R.C. Sproul

And again, the first theory was that this is what the New Testament taught.

The New Testament was wrong, and Jesus was wrong.

Therefore, we can safely discard the New Testament documents as being unreliable and also understand that this Jesus of Nazareth, who was a wonderful person and a model of love and an existential hero and all of that, obviously had it wrong with respect to his own future predictions.

As I say, subsequent generations, for example, in England, C.H.

Dodd developed a response to this critical theory in which he spoke of what was called realized eschatology, the idea being that all of the prophecies that the New Testament made with respect to the future and Christ's return were in fact fulfilled in the first century.

Jesus said, for example, you won't go over all of the cities of Jerusalem or of Israel until you see the Son of Man coming in power.

Or some of you will not taste death until you see the coming of the kingdom and so on.

And what Dodd did with those texts was he said what Jesus was referring to was not a future return, but to His visible manifestation in glory that took place in the transfiguration, in the resurrection, and in the ascension.

But of all the texts in the New Testament that came under attack by the critics, it was the text in the Olivet Discourse, particularly in Matthew's Gospel, where when Jesus makes a prediction specifically about the Jewish temple,

and the city of Jerusalem when He says the day was coming that not one stone would be left upon another, Jerusalem would be surrounded and be defeated and so on, and also that the Son of Man would come in glory.

And the disciples asked Him pointedly, when will these things take place?

And in direct response to the disciples' inquiry, Jesus spoke to them and said, This generation will not pass away till all of these things be fulfilled.

Now, do you see why the critics jump on that?

That statement by Christ seems to be unambiguous, straightforward, and clear that he is saying that the three things that he's predicting, the destruction of the temple, the destruction of Jerusalem, and his return, all will take place within the framework of a single human generation, which in Jewish terms means approximately 40 years.

Now if the dating of Christ's crucifixion took place somewhere in and around the year 30 AD, one would expect the outer limits of the fulfillment of that prophecy to be 40 years later, which happens to be the date for the actual destruction of the temple and the defeat of the city of Jerusalem in the year AD 70.

Now again, the critics look at that and say, okay, we grant that the temple fell.

We grant that the city was captured, but Jesus didn't come back.

Two out of three is not good enough.

That would only make you a false prophet in the Old Testament.

And I've anguished over that.