Mark 13:30: This Generation Will Not Pass Away?

This has been regarded as a hard saying by those who take it to refer to Christ's Second Advent, his coming in glory. If Jesus really affirmed that this event would take place within a generation from the time of speaking (which was only a few days before his arrest and execution), then, it is felt, he was mistaken, and this is for many an unacceptable conclusion.

The genuineness of this saying is argued on the ground that no one would have invented an unfulfilled prophecy and put it on Jesus' lips. If an unfulfilled prophecy is ascribed to him in the Gospel tradition, that can only be (it is argued) because he actually uttered it. In more recent times, however, the utterance has been widely ascribed not to the historical Jesus but to some prophet in the early church speaking in Jesus' name. Rudolf Bultmann regarded the discourse of Mark 13:5-27 as "a Jewish apocalypse with a Christian editing," and thought that this utterance would have made a suitable conclusion to such an apocalypse.

Some students of the New Testament who do not concede that Jesus might have been mistaken are nevertheless convinced that the reference is indeed to his glorious Advent. If "all these things" must denote the events leading up to the Advent and the Advent itself, then some other interpretation, they say, will have to be placed on "this generation." Other meanings which the Greek noun genea (here translated "generation") bears in certain contexts are canvassed. The word is sometimes used in the sense of "race," so perhaps, it is suggested, the point is that the Jewish race, or even the human race, will not pass away before the Second Advent. Plainly the idea that the human race is meant cannot be entertained; every description of that event implies that human beings will be around to witness it, for otherwise it would have no context to give it any significance. Nor is there much more to be said for the idea that the Jewish race is meant; there is no hint anywhere in the New Testament that the Jewish race will cease to exist before the end of the world. In any case, what point would there be in such a vague prediction? It would be as much as to say, "At some time in the indefinite future all these things will take place."

"This generation" is a recurring phrase in the Bible, and each time it is used it bears the ordinary sense of the people belonging to one fairly comprehensive age group. One desperate attempt to combine the recognition of this fact with a reference to the Second Advent and yet exonerate Jesus from being mistaken in his forecast is to take "this generation" to mean not "this generation now alive" but "the generation which will be alive at the time about which I am speaking." The meaning would then be: "The generation on earth when these things begin to take place will still be on earth when they are all completed; all these things will take place within the span of one generation."

Is this at all probable? I think not. When we are faced with the problem of understanding a hard saying, it is always a safe procedure to ask, "What would it have meant to the people who first heard it?" And there can be but one answer to this question in relation to the present hard saying. Jesus' hearers could have understood him to mean only that "all these things" would take place within their generation. Not only doesgeneration in the phrase "this generation" always mean the people alive at one particular time; the phrase itself always means "the generation now living." Jesus spoke of "this generation" in this sense several times, and generally in no flattering terms. In fact, his use of the phrase echoes its use in the Old Testament records of the Israelites' wilderness wanderings. The generation of Israelites that left Egypt did not survive to enter Canaan; it died out in the wilderness--all the adults, that is to say (with two named exceptions). And why? Because it refused to accept the word of God communicated through Moses. Hence it is called "this evil generation" (Deut 1:35), "a warped and crooked generation" (Deut 32:5).

Similarly the generation to which Jesus ministered is called "a wicked generation" (Lk 11:29), "this adulterous and sinful generation" (Mk 8:38), because of its unbelief and unresponsiveness. "The men of Nineveh," said Jesus, "will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here" (Lk 11:32). In fact, "this generation" has so capped the unhappy record of its predecessors that all their misdeeds will be visited on it: "Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all" (Lk 11:51). The phrase "this generation" is found too often on Jesus' lips in this literal sense for us to suppose that it suddenly takes on a different meaning in the saying which we are now examining. Moreover, if the generation of the end time had been intended, "that generation" would have been a more natural way ofreferring to it than "this generation."

But what are "all these things" that are due to take place before "this generation" passes away? Jesus was speaking in response to a question put to him by four of his disciples. They were visiting Jerusalem for the Passover, and the disciples were impressed by the architectural grandeur of the temple, so recently restored and enlarged by Herod. "Look, Teacher," said one of them. "What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!" Jesus replied, "Do you see all these great buildings? Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down." This aroused their curiosity, and seizing an opportunity when they were with him on the Mount of Olives looking across to the temple area, four of them asked, "Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?" (Mk 13:1-4).

In the disciples' question, "all these things" are the destruction of the temple and attendant events. It seems reasonable to regard the hard saying as summing up the answer to their question. If so, then "all these things" will have the same meaning in question and answer. The hard saying will then mean that "this generation will not pass away before" the temple is totally destroyed. It is well known that the temple was actually destroyed by the Romans under the crown prince Titus in August of A.D. 70, not more than forty years after Jesus spoke. Forty years is not too long a period to be called a generation; in fact, forty years is the conventional length of a generation in the biblical vocabulary. It was certainly so with the "evil generation" of the wilderness wanderings: "Forty years long was I grieved with this generation," said God (Ps 95:10 Prayer Book version).

But if that is what the saying means, why should it have been thought to predict the last Advent within that generation? Because, in the discourse which intervenes between Mark 13:4 and Mark 13:30, other subject matter is interwoven with the forecast of the time of trouble leading up to the disaster of A.D. 70. In particular, there is the prediction of "the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory" and sending out his angels to "gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens" (Mk 13:26-27). Some interpreters have taken this to be a highly figurative description of the divine judgment that many Christians, and not only Christians, saw enacted in the Roman siege and destruction of Jerusalem; but it is difficult to agree with them.

Mark probably wrote his Gospel four or five years before A.D. 70. When he wrote, the fall of the temple and the coming of the Son of Man lay alike in the future, and he had no means of knowing whether or not there would be a substantial lapse of time between these two events. Even so, he preserves in the same context another saying of Jesus relating to the time of a future event: "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mk 13:32). What is the day or hour to which this refers? Certainly not the day or hour of the destruction of the temple: what the whole context, and not only the hard saying of Mark 13:30, emphasizes about that event is its nearness and certainty. The event whose timing is known to none but the Father cannot be anything other than the coming of the Son of Man, described in Mark 13:26.

Luke, as he reproduces the substance of the discourse of Mark 13:5-30, lays more emphasis on the fate of Jerusalem, the city as well as the temple: "Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled" (Lk 21:24). When "the times of the Gentiles" (the period of Gentile domination of the holy city) will be fulfilled is not indicated. But this saying, though peculiar to Luke in the Gospel record, is not Luke's invention: it turns up again in the Apocalypse, and in a part of it which is probably earlier than that work as a whole and was subsequently incorporated into it. The outer court of the temple, John is told, "has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months" (Rev 11:2). This is a prophetic utterance communicated to John by a voice from heaven, but it has the same origin as the words recorded in Luke 21:24.

Matthew, writing his Gospel probably a short time after the destruction of the temple, could see, as Mark naturally could not, the separation in time between that event and the coming of the Son of Man. For Matthew, the one event had taken place, while the other was still future. He rewords the disciples' question to Jesus so that it refers to both events distinctly and explicitly. Jesus, as in Mark, foretells how not one stone of the temple will be left standing on another, and the disciples say, "Tell us, (a) when will this happen, and (b) what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" (Mt 24:3). Then, at the end of the following discourse, Jesus answers their twofold question by saying that (a) "this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened" (Mt 24:34), while (b) with regard to his coming and "the end of the age," he tells them that "no one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mt 24:36). The distinction between the two predictions is clear in Matthew, for whom the earlier of the two predicted events now lay in the past; but it was already implicit, though not so clear, in Mark.

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Rudolf Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 125.

Compare G. H. Lang, The Revelation of Jesus Christ (London: Garden City, 1945), p. 387.