Matthew 24:15 – Abomination, Judgment, and Mercy

After Adam and Eve were cursed and driven from the Garden of Eden, they probably longed for the days of easy gardening and painless childbirth, but I think their greatest regret was the loss of a direct line of communication with the Father. No longer could they speak with their creator in the cool of the day, no longer would God unravel the mysteries of this life whenever they asked, and no longer would the end of each day find them fully content in the work they had done. Their lives were, from that point forward, marked with confusion, ignorance, and travail. Such pains, however, have not gone without interruption: God broke through time and space speaking truth and revealing his plans. God’s communication, on the whole, is quite clear — the Law, for instance, as well as the Bible in total — but there are other times when we scratch our heads and wonder what God meant — many of the prophets and, of course, Revelation, are examples of this. When God’s communication does not fit our expectations we often search them deeply looking for complex answers and solutions to what we see as enigmatic revelations, and perhaps, that is how they are best read. But there is another approach to understanding God’s Word and that is to read it in the light of the surrounding context. I might even argue, that the best way to read God’s Word is to look solely at the surrounding context. Such an approach often provides the diligent reader with all that is needed to know about a plain and main reading of the passage.

Jesus’s next words in Matthew have been discussed for many years. Many read them and try discerning the future, but I’m not so certain that is the way Jesus meant them to be primarily understood. Jesus said,

15 “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

Matthew 24:15-16

I’ve always found the words “let the reader understand” an interesting part of Jesus’s speech; they feel more like a comment Matthew might have interjected. But as I have been thinking more about them, I am beginning to see how they might have been words Jesus spoke at the time so as to direct his listeners to read the book of Daniel. In particular, I think Jesus wanted his listeners to think about the following passage Daniel wrote,

24 “Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. 25 Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. 26 And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. 27 And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”

Daniel 9:24-27

For those who have been around the Christian church for a while, the terms “Seventy weeks,” “Sixty-two weeks,” “Seven weeks,” and “Sixty-nine weeks” probably ring a bell. It is nearly impossible to discuss prophecy and the end times without reference to those words found in this chapter of Daniel. Theologians have arrived at many diverse conclusions as to what this passage means — someone might actually be right — but I’m not sure those types of conclusions were the ones Jesus wanted his disciples to draw upon first hearing the words of Matthew 24:15-16.

We must remember that the disciples had just asked what the signs were for 1) the destruction of the temple, 2) Jesus’s return, and 3) the end of the age. We must also remember, that Jesus responded to them with a warning about being led astray. Following his warning, Jesus spoke of wars, earthquakes, and false prophets as the “beginning of the birth pains” of those events leading toward the temple’s destruction, Jesus’s return, and the end of the age. He then spoke of a time of increasing trials, tribulations, and lawlessness, as well as the proclamation of the gospel; these are what happens after the “beginning of the birth pains” but before the end. Following that period of tumult, Jesus tells his disciples that the end comes when an abomination of desolation stands in the temple. Once this occurs, the disciples are told to run away. Wars, earthquakes, and false prophets mark the beginning, trials tribulations, and lawlessness mark the middle, and the abomination of desolation appears to be the final straw before the temple’s destruction, Jesus’s return, and the end of the age.

These three stages seem so simple to understand, but we must go back a bit further in Matthew’s Gospel to place all of this in the proper context. Jesus entered Jerusalem heralded with shouts of joy then went to the temple and chased away the money changers. The next day on his way into Jerusalem he cursed the fig tree, then told the Pharisees they were bad tenants over the Father’s vineyard, he prophesied about their removal, pronounced woes upon the Pharisees, and then, as he was leaving the temple, he told his disciples that it would be destroyed. Some forty years later, the Romans entered Jerusalem and destroyed the temple.

This context helps us see a part of the bigger picture. The destruction of the temple — the first question the disciples had asked — was preceded by a group of people who had desecrated the temple: the Pharisees. I realize many will suggest that Antiochus offered the abomination of desolation, but I think we must also consider the fact that the Pharisees, in the course of their duties and lives, had made profane that which was intended to be most holy. In other words, the scribes and Pharisees were an abomination who had desecrated the temple, and it was only a matter of time after Jesus’s proclamation in Matthew 24:2 before not one stone of the temple was left standing upon another.

We see in this many parallels to those events preceding Daniel’s time. Daniel was on his knees praying because Israel had “sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules” (Dan. 9:5). Daniel was on his knees praying for forgiveness and that the Lord would make his face shine upon the sanctuary the Israelites had made desolate (Dan. 9:17-18); he was praying because the Israelites had desecrated the temple with their abominations. In II Kings 21:4-7 we read the following about Manasseh, king of Judah,

4 And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem will I put my name.” 5 And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. 6 And he burned his son as an offering and used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. 7 And the carved image of Asherah that he had made he set in the house of which the Lord said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever.

II Kings 21:4-7

Manasseh may have been the first king to desecrate the temple by erecting an idol in the temple’s holiest place, but he was not the first king to have turned away from God, and certainly not the last. Israel had been straying from God since the first king was anointed, but it was due to Manasseh’s desecrating abomination (II Kings 21:4-7) that God decreed Israel’s punishment and eventual exile (II Kings 21:10-15). God did not, however, immediately strike down Manasseh or Judah. Just as God allowed many years to pass between Jesus’s proclamation of the temple’s destruction and its actual destruction, God waited nearly 55 years after Manasseh’s desecration of the temple before he sent Israel into exile. God’s punishments are certain and his timing, even if it does not seem swift according to our calendar, is also certain.

This is not, however, the first time we read of God’s certain punishment occurring after what seems like a prolonged period of time. In Genesis 15 we read,

13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

Genesis 15:13-16

God promised Abram a land of his own, but he delayed, in part, because the sins of the Amorites were “not yet complete.” In God’s mercy, he allowed the Amorites to play out their sins until the very end; a process that took four hundred years. After the Israelites had lived in Egypt for four hundred years, they were brought out by Moses who, prior to the Israelites entering the Promised Land, told them the following,

5 Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

Deuteronomy 9:5

Then, upon entering the Promised Land, God’s command to “devote to destruction” all the people, herds, cattle, and possessions of the Amorites was carried out (Joshua 7-11). This was done, not because God is a horrible mean being or because Israel had a blood lust. The Amorites were wiped out because the Amorites had fallen so far into sin that their redemption was no longer an option: their iniquity was complete; they had reached the point of no return. Once again, we see that God’s punishments are certain and his timing, even if it does not seem swift according to our calendar, is also certain.

We must, however, take note of the amount of time between judgment and punishment. God still listens to prayer and God still accepts repentance (Lev. 26:40-45). This is, in fact, what Daniel was doing immediately prior to God telling him about the seventy weeks and the abomination of desolation. We read,

20 While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my plea before the Lord my God for the holy hill of my God, 21 while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice. 22 He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, “O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. 23 At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved. Therefore consider the word and understand the vision.

Daniel 9:20-23

Gabriel told Daniel that his prayer for mercy and forgiveness was answered, but God’s answer would not come in Daniel’s time. The disciples asked about the destruction of the temple, and we have seen how that occurred, but we have yet to see how Gabriel’s answer to Daniel plays out with regard to Jesus’s returns, or the end of the age, and only the Father knows when those days will come (Matt. 24:36).

With all of this in mind, when Jesus said, “let the reader understand,” I think he wanted his disciples to recall Daniel, but also Manasseh and possibly even the Amorites. I think Jesus wanted them to recognize there was a point of no return, after which God’s punishment was certain but his timing was not known. I also think that when Jesus said, “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains,” he wanted his disciples to know enough so they would be able to escape God’s coming judgment. Remember, God even gave Lot adequate time to leave Sodom before his punishment was enacted (Gen. 18:16-19:29).

Jesus spoke of wars, earthquakes, and false prophets so the disciples might be prepared for, and might help others be prepared for, the coming day of God’s judgment. He told his listeners to return to Daniel (and other passages of scripture) so they would not be lost in a fog regarding that future day. But these messages were not just for the disciples in the first century; they are applicable to us. In the years following Jesus’s ascension, Paul explained that should we choose to rebel against God’s word God will give us over to the consequences of our sins — the lusts of the heart, dishonorable passions, and a debased mind (Rom. 1:24-28) — but he also said that Jesus’s blood will wash us, sanctify us, and justify us so we might avoid God’s coming punishment (I Cor. 6:9-11). This is why Jesus told his disciples that the “gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come(Matt. 24:14). The gospel of the kingdom is the only thing that can keep us from the judgment of God.

But the gospel of the kingdom does not merely keep us from receiving the full judgment of God — it is not just a “get out of hell free” card — the gospel of the kingdom washes away the three-fold desecrations described by Paul — the lusts of the heart, dishonorable passions, and a debased mind. In fact, the cleansing power of the gospel of the kingdom is the only thing that allows anyone to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37). Without the gospel of the kingdom we are given over to the lusts of our heart, the dishonorable passions of our soul, and our debased mind. The very things with which we are to love God are the very things we desecrate with our abominable actions. And, should we continue unrepentant down such a path, we will find that God may treat us much like he did the Amorites: God waited for their iniquity to be complete before he wiped them out. Like the Amorites, God allows the unrepentant person to reach the point where their heart, soul, and mind are hardened to the cleansing work of Jesus’s blood, at that point, there is no return: a hardened heart is the sign that our iniquity is now complete.

Thankfully, however, God offers another path. God will listen to prayers for forgiveness coming from a softened heart just as he listened to Daniel’s prayer for forgiveness. We may have sinned greatly, as did Manasseh, and we may even have been sent into some form of exile as were the Israelites, but we would be foolish to ignore the fact that God always answers prayers seeking forgiveness and mercy. Take Manasseh, for example. The writer of Chronicles says the following about Manasseh,

12 And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. 13 He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.

II Chronicles 33:12-13

If Manasseh’s prayers can be heard, I suspect so can ours.

When the disciples asked when the destruction of the temple, the return of Jesus, and the end of the age would come, Jesus said there would be wars, earthquakes, and false prophets, but the end would be signified with a final abomination that brings desolation. The temple’s destruction is a historical fact, so now we look forward to Jesus’s return and the end of the age, and while we wait we are to continue the spread of the gospel of the kingdom. We, all of us, the body of Christ, the Church, his bride, must also continue to pray for deliverance from evil — not only the evils of this world but also that evil that can harden our hearts beyond softening — and we must continue to pray for the coming of the Father’s eternally powerful and present kingdom, here on earth while there are still some who seek the Lord, and in the future when the iniquity of the world is complete and the Father rolls up the heavens like a scroll to usher in the bodily rule of Jesus in a newly created heaven and earth. Yes, for such we pray, “deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

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