(2) These difficulties, though not insuperable, lead others to apply the prophecy to the second advent of Christ. The Jews are to be restored to Jerusalem, and another temple is to be built (
Eze 40-48). The shaking of the nations and the physical phenomena find their fulfillment in the "Great Tribulation" so often spoken of in the Old Testament and Revelation, and which is followed by the coming of Christ in glory to set up His kingdom (
Mal 3:1;
Mt 24:29,
30 and other places). Some of the difficulties spoken of in the first instance apply here also, but not all of them, while others are common to both interpretations. One such common difficulty is that Ezra's temple can hardly be identified with that of the time of Herod and Christ, and certainly not with that of Ezekiel; which is met, however, by saying that all the temples, including Solomon's, are treated as but one "house"-the house of the Lord, in the religious sense, at least, if not architecturally. Another such difficulty touches the question of time, which, whether it includes five centuries or twenty, is met by the principle that to the prophets, "ascending in heart to God and the eternity of God, all times and all things of this world are only a mere point." When the precise time of particular events is not revealed, they sometimes describe them as continuous, and sometimes blend two events together, having a near or partial, and also a remote or complete fulfillment. "They saw the future in space rather than in time, or the perspective rather than the actual distance." It is noted that the Lord Jesus so blends together the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, AD 70, and the days of the anti-Christ at the end of this age, that it is difficult to separate them, and to say which belongs exclusively to either (
Mt 24). That the words may have an ultimate fulfillment in the second advent of Christ receives strength from a comparison of
Hag 2:21,
22 with
Heb 12:26,
27. The writer of that epistle condenses the two passages in
Hag 2:6,
7 and
Hag 2:21,
22, implying that it was one and the same shaking, of which the former verses denote the beginning, and the latter the end. The shaking, in other words, began introductory to the first advent and will be finished at the second. Concerning the former, compare
Mt 3:17;
27:51;
28:2;
Ac 2:2;
4:31, and concerning the latter,
Mt 24:7;
Re 16:20;
20:11 (Bengel, quoted by Canon Faussett).