"This Generation..."

This generation shall not pass...

Jesus said, in Matthew 24:34, "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things shall be fulfilled." Have all the events that he described in the prophecy come to pass? Did Jesus return in the first century? What could Jesus have meant?

Some Bible scholars claim this prophecy was completely fulfilled in the first century, and that it referred to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D. However this cannot be true, because the prophecy about the sign of the son of man appearing in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth mourning when they see Christ coming "in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory" [Matthew 24:30], obviously has not occurred.

Another interpretation claims that Christ was referring here to a future generation, and that the events he described were all to occur within the span of a single generation living in the distant future, possibly even today's generation. But this cannot be true either, because whenever Jesus used the phrase "this generation," he was quite obviously referring to the generation who heard his words, and among whom he lived. This can be seen in Matthew 11:16, 12:41-42, 23:36; Mark 8:12, 13:30; Luke 7:31, 11:30-32, 50-51, 17:25.

Jesus was referring to the generation in which he lived, not to some future generation. He meant the people who heard his words, and there is an explanation that makes perfect sense; that generation would not pass away, until all of the things Jesus prophesied came to pass, because Jesus himself was part of that generation. Since he still lives, that generation has not yet passed away! It still exists, and will continue to exist for all the ages to come. It will even outlast the sun.

In Luke 11:50-51, Jesus says that the blood of all the prophets who were slain from the foundation of the world, would be required of the generation which then lived. He said "From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zecharias which perished between the altar and the temple: Verily I say unto you, it shall be required of this generation."

The payment he was referring to, of course, was his own life, and his own blood.