Mainstream Christianity will admit that The Olivet Discourse was fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD, yet still insist that this fulfillment was only a “shadow” of a greater future event?
Their position attempts to preserve both the historical fulfillment of 70AD and a futurist expectation at the same time. However, the text itself does not allow this interpretation.
“Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”
MATTHEW 24:34
Jesus did not say that some of these things would be fulfilled, or that there was a shadow fulfillment within that generation. No, He said ALL these things would be fulfilled before that generation passed away. And immediately prior to this statement, Jesus speaks about the great tribulation:
“For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.”
MATTHEW 24:21
If the tribulation of 70AD was simply a shadow fulfillment, then something greater must still come, yet the text explicitly denies that there will ever be another tribulation of that magnitude, with the phrase “nor ever shall be” emphasizing that there is no more repetition of it that we are to await.
Furthermore, the coming of the Son of Man is tied directly to the events of that tribulation:
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened… and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven…”
MATTHEW 24:29–30
The word “immediately” does not allow for a gap of thousands of years. If we are to divide the destruction of Jerusalem from the coming of the Son of Man, we can’t honestly say that we take the sequence Christ Himself established seriously.
Calling these events a “shadow fulfillment” dismisses the importance of these ‘Time Statements’ while preserving traditional futurism, yet the Olivet Discourse is given as one prophetic sequence addressed to one generation, which was the generation Christ was speaking to.
When the plain reading of Scripture states that Christ would return in the generation who He was speaking to, and that some of them standing there would not taste death till they would see Christ return, or even that Caiaphas was told that he would see Christ coming in His kingdom, the people that require more than that to believe the words of Christ, though often times good-intentioned, carry the same mindset of those who were mocking Christ at the cross in Mark 14, saying “Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe”.
And that is what they want, they want to see and then believe, and because they cannot see it in modern history that Jesus returned in 70AD, they believe not. But Jesus said “blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed”.
And the question that then follows, is; who do your put your faith in when it comes to your understanding of eschatology? In Christ and what He said about the timing of His Second Coming? Or in the narrative that modern history wants you to believe? The choice is yours …