Most of the excitement gets generated by suggesting that the term generation is 40, 70, 80, or some ‘x’ number of years. For us, a generation would have to be 80+
I found a blog that explains it much better, it’s lengthy so I’ll only put half of it here, but the guy is a good writer so it’s worth your while to read the entire article! I left out the first part where he goes into detail about why Jesus did not mean that ‘this generation’ was His current generation of first century AD. Here goes:
“A second interpretation was made popular by Hal Lindsey in his wildly popular book
The Late Great Planet Earth, which was published in 1970 and became an international bestseller the New York Times newspaper crowned as the bestselling non-fiction book of the entire decade. In his book, Lindsey asserted that the key to understanding future prophetic events was the rebirth of Israel as a nation on May 14, 1948, in the aftermath of Hitler’s World War II Jewish Holocaust. According to Lindsey, Joel 1:7 proved that the budding fig tree in Christ’s illustration symbolized Israel, and that symbolism meant that the time period that Jesus described in The Olivet Discourse actually began in 1948. Thus, the generation that was alive in 1948 was the generation to which Jesus referred.
Continuing on with this interpretation, Lindsey stated that the Bible defined a generation as being “something like forty years,” which led him to conclude that there was a strong possibility that Jesus would return to establish His earthly kingdom sometime in 1988. Lindsey also taught that all Christians would be transported to heaven by way of yet another prophetic event, The Rapture (1 Corinthians 15:50-58; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), just prior to the beginning of the seven-year tribulation period. Therefore, since his math for Christ’s Second Coming added up to 1988, his math for The Rapture had to add up to 1981. As you can guess, a whole bunch of Christians were disappointed when 1981 came and went without any Rapture and 1988 came and went without any Second Coming.
One possible explanation for Hal Lindsey’s wrong prediction is that Jesus did not have Israel in mind at all when He used His fig tree illustration. Rather than symbolically using the fig tree in reference to Israel, Jesus could have been using the imagery in a general way to teach that it is possible to study current events and come to at least a fairly clear understanding of future events. If this was indeed the case, Lindsay’s whole idea of Israel’s rebirth in 1948 being the hinge event upon which everything else hangs sinks like a stone thrown into deep water.
Also, even if we assume for the sake of argument that Jesus really was talking about Israel’s 1948 rebirth when He made reference to the fig tree beginning to bloom, that still doesn’t mean that Lindsey’s biblical definition of a generation was correct. Yes, it’s true that God gave the land of Canaan to Israel’s younger generation by killing off the entire older generation as the nation wandered in the wilderness for 40 years (Numbers 14:1-38, specifically verse 33). However, there are other passages that define the length of a generation as being something other than 40 years. Consider the following examples:
- In Genesis 15:13-16, God tells Abraham that Abraham’s descendants will be afflicted in a strange land (Egypt) for 400 years, but then He also tells him that they will leave Egypt and return to Canaan in the fourth generation. Dividing four generations by 400 years, that might mean that a biblical generation can be defined as 100 years.
- In Psalm 90:10, the Bible says the days of our lives are seventy years, with some people being strong enough to live eighty years. This might be taken to mean that a biblical generation can be defined as 70 years. Bolstering this definition is the fact that 70 is the average between 40 and 100.
…
Just for fun, let’s apply the possible definitions of 70 years and 100 years to Hal Lindsey’s interpretation of 1948 as the linchpin year of future prophetic events. By doing so we find that 70 years still doesn’t fit because Jesus didn’t return to walk the Earth again in 2018 and the Rapture didn’t occur seven years prior in 2011. Admittedly, if we define a generation as 100 years, that does leave the year 2048 as a possible date for Christ’s Second Coming and the year 2041 as a possible date for the Rapture. But do we really want to put any confidence in either of these two predictions? I certainly don’t. If they do turn out to be correct, that’s fine with me. I’m just saying that I’m not going to bet the farm on them.
As for me, I agree with all the preachers, teachers, and commentators who favor a third interpretation of “this generation.” Under this interpretation, “this generation” will simply be the generation of people who are alive during the days —
whenever those days are — when the events of the tribulation period begin. (Note that the beginning of the tribulation period has nothing to do with Israel’s rebirth as a nation in 1948.) Putting it another way, I and many others believe that Jesus’ use of the term “this generation” was merely His way of emphasizing that the entire tribulation period will play out in a time period short enough so that the generation of people who are alive on earth when the period begins will live to see Christ’s Second Coming at the end of the period. This interpretation, by the way, walks hand in hand perfectly with the book of Daniel’s teaching that the tribulation period will only last for seven years.”
From:
Are We “This Generation”?
Not at all.
But, if we follow teachers who start with 1948 then add some ‘x’ numbers we may be on weak footing and find major disappointment when/if the year 2029 is on our calendars (1948+80=2028).
Yes, most of us hope for the rapture daily, but I don’t hope that we are ‘this generation’.
christinprophecyblog.org
will happen in Gods perfect timing. Only he knows!
