Reasons for a future Abomination of Desolation

 by Anthony F. Buzzard

1. There will be “nation rising against nation” before the end (Matt. 24:7). This did not occur before AD 70.
2. The preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom precedes the end, and the end is then associated with the abomination: “and then the end will come. Therefore when you see the Abomination…” (Matt. 24:14-15).
3. The “immediately after” of Matt. 24:29 links the Abomination with the arrival of the Messiah. It is impossible to extend the Great Tribulation over 2000 years, or to extend the heavenly signs over that period. The Great Tribulation “immediately after” which Jesus returns is evidently a short period of awful trouble.
4. This time frame is more than confirmed by the passage in Daniel from which Jesus says he is quoting. In Matt. 24:15 he refers the reader to Daniel’s Abomination which is found in Daniel 11:31 (the exact phrase that Jesus used). Daniel’s Abomination is set up, however, 1290 days (3½ years) before the end: “From the time of the Abomination of Desolation is set up …there will be 1290 days” (Dan. 12:11). This reference in Daniel 12:11 points back to 11:31 which is part of the one vision described in chapters 11-12 (and introduced in chapter 10).
5. The fact that Jesus is looking at the first-century Temple and referring to the destruction of a Temple yet future is not a problem when note is taken of Hebrew “corporate” thinking. Any Temple on that site may be called “this Temple.”  Proof of this is found in Haggai 2:3, 7, 9. In these verses the Temple which is no longer there is called “this” house, and the Temple of the future is likewise “this” house. Jesus may therefore easily refer to the buildings in front of him and describe the destruction of a Temple on the same site not yet built.
6. The references to an interference with the Temple in Revelation 11:1-2 point to a future Temple. The disturbance, “trampling” is to last for the same 3 ½ year period  (42 months) described by Daniel 11:31; 12:7, 11.
7. Paul refers to Daniel 11:36 (and 8:11) in 1 Thessalonians 2:4, speaking of the Antichrist. This is an event just preceding the Parousia.
8. The King of the North of Daniel 11:31 following is not the Pope, but an individual Antichrist arising in Assyria or Babylon (Iraq, Iran, Syria).
9. Jesus places the time of unprecedented Tribulation just before his Second Coming (Matt. 24:21). This is a quotation of Daniel 12:1 which belongs to the time of the resurrection (12:2), and it also occurs within the time frame provided by Daniel 11:31; 12:7, 11, just after the final King of the North (“at that time,” Dan. 12:1).
10. “Finally, the view that the seventieth week will be fulfilled immediately before Jesus’ return was held by the early Church, which received its doctrine from the apostles themselves. See the eschatological sections in Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Lactantius, and others” (Robert Gundry, The Church and the Tribulation, p. 193).