Commentary - Luke 21:10-24

Bird's-eye view

In this portion of the Olivet Discourse, the Lord Jesus lays out for His disciples the sequence of events that would culminate in the most significant geopolitical event of the first century, the complete destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in A.D. 70. It is crucial for the modern reader to shed the spectacles of newspaper eschatology and read this passage for what it is: a prophecy about the end of an age, specifically the Judaic age, not a prophecy about the end of the world. Christ is describing the birth pangs of the new covenant order, which would be fully established once the scaffolding of the old covenant was torn down. The wars, persecutions, and famines are the death rattle of the old world, and the surrounding of Jerusalem by armies is the final, unmistakable sign that the end of that world had come.

This is not a script for panic, but a manual for perseverance. Jesus tells His followers what to expect so that they will not be caught off guard. He promises them persecution, but He also promises them the words to speak in the midst of it. He promises them hatred, but He also promises them ultimate preservation. The central command is to watch for a specific, historical sign, the encirclement of Jerusalem, and then to act decisively. This is a prophecy given for the benefit of the first-century saints, which they understood and obeyed, and it is a testimony to us of the faithfulness of God to His Word and the certainty of His judgments.

Outline

Commentary by Verse

v. 10 Then He continued saying to them, “Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom,

Jesus begins by describing the general political climate of the coming decades. This is not a secret code for twenty-first-century conflicts. The Roman world in the years leading up to A.D. 70 was rife with civil strife, insurrections, and wars. Historians like Tacitus document this period as one of profound instability. Jesus is telling His disciples that the world they know is going to be shaken. The "pax Romana" was not as peaceful as its name suggests. These are the sorts of things that happen when an old order is passing away. God in His sovereignty uses the machinations of men and the chaos of empires to bring about His purposes. These are the background noises to the main event.

v. 11 and there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.

Along with the political turmoil, there will be convulsions in the natural world. Again, these are not things that are out of the ordinary in the grand sweep of history, but Jesus points to an intensification of them. There were notable earthquakes in Asia Minor and famines, like the one mentioned in Acts 11, during this period. The "terrors and great signs from heaven" are particularly interesting. The Jewish historian Josephus, not a Christian, documents a series of extraordinary phenomena in the skies over Jerusalem before its fall, including a star resembling a sword that stood over the city and a comet that continued for a year. God was writing His judgment in the sky for all to see, but only those with eyes to see, those who heeded Christ's words, would understand.

v. 12 “But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for My name’s sake.

Here the timeline is made explicit. "Before all these things," that is, before the final cataclysm of verses 20 and following, the church will undergo a period of intense persecution. And where do we read about this? The book of Acts is the inspired commentary on this verse. The disciples were arrested, beaten, thrown into prisons, and brought before the Sanhedrin, before Felix, Festus, and Agrippa. This was not a sign that God's plan was failing; it was a sign that it was working. The gospel advances not in spite of opposition, but often because of it.

v. 13 It will result in an opportunity for your testimony.

This is a key theological point. God orchestrates the persecution of His people for the sake of the gospel's advance. The courtroom of a hostile governor becomes a pulpit. The prison becomes a mission field. God turns the world's hostility on its head and uses it as a platform for the testimony, the marturion, of His Son. Paul's imprisonment in Rome resulted in the gospel advancing throughout the praetorian guard. God is never outmaneuvered. He takes the enemy's best punch and uses the momentum to further His kingdom.

v. 14 So set in your hearts not to prepare beforehand to defend yourselves;

This is not an injunction against thoughtful apologetics or a command to be lazy-minded. Rather, it is a command against anxious fretting. The disciples are not to stay up all night worrying about what they will say, crafting the perfect human defense. Their trust is not to be in their own rhetorical skill but in the provision of their Lord. This is about dependence on the Holy Spirit in the moment of crisis.

v. 15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute.

Here is the promise that undergirds the command. Christ Himself will provide the words. He will grant a supernatural eloquence and a divine wisdom that will utterly confound their accusers. We see this fulfilled with Stephen in Acts 6, whose opponents "could not stand up against the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke." When a believer stands in the dock for the name of Christ, he does not stand alone. The Lord of heaven and earth stands with him, and speaks through him.

v. 16 But you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death,

The gospel is a sword. It divides. The ultimate allegiance is to Christ, and when that allegiance is declared, it will often sever the most fundamental natural bonds. The hatred of the fallen human heart for God is such that it will lead a father to betray his son, or a brother his brother. And this hostility will not stop short of murder. Jesus is preparing His disciples for the ultimate cost of discipleship. Some of them would indeed be martyred for their faith, as James was.

v. 17 and you will be hated by all because of My name.

The world's system is built on rebellion against God, so it is no surprise that it hates those who bear the name of His Son. To be a friend of the world is to be an enemy of God. Therefore, to be a true friend of God is to be hated by the world. This is not something to be sought after, but it is something to be expected. If you are faithfully proclaiming the lordship of Jesus Christ, you will not be popular in the halls of power or the gatherings of the worldly wise.

v. 18 Yet not a hair of your head will perish.

How do we reconcile this with the statement that "they will put some of you to death"? Is this a contradiction? Not at all. Jesus is speaking of their ultimate, eternal security. A martyr's body may be destroyed, but his true life, his soul, is safe in the hands of his Savior. God's preservation of His saints is absolute. The world can do its worst, but it cannot touch the eternal life that Christ has secured for His own. Not one of God's elect will be lost. Their final salvation and vindication are as certain as the throne of God.

v. 19 By your perseverance you will gain your lives.

Endurance is the mark of true faith. Salvation is not a fleeting emotional experience; it is a gritty, hard-won perseverance through trial and tribulation, all by the grace of God. It is by holding fast to Christ, by enduring in the faith, that one comes into possession of his true life, his soul. This is the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, from the lips of our Lord Himself.

v. 20 “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is at hand.

After the general signs and the period of persecution, Jesus gives the final, unmistakable, and non-negotiable sign. This is the fire alarm. This is not a metaphor. When you see the Roman legions, with their standards and siege engines, forming a perimeter around the holy city, know that the time has come. The judgment prophesied for centuries is at the door. This happened historically under Cestius Gallus initially, and then definitively under Titus. The Christians in Jerusalem saw this sign and, as church history records, they fled.

v. 21 Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those who are in the midst of the city must leave, and those who are in the countryside must not enter the city;

The command is urgent and clear. Get out. Do not hesitate. Do not go back for your belongings. Those in the surrounding region of Judea are to head for the hills. Those inside the city walls must depart. And those outside in the fields must not, under any circumstances, seek refuge within the city, which was the natural instinct during a siege. The city is not a refuge; it is a trap. It is the target of God's wrath.

v. 22 because these are days of vengeance, so that all things which are written will be fulfilled.

This is not just a military action by Rome. This is a divine visitation. These are the "days of vengeance" for centuries of covenant unfaithfulness, culminating in the rejection and murder of the Messiah. This is the fulfillment of all the covenant curses written in the Law and the Prophets (e.g., Deut. 28). God is settling accounts with the apostate nation. The destruction of Jerusalem is a holy act of judgment.

v. 23 Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land and wrath against this people,

Jesus expresses a deep compassion for the practical difficulty of this flight. For a pregnant woman or a new mother, such a rapid evacuation would be a terrible ordeal. This underscores the severity of the situation. The "great distress" is not upon the whole earth, but "upon the land" (tē gē), the land of Israel. And the "wrath" is not against all mankind, but "against this people," the generation that rejected their King.

v. 24 and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

This is a precise and devastatingly accurate prophecy of what took place in A.D. 70. Josephus records that over a million Jews were killed, and nearly a hundred thousand were taken captive and sold as slaves throughout the Roman Empire. The city and its Temple were razed. Jerusalem was then occupied and "trampled under foot by the Gentiles." This Gentile dominion over the city would continue until "the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." This phrase refers to the great era of gospel expansion, the Christian age, in which the kingdom of God grows from a mustard seed to a great tree, filling the whole earth. That age was fully inaugurated by this judgment, and that age is the one in which we are now living.

Application

The first application for us is to learn how to read our Bibles. This passage is a powerful corrective to the sensationalist eschatologies that read the Olivet Discourse as a detailed script for the end of time. Jesus was speaking to His disciples about events that would happen in their generation, and they did. This teaches us to respect the historical context of Scripture and to see God as a God who acts faithfully in history.

Second, we should take immense confidence from this. Christ's word is true. He prophesied the destruction of the Temple, and it happened exactly as He said. He prophesied the preservation of His people through that calamity, and they were preserved. If He was faithful in His warnings of judgment, we can be absolutely certain He will be faithful in His promises of gospel victory. The same Lord who oversaw the end of the Judaic age is now overseeing the growth of His kingdom in the midst of the nations.

Finally, we should see persecution not as a surprise, but as an opportunity. The church is forged in the fires of affliction. When we are slandered, opposed, or hated for the name of Christ, we are walking in the footsteps of the apostles. We should not be anxious, but should trust that Christ will give us the wisdom and the words to bear a faithful testimony, knowing that our ultimate security rests not in this life, but in the one to come. By our patient endurance, we will gain our souls.