The Abomination of Desolation
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THE CALM BEFORE THE OLIVET STORM
As the sun was setting lazily in the western sky, the disciples were setting up camp atop the Mount of Olives, which overlooked the city to the East. With the tumultuous events of the day still ricocheting in their minds, none of them felt at peace, and all of them would have had more questions than they had answers. Not one of them, however, involved a new future temple.
Earlier that morning, Jesus went toe to toe with the Jewish elite in the city, riding in as the true King that they would reject (Matthew 21:1-10). Immediately after this spectacle, He defiantly cleansed the leprous temple, as the true Priest, whom they would soon be sacrificing on a Roman altar (Matthew 21:12-17). Before this happened, He took up the mantle of true Prophet, issuing three scathing parables of judgment, two humiliating rebukes at the leader's woeful ignorance, and seven covenantal curses upon the city, all signaling its imminent demise (Matthew 21:28-23:39).
By these events, Jesus had more than certainly added jet fuel to the homicidal fires that were already smoldering against Him. Soon, the feckless Jewish aristocrats would succeed in butchering their creator and covenant God. Yet, by inflicting such malice upon God’s beloved Son, that generation unwittingly sealed its doom (Matthew 23:35; Matthew 24:34) and its temple, which was put under demolition order by the King of kings, would soon be reduced to rubble (Matthew 24:1-2).
But now, as the ephemeral rays of sunlight began dissipating amid their campsite, the time had come to pop the three biggest questions they had to their Lord. “Jesus”, the disciples asked, “When will these things happen? what will be the sign your judgment coming draws near? And will this be the end of the Jewish age?” As Jesus turned to see the last remaining photons of light dancing upon Herod’s magnificent temple, with a tear in His eyes He began to answer them accordingly.
JERUSALEM BECOMES THE MOUNTAIN OF DOOM
Looking right at them, Jesus told them forty years had been set apart until the destruction of Jerusalem and that there would be many signs and evidence that the end was drawing near (Matthew 24:34). For instance, He told them that the people would appoint false messiahs to untangle them from Roman oppression and that the disciples must not be deceived when these things occur. He told them that the Roman empire, normally known for peace, would experience a heightened period of instability through an uptick in wars and rumors of wars that would shake the foundations of the entire known world. He alerted them that earthquakes and famines would also descend upon the land, signaling spiritually significant seismic shiftings were afoot as the old world lurched away from Jerusalem being the center of Yahwistic worship to Christ being the only Way, the only Truth, and the only pathway going forward to Life.
As these signs were happening, persecutions and tribulations would be ratcheted up against the fledgling church, who loved Jesus to the point of death. In the same way that a rabid dog attacks most furiously in the moments before the mercy-filled bullet enters its brain, so the Jews, led by various zealot factions, would lash out tirelessly in their final hours, beating, maiming, and executing Christians all throughout the Roman world for sport. And while in their staggering confusion, believing they were earning the favor of God, God mercifully put them down for their extreme lawlessness and hatred of love.
Yet, even while it seemed the entire world would be set against the earliest Christians, Jesus also promised that the Gospel would have a tremendous effect during those forty turbulent years. He predicted as Judah furiously protested like a king mackerel on the line, the Gospel would be preached in all the known world (Greek Word Oikoumene), which was an allusion to the Roman empire. And as we saw in the preceding weeks, this was fulfilled by the late fifties and early sixties AD as Paul tells us that the Gospel was preached to every creature under heaven and was having an effect in all the known world (see Colossians 1:6, 23; Romans 10:16-18; & Romans 16:25-26).
Jesus told them all of these signs would begin occurring before the final end was finally upon them, like labor pains setting an eventual delivery in motion. Today, we move from that initial phase to the active labor that immediately precipitated the end. When Jesus says “Therefore” in Matthew 24:15, He is narrowing His prophetic timeline to the events that would happen just before Jerusalem fell to the Romans, pushing us forward to the year 68 AD. This is what Jesus said:
15 “Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), - Matthew 24:15
DISPENSATIONALISM’S NEW TECHNI-COLORED TEMPLE
Now, for a bit of snark. As insurmountable evidence for a first-century fulfillment has been steadily stacked up high as heaven, the balking futurist will nimbly look right past that colossus towering over him to retort “Wait just a minute! How do you think the temple will be rendered desolate if it is no longer in existence? Can you tell me that?” Just then, with the kind of twinkle of their eye, normally found among a starving predator chasing down some maimed gazelle in the Serengeti, the dispensationalist lunges forward into the attack, asserting: “Clearly, Jesus is talking to you and me about a future Antichrist, who will rise upon the world stage, turn his back on a newly reconstituted Israel, by polluting their newly rebuilt modern temple, with such disgusting abominations that it will be rendered desolate”… “That must be what this passage is saying”, he proudly attests with an air of thinly veiled self-righteousness that was never meant to be hidden. He concludes: “clearly you do not know your Bible.”
I can think of nothing more Biblically illiterate, intellectually pathetic, or downright laughable than the exchange I just hypothesized and yet so many people believe this is exactly what Matthew 24 is talking about. Instead of Jesus answering the disciples' first-century questions, He must be looking past them to answer ours. Instead of judgment upon that generation, it must be a punishment upon the modern world for some unknown reason. Instead of Herod’s temple being brought under specific covenantal curses for her specific covenantal trespasses and left desolate in a single generation (which is what the text actually says), hermeneutical hula hoops must be jostled incoherently about gyrating hip flexors to even come close to making Jesus mean a future temple. The absurdity, given the mountain of context in favor of a first-century view, is about as hard to stomach as drinking dishwater after the family ate a large Italian dinner.
To be fair, a new shiny temple is the only possible way a futurist could ever claim Matthew 24 applies to the future. It is essential to their entire theological schema. It is the thread, that if pulled, will turn the entire sweater back into a ball of yarn the cat will play with. That is precisely why they will ignore the contextual evidence we have shared that comes right out of this passage. That is why they will scour the recesses of the interwebs looking for evidence of temple blueprints and future construction projects that will begin at any moment. Yet, with the third holiest religious site belonging to the world’s most violent religion standing defiantly in their way, they must adopt the Babylonian mantle of Belteshazzar to ignore that kind of unmistakable writing on the proverbial wall standing right in front of them! And, that is by far the easiest problem standing in their way!
Beyond the unassailable issues found within the context and beyond the even more impossible geopolitical situations found in modern-day Israel is the theological issue created by a new temple, since it would entirely invalidate the Gospel. The New Testament tells us that Christ is the final and perfect sacrifice that was offered for our salvation. It tells us that the blood of bulls and goats were altogether ineffectual for the cleansing of our sins and that they were only types and shadows serving as placeholders until the perfect sacrifice had come! To revert to such a regressive system of lambs and bulls would be akin to a man divorcing his wife to marry the picture of her hanging over the mantle. It is insanity upon insanities to think God would so easily nullify the sacrifice of His dear child in favor of the future blood of smelly livestock and dumb animals.
With all of this evidence before us, we rightly approach Matthew 24:15 fully expecting it to have a first-century fulfillment. This is because we know that no new temple is coming. Second, the context in this chapter has unmistakably led us here. And third, we believe Jesus wasn’t playing games or lying to us when He said “All these things will come upon this generation” (Matthew 24:34). To that end, we will explore the abomination that causes desolation to the Jewish temple and we will begin with the meaning of the words.
TIME FOR SOME DEFINITIONS
According to the Old Testament, an abomination occurs when one of two deviant things takes place. First, when something sacred is used in the service of or is dedicated unto the worship of an idol, then it becomes an abomination unto God (See Deuteronomy. 7:25; 27:15 for examples). Yet, even when things are offered to the one true God, they may be offered in such an unregulated and disobedient way, that God considers them detestable in His sight (See Leviticus 7:18; Leviticus 10; Deuteronomy 17:1 for examples). Thus, an abomination can be right worship offered to the wrong god or wrong worship offered to the right God.
Knowing this, we can see exactly what Jesus was prophesied in Matthew chapter 24. He is not looking ahead to a twenty-first-century rebuilt temple that will need to be defiled. He is looking at the temple right in front of Him, prophesying that it will be defiled, so much so that it will be left desolate forever. The question we have to wrestle with is did such an event occur in the first century?
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A JEWISH AND GENTILE GOSPEL
The least shocking thing I may say in this blog is that when Jesus spoke to His disciples on the Mount of Olives, He was communicating to them in a very ancient and very Jewish way. It would only make sense for a Jewish Messiah, whose ministry existed 2000 years ago, to think, feel, and communicate to a very ancient group of Jews in ways that were profoundly consistent with their ancient context and Jewish orientation, right? This would naturally make the meaning of this passage much easier to come by if one were ancient, Jewish, or even better yet, both. Therefore, we must be very careful, as modern-day Gentiles, when reading this passage, so that tremendous confusion does not arise from our contextual ignorance.
When Jesus delivered His Olivet Discourse, He employed some of the most richly Jewish language found anywhere in the New Testament. This is especially true in the record given by Matthew, which is by far the most Jewish of all the Gospels. In that account, Jesus warned His disciples that the holy city and its temple would o be left permanently desolate, as it had been in the past because the same kind of defiled worship was being offered once again.
To make this point abundantly clear, Jesus reminds His disciples of the first Jerusalem temple, built and dedicated long ago by the good King Solomon, that had been burned to the ground by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians in 586 BC. According to Daniel, this was not a random event perpetrated by a geopolitical bully. To say it differently, the Jews were not victims of bad circumstances. They were being punished by God for centuries of covenant rebellion and abominations that were polluting their temple (Daniel 9:1-19). As a result of their past unfaithfulness, the Jews lost their place, their temple, and their nation. That same reality of an invading pagan army burning down their temple was coming once again, except this time it would be permanent.
Now, we know this is the interpretation of Matthew 24 for two very important reasons. First, Jesus alludes to Daniel who is going through the same things the disciples will soon face. He was an eyewitness to the desolations God brought when abominations were tolerated in Jerusalem. That correlation was striking and would have instantly given this group of first-century Jews a sort of biting clarity on what kind of worship Jesus believed the Jews were offering in His day and what their outcome would soon be. But, we also know that this interpretation is correct, because our Gentile brother Luke, who wrote the most Gentile-oriented Gospel of the four, says it in a different way that is much easier for us to understand. Instead of communicating like a Jew, reminding us that an abomination that causes desolation will occur as it did in the days of Daniel, Luke blurts out the obvious in his parallel account of the Olivet Discourse. He says:
“When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. - Luke 21:20
What Matthew calls an abomination that causes desolation, Luke calls Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, which we know did occur in the years 68-70 AD. Therefore, instead of looking for a future or modern fulfillment to these events, we should rightly look for examples of abominations in worship that takes place in the city of Jerusalem, while it is surrounded by Roman armies, in the first century. The question is, does such an event like this occur in the first century?
AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR…
There are at least four events that could historically qualify as the Abomination that causes desolation. If you will remember from above, an abomination can either be an act of authentic worship offered to the wrong god or an act of inauthentic worship offered to the one true God. Both of these examples could be in view by Jesus.
THE ZEALOT ABOMINATION
For instance, at the time of Jesus, the nation of Judah had fallen into a panoply of disparate factions that were being held together by a single thread: their hatred of Rome. After Jesus ascended into heaven, these tenuous alliances began to break down, as those more friendly to Rome were sharply divided with those who wanted national freedom at all costs. This divide can be illustrated by two opposing groups who were in power just before Judah was reduced to ashes.
The first group was the Zealots, who were a fiery band of vigilante freedom fighters willing to do anything, even murdering their own countrymen, to be free from the tyranny of Rome. The other group, the Sadducees, were much more friendly to Rome and used their political connections to ensure peace and stability for the Jews. The Sadduccees considered the zealots to be religious terrorists. The Zealots considered the Sadducees to be traitors and political sellouts. Given this kind of political turmoil, civil war seemed inevitable.
This divide became all the more severe when the Roman armies began staging outside the city. For a season, the Sadduccess remained in control of the temple and favored a peaceful surrender to Rome to save the city and millions of lives from being slaughtered. This infuriated the Zealots who were more willing to die than to live another moment under the rule of Rome. Thus, as the battle with Rome neared closer, a civil war between the Zealots and the Sadducees erupted inside the city of Jerusalem.
At this point, the Zealots thrashed their way toward the temple mount murdering anyone who stood in their way. Soon, they would execute the high priest himself, take control over the temple, and would install their own puppet high priest to serve as the head of their newly federated religion. If this were not bad enough, it is reported that they did the unthinkable, murdering some of their priestly enemies inside the temple building itself, defiling it with their atrocities. To seal their destiny, the Zealots also allowed violent armed criminals to roam about the temple precinct, apparently protecting their newly acquired territory, allowing some to venture into the holy of holies, which would have been an unthinkable abomination that warranted desolation.
Josephus tells us:
“And now, when the multitude were gotten together to an assembly, and every one was in indignation at these men's seizing upon the sanctuary, at their rapine and murders, but had not yet begun their attacks upon them, [the reason of which was this, that they imagined it to be a difficult thing to suppress these zealots, as indeed the case was,] Ananus stood in the midst of them, and casting his eyes frequently at the temple, and having a flood of tears in his eyes, he said, ‘Certainly it would have been good for me to die before I had seen the house of God full of so many abominations, or these sacred places, that ought not to be trodden upon at random, filled with the feet of these blood-shedding villains’… “How then can we avoid shedding of tears, when we see the Roman donations in our temple, while we withal see those of our own nation taking our spoils, and plundering our glorious metropolis, and slaughtering our men, from which enormities those Romans themselves would have abstained? to see those Romans never going beyond the bounds allotted to profane persons, nor venturing to break in upon any of our sacred customs; nay, having a horror on their minds when they view at a distance those sacred walls; while some that have been born in this very country, and brought up in our customs, and called Jews, do walk about in the midst of the holy places, at the very time when their hands are still warm with the slaughter of their own countrymen.” - Josephus, Wars, 4.3.10
This is an example of the second kind of abomination. Jewish-born people, who believed they were acting in service to the one true God, seized upon the temple in 68 AD, spilled the blood of the priests instead of the sacrificial offerings, ended the Mosaic economy of religion and cut off the sacrifices, and then proceeded to fill the temple with all kinds of treachery and villainy for the three and a half years Rome was besieging the city. Is it any wonder that God would severely punish them?
THE IDUMEAN ABOMINATION
As the Zealots were attempting to secure the temple, and to squash the rebellion Annus seemed to be instigating (See Jewish Wars 4.3.10-11), they sent word to the Idumeans to come and assist them. The Idumeans were descendants of the Edomites (from Isaac’s son Esau) and were normally seen as enemies of the people of Judah. They lived just south of Judea and would have been more than happy to spill Jewish blood. When they received the summons, an army of nearly twenty thousand men marched quickly to Jerusalem and was greeted by the zealots who were cutting down their own gates in order to welcome them.
In chaos that ensued, nearly eight thousand Jews, who were loyal to the high priest, were killed in the temple courtyard, filling its courts with puddles of blood. The High Priest Annus was also murdered in this bloody battle that most surely fits the criteria for an abomination, since Idumeans were not allowed in, on, or even near the temple. Josephus tells us:
“But the rage of the Idumeans was not satiated by these slaughters, but they now betook themselves to the city, and plundered every house, and slew every one they met; and for the other multitude, they esteemed it needless to go on with killing them, but they sought for the high priests, and the generality went with the greatest zeal against them; and as soon as they caught them they slew them, and then standing upon their dead bodies, in way of jest, upbraided Ananus with his kindness to the people, and Jesus (A follower of Ananus) with his speech made to them from the wall. Nay, they proceeded to that degree of impiety, as to cast away their dead bodies without burial, although the Jews used to take so much care of the burial of men, that they took down those that were condemned and crucified, and buried them before the going down of the sun. I should not mistake if I said that the death of Ananus was the beginning of the destruction of the city and that from this very day may be dated the overthrow of her wall, and the ruin of her affairs, whereon they saw their high priest, and the procurer of their preservation, slain amid their city. He was on other accounts also a venerable, and a very just man; and besides the grandeur of that nobility, and dignity, and honor of which he was possessed, he had been a lover of a kind of parity, even with regard to the meanest of the people; he was a prodigious lover of liberty, and an admirer of a democracy in government; and did ever prefer the public welfare before his own advantage, and preferred peace above all things; for he was thoroughly sensible that the Romans were not to be conquered. He also foresaw that of necessity a war would follow, and that unless the Jews made up matters with them very dexterously, they would be destroyed”…
Josephus continued:
“and I cannot but think that it was because God had doomed this city to destruction, as a polluted city, and was resolved to purge his sanctuary by fire, that he cut off these their great defenders and well-wishers, while those that a little before had worn the sacred garments, and had presided over the public worship; and had been esteemed venerable by those that dwelt on the whole habitable earth when they came into our city, were cast out naked, and seen to be the food of dogs and wild beasts. And I cannot but imagine that virtue itself groaned at these men's case, and lamented that she was here so terribly conquered by wickedness. And this at last was the end of Ananus and Jesus.” - Josephus, Jewish Wars, 4.5.2
From my perspective, these Idumean-led abominations ought to be considered right alongside the abominations brought on by the Zealots since they concern the same period of time and the same occasion. By filling the temple complex with murder, violence, wickedness, and a form of worship only welcome in hell, the Zealots and the Idumeans plunged Judah on a collision course for destruction.
THE ROMAN ABOMINATION
After three and a half years of Zealot and Idumean temple travesties, the Romans eventually broke through the outer walls of the city and fought their way to the temple mount, where the final part of the battle ensued. By divine providence, the temple was set on fire, causing the remaining Zealots to become easy prey for the Roman invaders who murdered them with ease. As the temple was burning and the dead bodies were baking in the noonday sun it seemed clear to all that the Romans had won. So, they did what any pagan would have done in that situation. They brought in their idolatrous symbols and began sacrificing to their pagan gods as an act of thanks for victory in battle. The worst part of this display is that this concentrated act of idolatry was performed in the very same spot where the offerings were offered up to Yahweh.
This is what Josephus tells us:
And now the Romans, upon the flight of the seditious into the city, and upon the burning of the holy house itself, and all the buildings round about it, brought their ensigns (Pagan symbols of worship) to the temple and set them over against its eastern gate; and there did they offer sacrifices to them, and there did they make Titus imperator with the greatest acclamations of joy.” - Josephus, Jewish Wars, 6.6.2.
This is the first kind of abomination, where idolatrous symbols are integrated into the worship of God. In doing this, the Romans not only profaned the holy temple but caused it to become desolate, which also fits the description that Jesus gave in Matthew 24. In truth, this three-and-a-half-year period we have been examining was filled with all kinds of abominations from beginning to end. It should not shock us that God decided to end the era of the temple and prohibited it from being rebuilt.
THE JEWISH ABOMINATION
Even beyond the deplorable abominations committed by the Zealots, the Idumeans, and the Romans, the most spiritually significant abomination ever committed was the rejection of Jesus by the Jews. When Christ came, and tabernacled among His people, told them the very words of God, and performed miracles that only God could have performed, the Jews had a once in all of history moment to fall on their faces and worship their covenant King who had visited them in the flesh. Yet, out of envy for power, a hatred for God, and an idolatrous love of their temple, the Jewish establishment rejected Christ and set about to murder Him (John 11:42-53; John 19:15).
When they rejected the resurrected Christ as both their Lord and their God, their sacrificial system, not only became immediately obsolete but became repugnant to God. As soon as Christ rose from the dead, that old sacrificial system became the epicenter of the most egregious abominations ever committed in Israel. Follow my logic, when we remember that all the Old Covenant lambs and goats were but types and shadows that were pointing to Jesus and that after His resurrection all true worship was to be directed to Jesus because He is the image of the invisible God, then offering an animal at any time thereafter was not only unscrupulous, it was pure flagrant hatred against God!
He provided His one and only Son to end all sacrifices! He gave His best, the only perfect man, to atone for sinful men. To prefer the smelly calf over the savior Christ is the most extreme kind of idolatry imaginable! It is the equivalent of saying, “I prefer the dumbest, weakest, lamest, substitute from the field, that marches through piles of its own excrement, over the radiant Son provided by our loving Father.”
For Jerusalem to go on slaying livestock in its sanctuary, when the perfect sacrifice was already given, was not only foolish and misguided, it was the highest form of rejecting God that ever could be imagined. And, as we know, God would not allow those kinds of abominations to continue. This is why the temple was left desolate. This is why God brought devastation upon that system. And this is why dispensationalism cannot be true while looking for a new temple. The true temple has come, the true sacrifice has already been given, and if you try approaching Yahweh in some other way, you likewise will perish!
CONCLUSION
In the years after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, millions of abominable sacrifices were offered on those altars in rejection of Christ. At some point, the Zealots came into the temple, with the help of the Idumeans, and laid waste to their countrymen, destroyed the idolatrous priests, committed all kinds of abominable actions in the temple, and ended the regular sacrifice. Then, at the very end, the Romans came into the temple courtyard and finished the job by setting the temple on fire, robbing it of its treasures, and polluting its ashes with their idolatrous symbols. God’s judgment was complete by AD 70 and each of these four events played a part in its destruction.
1952 years later we can see that the temple mount remains desolate, it is still filled with the abominable idolatries of false religion, and because Jesus’ prophesy has already been fulfilled, we need not waste a single second hoping for another temple. Why hope for a crummy old building that sacrifices animals when the true temple and true sacrifice has come?
That’s it for this week! Thanks for tuning in and we will see you next week on the Prodcast. God bless!
