"And He said to them, 'Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.'"
Jesus spoke the complete truth that would happen approximately 37 years later. The Jews would rebel from the Roman occupation and in judgment God would allow the Romans to destroy the Temple and kill the majority of the Jews in Jerusalem.
It must be an amazing and disconcerting thing to see a place fourth dimensionally through the portal of time. We see and experience a place in the present naturally or normally. Jesus, as a prophet and more importantly the Son of God, was able to see that place through the portal of years of time – the same place but down through time. This is what He is telling the apostles. He is saying that this place will not always be as you see it now. We all know that the present things and configurations of things will not last forever, but we want somehow to embrace the idea that this place will not change. Jesus the prophet could stand in a place -- any place -- and detail what that place would be like at various points in time. He could see if a place was going to prosper and grow or if it was going to be abandoned or destroyed.
Jesus was seeing the near destruction of Jerusalem but also looking much further into the portal of time and seeing similar events taking place to the city of Jerusalem. It was the same place with similar events but the difference was the when. These events were separated by at least 2,000 years.
Jesus was laying claim to being a prophet as well as judge over the peoples and nations of the earth. The passage above this one in Luke is where He passes judgment and says that the Jewish house would be left desolate. Exactly what Jesus foresaw happened. The fires of the city being sacked caused the gold to melt and the soldiers in search of the gold pushed every stone off its perch to get the gold that had run between.
Jesus was also trying to get the disciples to stop being so materialistic even in their religious pursuits. These were Jews who saw this temple structure as something significant. To Jesus it was a materialistic structure that barely symbolized the heavenly reality. It was now going to be torn down because of the Jew's rejection of their Messiah. They had missed the time of their visitation. No matter how elaborate and wonderful our church buildings are, they are at best materialistic constructs for an invisible God. It cannot begin to suggest or contain the wonder of our God. Do not get wrapped up in the material. Embrace the supernatural.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz