A few days before the arrest and Golgotha, Christ brought three disciples - Peter, John and Andrew - to the Mount of Olives, which stretched along the eastern wall of Jerusalem (now directly bordering the Old City), and spoke to them about what Jerusalem will soon have and in the longer term, the whole world. This conversation in biblical studies is usually called eschatological (from the Greek ἔσχατον - "final", "last", and λόγος - "word", "knowledge"), since it deals with the last times or, as they say, about the end of the world …
Here's how this conversation ends:
The Lord's words create the complete impression that all these events - both the calamities that will befall the world and His glorious coming at the end of time - will occur during the lifetime of the then generation of Christians, that is, the apostles. No wonder the Apostle John warned his spiritual children: Children! The last time (1 John 2:18). And all Christian writers of the 1st – 2nd centuries were convinced that they were living in the last times. But 2,000 years have passed since then, and the events predicted by Christ have not yet happened …
How to explain it
All the holy fathers say in agreement: any time should be perceived as the last. Christians at all times are subjected to persecution and temptation, there are always their own antichrists. This is precisely the main purpose of the prophecy about the end times - to call Christians to constant sobriety: Stay awake, because you do not know at what hour your Lord will come (Matt 24:42). It is interesting that Christ Himself several times draws the attention of the apostles to the uncertainty of the time of His Second Coming - for example, here: No one knows about that day and hour, not the angels of heaven, but only My Father (Matt 24:36).
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This phrase will not pass away from this generation, as the holy fathers will interpret all this in different ways, but they generally believe that by “generation” the Lord means His followers. “He is not talking about the generation that lived then, but about the faithful,” explains John Chrysostom. - Genus is designated not only in time, but also in the image of religion and life, as, for example, when it is said: this kind of seekers of the Lord (Ps 23: 6)."
And our close contemporary, the Monk Justin (Popovich) recalls that in the prophecy of the Lord two time layers are combined - the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans (which happened in 70, indeed during the life of many apostles) and the end of human history. Christ speaks of both of them together, because the destruction of Jerusalem is an image of the end of the world (we have already mentioned the eventual parallels characteristic of the entire Bible). Therefore, the word "race" is used here in two senses, continues the Monk Justin: in the narrow sense, they are the contemporaries of the Savior, and in the broad sense, the successors of the apostles, "who through the Church will remain until the end of the world, because they are an immortal Christian race."
Why is this prophecy important?
This entire speech of the Lord, and especially its concluding part, is a call to vigilance and sobriety, relevant to all Christians and at all times. We do not know when the history of this world will come to an end, but the Lord calls us to stay awake and live in accordance with His commandments.
Where else can you hear the words of prophecy?
Fragments of the Gospels, in which the Lord Jesus Christ prophesies about the end times, are read in the church during the liturgy several times throughout the year. In particular, the above passage from the Gospel of Matthew can be heard on Friday, 10th week after Pentecost.
Author: TSUKANOV Igor
The editors would like to thank the Associate Professor of the Department of Biblical Studies of the Orthodox St. Tikhon University for the Humanities, Candidate of Theology Mikhail Anatolyevich Skobelev for help in preparing the material.