The Nugget:
Mat 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
My Initial Comment:
This verse (Matthew 24:34) appears to be one of the main “proof texts” of those who believe in a prophetic school known as preterism.
In notes I have provided in my Bible study resource, The Ultimate Cross Reference Treasury, I describe preterism this way in my note on Revelation 4:1,
Interpreters differ widely in their understanding of the book of Revelation. Four major schools or systems of interpretation have been:
(1) the preterist, which takes all the events in the book to have been fulfilled in John’s own day, the position held by many respected scholars and critics;
(2) the historicist, which understands the prophecy to be in continuous fulfillment from John’s day to the end of history;
(3) the idealist, or spiritual scheme of interpretation, which takes the prophecies not as prophetic of future events but places a “spiritual” interpretation upon them, believing they reveal timeless truth about the conflict between good and evil, the spiritual history of the church, the ultimate victory of Christ over the powers of darkness, and are meant to provide spiritual comfort in times of trial;
(4) the futurist, which holds that the majority of the book deals with end-time events which are still future.
Most Bible-believing Christians today would probably opt either for the historicist or the futurist position of interpretation. The historicist position is reflected in the original notes of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
The historicist position suffers from the inability of interpreters of this school to arrive at provable and consistently agreed upon events in world history which fulfill the prophecies. The method requires the student of Revelation to go outside the Bible and seek for the fulfillment of predictions in the past events of world history, and to one not well taught in history the method is impossible to carry out, leaving the book of Revelation largely closed to the ordinary reader.
The futurist position suffers, in the opinion of some, because it makes the book largely inapplicable to the original readers of the book, or to anyone since then, since the events are all placed in the future. A sufficient answer to such an objection is that the practical object of prophecy is to motivate us to holy living in watchful expectation of our Lord’s return (+**Luk 21:36, **2Pe 3:14), and Scripture itself teaches us that we have “a more sure word of prophecy” to serve as a light in dark times (2Pe 1:19).
All Bible prophecy was written with both a near and a distant vantage point. A prophet predicted some things which transpired during his own lifetime, as verification that he was a true prophet of God (Deut 18:22), but also spoke of things in the distant future, which only the passing of time could verify (see the excellent discussion of these matters in R. B. Girdlestone, The Grammar of Prophecy, Chapter 3, “Tests of the Truth of Prophecy,” pp. 16-24).
The futurist position is the only position which can be entirely consistent in interpreting the prophecies of the book of Revelation in harmony with the rest of the prophecies of the Bible. Any system of prophetic interpretation, to be correct, must follow a consistent principle of literal interpretation for all of Scripture (using the same principle for prophetic as is used for non-prophetic portions), and must appeal to Scripture (not tenuous and unsubstantiated historic parallels) for its justification (+*Isa 8:20).
What John writes in Revelation corresponds to the predictions in the Old Testament (Isa 11:11 note), the prophetic discourses of Christ himself, such as the most significant Olivet discourse in Matthew 24 and parallels [Mark 13 and Luke 21], and the prophetic teaching of the Apostle Paul (Tit 2:13 note).
Futurists, consistent with the divinely provided divisions of the book of Revelation (Rev 1:19), place the events of chapters 4—22 in the future, understanding them to be events particularly connected with the Seventieth Week of Daniel’s prophecy (+*Dan 9:27 note), and the time of the Great Tribulation. Futurists are correct in understanding Bible prophecy to be a self-consistent whole, and interpret the book of Revelation in the light of the rest of the covenants and prophecies of Scripture, and find the explanation of the book of Revelation to be contained in the rest of Scripture, and the method of interpretation which is most satisfactory to be a comparison of Scripture with Scripture (2Pe 1:20 note). **Rev 1:19, *Gen 41:25, >Dan 2:29.
What prompted this post
A very astute friend on Facebook recently created and posted a “meme” consisting of just two Bible references:
Matthew 24:34
Revelation 21:4
When I turned to these two references in my Bible I believe I recognized the point of the meme immediately:
Mat 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Rev 21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
My Comment:
Full Preterists believe that all the prophecies in the New Testament were completely fulfilled at or by the time of the destruction of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, within the time frame of those living when our Lord Jesus Christ predicted in Matthew 24:34–the “this generation,” for a generation is usually said to be 40 years, and these events all took place within 40 years of the time Jesus spoke this prophecy in 30 or 33 AD.
The answer to this very mistaken position is found in Revelation 21:4, where it is very clear that the prophecy given there has not yet been fulfilled:
Rev 21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
We still have tears. We still experience physical death. We still experience sorrow. We still experience pain. These things have not yet passed away!
Those “preterists” who recognize this take shelter by saying they are “partial preterists.”
I have spent more than a full month of late reading the scholarly volumes written by preterists in support of their position (whether “full” or “partial”). They think the “futurists” are dead wrong and all mixed up. I believe it is the preterists, of whatever variety, who are themselves dead wrong and all mixed up!
There is an ongoing discussion about these things on this site where a number of preterists among others are discussing these subjects and more. It is in the comment section of the article I wrote about Genesis 12:3. To reach the page, just type into the search box the Bible reference Genesis 12:3.