The Nugget:
Mar 11:22 And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.
My Comment:
Tuesday, Day three of the Passion Week, the 12th day of Nisan on the Jewish calendar, is marked by the return from Bethany to Jerusalem. On the way, the disciples called attention to the fig tree Jesus had cursed the day before when “they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots” (Mark 11:20).
On this day Jesus gave His famed Olivet Discourse, found recorded in Matthew 24 and 25, spoken before and perhaps during the return to Bethany from Jerusalem. This discourse is the longest and most detailed of the prophetic discourses that Jesus gave during His earthly ministry. The discourses are largely misunderstood by many, if not most, interpreters today. For one thing, there is no mention of the Rapture of the Church or living believers in this discourse. For another thing, the references are explicitly Jewish. Many fail to understand what Girdlestone in his book, The Grammar of Prophecy, discusses as the near and the far aspect of prophecy often evident in the same passage. Thus, Preterists mistakenly suppose the entire prophecy was fulfilled by A.D. 70 at the destruction of the Temple. Most interpreters fail to note the setting, whether on the Temple grounds or on the Mount of Olives in the parallel accounts in Matthew and Luke. These things all make a huge difference on how these prophecies are to be interpreted. If we fail to notice these and many other things carefully, we are sure to be mistaken in our understanding of these passages.
The Olivet Discourse is given most fully in Matthew and Luke. The account in Luke takes place before the account in Matthew. Luke presents the prophecy Christ gave that would be largely fulfilled in relatively near-term, and includes 25 or more remarkably specific predictions regarding the Fall of Jerusalem. I have given the precise details of these predictions in an article elsewhere on this site.
Jesus closes His discourse this day with a most important Bible promise and severe warning about our two possible eternal destinies: heaven or hell.
Mat 25:46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
I have discussed Matthew 25:46 on this site in detail. Below, I share a portion of my notes on this verse from The Ultimate Cross Reference Treasury:
everlasting. Gr. aionios, +Mat 18:8. Some go to great length to argue that the punishment threatened here by our Lord Jesus Christ is not truly everlasting or never-ending. Those who argue this way do so in an effort to bolster their mistaken notion of justice and their mistaken view of the character of God (+**Gen 18:25 note). Some quibble over the meaning of “eternal,” arguing from the fact that the word in Scripture is sometimes used in a finite sense (+Psa 24:9 note), and sometimes used in an infinite sense (John 6:54 note). From this fact they justify asserting a limited sense to the duration of everlasting punishment. The answer to this objection is simple. Jesus spoke of two ages, this age, and the age to come. In the King James Version these terms are translated “this world” and “the world to come” in Mat 12:32. When the word “eternal” is applied to things restricted to this age it is used in a finite or limited sense. When “eternal” has reference to things in “the age to come,” it is used in an infinite sense. Clearly God is eternal and will continue to exist in the age to come. Just as eternal life and eternal punishment pertain to and exist in the age to come, so “eternal” in reference to them is used in the infinite, never-ending sense. +*Mat 18:8. Psa 52:5; Psa 92:7, **Isa 33:14; Isa 38:18, +*Dan 12:2, *Mar 3:29, 2Th 1:9, Heb 6:2, *Rev 14:11.
Note the very significant time marker involving the chronology of Passion Week given by Matthew immediately after the close of his record of the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 26:2,
Mat 26:2 Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified.
This was spoken on Tuesday, the third day of Passion Week, the twelfth day of Nisan on the Jewish calendar. Compare this with the notice of time stated by John in John 12:1, “six days before the passover.”