What is the Olivet Discourse?

Question 10078.

The Olivet Discourse is the sermon Jesus preached on the Mount of Olives during the last week of His earthly ministry, recorded in Matthew 24 and 25, Mark 13 and Luke 21. It is the longest block of teaching about the future that we have from His own lips, and everything else in New Testament prophecy is written with it in the background.

It is also, I think, the most misread passage in the Gospels. Get the audience wrong and the whole thing collapses into confusion, with the Rapture, the tribulation, the fall of Jerusalem and the final judgement all mashed into one indistinguishable heap.

The setting

Jesus has just left the temple for the last time, having pronounced woes on the scribes and Pharisees and wept over the city. The disciples, being men, point out the architecture. Herod’s temple was one of the wonders of the ancient world, and they wanted Him to admire the stonework.

His reply is devastating: “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Matthew 24:2). They walk across the Kidron valley in silence, I imagine, and sit down on the slope opposite.

From that vantage point the temple fills the view. The Olivet Discourse is delivered with the doomed building in sight, which gives the whole sermon a weight that no summary can capture.

Mark tells us the question came privately from Peter, James, John and Andrew. This is not public preaching. It is four fishermen and their Teacher, sitting on a hillside, being told what is going to happen to their nation and their world.

Three questions, not one

They ask, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” (Matthew 24:3). That is a question about the destruction of the temple, a question about the sign of His coming, and a question about the end of the age.

In their minds these were probably one event. They assumed the temple would stand until Messiah came in glory, so its destruction and His appearing had to belong together. Jesus answers their questions without correcting the assumption directly, which is why careful reading is needed.

Luke’s account emphasises the first question and gives material about armies surrounding Jerusalem, its people falling by the sword and being led captive among all nations, with the city trampled by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. That was fulfilled in AD 70.

Matthew and Mark concentrate on the second and third questions and give material that cannot be squeezed into the first century at all. Recognising that the Olivet Discourse answers more than one question is the beginning of understanding it.

It is also worth saying that the Olivet Discourse is not the only place Jesus spoke about the future, but it is the fullest. Everything He says elsewhere about His coming fits inside this framework, and the apostles plainly wrote with it in mind.

Their word for coming is parousia, used of the arrival of a king in state. They were not asking about a quiet visit.

Who is being addressed?

This is where I differ from many good commentators, so let me set out my reasoning. The Church did not yet exist when this sermon was preached, and it is not mentioned anywhere in the discourse. The disciples are addressed as Jewish men asking about a Jewish temple and a Jewish hope.

The details confirm it. Flight from Judea, prayer that it not happen on a Sabbath, reference to the holy place, and the abomination spoken of by Daniel are all Israel-specific concerns. None of them touches a Gentile believer in Corinth or Rome.

The phrase “gospel of the kingdom” also points that way. It is the message Jesus and John the Baptist preached to Israel, and it reappears in the tribulation period, rather than being Paul’s technical term for the gospel of grace.

So I take the Olivet Discourse to describe the seventieth week of Daniel, addressed to believing Israel who will live through it, with an initial section that also covers the destruction of AD 70 through Luke’s account. My answer on Daniel’s 70 weeks prophecy supplies the framework.

That does not make the passage irrelevant to us. Scripture written to others is still written for us, and the calls to watchfulness apply to every believer in every age.

Some readers find that conclusion cold, as though the Olivet Discourse were being taken away from the Church. I would put it the other way round. Knowing who a passage is addressed to is what makes its application to us accurate rather than sentimental.

The first half of the week

Jesus begins with deception: “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.” Then wars and rumours of wars, with the instruction not to be alarmed because the end is not yet.

Nation rises against nation, famines and earthquakes occur in various places, and He sums up: “All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.” I have written on that image separately in my answer on the birth pains of Matthew 24.

The parallels with the seal judgements of Revelation 6 are close. A rider on a white horse conquering, war, famine, death, martyrdom and cosmic disturbance appear in the same order. I do not think that is coincidence.

Persecution follows: delivered up to tribulation, put to death, hated by all nations for His name’s sake. Many fall away, betray one another and hate one another, false prophets arise, lawlessness increases and the love of many grows cold.

The hinge of the discourse

Everything turns at verse 15. “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains” (Matthew 24:15-16).

The urgency is extraordinary. The man on the housetop is not to go down for his belongings, the man in the field is not to go back for his cloak, and He pronounces woe on pregnant and nursing mothers in those days. This is flight measured in minutes.

Then: “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.” And a mercy in the middle of it: “if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.”

That places the second half of the Olivet Discourse squarely in the final three and a half years of Daniel’s seventieth week, the period Revelation measures as forty-two months and 1,260 days.

The instruction to pray about the timing of the flight is a small detail with large implications. Jesus expected His people in that day to be praying about practical matters in the middle of the worst crisis in history, which tells you something about how the Olivet Discourse understands faith under pressure.

The coming of the Son of Man

False christs and false prophets appear again, performing great signs and wonders “so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.” Jesus warns against reports that He is in the wilderness or in the inner rooms, and then explains why such reports are absurd.

“For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:27). Nobody will need to be told it has happened. There will be no need for a newsletter.

The sun is darkened, the moon does not give its light, the stars fall and the powers of the heavens are shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man appears, all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they see Him “coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”

His angels gather His elect from the four winds. This is the regathering of Israel promised throughout the prophets, not the Rapture of the Church, which is a different event described by Paul as a mystery previously unrevealed.

That distinction matters enormously, and I set it out in my answer on the difference between the rapture and the Second Coming. The Olivet Discourse describes a return that is visible, mourned and preceded by unmistakable signs.

This is the climax of the Olivet Discourse, and everything before it has been building towards the moment when the sky is torn open. Whatever else the sermon contains, it exists to bring its hearers to that sight.

The fig tree and this generation

The parable of the fig tree teaches recognition rather than calculation. When its branch becomes tender and puts out leaves, summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, “you know that he is near, at the very gates.”

Then the disputed sentence: “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” Some take generation to mean the Jewish race, which the Greek can bear. Others take it to mean the generation alive in AD 30, which requires all these things to have happened by AD 70, and they plainly did not.

I take it to refer to the generation that sees the signs Jesus has just described. Once the abomination stands in the holy place, the sequence runs to completion within a single lifetime, and rather less than one at that.

Immediately afterwards He removes any possibility of date-setting: “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” I take that seriously, as my answer on date-setting explains.

The days of Noah

Jesus compares His coming to the days of Noah, when people were eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the flood came and swept them all away. Ordinary life proceeding as though nothing were coming.

Then: “Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left” (Matthew 24:40-41). This is often quoted as a Rapture text.

I think the comparison with Noah settles it the other way. In that flood, those taken away were the ones swept off in judgement, and Noah’s family were the ones left. Being taken here is being removed for judgement at the end of the tribulation.

Luke’s version has the disciples ask, “Where, Lord?” and Jesus answers, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.” That is hardly a description of being caught up to glory.

The Olivet Discourse therefore does not teach the Rapture at all, which is not a defect in it. Jesus was answering the questions He was asked, and the catching away of the Church was revealed later through Paul as something previously hidden.

The parables of readiness

The Olivet Discourse does not end with prophecy; it ends with four applications, which tells you where the emphasis lies. The faithful and wise servant is found feeding the household when his master returns, while the wicked servant assumes a delay and starts beating his fellow servants.

The ten virgins divide into wise and foolish over one issue: oil in their vessels. The point is preparedness that cannot be borrowed at the last moment. When the door shut, it stayed shut.

The parable of the talents rewards servants who traded with what they were given and condemns the one who buried his master’s money out of a distorted view of his master’s character. Faithfulness in the interval is the theme throughout.

Finally the judgement of the sheep and the goats, where the nations are separated on the basis of how they treated “the least of these my brothers.” In context I take that as the Gentile nations judged after the Second Coming on their treatment of Israel during the tribulation, which is how they will have revealed where they truly stood.

Read together, the four parables of the Olivet Discourse cover watchfulness, preparedness, productivity and compassion. That is a fairly complete description of the Christian life, delivered as the application of a prophecy sermon.

How the three accounts fit together

Luke 21:20-24 supplies material about the AD 70 destruction that Matthew and Mark do not: armies encircling Jerusalem, the command to flee, and the city trampled until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Luke wrote for a Gentile readership and included the nearer fulfilment.

Matthew and Mark move quickly to the abomination and to great tribulation such as has never been, which AD 70 was not, terrible as it was. Josephus described horrors in that siege, but the world has since seen worse, and Jesus said this coming distress would be unmatched in all history.

The two fulfilments sit together on the prophetic horizon in the way Old Testament prophecy so often works. The near event is real and the far event is greater, and the same language covers both.

Reading the Olivet Discourse well means letting Luke speak about the nearer fulfilment and letting Matthew speak about the further one, rather than forcing all three accounts into a single flat chronology.

What the Olivet Discourse teaches us now

It teaches that history has a destination and that Jesus knows the route. He described the fall of the temple forty years in advance, to the stone, and He described the end of the age with the same calm authority.

It teaches that deception is the primary danger for the people of God in difficult times, since He warns about it three separate times in one sermon. Not persecution, not economic collapse, but being led astray.

It teaches that watchfulness looks like work. Every parable at the end of the Olivet Discourse commends someone who was doing their job when the master arrived, and condemns someone who assumed there was time.

And it teaches hope. The passage is full of darkness, and it ends with a King on a throne separating the nations and welcoming the blessed of His Father into the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world.

And it teaches that Jesus is unhurried. He sat on a hillside days before His own crucifixion and calmly described the centuries ahead. The Olivet Discourse is the sermon of a man entirely at peace with the future He was about to purchase.

So, now what?

Read Matthew 24 and 25 straight through in one sitting, then read Luke 21 and note the differences. You will learn more from that hour than from any book about prophecy, mine included.

And then ask the question the parables ask. If the Master arrived while you were reading this, would He find you at your post or would He find you assuming there was still time? What would you want to be holding when the door opened?

“Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

Matthew 24:44, ESV

For Further Study

Those wanting to dig deeper will find J. Dwight Pentecost’s Things to Come indispensable on the structure of the discourse and its relation to Daniel, and Charles Ryrie treats it soundly in Basic Theology and in The Ryrie Study Bible notes. John Walvoord’s Matthew: Thy Kingdom Come works through the passage verse by verse from a consistently premillennial standpoint, and Lewis Sperry Chafer sets it within his wider Systematic Theology. Arnold Fruchtenbaum gives close attention to the Jewish setting in The Footsteps of the Messiah, and Millard Erickson’s Christian Theology offers a fair survey of the competing readings for anyone who wants to weigh the alternatives honestly.