And Jesus went forth and went away from the temple, and his disciples came to [him] to point out to him the buildings of the temple.
Jesus had just told Jerusalem that her house is left desolate. Now He leaves the temple, and the disciples come to admire the very buildings He is walking away from.
What is the temple once He is outside it? One writer answers, then turns the point on us:
"And Jesus went out and departed from the temple." For what was it now? A corpse, and nothing more. "See, your house is left to you desolate." … The hearts of the disciples then, as too often now, were fixed on present appearances and on the great show of grandeur in God's service. The glow of old associations was bright before their eyes. But Jesus passes sentence on all that even they admired on earth. In truth, when He left the temple, all was gone that gave it value in the sight of God. Outside Jesus, what is there in this world but vain show or worse?
The tragedy is not about architecture. The disciples point at stones while the God those stones honoured walks away.
This discourse is not a casual incident in the ministry of Christ. It is Christ's closing testimony in the middle of Israel. … The disciples did not see the inward meaning of the Lord's words and action. They came to Him to show Him the buildings of the temple. Their hearts were attached to the earthly system of which it was the centre. But a temple, however splendid, is of no value when its God is disowned. And Jehovah was there in the person of Jesus. The nation did not know Him and did not recognise Him; or if they recognised Him, they rejected Him. He leaves the temple with sorrow, and desolate indeed is what Jehovah forsakes.
Faith in Christ and a heart tied to the old order can sit side by side.
The discourse grew out of the disciples pointing His attention to the splendour of the temple buildings. Their hearts were not yet weaned from those buildings. They believed that Jesus was the Christ. They believed that they were born of God. But their hearts stayed tied to Israel's hopes until the day He ascended to heaven.
Losing the temple meant losing far more than a landmark.
The Lord does not try to turn their eyes away from the object that held them. Instead He foretells the complete destruction of what seemed to be the indestructible palace of their religion. The temple was needed for carrying out the duties that religion imposed. It was also the required place for the offerings, and those offerings were the only means of putting the people in relationship with God. All was about to be destroyed, from top to bottom. Their religion, and all their relations with God under the ancient covenant that centred on the temple, would be entirely abolished with it.
Prophecy can be treated as facts to collect. The Lord's opening words point to another use.
All that we have been reading, from Matthew 21:23, had taken place in the temple precincts. Now, in Matthew 24:1, Jesus departed. The disciples wanted to call His attention to some of its splendid buildings. Their words only drew from Him the prediction that the temple would be levelled to its foundations. … The first words of His reply show what His predictions are for. They are meant to forewarn and forearm us. They are not meant merely to feed our curiosity, or even our thirst for accurate knowledge. We are to take heed to ourselves.
Rome carried out the sentence not many years later.
Not many years later (in A.D. 70) the Romans destroyed the city and burned the temple. It remained in ruins for many years. Then, it is reported, the Emperor Julian "the apostate" ordered the Jews to return and rebuild the temple. He had once embraced Christianity, then turned on Christ with scorn, and his aim was to prove the Lord's prophecy false. However, finding the building so badly damaged, the Jews decided to take it all away and build anew. It was fully demolished then, but they were prevented from even beginning to build again. So the effort to prove the prophecy false became the very means of proving it true!
- He leaves. Jesus walks out. The temple keeps its stones and loses everything that gave it value before God — a corpse, not a sanctuary.
- They look. The disciples admire what He is leaving. Their hearts were still tied to Israel's hopes.
- He judges. The temple would be levelled to its foundations. With it went the whole system of offerings and covenant relationship centred there.
- History confirms. Rome burned it in A.D. 70. A later emperor tried to disprove the words and finished the demolition instead.
- We take heed. The Lord gives prophecy to forewarn and forearm His people, not to satisfy curiosity. Our first duty is to take heed to ourselves.
And he answering said to them, Do ye not see all these things? Verily I say to you, Not a stone shall be left here upon a stone which shall not be thrown down.
Jesus has just walked out of the temple for the last time. His disciples point at its splendid stonework, and He answers with a sentence of total demolition.
The disciples missed what His words and His walking out meant. One writer explains why the splendid building no longer counted:
The disciples did not see the inner meaning of the Lord's words and action. They came to show Him the buildings of the temple. Their hearts were tied to the earthly system that had the temple at its centre. But a temple, however splendid, has no value when its God is disowned. Jehovah was there in the person of Jesus, and the nation did not know Him or recognise Him; and if they did recognise Him, they rejected Him. He leaves the temple with sorrow, and whatever Jehovah leaves is truly desolate.
His leaving did more than move Him outside:
Jesus leaves the temple, and leaves it for ever. It is a solemn act, and we may say that it carried out the judgment He had just pronounced. The house was now desolate. The disciples draw His attention to the magnificent buildings, and Jesus announces to them its complete destruction.
Another writer asks what the building had become, now that its Lord had gone out of it:
"Jesus left the temple and was going away." What was it now? A corpse, and nothing more... The hearts of the disciples then, as too often now, were taken up with what they could see, and with the great show of grandeur in God's service. All the memories attached to the place made it shine in their eyes. But Jesus passes sentence on all of it, admired as it was even by them. When He left the temple, everything that gave it value in God's sight was gone. Outside Jesus, what is there in this world but empty show, or worse?
Believing Jews felt the weight of this. Their temple had fallen once before, but the charge behind this ruin was different:
The rejected Messiah passes sentence. Believing Jews found it most solemn to hear, for they rightly saw the temple as the great public witness on earth to the one true God and His worship. It had been destroyed once before, when reigning sons of David turned away from God and made it the seat of Gentile idols... This time it fell not because of idols, but because the Jews first refused their own Jehovah-Messiah and then had Him crucified by Gentiles.
Forty years later the Roman commander tried to save the building.
When Titus captured Jerusalem, he was very anxious to spare the Temple, with all its splendour and religious associations. So the question was this. Would the word of Titus stand — a successful general at the head of a powerful army, proud after victory — or would the prophecy our Lord made forty years before come true?... A soldier stood on the shoulder of a comrade and managed to throw a torch through a door in the wall that led to the rooms on the north side of the Temple. Titus would have stopped this, for he did not want to destroy what was the glory of the whole world. But the fire spread, fanned by a storm.
Commentators differ on whether the Roman fire finished the work. One traces a longer story: an emperor tried to prove Christ wrong and completed the ruin instead.
The Romans destroyed the city and burned the temple. It lay in ruins for many years. Then, it is reported, the Emperor Julian "the apostate" ordered the Jews to return and build the temple again, in order to prove the Lord's prophecy false. This Julian had once embraced Christianity and then turned against Christ with scorn. But the Jews found the building so badly damaged that they decided to clear it all away and build new. So it was fully demolished then, and they were stopped before they could even begin to build again. The effort to prove the Lord's prophecy false was the very means of proving it true!
This word about the stones opens the long prophecy that fills the rest of the chapter. One writer marks out its subject:
Matthew 24 is very clearly taken up not with the church, as such, but with Jerusalem and the temple, the close of the age, the clash of nations and kingdoms, famines, plagues, earthquakes, persecutions, and trials... That is the general picture down to verse 14. After that, the scene becomes more specific in time, place, and circumstances.
- Rejection. The stones fell because the nation refused its own Messiah and had Him crucified. The earlier ruin came from idols in the house; this one did not.
- Departure. Christ walked out, and that act carried out the sentence He had spoken. What God leaves is already desolate, however grand it still looks.
- Emptiness. With Him outside, the building was a corpse. The disciples admired the grandeur and missed Him. Readers can still do the same.
- Fulfilment. Titus wanted the temple saved; a soldier's torch and a high wind decided otherwise. A general's word lost to Christ's word.
- Sequel. From this one sentence the chapter opens out into prophecy about Jerusalem, the temple, and the close of the age.
And as he was sitting upon the mount of Olives the disciples came to him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be, and what is the sign of thy coming and [the] completion of the age?
Jesus has just left the temple and told His disciples that not one stone of it would be left on another. Now He sits on the Mount of Olives, and they come to Him alone. They ask three questions, and the wording of those questions shapes everything He says next.
One writer, comparing this with the parallel account in Mark, points out who the teaching was for.
As the Lord Jesus sits on the Mount of Olives, Peter, James, John and Andrew ask Him privately when all these things will take place, and what sign they should look for. As in Matthew 24:3, the Lord gives His outline of prophetic events not to the crowd, but to disciples — and here in Mark, to disciples who are deeply concerned. No one ever understands prophecy rightly without serious spiritual exercise.
The news that the temple would fall struck at everything they expected of their Messiah.
They were disturbed and distressed by such a thought. Was He not the Messiah? Was He not going to establish Israel? Was He not about to restore the tribes — who had waited so long — to their place as God's chosen nation? What, then, did such solemn words mean, that everything was to be levelled to the ground?
The verse holds three questions. One of them is never answered.
The disciples ask a question with three parts. When will these things be? What is the sign of Your coming? What of the completion of the age? It matters greatly to see that the record of the discourse, as the Holy Spirit gives it, passes over the answer to the first question, "When will these things be?" We can tell this, because the Lord says nothing in the discourse about Jerusalem or the destruction of the temple.
Another writer explains why the Lord left the timing aside:
Their first question is, "When will these things be?" But He does not tell them the time. What mattered then were the facts, not just the timing — and they could not have grasped the timing until they knew their own place (as the body of Christ) in God's purposes.
The phrase "the end of the age" needs care. Everything depends on which age the disciples had in mind.
When the Lord uses it, He is not speaking of Christianity, which had not yet begun. When His disciples said "the age," they had no thought about Christianity. They meant the Jewish age, the age in which the Messiah was expected — the age of the law, lasting until the Messiah would come for the Jews. Their question was: when will the end of that age come?
Those who asked knew the difference. Their hope stretched to the earth itself — and that hope is what made them ask for a sign:
The Jews were not as ignorant on this point as many today who have less excuse. They did not confuse the end of the age with the end of the world. They knew well that God meant to bless this earth — to bless it as a whole. Not only His children passing through it, but the nations and the earth itself. He would overthrow Satan's stolen rule, and free the whole creation from the bondage of the curse. So the disciples, who as Jews rested all their nation's hopes on prophetic testimony, were anxious to know the sign of His coming or presence, and of the end of the time of sorrow and distress in between. They knew that desolation can only end when He comes in power and glory.
The Greek word behind "coming" carries more than arrival.
The word "coming" here, and often elsewhere, is parousia. It means not just the arrival, but the state of being present — that is, "presence." Still, a person who is now absent must come in order to be present. So "coming" is often given as the English equivalent, fairly enough, though "presence" is the full meaning.
It helps to stand where these men were standing when they asked.
They were not yet the Church... When the disciples stood with Him on the Mount of Olives, they were just a handful of Jewish believers. In the face of their whole nation, they were sure that the lowly Nazarene was the expected Messiah... The coming they mean here is certainly not the descent into the air — "the blessed hope" — for He had not yet said one syllable about that. The disciples had in mind the glorious appearing, which prophets and psalmists had written about in glowing terms and at length long before their day.
- Private — The Lord teaches this apart from the crowd, to disciples. No one understands prophecy rightly without serious spiritual exercise.
- Provoked — Distress drives the question, not curiosity. If the temple falls, what becomes of the promised kingdom?
- Threefold — They ask three questions. The Lord passes over the first: they needed facts, not dates.
- Age, not world — "The end of the age" closes a set period. It is not the end of the earth — an earth God means to bless.
- Presence — "your coming" is parousia, His being present again. The men asking looked for His appearing in glory. They knew nothing yet of the church's hope.