Luke 21:32 - Exposition

Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pan away, till all be fulfilled . In the interpretation of this verse, a verse which has occasioned much perplexity to students, any non-natural sense for "generation" ( γεμεά ), such as being an equivalent for the Christian Church (Origen and Chrysostom) or the human race (Jerome) must be at once set aside. γενέα (generation) denotes roughly a period of thirty to forty years. Thus the words of the Lord here simply asserted that within thirty or forty years all he had been particularly detailing would be fulfilled. Now, the burden of his prophecy had been the destruction of the city and temple, and the signs they were to look for as immediately preceding this great catastrophe. This was the plain and simple answer to their question of Luke 21:7 , which asked "when these things should come to pass." The words he had added relative to the coming of the Son of man did not belong to the formal answer, but were spoken in passing. This mighty advent the Lord alluded to as probably a very remote event—an event certainly to be postponed, to use his own words, "until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." Not so the great catastrophe involving the ruin of Jerusalem and the temple, the prophecy concerning which occupied so much of the Lord's reply. That lay in the immediate future; that would happen in the lifetime of some of those standing by. Before forty years had elapsed the city and temple, now lying before them in all its strength and beauty, would have disappeared.