The Gospel of MarkSample

By reading this passage as referring to the destruction of the Temple, and this event being used as a springboard to talk about the return of Jesus, it shows us that Jesus’ prophecy: “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (v30), came to pass. The Temple was indeed destroyed whilst many of his followers were still alive!

To complicate things a bit though, this doesn’t mean that Jesus makes no reference to truths for farther ages to come, too! Jesus stands in apocalyptic tradition that reaches back to Daniel. Daniel prophesies about the “abomination that makes desolate” (Daniel 11:31) when Antiochus Epiphanes takes over the Temple and sets up worship to Zeus. Notice how Jesus quotes Daniel word-for-word in his own prophecy about the “abomination of desolation” coming to Jerusalem through the destruction of the Temple (Mark 13:14). This gives us an insight into how Jewish prophecy works, prophets take up previous themes and overlap their new prophetic word with the previous images, whilst also adding in new ones. This requires very careful reading in order to interpret biblical prophecies.