Dr William Lane Craig is a prominent Christian philosopher, debater and author who has done a lot of good work in the area of philosophy and specialises in debating atheists and secularists. He is a good communicator and debater, remains calm under pressure and is gentlemanly and gracious in his conduct. Recently, on his Reasonable Faith website he provided a response to a question sent to him by someone named Jessie, on "Was Jesus a Failed Eschatological Prophet?". I think his response was somewhat lacking and reveals a potential weakness in his theology that could be exploited by the sceptics. When trying to deal with the problem of Jesus teaching He would return in the first century, but apparently not fulfilling that prediction, both Dr Craig's answer and that of many modern evangelicals is to fudge on the time statements. Both Jessie and his sceptical antagonists know that Jesus clearly taught a first century return, and clever sceptics will have a field day with modern evangelical attempts to side step this issue by trying to claim that the time statements are not clear.
With the above observations in mind, I thought I would throw in my two cents worth on this issue. Being a blog post, I will try to keep it short and concise. Jessie in his question is correct when he states that Jesus was clearly talking about his contemporary generation in Matt 24:34. When evangelicals say it is unclear, I think they do so to preserve their futurist paradigm, not because of sound exegesis. There is nothing ambiguous about the timing of the return of the Jesus or of the context of the passage. The passage starts off with a question about the destruction of the Herodian temple, which was fulfilled in AD70. The Olivet Discourse is Christ's response to that question and he bookends the discourse by saying to his first century audience "I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened". I somehow don't think his original audience would have been thinking "Of course, he must be talking about some distant future generation 2000 years removed from us", especially when he had told them that they would hear of wars and rumours of wars (Matt 24:6), that they would see the abomination of desolation (Matt 24:15), and would need to flee to the mountains (Matt 24:16). Furthermore, if this was a world ending event what good would fleeing to the hills do? In contrast, this admonition would make perfect sense in relation to the destruction of Jerusalem, where running to the hills would enable the Christians to escape the coming destruction of the city. The early Church Father and historian Eusebius in his "History of the Church", tells us that the Christians fled Jerusalem (Book 3 paragraph 5). Also in the same passage he applies the prophecy of the abomination of desolation to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in AD70. The parallel verse of Matt 24:15, found in Luke 21:20 further confirms the first century application of this prophecy when he describes the abomination of desolation as "When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near". Luke writing for a more gentile audience puts the abomination of desolation in layman's terms, so to speak. This would have helped his audience more clearly understand what was being talked about. Regarding the coming of the Son of Man on the clouds (Matt 24:30), the application of this to the destruction of Jerusalem fits the "this generation" , first century timeframe; and is also consist with the nature of fulfilment for this type of language in the Old Testament that Jesus's audience would have been well familiar with. In the Old Testament there were a number of passages using apocalytic language describing God coming on the clouds, or mountains splitting, or the sun, moon and stars being blacked out; that are applied to an event of judgement where God uses an invading army to bring judgement on a wicked city or nation. Examples include Isaiah 13 especially vv: 6-13 (destruction of Babylon, cf vv:1 and 17-19), Isaiah 19:1ff (destruction of Egypt), and Micah 1:3-16 (destruction of Samaria and Jerusalem). Josephus also relates that at the time of Jerusalem's destruction an incredible phenomenon appeared in the sky: "for before sun setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities" (Flavius Josephus, "The Wars of the Jews", 6:5:3). So when Luke talks about signs in the sun, moon and stars (Luke 21:25), I think this event could be argued to be the literal fulfilment of that.
I am not sure how Dr Craig can say that Matt 10:23 was probably a saying about the end of the world. It is what it says, a statement to Jesus' first century disciples about how he would return before they had finished going through the cities of Israel. Thankfully He kept his word and returned in AD 70. There is no confusion in either Jesus or Matthew's mind about first century fulfilment and "end times" because the end times were in the first century. The writer to the Hebrews, writing in the first century said "in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son..." (Heb 1:2). Evidently, the writer to the Hebrews believed that the last days were already a present reality in the first century. John is even more specific. In 1 John 2:18 he says that "it is the last hour". Not only was it the last days in the first century, it was the last hour. Furthermore, in 2 Tim 3, when Paul wrote to Timothy to warn him about last days apostates, he warned Timothy to have nothing to do with them. If Timothy was warned to have nothing to do with them, it is probable they were already on the scene when Timothy was alive in the first century. Peter also wrote about these apostates (2 Peter 2) and Jude, in a passage very similar to Peter's, said that these false teachers had already come on the scene (Jude 4).
Dr Craig's attempt to quote passages such as Matt 24:45-51 to argue for a large interval of time doesn't work. The delay mentioned in this passage is delay within the lifetime of the wicked servant, one human lifetime or generation, not thousands of years. The master returns within the lifetime of the servant who saw him leave, not when his distant relatives are alive many centuries later. Interestingly enough, in this passage it is the wicked servant who says "My master is delayed". Most evangelicals seem to follow the wicked servant's lead in believing that their master is delayed in His return. In fact they go even further than the wicked servant, stretching out the delay to thousands of years. The other parables that Dr Craig appeals to (Luke 12:35-47 and Matthew 25:1-13) to argue for parousia delay also don't work for the same reasons as above, that is the Lord returns in the lifetime of the same people who saw him leave. Furthermore, Hebrews 10:37 contradicts the idea of parousia delay by teaching that the return of Jesus would occur (relative to the first century readers of Hebrews) in just a very little while and He would not delay.
Dr Craig assumes that a number of the events in the Olivet Discourse were not fulfilled in the first century, however it can be shown by Scripture and history that certainly Matthew 24:1-34 was fulfilled in the first century, and possibly even the remaining verses of the discourse after v34 as well. This will be the subject of future posts on the Olivet Discourse where I will work through the passage in more detail. Also the context of the Olivet Discourse will be examined in greater detail, as Matthew 21-23 contain a number of predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem (such as the destruction of the murderers city in 22:7 and the desolation of the Pharisees house in 23:38) and this section forms important context for Matthew 24.
Dr Craig assumes that a number of the events in the Olivet Discourse were not fulfilled in the first century, however it can be shown by Scripture and history that certainly Matthew 24:1-34 was fulfilled in the first century, and possibly even the remaining verses of the discourse after v34 as well. This will be the subject of future posts on the Olivet Discourse where I will work through the passage in more detail. Also the context of the Olivet Discourse will be examined in greater detail, as Matthew 21-23 contain a number of predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem (such as the destruction of the murderers city in 22:7 and the desolation of the Pharisees house in 23:38) and this section forms important context for Matthew 24.
In conclusion, there is no reason to fudge on the time statements. There is no reason to think that the Biblical writers were confused, going back and forth between near future first century fulfilment and distant future fulfilment in the same few verses. The only solution to the so-called parousia delay problem is fulfilment, fulfilment in the first century time frame that Jesus and the Apostles talked about. This being the case, we are not getting raptured out of here any time soon, with the last days being past days. Therefore, this makes Dr Craig's work, and the work of the church, of witnessing to and debating the world with a Biblical worldview all the more important. If he were to reform his view on eschatology to a fulfilled view (Preterist), it would strengthen his responses to the sceptics and eliminate a potential weak link in his argumentation.
