Matthew 24:9 - Exposition

The Lord passes to the fate of his followers, or the corporate Church. Then . St Mark does not note the time; St. Luke writes, "before all these things." Hence we gather that the calamities now announced will precede, accompany, and follow those before mentioned. That which befell the apostles and early believers is an emblem of what Christianity will undergo at the hands of an antagonistic world. St. John, in the Revelation, has shadowed forth these things as doomed to fall upon the Church in the latter days. Shall they deliver you up to be afflicted (comp. Matthew 10:17 , Matthew 10:18 ). Christ is speaking, not only of the apostles, but of disciples generally. They shall deliver you over to the authorities, civil and religious, to be punished. The Book of the Acts contains numerous examples of such afflictions (see Acts 4:3 ; Acts 8:1 ; Acts 12:4 ; Acts 13:50 : Acts 14:19 , etc.). Kill. As Stephen ( Acts 7:59 ), James the brother of John ( Acts 12:2 ), Peter and Paul (Eusebius, 'Hist. Eccl.,' Ecclesiastes 2:25 ), and many others. Hated of all [ the ] nations ( Acts 28:22 , "As concerning this sect, it is known to us that everywhere it is spoken against"). Tacitus speaks of those "quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat" ('Ann.,' 15.44). The Romans seem to have placed Jews and Christians in the same category, and to have bestowed on the latter the hatred felt for the former. But the Lord's words point to some feeling more universal and permanent than this temporary animosity, even to the hatred which occasioned the death of martyrs in all ages, the warfare between good end evil, faith and unbelief, which shall continue and increase in virulence unto the end ( John 15:20 ; John 16:2 ).