Were the Events of A.D. 70 Significant Enough to Confirm the Fulfillment of the Second Coming?

Were the Events of A.D. 70 Significant Enough to Confirm the Fulfillment of the Second Coming?

Below is the 42nd of multiple excerpts from The Parousia, the late 19th-century masterpiece on the Second Coming by James Stuart Russell. [In previous excerpts, posted at the Parousia blog (see link above), Russell has painstakingly shown that an imminent, 1st-century Second Coming was a belief central to Christ's own prophecies and to the teachings of the apostles in the New Testament's epistles and the Book of Revelation. [Russell deals with three key questions in this excerpt: (1) Were Christ and the apostles deluded about the timing of the Second Coming and did God permit this to keep Christians in a state of constant vigilance? (2) Was the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in A.D. 70 merely a preliminary "type" of coming of Christ, one that awaits an ultimate fulfillment at the end of history, resulting in a cosmic cataclysm? (3) Was the prophesied judgment on Old Covenant Israel, which occurred in A.D. 70, significant enough to confirm the fulfillment of the Second Coming and its accompanying events, such as the rapture, the resurrection of the dead, the delivering up of the Kingdom to the Father, and the subduing of death?] Russell's commentary: "But, admitting, what cannot well be denied, that the apostles and early Christians did cherish these expectations [of the Second Coming, imminent to the disciples' lifetime and Jesus' own generation], and that their belief was founded on the teaching of our Lord, the question arises, Were they not mistaken in their expectation? This is practically to ask, Were the apostles permitted to fall into error themselves, and to lead others into a like delusion, with respect to a matter of fact which they had abundant opportunities of knowing; which must frequently have been the subject of conversation and conference among themselves; which they never failed to keep before the attention of the churches, and about which they were all agreed? "There are [Biblical] critics who do not scruple to affirm that the apostles were mistaken, and that time has proved the fallacy of their anticipations. They tell us that either they misunderstood the teaching of their Master, or that He too [as Albert Schweitzer asserted] was under an erroneous impression. This is of course to set aside the claims of the apostles to speak authoritatively as the inspired messengers of Christ, and to undermine the very foundations of the Christian faith. "There are others, more reverential in their treatment of Scripture, who acknowledge that the apostles were indeed mistaken, but that this mistake was, for wise reasons, permitted,—that, in fact, the error was highly beneficial in its results: it stimulated hope, it fortified courage, it inspired devotion. "‘If the Christians of the first centuries,’ says [E.W.] Hengstenberg, ‘had foreseen that the second coming of Christ would not take place for eighteen hundred years [now 2,000 years], how much weaker an impression would this doctrine have made upon them than when they were expecting Him every hour, and were told to watch because He would come like a thief in the night, at an hour when they looked not for Him!’ (Hengstenberg, Christology, vol. iv. p. 443.) "But neither can this explanation be accepted as satisfactory. Unquestionably the first Christians did receive an immense impulse to their courage and zeal from their firm belief in the speedy advent of the Lord; but was this a hope that after all made them ashamed? Must we conclude that the indomitable courage and devotion of a Paul rested mainly on a delusion? Were the martyrs and confessors of the primitive [1st-century] age only mistaken enthusiasts? We confess that such a conclusion is revolting to all our conceptions of Christianity as a revelation of divine truth by the instrumentality of inspired men. "If the apostles misunderstood or misrepresented the teaching of Christ in regard to a matter of fact, respecting which they had the most ample opportunities of information, what dependence can be placed upon their testimony as to matters of faith, where the liability to error is so much greater? Such explanations are fitted to unsettle the foundations of confidence in apostolic teaching; and it is not easy to see how they are compatible with any practical belief in inspiration. "There is another theory [that of "double" or manifold fulfillment], however, by which many suppose that the credit of the apostles is saved, and yet room left for avoiding the acceptance of their apparent teaching on the subject of the coming of Christ. This is, by the hypothesis of a primary and partial fulfillment of their predictions in their own time, to be followed and completed by an ultimate and plenary fulfillment at the end of human history. According to this view, the anticipations of the apostles were not wholly erroneous. Something really did take place that might be called ‘a coming of the Lord,’ ‘a judgment day.’ Their predictions received a quasi fulfillment in the destruction of Jerusalem and in the judgment of the guilty nation [1st-century Israel]. That consummation at the close of the Jewish [Old Covenant] age was a type of another and infinitely greater catastrophe, when the whole human race will be brought before the judgment seat of Christ and the earth consumed by a general conflagration. This is probably the view which is most commonly accepted by the majority of expositors and readers of the New Testament at the present day [the late 19th-century, which is still true as of the 21st century]. "The first objection to this hypothesis is, that it has no foundation in the teaching of the Scriptures. There is not a scintilla of evidence that the apostles and primitive [1st-century] Christians had any suspicion of a twofold reference in the predictions of Jesus concerning the end. No hint is anywhere dropped that a primary and partial fulfillment of His sayings was to take place in that generation, but that the complete and exhaustive fulfillment was reserved for a future and far distant periodry contrary is the fact. What can be more comprehensive and conclusive than our Lord’s words, ‘Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till ALL these things be fulfilled’ [Matt. 24:34, Mark 13:30, Luke 21:32]? [See previous blog postings on the unity and continuity of Matthew 24 (parallels at Mark 13 and Luke 21), also known as the Olivet Discourse.] What critical torture has been applied to these words to extort from them some other meaning than their obvious and natural one! How has genea [the New Testament Greek word for "generation"] been hunted through all its lineage and geneaology to discover that it may not mean the persons then living on earth! But all such efforts are wholly futile. While the words remain in the text their plain and obvious sense will prevail over all the glosses and perversions of ingenious criticism. The hypothesis of a twofold fulfillment receives no countenance from the Scriptures. We have only to read the language in which the apostles speak of the approaching consummation, to be convinced that they had one, and only one, great event in view, and that they thought and spoke of it as just at hand. "This brings us to another objection to the hypothesis of a double, or even manifold, fulfillment of the predictions in the New Testament, viz. [that is] that it proceeds from a fundamentally erroneous conception of the real significance and grandeur of that great crisis [in A.D. 70] in the divine government of the world which is marked by the Parousia [Second Coming]. There are not a few who seem to think that if our Lord’s prophecy on the Mount of Olives [also known as the Olivet Discourse], and the predictions of the apostles of the coming of Christ in glory, meant no more than the destruction of Jerusalem, and were fulfilled in that event, then all their announcements and expectations ended in a mere fiasco, and the historical reality answers very feebly and inadequately to the magnificent [apocalyptic] prophecy [of Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21]. There is reason to believe that the true significance and grandeur of that great event are very little appreciated by many. The destruction of Jerusalem [along with the Temple] was not a mere thrilling incident in the drama of history, like the siege of Troy or the downfall of Carthage, closing a chapter in the annals of a state or a people. It was an event which has no parallel in history. It was the outward and visible sign of a great epoch in the divine government of the world. It was the close of one dispensation and the commencement of another. It marked the inauguration of a new order of things [i.e., the New Covenant age]. The Mosaic economy,—which had been ushered in by the miracles of Egypt, the lightnings and thunderings of Sinai, and the glorious manifestations of Jehovah to Israel,—after subsisting for more than fifteen centuries, was now abolished [at the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in A.D. 70]. The peculiar relation between the Most High and the covenant nation was dissolved. The Messianic kingdom, that is, the administration of the divine government by the Mediator, so far, at least, as Israel was concerned, reached its culminating point. The kingdom so long predicted, hoped for, prayed for, was now fully come. The final act of the King was to sit upon the throne of His glory and judge His people. He could then ‘deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father’ [1 Cor. 15:24]. This is the significance of the destruction of Jerusalem according to the showing of the Word of God. It was not an isolated fact, a solitary catastrophe,—it was the centre of a group of related and coincident events, not only in the material, but in the spiritual world; not only on earth, but in heaven and in hell; some of them being cognisable by the senses and capable of historical confirmation, and others not. "Perhaps it may be said that such an explanation of the predictions of the New Testament, instead of relieving the difficulty, embarrasses and perplexes us more than ever. It is possible to believe in the fulfillment of predictions which take effect in the visible and outward order of things, because we have historical evidence of that fulfillment; but how can we be expected to believe in fulfillments which are said to have taken place in the region of the spiritual and invisible when we have no witnesses to depose to the facts? We can implicitly believe in the accomplishment of all that was predicted respecting the horrors of the siege of Jerusalem, the burning of the temple, and the demolition of the city, because we have the testimony of [1st-century Jewish historian] Josephus to the facts; but how can we believe in a coming of the Son of man, in a resurrection of the dead, in an act of judgment, when we have nothing but the word of prophecy to rely upon, and no Josephus to vouch for the historical accuracy of the facts? "To this it can only be said in reply, that the demand for human testimony to events in the region of the unseen is not altogether reasonable. If we receive them at all, it must be on the word of Him Who declared that all these things would assuredly take place before that generation passed away. But, after all, is the demand upon our faith in this matter so very excessive? A large portion of these predictions we know to have been literally and punctually fulfilled; we recognize in that accomplishment a remarkable proof of the truth of the Word of God and the superhuman prescience that foresaw and foretold the future. Could anything have been less probable at the time when our Lord delivered His prophetic discourse [circa A.D. 30] than the total destruction of the temple, the razing of the city, and the ruin of the nation in the lifetime of the existing generation? What can be more minute and particular than the signs of the end enumerated by our Lord? What can be more precise and literal than the fulfillment of them? "But the part which confessedly has been fulfilled, and which is vouched for by uninspired [non-Biblical] history, is inseparably bound up with another portion which is not so vouched for. Nothing but a violent disruption can detach the one part of this [Olivet Discourse] prophecy [regarding A.D. 70] from the other. It is one from beginning to end—a complete whole. The finest instrument cannot draw a line separating one portion which relates to that generation from another portion which relates to a different and distant period. Every part of it rests on the same foundation, and the whole is so linked and concatenated that all must stand or fall together. We are justified, therefore, in holding that the exact accomplishment of so much of the prophecy as comes within the cognisance of the senses, and is capable of being vouched for by human testimony, is a presumption and guarantee in favour of the exact fulfillment of that portion which lies within the region of the invisible and spiritual, and which cannot, in the nature of things, be attested by human evidence. This is not credulity, but reasonable faith, such as men fearlessly exercise in all their worldly transactions."