13 Reasons the Great Tribulation Already Happened
Honesty and intellectual integrity require that we view every passage according to its context. And what we have seen is that Matthew 24, far from being a prophecy of end-times disaster, was the blisteringly accurate prediction by Christ that great tribulations were coming to apostate Judah.
Introduction: Biggest Loser No More
If failed end-time predictions were a category in the winter Olympics the competition for the biggest loser would be the most competitive event (By a long shot)! From Simon Bar Giora declaring the end of the world as Rome invaded Judea in AD 67 to Edgar Whisenaut’s “88 Reasons Why The Rapture Could Be In 1988” it seems that the Christian church has become an ever-growing trash heap of failed predictions that never ended up materializing. I might be inclined to call it a dumpster fire, but that might be giving it too much credit.
Some, the ones among us who always say “if at first, you don’t succeed, then try try again”, continue right along in the ministry of failed predictions unabated, believing that the right combination of news articles, numerology, and blood moons is just around the corner. Yet, amid the echo chamber of eschatological fanaticism, so few stop and examine the real reason these predictions don’t come true. That is because it already happened!
In what follows I will share thirteen reasons, from the text, why the great tribulation has already occurred. I will not appeal to nanobots, the next appearance of Halley’s comet, pandemics, or of Klaus Schwab and his World Economic Forum. I will cite Scripture alone and prove once and for all why every end-time prediction about a coming tribulation is doomed to fail. My hope is that Christianity would recover from the gangrenous rot of dispensational madness and march onward in our mission to disciple the nations for Jesus. To that end, let us begin.
The Olivet Scene
In case you are just joining us, this article is a part of a longer series that gives a tremendous amount of context for these events. If you would like to catch up before reading further, check out the other articles in this series by visiting our blog. But, if that seems like too much effort to satiate your current curiosity, here is a three-sentence summary of how we got here.
Jesus predicted in a variety of ways that the temple and Jerusalem would be destroyed for rejecting Him (Matthew 22-24:2). This news so deeply unsettled the disciples they wanted Jesus to give more details on how all of this would play out (Matthew 24:3). Then, in passages normally perverted by futurists, Jesus answered their specific questions with specific evidence that would happen in their lifetime (Matthew 24:34). This will become our first evidence that these events have already occurred.
Reason 1: This Generation & All These Things
When Jesus said: “Truly I say to you, THIS GENERATION will not pass away until ALL THESE THINGS take place” (Matthew 24:34), He is giving us two very powerful criteria for understanding the Olivet Discourse. First, He is limiting the scope of fulfillment to about forty years, which is a Biblical generation. Second, He is affirming that everything He said prior to verse 34 (and the explanatory verses that follow) would happen within that same forty-year window. This means the rise of false messiahs, wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, and famines, persecutions and tribulations, increased lawlessness and apostasy, worldwide Gospel proclamation, the abomination of desolation, the great tribulation, signs and wonders, the sun darkened, stars falling from the sky, the heavens shook, the tribes of the land in mourning, the Son of Man returning on the clouds, and the so-called “rapture”, have all already occurred.
When Jesus said “all these things” He really meant every single one of the things He shared would occur in the life of His disciples! Further, when our God in the flesh, with all intelligence and all wisdom limited the fulfillment of this prophecy to a single generation, He meant for us to lay down our opinions and simply believe Him. And while there is a phenomenal amount of evidence that supports this view, we do not need to understand any of it to adopt a humble, submissive, and faithful posture. If He said everything will happen in one generation, that really ought to settle it. To go on insisting these events, listed in the Olivet Discourse, necessarily occur in the distant future, just because we cannot imagine a scenario where they have already been fulfilled, is to not only challenge the infinite wisdom, intelligence, and integrity of Jesus Christ, but it is to set our teaching over and above His, which seems like a foolish, unsafe, and unholy thing to do.
Reason 2: Jerusalem Surrounded
In Luke’s account of the great tribulation, Jesus says:
But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near.
—Luke 21:20
In an age of such rampant confusion, it is vital to remember how pronouns work. In fact, I would even argue that the pronouns in the Olivet Discourse alone sufficiently prove that the great tribulation has already occurred. For instance, when Jesus says “you” in this passage He is not unclear on what that means. He doesn’t flip-flop His pronouns like a Disney star before a new album release. He knows what these words mean and He is using “you”, a second person plural pronoun, to refer to the men standing right in front of Him in 30AD.
This is critical to understand, because when we know Jesus is applying the meaning of this passage directly to His disciples, and not vicariously to us, then any thought that a great tribulation must occur, many thousands of years into the future, long after the death of Jesus’ disciples, becomes all the more untenable. The case becomes more certain when you notice that Jesus is telling those men to pay attention to the comings and goings related to the first-century city of Jerusalem.
In sum, Jesus believed some of His disciples would live to see armies approaching Jerusalem to destroy it. He believed that when this happened, it would signal the end for that city, the end of the Old Covenant era, and the beginning of a great tribulation that would be unparalleled in the history of the world. And since no other city on earth had the religious standing of Jerusalem, possessing the very house of God, where the creator of time and space literally promised to live and dwell among His people, then surely the destruction of this city and this temple would be unrivaled in the history of men and would have monumental implications.
All these things happened when Rome surrounded the city, reduced the buildings to rubble, and burned the temple to the ground.
Reason: 3 Fleeing Judeans!
…then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.
—Matthew 24:16…and those who are in the midst of the city must leave, and those who are in the country must not enter the city.
—Luke 21:21
Before the great tribulation occurs (Matthew 24:21), Jesus tells His disciples to be on the lookout. When they (not us) see the Roman armies surrounding Jerusalem, and when they see the defiling of the temple, then they (again not us) must flee to the mountains for safety!
In our day, this makes very little sense. If a world leader (aka an “Antichrist”) surrounded Jerusalem with his armies to kill the Jews who were worshiping at their newly rebuilt temple, then it would make very little difference whatsoever if they fled the city to go to the mountains. Helicopters would mow them down, tanks would saw them in half, mortar rounds would rain on top of their heads, and drones would cut them down before they reached the foothills. There would be no escape for them in the modern world, yet, this is the way Dispensational thinkers imagine Matthew 24:16 will play out.
Instead of comic book eschatology, let us think about what the passage is saying. Jesus is telling His disciples to be on the lookout for a Roman invasion that began in 66 AD. At first, the Romans concentrated their power in Galilee and Judea, conquering one town after another, which motivated the population to abandon their smaller towns and flee to Jerusalem. By the time the Romans arrived at Judah’s largest city, the population of Jews had swollen to unsustainable proportions from taking in refugees and country folk who were seeking the city as a place of refuge.
At that time, that is simply what you did. When an army attacked your nation, you went to the highest, most fortified citadel, where the largest amount of resources could be amassed, which in the case of Judah would have been Jerusalem. Jerusalem also boasted an underground water supply, which meant it would have, under normal circumstances, been an ideal place to wait out an enemy siege. Yet, because Jesus knew this was not a normal event, He warned His disciples to abandon their conventional wisdom and flee to the countryside instead. Going to Jerusalem would signal certain death for anyone within their walls, so instead, He told the earliest Christians to leave Jerusalem and seek shelter elsewhere.
Could this be why the earliest Christians sold their property in Jerusalem (Acts 4:34), knowing that they would need to live a highly mobile life that was ready to leave at a moment’s notice? Is this also why history does not record a single Christian dying in Jerusalem during the Roman siege? In fact, we do have a record that when the Roman armies began coming, the Christians left, just as Jesus told them to, knowing their ministry to apostate Judah was complete. They preached the Gospel faithfully, like Noah, in the city that hated them, they endured innumerable persecutions in the service of Christ in that wicked generation, and then they got out before the wrath of God fell on those people.
Reason 4: Rooftops and Bag Packing
Whoever is on the housetop must not go down to get the things out that are in his house.
— Matthew 24:17
In the same breath, Jesus used to tell His followers to flee the city before the great tribulation, He also warned them with a very peculiar example that does not apply very well in the modern world. He told them not to go down from their flat rooftop patios in order to collect their belongings within the house. Today, this would be almost meaningless, since almost no one on earth lounges, congregates, or spends any meaningful time on their rooftops.
In most of the world, pointed and pitched roofs would be dangerous to climb on, much less do life on. Yet at that time, houses became insufferably hot during the daytime, so congregating on a flattened roof would have been most comfortable until the home cooled off in the evening. This means meals would occur on the roof, as well as parties, family gatherings, and many more significant occasions of life that would all take place on top of the house instead of inside of it. Inside, you would sleep, store your supplies and possessions, and spend the cooler moments, but that is about it.
Since many of the houses in Jerusalem were built into the wall that surrounded the city, homeowners who were escaping the swelling heat inside the home would have a perfect view of an advancing army. Jesus warns these homeowners not to go down into their houses and waste time packing their bags. They must flee immediately or it would be too late.
This warning makes perfect sense in their world and at that time and is just another proof that these events have already taken place.
Reason 5: Hey Farmer, Leave Your Coat!
Whoever is in the field must not turn back to get his cloak.
—Matthew 24:18
In a similar warning, Jesus tells the farmer not to go back home and get his cloak. This made great sense in an agrarian society where the majority of the Judean landscape was filled with farmers who all cared very deeply about their cloaks. At that time, a good coat said a lot about you (remember Joseph). And, we have Biblical examples of bloodthirsty men gambling to have a desirable coat after its owner was crucified (remember Jesus). Today, a coat is not ordinarily one of the most prized possessions that you own and few people would run into a situation of imminent danger to save their pullover or cardigan. At that time, people thought about that particular clothing item a bit differently.
The same is true of farming. When Jesus gave this warning, it would have applied to the majority of the population who extracted resources by the land and sea through tremendous labor and energy. Judah was dominated by farmers, shepherds, and fishermen, so this warning would have been highly relevant. Not so in modern Israel today.
The geographical region Jesus was referring to, once home to blue-collar tradesmen, has now become a sprawling metropolis filled with high-tech industry. Instead of farms filled with plants, the landscape is dominated by server farms, cybersecurity operations, information, and communications technology firms, and various research and development enterprises, which comprise the majority of modern Israel’s economy. Sadly, farming does not even contribute meaningfully at all in modern-day Israel, making this warning totally irrelevant to any modern-day “Judean”.
The plain and simple fact is that this was a specific warning to people living in the first century on how to avoid the great tribulation. Forcing this into the modern world is to accept the ridiculous.
Reason 6: Winter, Pregnancy, & Zealous Sabbatarians
But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! 20 But pray that your flight will not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath.
—Matthew 24:19-20
If you were planning to flee your ancestral homelands when Vespasian brought his Roman legions to your doorstep, you would appreciate Jesus’ warnings here. Beyond not going home to get your cloak, or coming down from the roof to get your rolling pin, it would be a good idea to know what other travel hindrances might afflict you. For instance, if speed was the critical component of your flight, then being pregnant would certainly slow you down. Stopping to nurse infants while you were frantically running for your life would not only be difficult, but any crying babe would risk revealing your position. Winter travel would make your flight miserable and would expose you to the elements. And, with all the hard-line zealots running around Judah at that time, trying to do any moving on the Sabbath would get you killed. All of this applies brilliantly to a group of ancient refugees leaving Jerusalem.
Yet, with temperature-controlled automobiles, heated runways, hospitals everywhere you could possibly flee to and have a baby, and scant few hard-liners paying attention to where you are going on the Sabbath, these words lose their meaning. If the “dispys” are right, and a future Antichrist wages all-out war on Israel, being pregnant, nursing, traveling in winter, or on the sabbath, really won’t impede you in the slightest. This is yet another proof of how these words find their perfect fulfillment in that very generation that fled the great tribulation of AD 70.
Reason 7: These Be Days of Vengeance
…because these are days of vengeance so that all things which are written will be fulfilled.
—Luke 21:22
At some point in my lackluster elementary school career, I was introduced to the concept of near and far demonstrative pronouns. A near demonstrative pronoun describes things that are close in relationship to you, whereas a far demonstrative pronoun identifies things that are at a distance from you. For example, “I can eat THIS apple because it is right in front of me. But, if I were to eat THAT one, pointing to the television commercial, I would need to travel through airwaves.” This silly example proves my point. We use “This & These” to describe things that are near to us and we use “That & Those” to point to objects further from our purview.
Knowing this, Jesus says that “these days” are the ones where God’s vengeance would be poured out. He is not speaking of the far-off years that could be rightly labeled “those years”, He is talking about the years immediately in the purview of Him and His disciples. By using the word “these” it seems clear that Jesus is limiting the fulfillment of this prophecy to a time frame that would be near to the disciple’s experience. If multiple thousands of years into the future was Jesus’ aim, His sentence would again be rendered meaningless.
In addition to basic elementary grammar, Jesus cites the fulfillment of Old Testament passages, such as Isaiah 63, Daniel 9, and Hosea 9 as the reason the great tribulation would occur in that very generation. Case in point, notice how Hosea speaks about the punishment that is coming and why God is going to bring it in Hosea 9:7, 17.
He says:
The days of punishment have come, The days of retribution have come; Let Israel know this! The prophet is a fool, The inspired man is demented, Because of the grossness of your iniquity, And because your hostility is so great. 17 My God will cast them away Because they have not listened to Him; And they will be wanderers among the nations.
—Hosea 9:7, 19
Not to keep beating the same old drum, but that already happened!
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Why Technology Makes Our Lives Easier Yet More Meaningless
In the end, who cares how productive that device makes you if you aren’t productive in what matters most to God. How will we love the Lord with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love our neighbors as ourselves with our faces constantly pressed against a screen? Sure, the latest technology makes our lives easier, but is it also making them more meaningless? And if it is, where do we start drawing the line?
Every device you buy makes a promise, “I’ll make your life easier.”
You see a new phone, a new appliance, or a new app you’d like to try, and immediately you start thinking, “this will make my life so much better!”
And often the promise turns out to be true.
We purchase that new gadget or piece of software and it does make us marginally more productive, entertained, or efficient. Life is a little bit easier. But while we’re so enamored by the ways the technology makes life easier, we scarcely hear the second part of the contract.
Technology will make your life a little easier, but it will also make it a little more meaningless.
The Future is Here and it’s Disappointing
We are living in the future. At the press of a button, you can have any item you desire shipped to your home, any information you like poured directly into your brain. We have an abundance—endless entertainment options, unlimited methods to automate away tedium, and infinite access to every comfort imaginable. All thanks to our devices.
But our devices also take their pound of flesh. Do you ever look around at our world and wonder, “How can a people who have everything be so miserable?”
It’s the conundrum of our age: We have everything we thought we wanted, but somehow we’re still not happy. We have infinite content, so why aren’t we infinitely content?
Now, we could say the very obvious thing. They need, Jesus. And, yes, they do need Jesus.
But don’t you feel it too?
I know I do. And I have Jesus. But something still seems off. It’s like I’m desperately trying to get something from my devices; to scratch some mysterious itch. But the more I search, the more it eludes me.
The Life We’re Looking For
In his book, The Life We’re Looking For, Andy Crouch notes some of the unique features of the times we live in:“The defining mental activity of our time is scrolling”
“The defining illness of our time is metabolic syndrome”
“The defining emotional challenge of our time is anxiety”Crouch concludes, “So it is no wonder that the defining condition of our time is a sense of loneliness and alienation. For if human flourishing requires us to love with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength, what happens when nothing in our lives develops those capacities? With what, exactly, will we love?” (59).
It seems we’ve struck a deal with our devices that so much resembles the bargains with the tricksters from the old stories. A genie appears to grant your wish. But once you have what your flesh desired you find you’ve lost something of yourself in the exchange. We wished for peace and quiet, and what we got was loneliness.
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An Exhaustive Exegetical Extravaganza
In the Beginning was a delight to read – personally it brought me back to many of the OT lectures I enjoyed from Dr. Van Dam in my seminary years. While I found it enjoyable, there may be others who will find it tough-going at times. It’s not highly technical, but in places Van Dam does go academic.
Dr. C. Van Dam begins his latest book by explicitly laying out his presuppositions. He’s upfront about his non-negotiable assumptions and biases. As I review his book, it’s appropriate that I share mine too. I share his presuppositions about Scripture as the trustworthy Word of God, but I also bring a personal bias to the table. Back in the day, Van Dam was my Old Testament professor at the Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary. I had an affectionate nickname for him in view of his ability to put the smack-down on unbelieving or shoddy scholarship: “Wham-Bam-Van-Dam.” This was always said with the greatest admiration for Dr. Van Dam. As a seminary professor he was nothing if not thorough and careful.
This new book exhibits that same kind of comprehensive and precise approach to the two opening chapters of Scripture. Van Dam leaves no stone unturned. In the Beginning is an exhaustive treatment not only of the meaning of these two chapters, but also the various challenges that have been raised in Old Testament scholarship regarding them. What you’re looking at here is not just a commentary on Genesis 1-2, but far more.
Over the last decade or so John Walton has become well-known for his views on the early chapters of Genesis. Walton argues that we often misunderstand Genesis 1-2 because we don’t take into account the ancient Near Eastern context of these chapters. Once we do that, says Walton, then we can see that Genesis 1-2 was never meant to be taken literally as history. The history can then be filled in with what science teaches us, including what science says about human origins. In chapter 2 of In the Beginning, Van Dam discusses Walton’s views at length and explains how and where they fail to do justice to the character of Scripture as the Word of God. In my view this is the most important chapter of the book.
To whet your appetite further, let me share a selection of questions that Dr. Van Dam answers elsewhere in the book:Can new scientific data be regarded as general revelation given by God?
What is the relationship of Scripture to science? Is Scripture a scientific textbook?Read More
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You Can’t Fix Sin With A Wardrobe Change
Written by C. R. Carmichael |
Friday, November 11, 2022
No doubt the perishing world will still call the Christian’s message offensive and ugly, but we know from God’s word, as it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:15). This, then, is true beauty. Sadly, our Western society may still crash and burn in its arrogance to dress up their evil. And no matter what we do, many hell-bound people will still persist in calling the Gospel an evil thing and say that evil is the sassy, more chic virtue for today. But Scripture has already exposed this wicked deceit and it will not stand before God much longer.Right now in America we are seeing a crazy amount of propaganda from educators, politicians and media hacks trying to dress up immoral agendas in the clothing of love, tolerance and social virtue. To help facilitate this fashion makeover, a liberal arm of our society has actually seized control of the dictionary in a sly attempt to undermine God’s holy design with reworked definitions that display evil as the latest trend in goodness.
Nowadays, for example, abortion is defined as “reproductive justice,” sexually-charged drag shows are called “family-friendly entertainment,” pornographic books in school libraries are labeled “educational materials,” and body mutilation surgeries performed on children are considered “gender-affirming care.”
Moreover, they claim, a man can be a women, a woman can be a man, and that famous vaudeville joke has been reimagined with the hot new punchline: “That was no lady. That was my husband!”
They’re Trying to Pull the Ol’ Switcheroo
Quite simply, the world is still trying to pull the “ol’ Switcheroo,” a satanic wardrobe change that boldly attempts to refashion unrighteousness as a prevailing virtue in society. As touched upon in Isaiah 5:20, the prophet exposed this scam a long time ago and denounced anyone trying to redeem evil’s bad look. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,” he proclaimed, “and who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”
Here Isaiah lays out the classic con job utilized by wicked quick-change artists who “endeavour to confound both the names and the natures of virtue and vice, of piety and impiety; commend and applaud what is evil, and disparage and discountenance what is good” (Benson Commentary).
The latest willing victims of this flimflam are the same ones found in Isaiah’s day: the desperate masses who are all too eager to conceal their moral imperfections with the flattering shadows of the world (John 3:19-29; James 4:4). By limiting their exposure to the Light and accessorizing their look with good deeds, they hope to erase the hard wrinkles of their sins. But according to Scripture, their beauty regimen will fail them when they find themselves in the polluted garments of their self-righteousness (Proverbs 28:13; Isaiah 64:6; 1 John 1:8).
Sadly, there are even professing Christians who have taken off the armor of God to join with the world’s consumers, forsaking the holy pattern of Scripture and stitching together a cheap knock-off from the loose fabric of moral relativism (Proverbs 14:12, 26:4-5; Colossians 2:8). Some do this to earn “likes” and “retweets” from fashionable society, while others would rather question the Bible’s clear stand against sin than have to admit that their dear friend or relative is going to hell if he doesn’t repent and come to Christ. Yet whatever the reason, it eventually boils down to someone who loves the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God (John 12:43).
Why are People so Confused About Evil?
The scary truth is, everyone says they hate evil, and yet evil will rarely come to us wearing a screen-printed t-shirt that says in bold letters, “THIS IS EVIL. PLEASE HATE ME.” The great evils of our day are often cloaked in such a way as to remain hidden from common, everyday perception and many times come into our lives as a specter of virtue for the secret purpose of deceiving us. This deception is especially potent when we try to judge something as good or evil based on the shifting ethics of this world instead of judging with godly spiritual discernment.
This fundamental truth about evil is one about which the Bible has frequently warned us. From the very beginning of creation, evil has appeared in the guise of goodness in order to fool mankind into ruin. Indeed Satan, that serpent of old, tricked Eve into believing that transgression against God had its benefits, and she was thus convinced that the forbidden tree was “good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise” (Genesis 3:6).
Many centuries later, of course, Satan would try in similar fashion to tempt our Lord to turn stones into loaves of bread as He fasted in the desert, but Jesus sharply rebuked the trickery and exposed the hidden evil with the powerful spotlight of God’s word (Luke 4:1-4).
The strategy of evil to appear in comely attire, in fact, was always a pressing concern for Jesus and His apostles. The Lord himself warned that false prophets would come “in sheep’s clothing” while in fact being “ravenous wolves” (Matt. 7:15). In Matthew 24:24, He tells the disciples that false christs and prophets “will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.”
Likewise Peter warned of false teachers who tell fabricated stories and promise “freedom” when they themselves are “slaves of depravity” (2 Peter 2). And Paul alerted the Church to the presence of false apostles who would disguise themselves as apostles of Christ, just as Satan often masquerades as an “angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).
As John Newton wisely noted, many centuries before the popularity of glitzy cross-dressing:
“Satan is never more a devil, than when he looks most like an angel. But let him look and talk as he will—he is Satan still; and those who are experienced and watchful may discern his cloven foot hanging below his fine garment of light.”
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