<p>17:37 <i>And they answered and said to him: Where, Lord? And he said to them: Where the body is, there will also the eagles gather together</i>- God sometimes uses language in a way which we may find embarrassing or inappropriate, reading from the distance of our age and culture, where there is an awkwardness at talking about the raw side of human nature. Thus when creating a mini-parable to explain the gathering of the responsible to him at the second coming, Jesus likens himself to a rotting carcass which will instinctively attract the eagles, representing the responsible. 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. But within our use of language, it seems inappropriate to liken the Lord Jesus Christ to a decaying carcass. It seems similarly inappropriate to liken God&rsquo;s response to our prayers to an unjust judge who grudgingly answers requests (Lk. 18:1-7), or to repeatedly compare Jesus to a thief (Mt. 24:43; Lk. 12:39,33; 1 Thess. 5:2-4; Rev. 3:3; 16:15). It seems out of place to liken believers struggling to enter the Kingdom to violent people trying to storm a city by force (Mt. 11:12). The absentee landlords of Galilee were despised by all; and yet the Lord uses one of them as a figure for Himself (Lk. 20:9). Most stunning of all is Psalm 78:36,65,66: &ldquo;They (Israel) did flatter Him (God) with their mouth&hellip; then the Lord awaked&hellip; like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine. And he smote his enemies in the hinder parts&rdquo;. This just isn&rsquo;t what we expect; to read about God being flattered by foolish men, and for Him to be likened to a drunken soldier who goes on the rampage kicking others in their private parts (this is alluding back to 1 Sam. 5:9). And the Lord likens His final appeal to Israel to casting dung around them (Lk. 13:8).</p><p>This whole verse has various possible interpretations which each seem to me to have things to commend them and yet also their own problems. 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 carcass- 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 carcass in God's eyes. The temple was &quot;where s.w. the Jews always resort&quot; (Jn. 18:20). The carcass or dead body may not necessarily refer to Israel. In Rev. 11:8,9 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 / carcass of those who had died the death of Christ in Jerusalem in the final tribulation. The Greek word for &quot;carcass&quot;,&nbsp;<i>stoma</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 carcass 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 carcass (as in Rev. 3:1), you will certainly find yourselves the prey of these &quot;vultures,&quot; the false teachers&rdquo;.&nbsp; &quot;Where, Lord?&rdquo; 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; here the quotation would be from Dt. 28:26 &quot;your carcasses shall be meat unto the fowls of the air&quot;.</p><p>So this may refer to the coming of Christ down from Heaven in judgment upon either the carcass of Israel, or for the sake of the carcasses 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). 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;Yet here in Lk. 17:37 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 (Mt. 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>And yet the Lord may simply be saying that questions like 'Where?' and 'When?' are irrelevant. We shall be taken to judgment just as eagles find their way to the carcass, but we are to ensure that we are not that dead carcass.</p>