The Day Of The Lord And The Seventieth Week Of Daniel

By Craig A. Blaising

[Craig A. Blaising is Executive Vice President, Provost, and Professor of Theology, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas.]

[This is the second article in a four-part series, “The Day of the Lord,” delivered as the W. H. Griffith Thomas Lectureship, March 29–April 1, 2011, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.]

What is the relationship of the day of the Lord typology to the eschatological pattern presented in the book of Daniel? This is not a question of the relationship of merely juxtaposed types. As will be seen, the New Testament integrates the patterns. However, even earlier, within Daniel itself, the integration can already be seen.

The Time Of The End In Daniel

The book of Daniel presents the personal experiences, dreams, and visions of Daniel, his three friends, and certain Babylonian and Medo-Persian kings whom they served. These personal experiences, dreams, and visions dramatically portray a pattern of trouble that will precede the establishment of the kingdom of God.

Some of the dreams and visions present a sequence of kingdoms beginning with Babylon and extending in succession into the future. Two of these—Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2 and Daniel’s vision of the four beasts and the Son of Man in Daniel 7—present a four-kingdom sequence that ends with climactic divine judgment that terminates the succession of Gentile powers and establishes in their place the everlasting kingdom of God. In this four-kingdom sequence the identity of the first three kingdoms is easily established in the text: Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece. The fourth is unnamed.[1]

In Daniel 2 the climactic divine judgment is presented in a catastrophic but abbreviated picture of a rock striking and crushing a statue. In Daniel 7 the scene of the climactic divine judgment is given more detail and is expanded into a narrated pattern in which a ruler emerges from the fourth kingdom through some political maneuvering and attains to military and political dominance. His character and actions come into sharp focus: arrogance, perpetration of war, and persecution of the saints. A temporal duration is placed into the pattern—time, times, and half a time—which is concluded by divine judgment and transference of the kingdom authority to one like a Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven and to the saints of the Most High.

In addition to these four-kingdom sequences two other visions are recorded—in Daniel 8 and chapters 10-12, each of which presents a two-kingdom sequence. Both of these two-kingdom sequences, however, follow Babylon, and so for purposes of comparison with the four-kingdom sequences, both of which also include Babylon, these two two-kingdom sequences may be seen as three-kingdom sequences. Both of the three-kingdom sequences (in Dan. 8 and 10-12) end in a pattern of trouble and judgment, which parallels the pattern of trouble and judgment found at the end of the four-kingdom sequence in chapter 7. However, chapters 8 and 10-12 add details that chapter 7 does not include.

The new features include a temple desecration and cessation of sacrifice, which function as the point from which time is measured with four approximately equal but slightly different measurements: 2,300 mornings and evenings (1,150 days); 1,290 days; 1,335 days; time, times, half a time. The vision in Daniel 11-12 includes the phrase “abomination of desolation” (11:31; 12:11 [NASB]; see also 9:27),[2] refers to the activity of the angel Michael, and predicts a resurrection from the dead as a feature of Israel's deliverance. There is thus a progression in the complexity of the pattern in Daniel’s visions from the relatively simple image of a collision (Dan. 2) to a narrated pattern of an antagonist who is destroyed by God. The antagonist is gradually shown to be a blasphemer who exalts himself as a god.[3] Because of this personal self-deification he will become the focus of Yahweh’s wrath. No human power can oppose him. The saints are defenseless and powerless before the blasphemer’s malice. Only direct divine action will destroy him and rescue the saints and establish the kingdom of God.

The deliverance of the saints in this pattern is pictured in the personal experience of Daniel in the lion’s den and the three friends in the fiery furnace. They remained faithful to God, refusing to worship Gentile idols, whether an image set up on the plain of Dura or an actual living Gentile king. Daniel and his friends were utterly defenseless and at the mercy of the political power. But miraculously all four were delivered alive from their executions, leading to a proclamation of Yahweh as the true, living God. The deliverance of these Judeans from impending death by the mighty power of God is a type of the miraculous deliverance of the people of God at the end of the kingdom visions, some even from actual death by resurrection (Dan. 12).

Without doubt the portraits in Daniel 8 and 11 apply to the character of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Seleucid king, who in the second century BC desecrated the temple altar in Jerusalem. Daniel 11 gives the details of his career and especially his campaign that would result in the desecration of the temple and the abomination of desolation. Critical scholars attribute the culminating pattern of each of Daniel’s sequences exclusively to the trouble caused by Antiochus Epiphanes. But this overlooks a complex literary typology that is present in these sequential kingdom visions. The same pattern, although subject to development by the addition of detail, is found at the end of one of the four-kingdom sequences (Dan. 7) as well as at the end of both three-kingdom sequences (Dan. 8 and 11). Since the first three kingdoms in both sequences (Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece) are parallel, the last kingdom in the three-kingdom sequence and the last kingdom in the four-kingdom sequence must be distinguished. This means that the pattern appearing in the last kingdom of both sequences is a type. The descriptions in Daniel 8 and 11 that fit Antiochus Epiphanes were a type that Daniel 7 projects into the future beyond the second century BC. Although the pattern is abbreviated in Daniel 2, it joins Daniel 7 in projecting a judgment that will precede the establishment of the kingdom of God.

But the literary evidence of the typology is also found in the three-kingdom sequence. The principal evidence is in Daniel 11:36-12:13, which includes (a) a repeated but much bolder character description, (b) possibly a change of narrative role, and (c) the introduction of heightened, even eschatological, features such as Michael the angel, unparalleled trouble, and the resurrection of the dead.[4] The repeated, yet enhanced character description is important, for it includes the oppressive ruler’s self-deification. This enhanced description in Daniel 11:36 is quoted by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 and is applied to the yet-future “lawless one” (v. 8).[5]

Clearly Paul and his readers understood this description in Daniel as a future prophecy.

With this overall understanding of the typology structure in Daniel one can then examine the vision of the weeks in Daniel 9. This chapter addresses the concern that underlies the entire book, namely, the concern for the restoration of Jerusalem, the return of Israel, and the fulfillment of the promises of blessing. Daniel offered a lengthy prayer of repentance and plea for restoration (Dan. 9:1-19) on the basis of Jeremiah’s prophecy of seventy years of desolation, given in Jeremiah 25:11. A sign of this desolation and restoration had already been given in Daniel 4; Nebuchadnezzar was driven from his throne for “seven periods of time” (vv. 16, 25, 32), his mind taken away, and his condition reduced to living like an ox in the field. After the “seven periods” he was restored to his kingdom, glory, majesty, and splendor, and he gave praise to God (vv. 34-35, 37). In Daniel 9 the answer to Daniel’s prayer reveals that Jerusalem will be restored and rebuilt along with the temple (al-though, “in troubled times”) after seventy years, as prophesied by Jeremiah (Jer. 33:6-16). Yet Daniel was also given a revelation of another “seven periods of time,” namely, seventy weeks (lit., “seventy sevens,” 9:24), which look beyond the restoration prophesied by Jeremiah. The rebuilt city and the rebuilt temple will be destroyed sixty-nine sevens of time (v. 25) after the decree to rebuild them. Preceding their destruction will be the coming and “cutting off” of an anointed one, the Messiah (v. 26). This future destruction of the city and the sanctuary culminates in an “end,” which is referred to twice in verse 26.

The seventieth seven is introduced in verse 27. This follows the pattern seen in the typology of the sequential kingdom visions—the pattern of a powerful ruler causing the temple sacrificial service to cease for half of a “seven” until he meets his decreed end. However, distinctive to this pattern is a full seven-year period in which the temple desecration will occur in the “middle.” The motif of war, which is associated with this character in the other visions, appears here in verse 26, focused on Jerusalem. War is said to continue until “the end.” This is the only place in Daniel that speaks of a future destruction of either Jerusalem or the temple, and both are included here. This prophesied event exceeds the historical event of temple desecration by Antiochus Epiphanes. The desecration by Antiochus did not include the destruction of either the temple or the city (v. 26). Again this is a typed pattern, not, as claimed by critical scholars, an after-the-event description of the destruction by Antiochus Ephiphanes.

All this is interesting in light of Jeremiah 25, the passage Daniel was reading and praying over and with respect to which the angel Gabriel came to enlighten him. For that chapter states the conditions for the restoration seventy years after Jerusalem’s destruction in 586 BC and also subsequent to the destruction of Babylon (Dan. 9:1 refers to “the first year of Darius”). Jeremiah 25 also extended prophecy of the “cup of the wine of wrath” (v. 15) that will be given to all nations including Jerusalem and Judah (vv. 15-38). The judgment that will extend from Jerusalem to Babylon will engulf all nations as an entire world order will disappear and be reconstituted. This worldwide judgment prophesied by Jeremiah is typified in Daniel’s visions and projected into the future long after the return that Jeremiah predicted.

Also in Jeremiah 25 the sixth-century destruction is spoken of in day-of-the-Lord terminology. “The Lord will roar from on high” (Jer. 25:30; cf. Joel 3:16; Amos 1:2), followed by lament and wailing (Jer. 25:33-34) because of the Lord’s “fierce anger” (v. 37). They will be “slain by the Lord on that day” (v. 33, NASB), reminiscent of the day-of-the-Lord pattern in which God will fight personally against the nations. This prophecy against the nations in Jeremiah 25 is associated with the set of oracles against the nations in chapters 46-51, which begin with a prediction about the day of the Lord (see 46:10). What this means is that there is an intertextual basis for linking the typed pattern of the emergence, turmoil, and eventual destruction of the violent, oppressive ruler in Daniel 9:27 to the day-of-the-Lord type in Jeremiah 25. The Jeremiah prophecy against Jerusalem and the nations, fulfilled in the sixth century BC, carries over as a type intertextually to Daniel’s prophecy of a future destruction of Jerusalem and divine judgment on the nation(s) that will perpetrate its destruction. This parallels the prophetic extension of the day-of-the-Lord type to predictions of a future, postexilic aggression against Jerusalem followed by divine retribution and vindication. Even Daniel’s terminology of “end” and “time of the end” can be linked to the day-of-the-Lord pattern.[6] Unique to Daniel, however, is the structure his vision contributes to the typology, which is focused on the oppressive ruler. Also Daniel predicted an early occurrence of the type (second century BC), as a prelude to the yet-future eschatological fulfillment. And the distinction between the prelude, the early occurrence of the type, and its eventual fulfillment is established by the patterning of the differing kingdom sequences and the projection of the seventy sevens.

Daniel’s Time Of The End And The Olivet Discourse

The Olivet Discourse is key in the progressive development of biblical eschatology and is a rich field for study. It integrates the seventieth-week structural pattern of Daniel with the greater prophetic type of the day of the Lord. Furthermore the Olivet Discourse extends the sequence of type occurrence by allowing the possibility (which is now known as an actuality) that the events that would take place in AD 70 would be another prelude to the final eschatological fulfillment, an occurrence of the type projecting the antitype yet further into the future.

The Olivet Discourse is set in the context of Jesus’ warning that the temple then standing would be destroyed.[7] Some prophecies of the day of the Lord speak of judgment coming on Israel, including a focused attack on Jerusalem, and some speak of God’s judgment on Gentile powers. The two-part day-of-the-Lord pattern in Zechariah 14 (suggested as well by Joel’s aggregate patterns) features both a military attack on and destruction of Jerusalem and a direct divine judgment on the attackers. The seventieth week of Daniel prophesies a destruction of the city and its desecrated temple, followed by God’s destruction of the oppressive ruler who perpetrated it. Jesus’ prophecy of the destruction of the city and the temple draws from both patterns in the Old Testament.

The Olivet Discourse divides into two main parts. The first part (Matt. 24:4-35; Mark 13:5-31; Luke 21:8-33) consists of a narrative of events leading up to the sign of the Son of Man coming on the clouds. This is followed by a conclusion or teaching point, the parable of the budding tree(s). The second part (Matt. 24:36-25:46; Mark 13:32-37; Luke 21:34-36) asserts that it is not known when that day will come, and this is followed by exhortations to be ready. This second part, unlike the first, varies considerably in its length in the Synoptic accounts, with Matthew’s version being the longest. Matthew concluded this second part with an account of the judgment of the nations by the reigning Son of Man. This account aptly concludes the warnings of this second part of the discourse, but also adds a feature to the narrative of the first part, thus bringing the discourse to its conclusion.[8]

In the first part of the discourse, it is easy to see that the events leading up to the sign of the Son of Man coming on the clouds has the structure of Daniel’s seventieth week (although without quantifying the time measurement). It has a beginning and an end, and is marked in the middle by the abomination of desolation.[9] The Lord used Daniel’s phrase “abomination of desolation,” and Matthew’s account makes explicit reference to Daniel: “When you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel” (Matt. 24:15). The narrative is marked throughout by the activity of false christs who will lead many astray (vv. 4, 11, 23-24), just as Daniel’s time of the end is marked by the activity of a ruler. War and persecution of the saints are highlighted features in both Matthew 24 and Daniel 9. The abomination of desolation is an act of the oppressive ruler in Daniel. In the Markan version of the Olivet Discourse, the neuter “abomination” is referenced by a masculine participle focusing attention on the perpetrator. Rather than referring to the abomination of desolation, the Lukan version states that Jerusalem will be “surrounded by armies” (Luke 21:20). This calls attention to the impending destruction of the city, which implies destruction for the temple as well (as noted earlier, Dan. 9:26 speaks of the destruction of both “the city and the sanctuary,” i.e., the temple). And finally the pattern concludes with the sign of the Son of Man coming on the clouds (Matt. 24:30; Mark 13:26; Luke 21:27), clearly a reference to Daniel 7:13.

However, this narrative also includes features that relate to the description of the day of the Lord. These appear at the beginning, middle, and end of the Olivet Discourse. At the beginning are mentioned war, famine, earthquakes, pestilences, terrors, and great signs from heaven. Darkness, a key feature of the day of the Lord, increases through the middle of the narrative as the days are cut short (Matt. 24:22; Mark 13:20). And in the middle will be the siege of Jerusalem. The concluding events will include signs in the sun, moon, and stars, notably the darkening of the sun and moon, stars falling from the sky, and the shaking of the powers of the heavens. In anticipation of the end, fear and trembling will grip people on the earth. These features unite the entire narrative as a manifestation of the day of the Lord and are summarized in the following lists.

Features of the Day of the Lord

Beginning
Matthew	Mark	Luke
Wars, rumors of war, nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom, famines, earthquakes	Wars, rumors of war, nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom, earthquakes, famines	Nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom, earthquakes, famines, pestilences, terrors, great signs from heaven
Middle
—	—	Armies surround Jerusalem
End
Sun and moon darkened, stars fall, heavens shaken	Sun and moon darkened, stars falling, heavens shaken	Signs in the sun and moon and stars, shaking of the heavens, distress, roaring of the seas and waves, fear and foreboding

The one feature that particularly unifies the whole is the imagery of labor and childbirth. The agony of the day of the Lord was described in Isaiah 13:8 by the metaphor of a woman in travail:

“They will be dismayed; pangs and agony will seize them. They will be in anguish like a woman in labor.” Jesus used this imagery near the beginning of the Olivet Discourse when He spoke of “the beginning of birth pangs” (Matt. 24:8; Mark 13:8). The end will not come at once but will conclude a process like labor. This day of the Lord imagery is linked to Daniel’s image of the appearing of the Son of Man at the end of a time of trouble (Dan. 7:8, 11-13).

By these means the first part of the Olivet Discourse on the day of the Lord is integrated with the structure of Daniel’s seventieth week. This integration is confirmed by the concluding parable of the budding tree(s).[10] This parable relates the appearing of the Son of Man to everything in the sequence up to that point. “When you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates” (Matt. 24:33).

However, Jesus’ next statement, which ends the parable and this first part of the discourse, taken with the beginning of the second part of the discourse, reveals the possibility of a typological extension of the entire pattern up to the point of His appearing. For Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things [that is, ‘all these things’ of v. 33, which encompasses all the things up to the point of His appearing] take place” (v. 34). That is a clear prophecy that “all these things” up to the point of His appearing would take place in that generation of the first century AD. And they did take place, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in AD 70. However, Jesus said that “concerning that day and hour no one knows” (v. 36).

Many think that this remark by Jesus about the day or hour of His παρουσία refers specifically to the appearing that constitutes the final event of the narrative sequence, since Jesus used παρουσία in this way in 24:27. Support for that view is drawn from the fact that in the Matthean account of the second part of the discourse, several references are made to “the coming of the Son of Man” (whether παρουσία or forms of ἔρχομαι), and it would seem natural to link that phrase and its variants to “the coming of the Son of Man” in 24:27 (cf. v. 30) in the first part of the discourse. The day or hour would then be the day or hour of the appearing at the end of the Olivet Discourse narrative sequence. The terms “day or hour” in Matthew, “time” in Mark, and “day” in Luke are commonly recognized by interpreters as referring to the day of the

Lord. The day of the Lord is the day of His coming, and in biblical parlance, the coming of the Lord and the day of His coming are often interchangeable, as most would agree.[11] However, most interpreters do not take into account the extended pattern of the day of the Lord typology, nor do they consider the descriptive presentation of the entire narrative sequence in the first part of the Olivet Discourse, not just its end, as the day of the Lord. From the start the entire narrative pattern is the day of the Lord, a notion that is reinforced by the birth labor metaphor that unifies the pattern. In this metaphor it is possible to refer in the same discourse to a “coming” in both its process and its arrival. The focus of παρουσία in Matthew 24:27 is clearly on the resulting appearance, the arrival of the one who will come. But the focus of παρουσία in verse 36 is on the commencement of the coming, its starting point, which will culminate in His appearing. This corresponds to the beginning labor pains in the first part of the discourse. The day of His coming begins as a process like labor pains, but it leads to His arrival.

The parable of the budding tree(s) then places the appearing of Christ at the end of a greatly intensifying process, one that will have people in a state of terror and alarm, and one that will have led to a point of imminent expectation. It is a sign-based and sign-induced imminency. In contrast, the imminency in the second part of the discourse is signless. People will not be in a state of alarm and great distress; they will be in their normal routines of life. No signs will intervene to lead one to an imminent expectation. Imminency prevails because of the lack of any signs. It is a signless imminence like a night robbery. The second part of the discourse harmonizes with the first part in that the second part deals with the day of the Lord as a whole and the first part of the discourse presents the entire narrative sequence as the day of His coming.

Understanding the Olivet Discourse in this way also enables one to see the typological extension of the pattern more clearly. The appearing of the Son of Man takes place in a patterned sequence that is consistent with prophetic expectation. The entire patterned sequence up to the appearing of the Son of Man would take place in that generation. However, the Lord said that no one knows when the full pattern, inclusive of His glorious appearing, will occur, which means that it was possible that what would happen in that generation would not be the full pattern, the final day of the Lord, the actual παρουσία. What was then a possibility is seen today as an actuality. What took place in AD 70 was not His coming, but only a type that the Lord Himself had indicated was a distinct possibility. Since it was a type, as is the case with types throughout biblical history, the full pattern projects to the future as the eschatological coming of the Lord.

Conclusion

The tribulational pattern (a “time of the end”) revealed to Daniel was projected into the future, and it is linked to a day-of-the-Lord judgment pattern that befell Jerusalem in the sixth century BC. The projection of this pattern parallels the projected expectation of an eschatological day of the Lord yet to come, which means that its intertextual link is already typological. Within Daniel itself a yet further type fulfillment is revealed—a second-century occurrence of the type in part, reinforcing the expectation of the yet-future occurrence to come. The Olivet Discourse affirms the occurrence of this tribulation pattern at the approximate time revealed to Daniel (seventy sevens, extending from Daniel’s day to the first century AD); yet it also reveals a further type/antitype extension, while at the same time integrating the whole pattern of eschatological expectation as the day of the Lord structured in the manner revealed to Daniel. The patterns converge as they project to the future coming of the Lord.

Notes

1. Higher critics identify the last kingdom as Greece, with the four being Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece (e.g., John J. Collins, Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993], 166). But the text combines Media and Persia as one stage in the sequence (8:20), which Collins thinks was an attempt to explicitly exclude Rome (ibid., 339). The key to interpreting these kingdoms, however, is to recognize the common beginning point for each sequence and to recognize that the different end points provide parallel patterns that reinforce a common eschatological type. This is similar to what is seen in the prophets—near-future and far-future projections. Another problem for the critical view is that there is no evidence of an independent Median rule over Babylon. If the book of Daniel was written after the events, the writer would certainly have known that. Both Hebrew and Greek historians knew, for example, that Cyrus the Persian conquered Babylon. This raises the question of the identity of Darius the Mede referred to in Daniel 5:31. The critical view that Darius is a literary fiction does not serve the historical interests of the text. The reference to “Medes and Persians” in 8:20 gives at least a clue. Darius the Mede was a figure in the early Persian rule, which justified the mention of both peoples. Following this line, some identify Darius the Mede with Cyrus on the basis of the latter’s Median heritage and a possible textual interpretation (Joyce Baldwin, Daniel: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1978], 23-28). However, there are good reasons for identifying this Darius with Gaubaruna, who seized Babylon on behalf of Cyrus and was installed as vice-regent. He had been a governor of Gutium, apparently a reference to Media. He governed Babylon for eight months before his death. See Klaus Koch, “Darius the Mede,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 2:38-39. For a summary of views see Stephen R. Miller, Daniel, New American Commentary (Nashville: B&H, 1994), 171-77.
2. In comparison with שֹׁמֵם שִׁקּוּץ, “abomination of desolation” (Dan. 12:11; see 9:27; 11:31), Daniel 8:13 has הָפֶּשַׁע שֹׁמֵם, “the transgression that makes desolate” (literal translation).
3. Collins notes that the desolating transgression in 8:13 “seems to refer more broadly to all the actions of the little horn” (Daniel, 336). Daniel 11:36, however, seems to identify the “transgression” that brings on the desolation. Paul’s interpretation in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 develops this further.
4. Collins notes that the restatement strengthens the connection of this pattern to the more general eschatological type. “The passage does, however, recall other eschatological oracles that speak of a final invasion of Israel, where the aggressor is indefinite (Psalm 2; Sibylline Oracles 3:663-68; 4 Ezra 13:33-35) or is a mythic figure (Gog in Ezekiel 38-39; Rev. 20:7-10). In short, Antiochus is assimilated to a mythic pattern that underlies later Christian traditions about the Antichrist” (Daniel, 389). For a summary of the eschatological assessment of Daniel 11:36-45, see Andrew E. Hill, “Daniel,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 8:198-200.
5. Unless noted otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version.
6. John E. Goldingay notes, “The End in Daniel [8:17, 9:26] is not so different from the Day of Yahweh in the prophets. ≈ק is, of course, one of the expressions Daniel derives from the prophets: see Hab 2:3; also Ezek 7:1-7; Amos 8:2; cf. Lam 4:18” (Daniel, Word Biblical Commentary [Nashville: Nelson, 1989], 216). Goldingay is reticent to see an eschatological reference because he assumes that this implies an absolute end of human history. However, this is not a correct assumption about biblical eschatology generally.
7. The destruction of the temple implies the complete destruction of the city. But the point is made explicit in the Lukan version of the Olivet Discourse in Luke 21:20-24.
8. Most of the controversy about the interpretation of the Olivet Discourse concerns the first part—the narrative of events leading up to the sign of the Son of Man coming on the clouds. The different hermeneutical approaches may be summarized in this way: (a) an entirely eschatological depiction (futurist view), (b) a wholly historical depiction, usually identified with the destruction of Jerusalem in the first century AD (preterist view), or (c) both historical and future referents. The last view, which most evangelical scholars accept, takes various forms. One form divides the narrative between historical and eschatological events. Many take this approach, but this leads to structural incoherence. Another way to account for both historical and future referents is to accept the structural integrity of the narrative, the entire event sequence, and to note that it functions as a type. As a typed pattern, it has reference to the first-century destruction of Jerusalem and looks forward to a future fulfillment and eschatological fulfillment as well. For a detailed discussion of the structure of the discourse in relation to the day-of-the-Lord type and the seventieth week of Daniel, see Craig A. Blaising, “A Case for the Pretribulation Rapture,” in Three Views on the Rapture: Pretribulation, Pre-Wrath, or Posttribulation, ed. Alan Hultberg (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 35-52.
9. Of significance is the use of ἀρχὴ (“beginning”) in Matthew 24:8 and τέλος (“end”) in 24:6, 13-14. Also τότε (“then”) is stated seven times in this part of the discourse (vv. 9, 10, 14, 16, 21, 23, 30). Other structural keys include ῞Οταν (“when,” v. 15), αἱ ἡμέραι ἐκεῖναι (“those days,” v. 22), and εὐθέως . . . τῶν ἡμερῶν ἐκείνων (“immediately after those days,” v. 29).
10. Matthew 24:32-25; Mark 13:28-31; and Luke 21:29-32. This is often referred to as the parable of the fig tree because of the singular reference in Matthew and Mark. However, Luke adds, “and all the trees.”
11. Douglas Moo has stated that he “can find no basis for a distinction in the referent of the word parousia (in its technical sense) anywhere in the New Testament” (“A Posttribulation Response,” in Three Views on the Rapture, 98). The two senses here are related. One is the process of coming (utilizing the metaphor of birth labor); and the other is the arrival at the end of the process. The first is the day of the Lord’s coming; the second is the arrival that concludes the day. The interchange between “the day of the Lord,” “the day of His coming,” and “His coming” can be seen in Malachi 3:1-2 and 2 Peter 3:4, 10. These verses in 2 Peter use παρουσία with “the day of the Lord” interchangeably. This distinction may also be seen in Paul’s expression “the appearance of His coming,” where “appearance” may be taken as the culminating event of the παρουσία (2 Thess. 2:8). These observations are independent of the actual time length of the day of the Lord.