is no more vibrant: no zeal for evangelism, behaviours, and lifestyle contrary to the Adventist message. What happened to my village?
We were told that o their arrival, the first missionaries planted palm trees and told their converts that before those palm trees start to produce, Jesus will return! The thing is just that the trees grew up, they produced and became old. Jesus did not come and the villagers started to cut down the palm trees and make wine from it. Alcoholism is now one of the biggest problems of the Adventist cradle in Cameroon. When you are now preaching about the coming of Jesus, people laugh at you and show you the palm trees, telling you that more than 80 years before you, the white missionaries were telling the same story you are trying to tell.
The problem of Adventism in Nanga-Eboko just illustrates the problem we reap as a result of preaching the return of Jesus without any possible delay[1]. The problem is that, for modern people used to speed, the notion of time is very specific: “soon” means a span of time not long at all! And when people see more than fifty years passing, they start to question, not their notion of time, but our credibility and genuineness. Worse than that, the message of the return of Jesus is no more trusted, just because people suspect that we have been wrong and we deceived them. As a result, they become indifferent and insensible to the message of the Coming of Jesus Christ[2].
Thus we are facing an important problem! Most of our gospel preachers, with more impact by the use of the media of our time, are still preaching the nearness of the coming of Jesus as urgent, raising many events as signs of His Return. We are not facing here a mere problem of methods of evangelism; we need to re-evaluate our understanding of the nearness of Jesus’ coming.
We need to reach the balance of keeping in mind the return of Jesus—in a future time we are approaching everyday no matter the unknown time—without focussing to much on the events we could interpret as the signs of His coming. It is wise and imperative to understand that “to hype the end on the basis of wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, AIDS, and mathematical calculations is to distract people from the central message of the New Testament about the end.[3]”
Without denying the message of the imminent end, we must remember that our Lord himself said: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.”(Matt.24:36[4]). Jesus also responded to His disciples: “"It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.” (Ac.1:7, NIV). We must recognize that even the first Christians lived with that tension, believing that they were living near the end—they were even mocked on their belief on the return of Jesus (cf. 2Peter 3)—without giving up their blessed hope in the return of Jesus or distorting its message.
All this raises the problem of our general reading of the signs of the end, especially the interpretation of Matthew 24. That chapter is the one most people use to base their vision of the signs of Jesus coming. We want to try to reread Matt.24, in humility and unpretentious that we have the whole truth on the matter or that we have been specially illuminated. Our conviction is that the message[5] of Matt.24 is useful for the growth of our faith and the preservation of the credibility of the unfailing message of the coming of Jesus.
Matthew 24: A Strange Prophecy
The text of Matt.24 is important among the prophecies of the end of the world. Before studying that chapter, we must know the type of prophecy we are facing. That determination is important to understand many of the features of the text. It is usually said that the prophecies of the Bible are divided into two categories: general (or classic) prophecies and apocalyptic prophecies. In the following chart, we summarize the characteristics of each type of prophecy[6].
| General /Classical Prophecy | Apocalyptic Prophecy |
| Present and End-Time Events Mixed (Prophetic telescoping) | Series of Historical Events (with no gap between the local setting and the final end or stages of different fulfilment) |
| Short-Range View | Long-Range View |
| Dual (Multiple) Fulfilment | Single Fulfilment |
| Focus: Immediate (national, local, contemporary) | Focus: Universal Sweep of History with emphasis on the End-Time |
| Local Situation in View | Whole Span of History |
| Conditional | Determined (Unconditional) |
| Eschatology: Within history (national, Geopolitical, ethnic) | Eschatology: comes from outside of history (final, universal) |
| Some contrasts | Striking contrasts (dualism)__temporal (this age/age to come)__spatial (heavenly/ earthly)__ethic (righteous/wicked) |
| Limited symbolism with true-to-life imagery | Profuse, composite symbolism, including cryptic Numbers |
| Basis: “word of the Lord” (plus some visions) | Basis: visions/dreams, angel interpreter |
On the basis of this chart, the identification of the type prophecy of Matt.24 is not simple. The text has usually been taken as apocalyptic[7] even though we have to admit the lack of some apocalyptic key elements in this prophecy. We can take note that Jesus is clearly predicting a long future. His predictions, even though they are marking the fall of Jerusalem, are clearly sweeping the whole span of history from the first century to the end of the world. The prophecy of Matt.24 is also fixed, unconditional, since there is no response waited from individuals in order to change the prophecy or make it inapplicable. These elements characterize the apocalyptic prophecy.
On the other hand, we should also observe that there is a prophetic telescoping and multiple realizations. It is noteworthy to mention that the events of the section 8-14 in particular have been repeating in history. The verses are even the ones rendering difficult the sequencing of Matthew 24. We cannot fail to recognize that many events depicted in Matt.24 were already realized before the destruction of Jerusalem and they are still occurring in our days.
On the eschatology we have two ends in Matt.24: the one of Jewish nation and the one of the whole world. All these characteristics can lead one to say that this prophecy is not apocalyptic. More to these elements, one of the striking facts in Matt.24 is the absence of symbolism or cryptic numbers as is usually the case in apocalyptic prophecies. Also, the prophecy is not a series of visions or dreams; we don’t see celestial beings, the angel interpreter, symbolic animals, etc.
We are thus coming to realize that this prophecy is different from the usual apocalyptic and general prophecies. In these prophecies, the prophet uses to be the one to deliver the message, but here Jesus Himself is directly teaching about the future! This direct message obeys the logic of His other speeches where He was not teaching like the other teachers (cf. Matt.7:29; Luke 20:21; John 3:2).
Having said that, we conclude that Matt.24 contains some elements of general prophecy (like the double application) which will permit to situate some events historically, but we will not also forget the fact that this prophecy is sweeping all history and climaxes at the end of the world.
[1] The problem is general: A missionary lady from US asked me recently why so many people predicted that Jesus would come in the year 2000 and the time is now far behind.
[2] Jon Paulien, What the Bible Says About the End-Time (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 1998), p.153 has noticed that “Proclaiming the absolute nearness of the End tends to produce the opposite of the intended effect… As dates pass and current events change, people become more cynical about anyone who thinks about the end.” I want to recommend once more that book to everybody. From my point of view that book is the best one to give us a clear and balanced vision of the end and how to live as we are waiting our Saviour.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Unless indicated otherwise, Bible quotations are from The New King James Version (NKJV). Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.
[5] Professor Paulien reaches the conclusion that watching and being ready every day is the most important message of that chapter. We adhere to that conclusion and we believe with him that: “The perpetual nearness of His coming motivates us to continual readiness and eager expectation. The lack of a specific time or datable sequence of events warns us not to be distracted by current events or creative calculations, but to be faithful in everyday duties” (ibid., p.86)
[6] This chart is based on the articles of Richard M. Davidson, “Interpreting Old Testament Prophecy” and Jon K. Paulien, “The Hermeneutics of Biblical Apocalyptic” in George W. Reid, ed., Understanding Scripture : An Adventist Approach Biblical Research Institute Studies, vol.1 (Silver Spring, MD : Biblical Research Institute, 2006), pp.184-85, 248-49. The article of William G. Johnsson, “Biblical Apocalyptic,” Handbook of Seventh-Day Adventist Theology, Raoul Dederen, ed., Commentary Reference Series, vol.12 (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 2000), pp.784-814 should also be read.
[7] See for instance Handbook of Seventh-Day Adventist Theology, p.785.
