"And then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven; then, too, all the peoples of the earth will beat their breasts; and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet to gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. 'Take the fig tree as a parable: as soon as its twigs grow supple and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. So with you when you see all these things: know that he is near, right at the gates. In truth I tell you, before this generation has passed away, all these things will have taken place. Sky and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. But as for that day and hour, nobody knows it, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, no one but the Father alone" (Matthew 24:30-36).
What does one make of these words? Christ appears to be claiming that He will return "before this generation passes away." An overly literalistic reading of these lines has caused a number of people to question His divinity--even though he notes that "the Father alone" knows the "day and the hour." So much for a literal interpretation, though Jesus rarely gave a literal answer, and certainly not a direct one (by modern standards). There are, as best I can understand, at least three senses in which this passage might be properly interpreted. These I will call the Parousian sense, the individual Eschatological sense, and the Veiled Presence sense. Today I will discuss briefly the Parousian sense.
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