Matthew 24:29

Matthew 24:29. But immediately, suddenly after a slow development, rather than immediately following, or unexpectedly. Matthew 24:36 shows that our Lord did not intend to define the length of the interval, or to encourage us to define it.

After the tribulation of those days, not the tribulation attending the destruction of Jerusalem, but the period of trial which belongs to the ‘last times,' for the following reasons : 1. In Luke 21:24, the period of Jewish dispersion and the fulfilling of ‘the times of the Gentiles' is put before this prediction, while the expression in Mark 13:24, also permits the supposition of a long interval. 2. The reference to the destruction of Jerusalem is attended with the greatest difficulties. It takes all the expressions of Matthew 24:29-31 in a figurative sense, but the figure exceeds any reality that occurred in those days. The interval between the horrors of the siege and the actual destruction itself was too short to allow of any events worthy of such a figurative representation as we find here. 3. To refer it to a merely providential coming of Christ in judging and purifying nominal Christendom, is not at all in keeping with the specific character of the representation.

The sun shall be darkened. A reference to the events attending the destruction of Jerusalem seems impossible. So long as the prophecy is not yet fulfilled, its exact meaning cannot be insisted upon. Two views: (1.) Visible phenomena in the heavens at the visible appearance of Christ; in which sense the rest of the verse needs little explanation except to determine the difference between ‘the stars' and ‘the powers of the heavens.' The former may mean meteors and the latter the host of stars, or better, the former the stars in general, the latter the greater heavenly bodies that affect the earth (the solar system). This view suggests also the possibility of actual changes in the physical universe to prepare for ‘the new heavens and the new earth.' (2.) Spiritual events to occur at the same time. We add the most plausible interpretations of this character: ‘The sun shall be darkened,' i.e., the knowledge of Christ, the Sun of the Church and the world shall be obscured; the moon shall not give her light; the reflected light of science, which derives its excellence only from Christ, the true Sun, shall cease to guide (or it may refer to heresy and unbelief in the Church, for that leaves her merely a scientific or temporal organization); the stars shall fall from heaven; the leaders and teachers of the Church shall become apostates: the powers of the heavens (the greater heavenly bodies) shall be shaken: the influences which rule human society shall be disturbed. Others refer the whole to the fall of heathenism with its worship of Nature (sun, moon, and stars), but this is less probable, since terrifying occurrences seem to be meant (see Luke 21:25-26).