When speaking of the imminent destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the end of time, Jesus undoubtedly has in mind not a distant future, but a near and even very near one: the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70, following the anti-Roman revolt begun by the Zealots, only a few decades after the conversation which...
When speaking of the imminent destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the end of time, Jesus undoubtedly has in mind not a distant future, but a near and even very near one: the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70, following the anti-Roman revolt begun by the Zealots, only a few decades after the conversation reported by the evangelist. Jesus mentions ‘pains’ (the corresponding Greek word literally means ‘birth pangs’, or the pain experienced in childbirth), pointing to famine, epidemics, natural disasters and wars as their source and root (such is the meaning of the corresponding Greek word, which literally means ‘beginning’, ‘cause’, ‘source’). The ‘pains’ mentioned by the Saviour are clearly connected with the birth of something new—in this case the Kingdom, which, as He repeatedly said, must sprout in the world like a seed cast into the earth.
These ‘pains’ clearly refer to what Jewish tradition usually calls the ‘messianic tribulations’: persecutions and upheavals that fall upon God's people just before the coming of the Messiah, signalling the imminent advent of the messianic age and the establishment of the messianic Kingdom. Evidently these are the tribulations of which Jesus speaks, for alongside famine, epidemics, earthquakes and wars comes the persecution of His disciples. All this takes place against a backdrop of numerous false messiahs springing up like mushrooms after rain, drawing the gullible after them only to abandon them to their fate.
There were indeed many such false messiahs at that time. All of them called for rebellion and war, and all such uprisings ended in punitive expeditions. Their leaders often managed to slip away, while punishment fell on those who would not or could not flee in time. Thus, according to the Saviour's words, history turns out to end with the end of the Second Temple, built long before by the repatriates who had returned to Judaea from Babylon. Everything that follows is no longer the old history running its course, but something new, unfolding according to different, new laws.
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1:20 Ye do well, as knowing this, that no scripture prophecy is of private interpretation - It is not any man's own word. It is God, not the prophet himself, who thereby interprets things till then unknown.
1:21 For prophecy came not of old by the will of man - Of any mere man whatever. But the holy men of God - Devoted to him, and set apart by him for that purpose, spake and wrote. Being moved - Literally, carried. They were purely passive therein.
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2:1 But there were false prophets also - As well as true.Among the people - Of Israel. Those that spake even the truth, when God had not sent them; and also those that were truly sent of him, and yet corrupted or softened their message, were false prophets. As there shall be false - As well as true. Teachers among you, who will privately briny in - Into the church.Destructive heresies - They first, by denying the Lord, introduced destructive heresies, that is, divisions; or they occasioned first these divisions, and then were given up to a reprobate mind, even to deny the Lord that bought them. Either the heresies are the effect of denying the Lord, or the denying the Lord was the consequence of the heresies. Even denying - Both by their doctrine and their works. The Lord that bought them - With his own blood. Yet these very men perish everlastingly.Therefore Christ bought even them that perish.
2:2 The way of truth will be evil spoken of - By those who blend all false and true Christians together.
2:3 They will make merchandise of you - Only use you to gain by you, as merchants do their wares. Whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not - Was long ago determined, and will be executed speedily. All sinners are adjudged to destruction; and God's punishing some proves he will punish the rest.
2:4 Cast them down to hell - The bottomless pit, a place of unknown misery. Delivered them - Like condemned criminals to safe custody, as if bound with the strongest chains in a dungeon of darkness, to be reserved unto the judgment of the great day.Though still those chains do not hinder their often walking up and down seeking whom they may devour.
2:5 And spared not the old, the antediluvian, world, but he preserved Noah the eighth person - that is, Noah and seven others, a preacher as well as practiser, of righteousness.Bringing a flood on the world of the ungodly - Whose numbers stood them in no stead.
2:9 It plainly appears, from these instances, that the Lord knoweth, hath both wisdom and power and will, to deliver the godly out of all temptations, and to punish the ungodly.