Like all Scripture, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are inspired, inerrant, and infallible even though the words are not identical. Using slightly different language all record accurately the disciples' questions:
MATTHEW – "Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" (24:3B ESV)
MARK – "Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?" (13:4 ESV)
LUKE – "Teacher, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?" (21:7 ESV)
So despite knowing that in about 40 years (in A.D. 70) that temple is going to be so badly demolished that not one stone will be left upon another…knowing that the new covenant in His blood is about to abolish the Levitcal animal sacrifices…knowing those foreshadows are about to be swallowed up by His once for all perfect sacrifice…Jesus skips over all that and says, "OK, let me answer your question, prompted by your astonishment about what I've been saying already, by telling you about some things that are going to take place 2,000 years or more from now."
Makes perfect sense, right? NO!!! In essence Jesus is saying that one age is ending and another is about to begin. The age that is about to end is not the final consummation when He comes again, but the end of the old covenant age! How would it have answered their question or helped them face what Jesus knew was coming in their near future, if He foretold things in their very, very distant future?
The disciples' WHEN and WHAT question was about the end of the age. Again, what age? The age of the old covenant! That age during which Jews and Samaritans disputed over which mountain is the right one for worship (John 4), in which Jesus told the woman at the well about days to come when that would no longer matter – an amazing idea to a Jew or Samaritan of that generation. The age in which the nations were deceived in darkness was about to end as a new age dawned with the truth and light of Gospel!
Passages such as 2 Chronicles ch. 5 entire; 6:5,6 and 7:1,2; 11ff show the place the temple had in the old covenant and thus in the minds of the ancient Israelites. Yes, it was destroyed by the Babylonians when Jerusalem fell (586 B.C.), but construction of a second temple began under Herod in about 20 B.C. Per John 2:20, that temple took 46 years to build, which means it was completed just as Jesus' public ministry began. But the priests of that temple, built for God, rejected God incarnate when He came to them. "He came to His own, and they did not receive Him" (John 1:11)
So there is that last day (John 6:39, 40, 44, 54) Martha mentioned when Jesus raised her brother Lazarus…"I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." But what was coming shortly, upon that generation, was the end of the age in which that temple and its form of worship were central. Just as the apostle Peter wrote of "the world that existed then" speaking about the age before the flood of Noah's day (2 Peter 3:6), so we should think of the world before Christ's first advent as a second "world that existed then."
The unprecedented coming to Earth of God incarnate, Immanuel…His accomplishing the redemption of His people, the beginning of His Messianic reign, the growth of the Kingdom of God against which the gates of hell won't prevail…it's going to be like a new heavens and a new earth – not physically although in fact the physical creation itself will eventually be set free from its present bondage (Romans 8:21)! The stone that the builders rejected is about to become the chief cornerstone of the new temple. It is the Lord's doing and marvelous in our eyes.
And by the way, any structure that might be built in the modern state of Israel is of no significance in terms of the Gospel and the Kingdom of God. And if animals are actually slaughtered in some ritualistic way there, those sacrifices would have no power to atone for sin. And if done by professing Christians, they would be as much an insult to Christ's once for all sacrifice as is the blasphemy of the Romish mass that claims to "resacrifice" Him.
So we should think of the first advent of Jesus as bringing changes to the world so great that only those of His future second advent will be greater! David's royal Son Who is also his Messiah is about to take His seat at the Father's right hand until all His enemies are made a footstool for His feet. Jesus shall reign!
In our next session we'll start to look at some of the details of what Jesus foretold would happen to His generation. Go to A Survey of Eschatology, Part Four