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Logos Bible Software Chapter Five Are These the Last Days? R. C. Sproul
Chapter Five
THE DAY AND THE HOUR
Imagine getting a call at four o’clock in the afternoon from a robber. He says to you, “In order to make things fair, I wanted to let you know that at eight o’clock tonight I’m going to break in to your house and rob you blind.” If you took him seriously, what would you do? You’d have the whole police department waiting for the robber, and you’d probably arm yourself to protect your family and possessions. Jesus makes a similar point as He continues in the Olivet Discourse.
But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. (Matt. 24:36–44)
The plot thickens as we arrive at this portion of the Olivet Discourse, and the difficulties in interpretation are not slowing down in the least. Jesus seems to be shifting His emphasis at this point in the text. Some commentators believe that until verse 35, Jesus had been simply speaking about the destruction of Jerusalem. But at this point in the text, He shifts His attention to matters concerning His ultimate coming at the time of the consummation of His kingdom. Others argue that even the previous passages that refer to His coming in glory did not refer to His coming in AD 70, but rather to His final, climactic coming at the end of history. Still others maintain that Jesus is following a prophetic pattern from the Old Testament.
Oftentimes with Old Testament prophecy there would be a near fulfillment, but also an ultimate fulfillment in the future. This particular passage has also been seen as a rebuttal to my position that these matters have already taken place in the past.
It is important to remember that this whole discourse was provoked by Jesus’ announcement that the temple would be destroyed in Jerusalem. In light of this announcement, the disciples asked Him two questions. First, “When will these things take place?” and second, “What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
It would be much easier if Jesus had answered the first question with the signs that He gives—famines, earthquakes, and wars—and then finished by saying, “This generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (v. 34), and only then went on to speak about His coming. Unfortunately for the task of interpretation, He says, “all these things.” Most would believe that “all these things” would refer to all three events—the destruction of the temple, the destruction of Jerusalem, and Christ’s coming. This is the issue that has provoked so much skepticism and criticism of both Jesus and the trustworthiness of the Bible.
I’m amazed by this skepticism. My understanding of Jesus’ words is that He is essentially saying, “I can tell you these things are all going to take place within the next forty years but I don’t know what year, month, day, or hour.” In chapter one, I used the illustration of predicting the demise of the United States within twelve months but not knowing the specific day or hour in no way negates the veracity of the prediction. Therefore, the first thing we see in this text is that Jesus does not retreat from His first prediction about the fulfillment of the things He prophesied.
In addition, many readers are bothered when Jesus says He doesn’t know the day or the hour. If that is the case, how could He know that it would be within forty years? It would require supernatural knowledge to be able to predict the destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem with such astonishing accuracy. Why would His supernatural abilities be limited to generalities? Why can’t Jesus give us more specific details?
This isn’t much of a problem if we have an orthodox understanding of the incarnation. The Council of Chalcedon in AD 451 clearly acknowledged the mysterious nature of the incarnation, confessing Christ as having two natures—divine and human—in one person. Human beings are incapable of an exhaustive understanding of how the two natures of Jesus are united in one person. But Chalcedon did clearly define the boundaries of our speculation concerning the mystery of the incarnation. The council stated that Jesus is vera homo, vera deus, meaning “truly man and truly God.” His true humanity is united with the true deity of the second person of the Godhead. The boundary that the council established is seen in the Chalcedonian Creed’s insistence that this union was without mixture, confusion, separation, or division. Each nature retained its own attributes. This means that the incarnation did not result in a single, mixed nature where the deity and the humanity are blended together such that the divine is not truly divine and the human is not truly human, resulting in a tertium quid—“a third thing” that is neither God nor man but something else. The council was very careful to insist that each nature of Jesus retains its own attributes. A deified human nature is no longer human and a humanized divine nature is no longer divine. But in the incarnation, the attributes of deity remain in the divine nature and the attributes of humanity remain in the human nature.
There are times in Jesus’ earthly ministry when He clearly manifests His human nature. For example, He was hungry, tired, and susceptible to physical pain. Since Jesus was a true human being, His human nature did not possess omniscience. On the other hand, the divine nature frequently communicated supernatural knowledge to the human nature of Jesus. There were times that Jesus spoke things that no human being could ever know. But this truth doesn’t mean the divine nature communicated everything to the human nature. So when Jesus says, “I don’t know the day and the hour,” he’s speaking of His humanity. The human nature is not omniscient. According to His humanity, Jesus knew that the time frame for His prophecies would be within forty years, but not the rest of the details. We create many problems for ourselves when we attempt to deify the human nature of Jesus. In this case, Jesus’ human nature knew the general time frame of the generation, but not the day and the hour.
He goes on to describe the circumstances of His coming. I’m not sure if He is simply speaking of the judgment of Jerusalem or also about what will happen at the time of His final appearance, but in either case, there is a sense of warning and urgency. He says in verse 37, “For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” What do Noah and Jesus have in common here?
Greek Word Study on Rule and Law
nómos.
A. The Greek and Hellenistic World.
J. The Meaning of nómos.
a. From némō, “to allot,” nómos first means “what is proper.” It thus comes to apply very broadly to any norm, rule, custom, usage, or tradition. The concept is religious but embraces all aspects of life (e.g., marriage, family, schools, and meals, not just the cultus). Even the gods have nómoi.
b. Politically a specialized use develops in the sphere of law, although nómos may still denote more generally the absolute as well as the political law, e.g., cosmic law, natural law, or moral law.
c. By the fifth century B.C. the term comes to be used for written laws in a legal sense.
d. It then denotes “contracts” or “conventions.”
e. It has a musical application as “mode of singing” or “melody.” Nómos is personified as a divine figure in poetry and later in theology.
2. The Nature and Development of the Concept in the Greek World. Rooted in religion, nómos always retains its relation to the cultus in the Greek world. Even written law expresses the will of deity. nómos always has an author, either deity or an inspired legislator. It is thus a work of supreme skill. Only when laws come to be made by consent does the concept lose its strength.
a. In the earliest period nómos is a creation and revelation of Zeus. It is thus firmly anchored in the divine sphere and expresses what is right or just. The city-states give constitutional form to established usage. The state represents nómos; hence the people must fight for its nómos as for the state itself. It is the ruling power (the basileús or despótēs) in the city.
b. By the sixth century B.C. Zeus comes to be viewed as a divine principle. The cosmos is ruled by nómos, and human nómos reflects this. It is a specific instance of divine law. One can no more live without it than without the nómos that rules the cosmos. Some authors (e.g., Heraclitus) understand cosmic law in terms of national law, but others (e.g., the Stoics) lay more stress on cosmic law, a basis for their cosmopolitanism.
c. Greek tragedy tackles the question of conflicting laws. Sophocles in Antigone depicts the confrontation between the law of the state and ancient unwritten law. The inability to keep the law arises, therefore, from an irreconcilability that may be traced right back to God, and a tragic outcome is thus unavoidable. Violation of the law is not due to human sinfulness in this instance. Out of the dilemma more stress comes to be put on unwritten law, either as the original usage of a state, or more commonly as universally valid natural or divine law (cf. the natural law of the Sophists and the cosmic law of the Stoics). This unwritten law embraces ethical and social as well as ritual commands.
d. In the fifth century B.C. the authority of law is shaken by the discovery of other laws and the conclusion that humans are the authors of specific laws. Conflict results not only between laws but between what is right by law and what is right by nature. An attack on religion is also the consequence. From one standpoint, law alone forms a basis for belief in deity. From another (that of the Sophists), the divine origin of law is a clever invention of lawgivers to add sanctions to their laws. Laws, then, can be overthrown only by an attack on religion. On the other hand, they can be protected only by showing that they are truly divine. This is what Plato attempts, first by proving the existence of the gods and second by affirming that nómos, as a child of noús, is related to the soul.
e. The thinking of Socrates begins with the positive content of the state. The law of the state is for him the law of life. It may be unjustly manipulated, but he dies rather than resist it. Laws are parents that sustain and instruct us, and they are still valid in the face of death and beyond.
f. Socrates does not oppose his individual conscience to nómos, for what is important for the Greeks is not the subjective moral sense but objective knowledge of right and wrong. This knowledge is law, and obedience to law is righteousness, which includes all virtues. The goal of education (Aristotle) is instruction in the spirit and ethos of laws, with law itself as a teacher, and obedience as a valid form of servitude that distinguishes free citizens from real slaves. (The only other valid form of douleía is respect for the gods.) The rule of law guarantees the preservation of the state and the possibility of human life.
g. Plato regards the death of Socrates in obedience to the law as the transition of norm and law from the institution to the soul. He finds a cosmos and order in the soul itself. This is nómos. The inner nómos is the order that is controlled by the norm of the soul, i.e., righteousness and self-control. The spirit gives law a new validity and force (Aristotle finds this in the noús). In this way a fresh link is formed with the divine world. Yet the ideal for Plato is no longer the dominion of law but the rule of a righteous and kingly figure who has true knowledge. In Aristotle, too, the person of outstanding virtue is above law and is indeed law itself for the self and others.
3. nómos in Hellenism.
a. This theory becomes a reality in Hellenism. The king himself is now nómos. As divine, he is the source of law. He is the visible manifestation of eternal law in the cosmos.
b. Stoicism replaces political law with cosmic law. It does not use the term for the laws of state. True divine law is to be sought only in the cosmos, where one law rules that is the basis of society and the union of divine and human beings. As reason, this law pervades nature and determines moral conduct. Zeus is identified as this cosmic law in a concession to popular religion. To decide for this nómos is to come to one’s true self. It is thus a reasonable possibility, and it leads to a happy life. Law is written on the soul. c. In Neo-Platonism law is less significant but the law of providence upholds humanity by relating morality and happiness.
d. Later antiquity adopts for the most part Orphic Platonic views seen in the light of cosmic theology.
4. The Greek Concept of nómos and the NT. For the Greeks nómos comes from the spirit rather than by revelation. Hence it is no mere imperative. It has power over those who try to evade it and brings salvation to those who obey it. It produces, however, no awareness of the inability to keep it, and in the long run fails to carry conviction because of a lack of historical objectivity. All this is in marked contrast to the NT understanding of nómos. [H. Kleinknecht, IV, 1022–35]
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