The Gathering of the elect
The term "gathering of the elect" is found in Matthew 24:31.
Mat 24:31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Jesus had spoken of the gathering of His people before Matthew 24. In Mat 23:37-38, we read of how Jesus lamented over Jerusalem because He was trying to gather His people together like a hen gathering her chicks, but they were not willing to be gathered. And because of that, their house i.e. their Temple will be left desolate, thus prophesying about the imminent coming destruction of the Temple by the Roman armies in AD70.
Mat 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
Mat 23:38 See, your house is left to you desolate.
Jesus gathering was a spiritual gathering. The Temple will be destroyed but the Temple that He is building in us will live forever. God had this intention of living inside of us by His Holy Spirit, like what Paul would say "God in us, the hope of glory" and "You are the Temple of the Holy Spirit". Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well, that a time is coming where the worship of God is not a locality like Jerusalem or a mountain, but will be within us as long as it is in spirit and truth. But alas to say, the Jews rejected Jesus, and rejected His gathering, and so God had to bring down the entire system of Jewish religion (Judaism) centred around the Temple, so that He can execute His gathering of the elect.
Some futurists have said that Mat 24:31 refers to a future event called the rapture where "angels" and spiritual beings will gather His people from the world. This is not true, and has been taken out of the context of the entire chapter of Matthew 24 which is not speaking of our future event but of their soon coming event of the destruction of Jerusalem.
In a parallel passage to Matthew 24, we read in Mark 14:61-62, where Jesus is talking to the high priest and the Sanhedrin that they will physically see Jesus coming in power and with the clouds of heaven.
Mar 14:61 But he remained silent and made no answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”
Mar 14:62 And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
This is not our future event called the rapture!. This happened 2000 years ago when the high priest and the Pharisees and the Jewish people actually saw the coming of Jesus to gather His elect. Those that did not believe in Jesus and His message were not gathered because they did not acknowledge Him as their Messiah. They did not see this Jesus as their Savior and they only wanted to see what they had envisioned in their minds. For that they crucified Jesus to get rid of Him who was an stumbling block to their plans. They refused to be counted as part of God's elect and when Jesus came again for the salvation of His people, they missed out the gathering.
The English word "angel" in Matthew 24:31 came from the original Greek word called "aggelos". "Aggelos" does NOT mean a spiritual being or angel. In fact, the Greek word "aggelos" actually mean "messenger" and that's all. A pastor can be called an "aggelos". An evangelist can be called an "aggelos". Anyone who carries a message is called an "aggelos". In fact John the Baptist was called "aggelos" several times in the bible, and John was never a spiritual being but a human.
Luk 7:24 When John's messengers (aggelos) had gone, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?
Luk 9:52 And Jesus sent messengers (aggelos) ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him.
Mat 11:10 This is he (John) of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger (aggelos) before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’
Mark 1:2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger (aggelos) before your face, who will prepare your way"
Luke 7:27 This is he (John) of whom it is written, “‘Behold, I send my messenger (aggelos) before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’
2Co 12:7 So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger (aggelos) of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.
Jas 2:25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers (aggelos) and sent them out by another way?
Of course, angels can be messengers but messengers need not be angels.
The translators of Matthew 24:31 felt that the word "aggelos" should be translated as angels, but a proper word should be just "messengers".
Q: Why should "aggelos" in Matthew 24:31 be translated as "messengers" and not "angels"?
A: After Jesus died and was resurrected, there was a huge gathering of people believing in Jesus due to the working of the Holy Spirit, and particularly the work of spreading the gospel by His disciples (human messengers). The apostles took the message of Jesus to all the 4 corners of the land from the east to the west, and from the north to the south (thus the term "four winds").
So you can see that it was human messengers who took the gospel and took up the task of the spiritual gathering of believers in Jesus and not angels. In fact, angels or spiritual beings had never been given the task of presenting the gospel of Jesus. It was the task of Jesus disciples like you and me. We now are the "aggelos" - human messengers of Jesus taking the gospel to the whole world, to bring about a continuous gathering of the elect.
When Caiaphas prophesied that Jesus will cause the nation of Israel to be in trouble because Rome is going to destroy them in John 11:49-52, the author John added that Caiaphas was not just prophesying about this Jesus but also about the great gathering of all the children of God because of the work of this Jesus. This gathering of God's children had always been in the eternal plan of God.
Milton Terry in his book "Biblical Hermeneutics" 1898 wrote about this gathering of the elect:
[ This verse has been understood figuratively of the sending forth of the messengers of the gospel to gather unto Christ an elect church in place of the outcast Israel. In that sense, it was a procedure which followed the Parousia and still continues ]
Q: Why is this procedure still continues?
A: It is because we are still seeing the gathering of the people of God through the presentation of the gospel. This is the mandate to take the kingdom and spread it all over the earth. We are part of that gathering and we are part of the messengers who gathers. It is not angels that are presenting the gospel. We are the messengers that are the presenters of the gospel.
Jesus also prophesied earlier before this Matthew 24 passage about this gathering in Matthew 8:11-12.
Mat 8:11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven,
Mat 8:12 while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness.
Those that were outside of Judaism will be gathered from the east to the west, while those that had the kingdom will be left out, even those who claimed to have the blood line of Israel and the 12 tribes.
Q: How did the early church viewed this gathering spoken of by Jesus?
A: In Acts 15, we read of the great gathering even affecting the Gentiles, those that were outside of the Jewish community. Peter had a vision in Acts 10 to prepare him to accept Cornelius (a Gentile of Italian origin) to be part of the gathering of the elect. Paul and Barnabas also testify of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles in their ministry. Because this phenomena was a new happening, the council in the church in Jerusalem called a meeting to discuss this issue of Gentiles coming to believe in Jesus.
James the leader of the council made a decision and quoted Amos 9:11-12, saying that this gathering of the Jews and Gentiles was in agreement to the prophecy by Amos about the gathering of the elect of God, and the rebuilding the tabernacle of David.
Side note: The tabernacle of David had no walls and God met with His people and vice versa regularly. James is saying that Jesus is fulfilling the building of the tabernacle of David so that all the people can come to know God. And for that to happen, the tabernacle of Jerusalem must fall down then only can the tabernacle be rebuilt.
Paul told the Galatian church in Gal 4:22-26, to give up on Hagar and Ishmael (the old Jerusalem) and to go for Sarah (the new Jerusalem). The old Jerusalem is the earthly Jerusalem that was destroyed in AD70. The new Jerusalem lives forever in the Temple of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
We are now the new Jerusalem that is gathered into Jesus Christ. Paul tells us in Eph 1:10,
Eph 1:10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
Jesus is still in the process of gathering all things unto Himself.
Exra Palmer Gould in his book "Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Mark's gospel" 1896, wrote regarding to Matthew 24:31
[ All the processes by which men are brought to the acknowledgement of Christ and the obedience of the kingdom belong to the gathering of the elect. The angels represent the invisible heavenly agencies in an earthly event. The introduction of them means that there is that invisible divine side to a human transaction, back of all that men are doing for the conversion of the world is the Lord Jesus Christ with the hosts of heaven.
As for the time, it begins then at the time of the consummation of the Jewish age because Judaism was the great obstacle at that time to the universal spread of the kingdom. Under its influence, Christianity threatened to become a mere appendage of Judaism to have the particularism, formalism and legalism of that religion grated up it in such a way that it could never become a universal religion. With the removal of this obstacle, could begin not the gathering of the elect but the gathering of them from the four quarters of the world, the universal gathering. ]
God would find it fit to break outside of the borders of Judaism and Jerusalem to go get the rest of the world. He removed the great obstacle.
Q: Someone asked that could it be that the "gathering of the elect" meant the physical gathering of the believers just before the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple?
A: Yes, it can mean that as well. If we consider the Context of the passage in Matthew 24, the "gathering of the elect" can refer to the gathering of the believers outside of Jerusalem while the city was being destroyed by the Roman armies as described in the parallel passage of Luke 21:20-21.
Luk 21:20 But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near.
Luk 21:21 Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it.
What did Luke meant by "Jerusalem surrounded by armies"?
Acccording to history, the First Jewish–Roman War began in the year AD66. It started with religious tensions between the Greeks (of Roman citizenship) and the Jews. The tension increased when the Jewish rebels attacked the Romans due to their taxation policies.
In response to the Jewish uprising, the Romans plundered the Jewish Temple and executed about 6,000 Jews in Jerusalem leading to a huge rebellion against Rome.
The small Roman military garrison of Judea was then easily defeated by the Jewish rebels and the pro-Roman king Agrippa II fled Jerusalem together with his Roman officials.
When the rebellion was growing, Cestius Gallus, the governor of Syria, brought the Syrian army together with auxiliary forces to try to restore order and quench the rebellion.
See:
However, despite making several attempts, the Syrian and Roman armies were ambushed and defeated by the Jewish rebels at the Battle of Beth Horon and 6,000 Romans were killed. This shocked the leadership at Rome.
When these events were happening, the Christian believers, especially the Jews who remembered the many warnings of Jesus about Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, began to flee Jerusalem for the hills of Judea.
That was the physical meaning of the "gathering of the elect".
See a similar description about the war in my previous post:
