The Pharisees, like many Christians today, want a specific sequence of events, signs to look for with regard to the coming of the Kingdom. Jesus says God's kingdom isn't that sort of thing. It isn't something you look for and point out, 'Look here' or 'Look there'. What does he actually say? Well, what he says has been translated several different ways...God's Kingdom is "within you", "in your midst" and perhaps most accurately "within your grasp". It is something that is before your eyes if you will see, it is something that God holds out to you and longs for you to take hold of, He desires to give it to you.
Then Jesus turns to his disciples and says something like... listen, things are going to get tough, patience will be required, your patience and love may want to give way to foolishness and things that are counterproductive to the Kingdom. People who claim to know what they are talking about will come saying, "Look there!" or "Look here!" Yep, End times event! Get ready! DO NOT FOLLOW THEM. In his day everyone will know, it will be 'like' lightening from one end of the sky to the other. 'But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.'
Jesus has returned to his role as 'son of man'...apocalyptic prophet. What will it be like in the days of the 'son of man'...when Jesus prophetic teachings about the end of this 'world' come to fruition? Like the coming of the flood, so be as those who are prepared...like Sodom, be prepared to leave your whole life behind without looking back. When the son of man is 'revealed' don't worry about your stuff! Run! Get out! Remember Lot's wife? Learn the lesson...whoever would save their life will lose it and whoever would lose their life will save it!
Now what of those who are left and did not get out? One will be taken and the other left...some in recent history have thought that the ones taken will be the blessed ones, but it is the other way around. According to Jesus teaching, it is those who are taken who will be dragged away to torture and death...more later, we need to get into Daniel a bit here...
So, what is all this 'son of man' business? Jesus is referring to a prophesy in Daniel 7 where 'one like a son of man' will be vindicated after suffering. What will be the sign? The destruction of the oppressor, the power that stood in opposition to God and to his purposes. In Daniel, this 'power' is a beast, the fourth beast to be precise, which is the most powerful pagan army. Now Jesus, in a dramatic revelation, the kind that caused Daniel's face to go white and for the prophecy to be sealed up until the Messiah came, is that the 'power' most opposed to God's Kingdom and His Messiah was the Temple system itself and the Pharisees whose thinking and praxis stemmed from that system. This is what Jesus has been saying the entire time of his ministry and here he appeals to Daniel's prophesy to make it exceedingly clear. His vindication will come from the destruction of the city, the temple and those who rejected the Gospel of peace...those who declared, with malice and motive, 'We have no King, but Caesar!'. The Jerusalem leadership denied not only Jesus, but YHVY as their only sovereign. They became one with the 4th beast, with darkened hearts, evil would throw in on itself. With a play on words Jesus says,'Where the vultures are, there, the corpses will be'...the word for vulture is the same as eagle (since they thought vultures were a type of eagle back then)...the symbol of Rome, their 'beloved'.
As our Lord said,"I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for fornication, and marries another woman commits adultery.” So it is that, fornication is cause for divorce. Jesus vindication, the vindication of the Son of Man, will once and for all confirm the New Covenant and make known to the world both the mercy of God found in the Gospel and the judgment of God on this 'world' that stands in opposition to it's true King and the revelation of the Sons of God, the revelation that the creation groans for. Peter tells us that,'no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.' And then he affirms the aforementioned interpretation by saying, "For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?" Salvation came from the Jews, and that is where judgment began as well.
People wonder why Jesus was slaughtered by Rome at Jewish instigation, why the Church was violently persecuted by Jews, why Paul was stoned and beaten and what not...there you have it. Jesus is Lord and they are not.
The destruction of Jerusalem in 70ad by Rome fulfilled all of Jesus' apocalyptic prophecies here in Luke 17. The promise of the Kingdom, however, still stands before you and its gates are opened to the nations, to all who would enter by faith. Indeed, there may be plenty of trials and tribulations before God completely remakes the heavens and the earth, that is not what Jesus is talking about here though. Here is an invitation. An invitation to engage in the 'world to come' in the midst of the world that is, to follow Jesus in giving the good testimony, as our Lord did before Pilate, that all sovereignty answers to YHVY...that our Father's loving, healing reign is not only yours for the grasping, but that He, Himself, is longing for His children to return to Him in Christ. He is longing for the adoring, grateful relationship and help of His Children...like a Father does.
ref. Luke For Everyone
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