<p>24:28&nbsp;<i>Wherever the carcase is</i>- This whole verse has various possible interpretations which each seem to me to have things to commend them and yet also their own problems. The key word is &quot;For&quot;. This verse is an expansion upon the Lord's teaching that His coming will be visible, will be as the lightning of judgment upon those who have not &quot;gone forth&quot; to Him, and no credence should be given to any claims He has come invisibly. The Lord may be likening His coming to the coming down from the sky of eagles upon the carcase- of Israel. This could have had an AD70 fulfilment in the 'eagles' of the Roman legions, just as Yahweh's Old Testament 'comings' in judgment upon Israel were at the hands of the Babylonian and Assyrian armies. But the final coming of Divine judgment will be in the literal, personal coming of God's Son to earth in judgment. The same Greek word translated &quot;where&quot; is found in Mk. 13:14- the abomination of desolation will stand &quot;<i>where</i>&nbsp;it ought not&quot;. It could be that this location on the temple mount is what the Lord has in view. This is where He will come down in judgment. Upon the very location He was then standing upon with the disciples, the pride and glory of an apostate Judaism. It was already no more than a carcase in God's eyes. The temple was &quot;where s.w. the Jews always resort&quot; (Jn. 18:20). The carcase or dead body may not necessarily refer to Israel. If we take Rev. 11:8,9 as an expansion of the Olivet prophecy, we find the same Greek word used about the dead bodies of the faithful remnant who share their Lord's death in Jerusalem and lay exposed for three days- perhaps literal days. The metaphor of the eagles coming speaks of&nbsp;Divine judgment from Heaven, ultimately in the personal coming of Christ to earth. In this case, the eagles would come because of the dead bodies / carcase of those who had died the death of Christ in Jerusalem in the final tribulation. The Greek word for &quot;carcase&quot;,&nbsp;<i>ptoma</i>, literally means 'a fallen one', and is from the verb&nbsp;<i>pipto</i>, to fall. And this word is used about the fall of Jerusalem- also in Revelation 11. The city &quot;fell&quot; (Rev. 11:13), just as Jerusalem was to &quot;fall by the edge of the sword&quot; (Lk. 21:24).</p><p>It&rsquo;s possible that the Lord intended us to understand the carcase as Jerusalem, and the vultures as the latter day invaders of Israel (Jer. 4:13).&nbsp; Or it has been suggested by Harry Whittaker that &ldquo;If you (my disciples) show yourselves to be spiritually a carcase (as in Rev. 3:1), you will certainly find yourselves the prey of these &quot;vultures,&quot; the false teachers&rdquo;. The question is similar to that in Lk. 17:37, where this is said is in answer to the question: &quot;Where, Lord?&rdquo;. This may not necessarily mean &lsquo;<i>to&nbsp;</i>where&rsquo;. That the Roman invasion of AD67-70 was a detailed fulfilment of some parts of the Mosaic prophecies of curses for disobedience is well known and chronicled.&nbsp; Our Lord's quotation of Dt. 28:26 in here in :28 (&quot;your carcases shall be meat unto the fowls of the air&quot;) is confirmation of this.</p><p><i>There will the eagles gather together</i>- I suggested under&nbsp;<i>For where the carcase is&nbsp;</i>that this may refer to the coming of Christ down from Heaven in judgment upon either the carcase of Israel, or for the sake of the carcases of the slain believers. The Greek for &quot;eagle&quot;,&nbsp;<i>aetos</i>, literally means 'one of the air <i>aer</i>', and&nbsp;<i>aer</i>&nbsp;is used of how the Lord Jesus will come in the &quot;air&quot; <i>aer</i> with the faithful in judgment (1 Thess. 4:17- note that this part of 1 Thessalonians is full of allusion to the Olivet prophecy). This would be the pouring out of the seventh vial into &quot;the air&quot; <i>aer</i>, when finally &quot;It is done&quot; (Rev. 16:17).&nbsp;</p><p>The Lord's usage of similar language in Lk. 17:37 must, however, be given its due weight. There the Lord speaks of the gathering of the eagles in terms of explaining how His people will be gathered to Him and judgment. The same word for 'gather' is used repeatedly for the gathering of the faithful in the last days (3:12; 13:30; 25:26,32; Jn. 15:6). Most notably, we find it used in 1 Thess. 4:14, comforting the believers that God will at the last day 'gather' the dead believers at the last day (AV &quot;will God&nbsp;<i>bring</i>&nbsp;with Him&quot;). This will be the &quot;gathering together unto Him&quot; (2 Thess. 2:1 s.w.). This is all impressive evidence that the language of 'gathering' is used about the gathering of the believers to Christ at His coming, and according to 1 Thess. 4:16,17 this will involve a literal being snatched away from persecution, according to the Olivet prophecy. Just as the believers will be led / gathered to human judgment seats (Mk. 13:11,&nbsp;<i>ago</i>), gathered / lead / brought <i>ago</i> before human kings (Lk. 21:12), so they will be gathered to the judgment seat of Christ the King <i>sun-ago</i>.&nbsp;</p><p>The Lord responds to the question about how we will get to judgment by saying that eagles fly to where the body is. It&rsquo;s possible to interpret eagles as Angels- e.g. Rev. 8:13 speaks of an Angel flying through the sky in the last day, crying &lsquo;woe&rsquo;- the Greek&nbsp;<i>ouai</i>&nbsp;would&rsquo;ve been understood as an imitation of the noise an eagle makes. And there are other links between Rev. 8 and Mt. 24. So perhaps the Lord&rsquo;s answer was that we are not to worry about getting there, as our Angels will take us to judgment. Zech. 14:5 speaks of the coming of the Lord Jesus &ldquo;and all the holy ones with him&rdquo;. But it is applied to the believers in 1 Thess. 3:13 and to the Angels in 2 Thess. 1:7. In this sense, the believers come with their Angels to judgment; but because the process happens in a moment of time, it appears that in fact Jesus returns with the faithful. This is why elsewhere the Lord Jesus is described as returning both with Angels (Mt. 16:27; 25:31; Lk. 9:26) and with the saints (Rev. 19:14 cp. 17:14).</p><p>One of the well known shames of crucifixion was that the body was pecked by birds, even before death occurred. The idea of an uncovered body attracting birds (i.e. the believers) would have been readily understood as a crucifixion allusion. Whilst this may seem an inappropriate symbol, it wouldn&rsquo;t be the only time the Bible uses language which we may deem unfitting. Consider how Ps. 78:65,66 likens God to a drunk man awakening and flailing out at His enemies, striking them in the private parts. I always have to adjust my specs and read this again before I can really accept that this is what it says. So in Mt. 24:28, the Lord seems to be responding to the disciples&rsquo; query about the physicalities of the future judgment by saying that in reality, His crucifixion would in essence be their judgment, and this is what they should rather concern themselves with. They would gather together unto it and through this know the verdict upon them, all quite naturally, as eagles are gathered by natural instinct to the carcass. The thief on the cross wanted the Lord to remember him for good at judgment day. Yet He replied that He could tell him today, right now, the result of the judgment- the thief would be accepted. It&rsquo;s as if the Lord even in that agony of mind and body&hellip; realized keenly that He, there, that fateful afternoon, was sitting in essence on the judgment throne. And for us too, the Lord on Calvary is our constant and insistent judge. It could even be that when the Lord told the Sanhedrin that they would see the son of man coming in judgment (Mk. 14:62), He was referring to the cross. For how will they exactly see Him coming in judgment at the last day?</p>