Footnote

a On Matthew 24:3 Dr. A. T. Robertson comments: “They ask three questions about the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, his own second coming (parousia, presence, common in the papyri for the visit of the emperor), and the end of the world. Did they think that they were all to take place simultaneously? There is no way to answer. At any rate Jesus treats all three in this great eschatological discourse, the most difficult problem in the Synoptic Gospels. . . . It is sufficient for our purpose to think of Jesus as using the destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem which did happen in that generation in A.D. 70, as also a symbol of his own second coming and of the end of the world . . . or consummation of the age. . . . Certainly in this discourse Jesus blends in apocalyptic language the background of his death on the cross, the coming destruction of Jerusalem, his own second coming and the end of the world. He now touches one, now the other. It is not easy for us to separate clearly the various items.”​—Pages 187, 188 of Word Pictures in the New Testament, Volume I.