10:23 What did Jesus mean when He said, "Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man comes"?

10:23 What did Jesus mean when He said, “Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man comes”?

This saying is only found in Matthew’s gospel. It comes at the end of Jesus’ empowering of the twelve disciples to go and preach the gospel and heal the sick, etc (cp Mt 10:1-22).

The general consensus among Bible scholars is that Jesus means that the evangelization of the whole of Israel will not be completed before His second coming, at the end of this present church age. All the cities of Israel were not evangelized by the first century church because of the persecution of early Christians and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD (cp Lk 21:20-24; Ac 8:1-4; 9:1-4; 11:19-21; 12:1).

All the cities have not been fully evangelized as yet, and will not be until Christ comes again to set up His millennial reign on earth (cp Isa 2:1-4; 11:9; Zech 12:10-13:1; Ro 11:25-29).

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