“And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in Heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming with power and great glory.”
What a shame, that learned men should spend their pains and talents in attempts to tie down this language to the distraction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies!
I take it as an axiom,—a settled verity which demonstrates itself,—that two events which are specifically described as successive,—the one as coming after the other,—cannot be the same. But if this axiom had always been observed in the interpretation of this twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, the students of the Scriptures might have saved themselves much inconsistency and confusion, and many a misapprehension of God’s word. If we ask most of our popular commentators what is meant by "the tribulation of those days," described in the twenty-ninth and preceding verses, the answer given is, that it means the calamities and sufferings of the Jews, induced by the siege and overthrow of their city and state. And if we ask them, again, what is meant by the mourning of the tribes of the earth "after the tribulation of those days," the answer is about the same,—the calamities and sufferings of the tribes of Israel in connection with the fall of their city and state! If we enquire of them what is meant by the coming of the Son of man as the lightning in the clouds of Heaven, with some twinges of uncertainty, they nearly all finally agree upon the reply that it means the flashing judgments which were brought upon the rebellious people of Israel by the coming of the Roman armies against Jerusalem! The coming of which the Saviour speaks was to be "out of the east" towards the west, and the coming of the Roman armies was out of the west and north towards the east and south; but the reply is, No matter for that; we are not to expect all the particular circumstances to hold! The coming of which the Saviour speaks is specifically said to be "after" the tribulation induced by the invasion of Palestine by the Romans, as well as "after" that great unparalleled tribulation of which the Jewish troubles were the commencement and first-fruits; but no matter for that, we are told; as though effect could go before its cause, and as if priority or succession were nothing in the interpretation of a book such as the word of God! I question, indeed, whether the annals of learning can furnish a parallel to the absurdities which characterize the great mass of our popular disquisitions upon this portion of the inspired record. No wonder that the doctrine of Christ’s personal return to our world has lost so much of its weight, certainty, and rightful importance in the minds and hearts of the Church, when its great foundation-text is thus sacrificed to a false and supercilious erudition!
One of the strangest things in the world is the manner in which some people read the Bible. It would almost seem as if they turned it upside-down, and read it backwards. "Eyes have they, but they see not." They praise it, and hold it in holy regard, and insist that every body ought to have it; yet they look into it only as some recondite volume, which is a good text-book for preachers, but which is quite beyond the reach of their understanding. They adore it more for the unknown mysteries which they attribute to it, than from their personal appreciation of what their own eyes have beheld upon its pages. Many seem to view it as a sublime riddle-book, full of mystic poetry, and unsearchable wisdom, rather than as a plain piece of information and advice given by a Father to his inexperienced, and exposed children. And many who sit down to write commentaries upon it seem to be continually haunted with the idea that there is something recondite in every word, or that the real mind of the Spirit is not to be found in the plain import of the letter, but in some abstruse or mystic analogy which it is their business to dig after. I hold that the Bible is a book for everybody, in which God speaks for the purpose of being understood by everybody; that its language is conformed to the ordinary uses of speech; and that it is to be interpreted in the same common-sense way in which we would interpret the will of a deceased parent, or ascertain the meaning of a letter of business. It was not written to tax our ingenuity, or to test men’s skill at learned exposition. Its design is to instruct, and in the most familiar way to express to men the mind and will of God. When Christ speaks of "the Son of man," he means the Son of man, and not the Roman armies. When he speaks of his "coming in the clouds of heaven" he means his coming in the clouds of heaven and not the sailing of war-ships on the Mediterranean, or the march of soldiers over the fields of earth. When he says "after" the Jewish tribulations are ended, he means "after" those tribulations, and not before they began, or while they were yet in their incipiency. And when he says that all the tribes of the earth "shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory," expositors might as well attempt to demonstrate to me that day is night, or that white is black, as to attempt to make me believe that he means the march of an army of boorish heathen soldiers. Christ knew what he wished to say, and how to say what he meant; and I feel bound to understand him to mean just what he says. And what he here predicts respecting his coming in the clouds at the close of the tribulation, no more refers to the coming of the Roman armies into Palestine than to the flight of Mahomet, or the next eclipse of the moon. He is describing the scenes of the judgment period, and nothing else.