Was Jesus a False Prophet?

Jesus told His disciples, “Some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power” (Matt 16:28; Mark 9:1; Luke 9:27). He declared that people would “see the Son of Man [a reference to Himself] coming in clouds with great power and glory” (Mark 13:26, 14:62; Matt 24:30, 26:64), and that “this generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (Mark 13:30; Matt 24:34). 

Nearly 2,000 years after the deaths of the apostles and everyone else of their generation, the Second Coming of Jesus has still not occurred; Jesus has not returned from heaven to fully inaugurate God’s Kingdom on earth. Skeptics often argue that this proves that Jesus’s prophecies are false, since He clearly prophesied that His Second Coming would be within the lifetime of His first-century disciples. 

Some Christians have responded to this by pointing out that the fulfillment of all prophecies about the future are conditional, based on the response of those who hear them (Jer 18:5-10; Isa 38:1-6; Jonah 3), and arguing that the Second Coming of Jesus was originally going to occur in the first century, but has been delayed for some reason. While this line of argument is not unreasonable, I do not believe that it is actually necessary to explain why Jesus’s Second Coming did not occur in the first century. This is because, if we closely examine these prophecies of Jesus, we will see that they are not actually referring to His Second Coming at all.

The Coming of God’s Kingdom

When Jesus told His disciples, “some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power,” what was He talking about? In every Gospel in which it appears–Matthew, Mark, and Luke–this saying of Jesus is immediately followed by the story of the Transfiguration, when Jesus’s Divine glory was revealed to the inner circle of His disciples (Matt 17:1-13; Mark 9:2-13; Luke 9:28-36). Clearly, when Jesus said that “some” would see the kingdom of God come with power, He was referring to this event, when some of His disciples were given a glimpse of His Divine glory. He was not referring to His future Second Coming, when the kingdom of God will be fully established over the entire earth. 

The Coming of the Son of Man

When Jesus declared that people would see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory, what was He talking about? Was He talking about His Second Coming? It is important to remember that, during Jesus’s public ministry, His disciples did not understand that Jesus was going to die on the cross (Mark 9:9-10). They certainly did not understand that He was going to rise from the dead. They certainly did not understand that He was subsequently going to ascend into heaven. So, they would have had absolutely no idea what He was talking about if He was trying to tell them about His future Second Coming back from heaven to earth. Thus, the idea that Jesus was telling them about His Second Coming here is inherently highly unlikely. 

The “Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory” is clearly a reference to Daniel 7:13-14: “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into His presence. He was given authority, glory, and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” In Daniel, this figure of the Son of Man represents “the holy people of the Most High,” who are oppressed by evil pagan nations for a time, but are then vindicated and glorified by God (Dan 7:22-27). Jesus identifies Himself with this figure. We must note that, in Daniel, the Son of Man does not “come” from God to earth; He “comes” to God in heaven. When Jesus talks about the coming of the Son of Man, then, He is not referring to His Second Coming; He is referring to His vindication and glorification by God following His sufferings.^[1]I am not at all claiming that the New Testament does not teach the Second Coming of Jesus; it clearly does (Acts 1:10). I am only claiming that Jesus is not talking about His Second Coming in these … Continue reading

The entire discourse in which Jesus tells His disciples about the coming of the Son of Man is a response to His disciples’ question of when the Jerusalem temple will be destroyed, as He just prophesied (Matt 24:1-3; Mark 13:1-4). This is what this discourse is about: the events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem. Jesus was telling His disciples that, although the Jewish religious leaders would persecute Him, God would subsequently vindicate Him. This prophecy was fulfilled when, after Jesus’s death, He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, and then Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed, just as He prophesied, in 70 AD. 70 AD was certainly within the lifetime of the generation of the disciples. So, Jesus’s claim, “this generation will not pass away until all these things take place,” was absolutely correct.

Some skeptics have objected to this interpretation of Jesus’s prophecy here. They point to Jesus’s words, “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken” (Matt 24:29), as evidence that Jesus was indeed claiming that the end of the entire world would happen within a generation’s time. However, Jesus’s language here about the heavenly bodies is clearly figurative, not literal. Jesus is actually quoting two verses from Isaiah. The first is Isaiah 13:10, which is part of a prophecy about the destruction of Babylon. The second is Isaiah 34:4, which is part of a prophecy about the destruction of Edom. In both cases, Isaiah’s use of language about heavenly bodies is clearly figurative, a metaphor for cataclysmic political events. Jesus borrows this figurative prophetic language and applies it to the political events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem. There is no good reason to think that He intended it to be taken literally. 

In His prophecies about the coming of the Son of Man, Jesus was clearly prophesying about events that happened in the first century, not His Second Coming. The New Testament never tells us how long it would be until Jesus’s Second Coming. Thus, the fact that, 2,000 years later, we are still waiting for Jesus’s Second Coming provides no reason for doubting the trustworthiness of Jesus and His apostles.