(2) Our Lord could not have meant the Jewish race, and it would have been improper to have used a Greek word signifying race, because the Jewish race was not the subject of the apostles' inquiry nor of our Lord's prophecy in reply. Israel is barely referred to in the prophecy, and to have said, This race will not pass away until all be fulfilled, would have left the matter open to the question as to which or what race might be meant, for no particular race is indicated. It would, therefore, if the word meant race, be as proper to say that it meant the human race as to say that it referred to the Jewish race.
But understanding genea here, as elsewhere, to mean generation, and recognizing that our Lord's words were a prophecy covering the entire Gospel age, we have no difficulty in understanding the statement to mean--"This generation [which will witness the signs inquired for by the apostles and just enumerated by our Lord--namely, the darkening of the sun and moon and the falling of the stars]--this generation shall not pass away until all these things be fulfilled." In other words, the signs mentioned will occur within a generation-epoch in the close of the age.
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The sprouting of the fig tree may have been but a casual remark, but we incline to think that it was not. The peculiar circumstance narrated of our Lord's curse upon a fig tree which bore no fruit, and which withered away directly (Matt. 21:19,20) inclines us to believe that the fig tree in this prophecy may be understood to signify the Jewish nation. If so, it is being signally fulfilled; for not only are thousands of Israelites returning to Palestine, but the Zionist movement, as all know, has now assumed such proportions as to justify Conventions of representatives from all parts of the world to meet year by year to put in practical shape the proposal for the reorganization of a Jewish state in Palestine. These buds will thrive, but will bear no perfect fruit before October 1914--the full end of "Gentile Times."
A "generation" might be reckoned as equivalent to a century (practically the present limit) or one hundred and twenty years, Moses' lifetime and the Scripture limit. (Gen. 6:3) Reckoning a hundred years from 1780, the date of the first sign, the limit would reach to 1880; and, to our understanding, every item predicted had begun to be fulfilled at that date; the "harvest" or gathering time beginning October 1874; the organization of the Kingdom and the taking by our Lord of his great power as the King in April 1878, and the time of trouble or "day of wrath" which began October 1874, and will cease about 1915; and the sprouting of the fig tree. Those who choose might without inconsistency say that the century or generation might as properly reckon from the last sign, the falling of the stars, as from the first, the darkening of the sun and moon: and a century beginning
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1833 would be still far from run out. Many are living who witnessed the star-falling sign. Those who are walking with us in the light of present truth are not looking for things to come which are already here, but are waiting for the consummation of matters already in progress. Or, since the Master said, "When ye shall see all these things," and since "the sign of the Son of Man in heaven," and the budding fig tree, and the gathering of "the elect" are counted among the signs, it would not be inconsistent to reckon the "generation" from 1878 to 1914--36 ½ years-- about the average of human life today.
"But of that day and hour knoweth no man; no not the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but my Father only." (Matt. 24:36, Sinaitic MS. Compare Mark 13:32,33.) "Take ye heed, watch and pray, for ye know not when the time is."
To many these words seem to imply much more than they express: they think of them as though they put a lock upon and made useless all the prophecies of the Bible--as though our Lord had said, "No man shall ever know," whereas he merely said, "No man [now] knoweth," referring only to the persons who heard him--to whom the exact times and seasons were not due to be revealed. Who can doubt that the "angels of heaven" and "the Son" now know, fully and clearly, matters which have progressed so nearly to fulfilment? And if they are not now hindered from knowing by the statement of this verse, neither now are God's saints hindered or restrained by this verse from seeking an understanding of all truth "written aforetime for our learning." Indeed, it was in great measure because it was not the Father's will that his people then, nor down to the time the "seals" were broken should know the date, that our Lord delineated the course of events, and assured them that if they would watch and pray and thus continue faithful,
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they, at the proper time, would not be left in darkness, but would see and know.