The Coming of the Son of Man in the Apostles' Lifetime (Matthew 10:23)

The Coming of the Son of Man in the Apostles' Lifetime (Matthew 10:23)


Below is the fourth of multiple excerpts of commentary from Parts I and II of The Parousia, the late 19th-century masterpiece on the Second Coming by James Stuart Russell. The initial 31 posts on this blog deal with the Book of Revelation, which is cogently interpreted in Part III of Russell's magnum opus. (For all blog posts, see russellparousia.blogspot.com)

"THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN (THE PAROUSIA) IN THE LIFETIME OF THE APOSTLES. "Matt. x. 23 [Matt. 10:23]: 'But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.' "In this passage we find the earliest distinct mention of that great event which we shall find so frequently alluded to henceforth by our Lord and His apostles, viz. [that is], His coming again, or the Parousia. ...Can it mean, as [Johann Peter] Lange suggests, that Jesus [during his earthly public ministry] was to follow so quickly on the heels of His messengers in their evangelistic circuit as to overtake them before it was completed? Or does it refer, as [Rudolf Ewald] Stier and [Henry] Alford think, to two different comings, separated from each other by thousands of years: the one comparatively near, the other indefinitely remote? Or shall we, with [Johann David] Michaelis and [F.B.] Meyer, accept the plain and obvious meaning which the words themselves suggest? The interpretation of Lange is surely inadmissible. Who can doubt that 'the coming of the Son of man' [Daniel 7:13] is here, what it is everywhere else, the formula by which the Parousia, the second coming of Christ, is expressed? This phrase has a definite and constant signification, as much as His crucifixion, or His resurrection, and admits of no other interpretation in this place. But may it not have a double reference: first, to the impending judgment of Jerusalem; and, secondly, to the final destruction of the world,---the former being regarded as symbolical of the latter? Alford contends for the double meaning, and is severe upon those who hesitate to accept it. He tells us what He thinks Christ meant; but on the other hand we have to consider what He said. Are the advocates of a double sense sure that He meant more than He said? Look at His words. Can anything be more specific and definite as to persons, place, time, and circumstance, than this prediction of our Lord? It is to the twelve that he speaks [Matt. 10:1]; it is the cities of Israel which they are to evangelize [Matt. 10:6, 23]; the subject is His own speedy coming; and the time so near, that before their work is complete His coming will take place. But if we are to be told that this is not the meaning, nor the half of it, and that it includes another coming, to other evangelists, in other ages, and in other lands --- a coming which, after eighteen centuries [now 2,000 years], is still future, and perhaps remote,--- then the question arises: What may not Scripture mean? The grammatical sense of words [it would seem] no longer suffices for interpretation; Scripture is a conundrum to be guessed---an oracle that utters ambiguous responses; and no man can be sure, without a special revelation, that he understands what he reads. We are disposed, therefore, to agree with Meyer, that this twofold reference is 'nothing but a forced and unnatural evasion,' and the words simply mean what they say --- that before the apostles completed their life-work of evangelizing the land of Israel, the coming of the Lord should take place.

"This is the view of the passage which is taken by Dr. E. Robinson. 'By this language our Lord probably intended to intimate, that the apostles would not finish evangelizing the towns of Palestine [during the 1st century], before He should come to destroy Jerusalem and scatter the nation'. So also Dr. A.B. Bruce[:] 'The coming alluded to is the [A.D. 70] destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jewish nation [resulting from the Jewish-Roman war, as recorded by the 1st-century Jewish historian Josephus]; and the meaning is, that the apostles would barely have time, before the catastrophe came, to go over the land warning the people to save themselves from the doom of an untoward generation; so that they could not well afford to tarry in any locality after its inhabitants had heard and rejected the message.'"