Truth Unites - Was Jesus a False Prophet?

Episode Date: June 29, 2026

Gavin Ortlund examines the claim that Jesus was a false prophet and argues that a closer look at his predictions actually strengthens the case for Christianity.Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/X: https://x.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

One of the toughest objections to Christianity is the claim that Jesus is a false prophet because he predicted his second coming would happen soon, and yet it's been 2,000 years, and 2,000 years isn't soon. This is a tough one. It doesn't get as many responses as it should, I think. So let's take a look. What I want to argue in this video is that a closer look at Jesus' words may actually vindicate his claims and further the plausibility of the truth of Christianity.

We'll go in four steps. First, we'll steal man the objection. second, we'll look at what Jesus actually prophesied. Third, we'll make an argument for whether that happened, and that's the crux of it right there. And then lastly, we'll look at implications, and that in the final section, I hope you'll stay for that. That's where we'll see how happy and thrilling the Christian possible answer to this is, as we get to the implications. First, let's try to steal man this objection. I'm going to draw from its articulation from the famous atheist Bertrand Russell in 1927,

and crazily almost 100 years ago now from my recording this, he gave a famous lecture entitled, Why I Am Not a Christian, and this was later published and it's been very influential. One of his major points is critiquing the wisdom of Christ on the basis of his predictions of an imminent second coming. According to Russell, quote, Christ certainly thought that his second coming would occur

in the clouds of glory before the death of all the people who were living at that time. Now, what Russell is drawing from there is Matthew 10, three passages in Matthew I'll put up on screen here. First, Jesus's statement that before you go through the towns of Israel, the son of man will come. Second, Matthew 16, we'll talk about these various verses more as we go. Here there's a reference to coming with the angels in glory and we're paying each person for what he has done. And this is before some of you standing here will taste death. And then, of course, the famous one, the big one in the Olivet discourse of Matthew 24,

where you have lots of world-shattering events being predicted, including that the Son of Man, that's Jesus, will appear on the clouds of glory. And just a few verses later, Jesus says all this will happen before this generation passes away. Now, for those of you who are Christians like myself, we can be too defensive right out of the gate. Let's try to court this objection first

and almost sort of grab it and receive it in and digest it a little bit. You know, instead of trying to evade it, let's kind of let the anvil fall on us and let's feel the full force of this first. Because sometimes there's these instinctive reactions that are not very satisfying. Sometimes you'll find people trying to offer interpretations that could only apply to one of these passages but not all three. And at any rate are kind of questionable.

You know, people say, well, this generation, it doesn't really mean generation. I'm not persuaded of that. I think that it does mean generation. And there's lots of reasons we could go into for that. or people will say that Matthew 16 is actually about the transfiguration. I'm not persuaded of that based upon all the details in that passage. But here's the thing. Not only do I think those are tough interpretations, but they only would apply to one passage,

not all three. You still have Matthew 10, for example. So we're trying to steal Man Russell's argument here, and I just want to make this point, that you've got three different timetable references. And that's compelling. You know, because they all align in the amount of time that they're predicting, maybe 40 years or something like that, going through these cities, some of you won't be dead yet, a generation passes away. That's said in three different ways in like a vice grip that it's hard to

wriggle out of that in terms of the specific time frame that seems to be in view. Now, another thing that sometimes you have is this instinctive way of kind of explaining away the language in a way that wouldn't have been authentic to the original hearers. So people will come up with various ways of trying to make it sound like, well, this language about imminence is really just about urgency or something like this. Lots of appeals like this. People might appeal to the Chronicles of Narnia, where Aslan says, I call all times soon. And they'll make an appeal like this. I personally don't find that very satisfying. I can understand why a skeptic wouldn't either. Simple fact is, can you imagine one of the original

hearers of these texts taking them like that? So I'm just trying to encourage us here. You don't have to agree with what I've said so far. I'm just trying to encourage us to really take this seriously. It sounds like on first pass, the Gospel of Matthew is making Jesus to say, I'm going to come back soon, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, something like that. So how should Christians respond to this? Well, here's one possible answer that I'll lay on the table and try to unfold this, hoping this could be of use just to consider for others who are wrestling with this topic. And it comes with asking a simple question, what did Jesus mean by the verb coming? or you could translate that differently, Advent, sometimes with the imagery of coming on the clouds. What does that mean?

Russell's argument assumes that every reference to Jesus' coming refers to the same future event, the second coming at the end of history. But the Gospels use this language in more than one way, as does the rest of the New Testament, drawing from the Old Testament. Hang with me, I just want to make this case. I think this will set foundations. before we get to some of the more interesting stuff in a moment about the destruction of the temple and the dialogue that Ross Douthed and Bart Ehrman had on this topic, all that's coming here.

But we've got to establish this point. An obvious starting point would be John 1418. When Jesus says here, I will come to you, that's not the second coming. That's a reference to his sending of the Holy Spirit. Okay, that's kind of obvious. Here's another one that can get us moving here. In Revelation 2 to 3, Jesus frequently threatens judgment upon, particular local churches if they don't repent.

And almost every time it's spoken in the language of coming to you. So to the church in Ephesus, if you don't repent, he says, I will come to you and remove your lampstand. That's not the second coming. That's not a physical bodily arrival necessarily. To the church in Pargamum, if you don't repent, I will come to you and wage war with the sword of my mouth. By the way, he's a fascinating statement.

Isn't that? Can you imagine how terrifying that would be to hear that from Christ? It's like, well, I repent, you know. to the church in Sardis, if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief. Now that's interesting because the coming like a thief metaphor is also used for the second coming, the second coming at the end of history. So these are local, particular historical judgments on these churches, but they're spoken of with this, I will come to you language. And that makes you wonder, when Jesus speaks to the church in Thiatira, hold fast until I come, what's he reference?

there? Is that talking about the end of history, or is it something else? Now, you might say, well, why would Jesus use this language? This is kind of confusing. Why would he speak of coming to a local church if it's not a physical manifestation or a physical bodily return of Christ? But this is drawing from the Old Testament language, where coming or coming on the clouds is used to indicate divine judgment. For example, in the book of Micah, the whole book starts off saying, for behold, the Lord is coming out of his place, and he will come down and tread upon. upon the high places of the earth. Boy, you can feel the import of this imagery.

Just imagine, you know, it's like it's meant to impart the fear of the Lord. Imagine, oh, you know, he's coming, here he comes, you know, that's the imagery. Or Isaiah 191, Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt. Okay, there's so many texts like this, rather than exhaust your patience

by putting up all of them. Those are some representative examples, but let's just highlight the key one, because this deals with writing on the clouds in judgment, but it's not just the Lord. It's actually one who looks like a son of man. I'll put it up, Daniel 713, behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man. This is so important because this is Jesus' favorite self-designation, the son of man. By the way, here's a quick aside.

When we think of Jesus as both God and man, we might think the terms son of God and son of man, the two most common terms we might use for Jesus, our Son of God means He's God, son of man means he's man. But in the New Testament, it's almost always the exact opposite. Son of man is a divine title, drawing from Daniel 7. Son of God is a Davidic title, and therefore a human title.

More on that another time. Point for now is Daniel 7 is likely in the background. When Jesus tells the high priest at his trial, you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. Mark 1462. So now we can ask a simple question. Is Mark 1462 talking about the second coming at the end of history? Did Caiaphas see that? Is that what's in view here? In Daniel 7, the Son of Man is not coming downward from heaven to earth on the clouds. He is coming upward

to the ancient of days to receive dominion and authority. And one way to interpret Mark 14 is that coming on the clouds here is referencing Jesus' vindication after his death, the resurrection, his ascension up to heaven, his enthronement at the right hand of God the Father, and then that authority, his heavenly session from which he then comes to judge the current generation of Israel. Now, if that's a little bit too much to wrap your head around just in the moment here, I have a whole video on the book of Revelation, where I unpack my case for this idea from that book. I'll reference some other videos in a moment, but let's just be clear here, and then we can move forward. There is also, of course, the second coming at the

end of history, but what we're suggesting is simply this. The final coming of Christ, the second coming, participates in the same family of language that is also used for earlier events, which we can call typological anticipations of the second coming. There's particular historical advent of Christ, he comes over here, he comes over there to judge, that prepare us for and partially instantiate the final advent of Christ. Now, this is not a post hoc rationalization imposed upon these Mathian texts to try to make sense of it, because this is consistent with how Old Testament historical prophecies worked. The Old Testament prophets would frequently use cosmic end-of-the-world language to describe not just ultimate judgment day, but

also historical judgments within history that anticipate that final judgment. Every historical judgment is a messenger of what's ultimately out ahead. And so the language gets intermingled. So Isaiah 13 will describe the fall of Babylon with reference to the sun, moon, and stars going dark. Ezekiel 32 uses the same language for Egypt. This is a lot of the language used in Matthew 24. The term the day of the Lord can describe both historical events and final judgment. So the same prophetic imagery in different passages can have different horizons. Now, if you want more on all of this, I've done several videos on this. Specifically, you can see these two on the screen, also linked below. I give a fuller case in those. I work through the Mathian passages. We started off with Matthew 10, 16, and 24.

And I've explained what is called partial prederism. And that's this idea that there's this judgment coming of Christ. They are in 70 AD climatically, but it's not the second coming. The second coming is still ahead. Now, all I'm trying to say so far is that's one possible way to read the text that would answer Bertrand Russell's objection. Now let's ask this question. Why should anyone accept that as a compelling proposal? Suppose you might say, well, that's possible. I guess, you know, you got some Old Testament precedent for using this verb coming or coming on the clouds in this way of historical instantiations and then the ultimate expression. But why should I accept that as a plausible reading?

Here's one potential answer, because Jesus's prediction of a coming on the clouds comes specifically in the context of and is intermingled with a prediction of the destruction of the Jewish temple and Jerusalem more broadly. And that prediction happened. Let me explain this. This is interesting.

It is this particular event. the destruction of the temple in 70 AD that is foregrounded in the Olivet discourse. That's the whole presenting occasion for this text. It begins with Jesus pointing to the temple buildings and saying, not one stone will be left on another. That's the whole initiating event that leads to everything else in Matthew 24. Nor can it be argued that Jesus starts there and then immediately leaves that topic behind because all throughout the discourse, the passage is filled with situationally specific language

connected to Jerusalem and her temple. So Jesus is giving warnings that would have been meaningful to the people at that time. If you are in Judea, he says, verse 15 and 16, get up to the mountains, get out of town. Don't hang around Jerusalem when you see the army's coming. And you read this and you see like, that seems like it's talking about a historical event. In fact, Jesus explicitly references the surrounding of Jerusalem by armies. Luke 2121, quote, but when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, Jerusalem is a specific city. Jesus seems to be talking about more than just the second coming at the end of history here

because his language explicitly references this city, and it seems specific to that time. Now, you can take any other view. I'm not trying to rule out of court to other possibilities here. I'm just, all I'm trying to say is at least this much is in view in the text, the destruction of the temple. And that part of Jesus's prophecy came true. See, we have good reason to think that Jesus's words did actually predate the fulfillment of these events, the destruction of the temple. Even Bart Ehrman acknowledges that Jesus predicted the destruction of the Jewish temple. Two things about that.

One, I agree that Jesus predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, so I don't late date them because of that. Number two. And Jesus predicted it because it was just in keeping with Old Testament prophecy. Right. You're saying not, you don't think, just to be clear, you don't think Jesus literally knew the destruction was going to happen. I don't think he had supernatural knowledge. Right. No.

There were other Jews at the time who were predicting the destruction of Jerusalem. So, you know, thinking, you know, it's kind of like, you know, people today, you know, might predict something that's going to happen about the war in Iran. and they'll come up with some prediction. And somebody will be right. Somebody will be right. So, you know, you can read the handwriting on the wall kind of thing. So while Airman doesn't think it's a supernatural prediction, he does think Jesus' prediction of the destruction of the Jewish temple

precedes the actual event. And I could say more about this. If you want to watch that discussion he had with Ross South, that Ross himself gives some good reasons for dating some of these books a little earlier in terms of, you know, Luke doesn't mention anything about Paul's death. Paul probably dies between 64 and 67 in Rome under Nero. Luke doesn't say anything about that. He's giving reasons like this why, well, if it had already happened when Luke wrote,

he probably would have mentioned it, things like this. For the sake of this video, we don't even need to go into the date of these things. I think a good case can be made that Mark certainly was probably written in the 60s before the destruction of the temple. But even if you think these books were composed after that, many, many critical scholars agree with Airman that the words of Jesus himself about the destruction of the temple predate that event. And so the point to leverage from that is if Jesus got that part right,

that's a reason to be open to consider, well, what did he mean by these other things? Now, let's think about that for a second. Some people will say, well, yeah, he predicted that, but it's not all that impressive. Let's think about that. I want to be careful with this. I'm not 100% sure exactly what scale of probability you give to this. it's true that Jesus was not the only Jew in this period who imagined judgment falling on Jerusalem and specifically the temple. It's not like this was an inconceivable event. Nonetheless,

this prediction is not trivial either. And let me give three reasons to take Jesus' prediction of the, I'm saying successful prediction, true prediction of the destruction of the temple seriously. First, the timing. Remember, Jesus gives us a time frame, and the time frame is right on the money. From Jesus' teaching ministry ending around 30 AD, maybe early 30s, to the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, that is exactly before this generation passes away. Some of you standing here have not tasted death, 40 years gets the bill. Second, the specificity of this prediction is interesting. Jesus refers to the destruction of the temple buildings. Remember not one stone on another?

He talks about the surrounding of Jerusalem with armies. that all happened. You know, the Roman armies laid siege to the city. He refers to things like how terrible this will be for pregnant women and those nursing infants. When I read for my revelation video through Josephus's account, that resonates. That, you know, Josephus tells some pretty horrific stories about things like that. Things that happen to infants when the famine is setting in, horrific. Let's not even go there. It's just terrible. The point is, this is not the most specific prophecy in the history of the world, but it's not impossibly vague either. It's kind of intriguing. Thirdly, the significance of this event is interesting. The destruction of the temple

is not an everyday kind of thing. This is a world-shattering, history-altering event. And again, when I read through Josephus' account, I can understand why language from the Old Testament about the lights in the universe going out could be used to describe this because it was so tumultuous. Put it like this. Saying, before this generation passes away, this Temple will be destroyed. It's not like if you said today, before this generation passes away, a terrible hurricane will strike the coast of Florida. That's not as impressive because hurricanes hit Florida a lot. That's almost expected, right? It'd be more like if you said before this generation passes away, the White House will be burned to the ground. That'd be a better analog because that's a

much rarer event. It's not completely unthinkable. It happened, I think, in like the War of 1812, if I remember, at least partially. But it's not like impossible, but it's not as likely or frequent as a hurricane. I'm trying to give some categories for today to make the point that for Jesus to predict such a world-shattering event in the exact window of time

and with some level of specific resonance is interesting. It should at least make you slow down and consider the apocalyptic imagery and the coming on the clouds language a little more closely and say, wow, I'm intrigued by this. He did predict this part of it, so let me be a little more open to what's going on with this language.

Why couldn't Jesus's language of coming on the clouds be a reference to his judgment in history on Jerusalem just like how prophetic imagery in the Old Testament works? If you want more, see my other videos for that. I think it's pretty compelling. Now, if that is right, then Jesus' prophecy in the Olivet discourse and Matthew 6. and Matthew 10 are not a strike against Christianity. They may well be a tremendous testimony in favor of the exactly, as Russell put it, I'm going to say the wisdom of Christ, but even more. That brings us to the last point, implications. Why does this matter? Let me draw two implications

from this. First, what's at stake here? Recall that Russell used this point to question Jesus' wisdom specifically. He returns to this at the end of his argument saying, quote, the early Christians really did believe that the second coming would be soon, and they abstained from such things as planting trees in their gardens because they did accept from Christ the belief that the second coming was imminent. That's not true. I'll come back to that in a moment. In that respect, clearly Christ was not so wise as some people have been, and he was certainly not superlatively wise. Now, think about this for a second. If Jesus predicted that his second coming on the clouds of glory with the angels would be within one generation, and he got that wrong, that would be more

than a breach of wisdom. This is the kind of scenario where C.S. Lewis's Lord Liar Lunatic, Trilemma, gets some traction. If you're not familiar with that, I have another video on that. You could watch to get up to speed on that. Fascinating argument. Here's how we can put it through, you can tell I like metaphors. Here's a metaphor. If you said, I am going to become a billionaire celebrity in 30 years. And you get that wrong. When you say that, you don't have any plans for how to do that. That prediction might make you a fool. That might speak to your wisdom. But if you said, I am going to come in glory on clouds with angels, sit on a throne and judge all the nations of the earth, as Jesus says something kind of like that in Matthew 25, and you get that wrong,

that is not merely a breach of wisdom. You are something more than a fool at that point. You are something more than a fool at that point. You might be a liar, you might be a charlatan, you might be deluded, you might be a fraud, but you're not simply a good religious teacher who's simply less wise than supposed. So if Russell's argument works, it proves way more than that. So the first implication here is simply this. We need to make up our minds about Jesus. Either he is the son of God, or he's something much worse than a fool. But this is one area where we realize we can't just say, he's a great religious figure, but he got a few things wrong and he wasn't God. That's where Lewis's Trilemma has some logical force, I think.

Second implication, there is a deeper worry in this whole conversation that goes underneath this technical question of, did Jesus get something right or wrong? And that is, does Christian hope in the return of Christ lead to escapism and withdrawal? You saw this earlier with Russell saying the earliest Christians believed Jesus was coming back so they didn't plant trees. Now, two points I'll make about this to end the video. Number one, there is no evidence that I can find Christians neglected to plant trees, just the opposite. I don't see, I'm not sure what he's referencing there. Maybe there's something I'm not aware of, but I've never found anything like that.

To the contrary, I think the New Testament evidence points the other way. In 1st, Thessalonians 4, Paul tells Christians to live quietly, mind their own affairs, work with their own hands, so they won't be dependent on others. In 2, Thessalonians 3, Paul rebukes idleness and commands people to do their own work quietly and earn their own living. the apostolic vision of faithfully waiting for the return of Christ is not withdrawal or panic or neglect of responsibility, but faithful daily work. Christians are called to be faithful, quiet, in their vocation, not to provide for their families, plan for the future. Proverbs 31,

wisdom is the wise woman plans for the future. So believing in the second coming of Christ doesn't lead to withdrawal in that sense. It just doesn't seem to happen. That's not the Bible's commands. But furthermore, we can understand why that's the case if we understand the nature of Christian hope in the second coming. And this is the happy part to finish with. If, I'll put it like this, if you are alive on a Monday, today's a Monday that I record this, and you think that the second coming of Christ is happening on Thursday, that is, even though, of course, we can't know that, that would not be a good reason to refrain from planting a tree. Who knows whether that tree is going to show up on the new earth?

I think so often we don't understand the nature of Christian hope. Christian eschatology does not sweep away the achievements of this world. It is the resurrection and restoration of this world, and Christianity's vision of the afterlife is one of the most unique and thrilling qualities of this great religion that I love so much, Christianity. I say more about that in this video, which is entitled, Heaven is Not What You Think. I'll just give one example to close with, and that's in the book of Revelation at the very end, Have you ever noticed this verse where the kings of the earth bring their glory into the new Jerusalem?

Just think about that. That's amazing. What that means is human culture will be reflected in some way in heaven, on the new earth forever. Of course, perfected and organized unto the glory of God. Nonetheless, the second coming of Christ and the final Christian hope does not just sweep away this world. It is the redemption and resurrection of this world. And that applies to us as individuals. My friend, if you are out there faithfully seeking to follow Jesus and life is hard,

do you know the hope you have in the second coming of Christ? Every minute you spend serving Christ will matter forever. The impact will never stop. Moms who faithfully take care of their children, you are shaping eternity. Dads who love your kids, same thing. When you're faithful at your vocation, doing what these passages in the New Testament spoke of, quietly faithfully working, That's impacting eternity.

And that's the hope we have in the gospel, so it's not a withdrawal. Believing in the second coming of Christ doesn't mean we stick our heads in the sand. All right, hope this video is helpful for thinking about the happy point, but also the larger issue of, maybe these predictions of Christ are actually a reason to trust him. Certainly, there are a reason to study and make up our mind. Thanks for watching, everybody. Let me know what you think in the comments.