The problem with your argument is that you are equating a local, temporal judgment on a particular generation with the final judgment of hell. But that is not how Scripture speaks. In ~Matthew 23, Jesus berated the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy and unbelief and declared that they would receive judgment, and in fact they did, at the destruction of Jerusalem. But in the very next verse, Jesus was talking about Gehenna, the place of eternal fire that the Father is going to prepare for the devil and his angels ~Matthew 25:41. That cannot be a reference to an earthly event that had already passed because Gehenna is where the soul and body will be eternally destroyed ~Matthew 10:28.
In the New Testament, hell is never presented as a temporary, historical judgment; it is always presented as an eternal judgment. “Their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” ~Mark 9:48. “who will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord” ~2 Thessalonians 1:9. Revelation is also future-oriented, not past: “The dead were judged… and anyone not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire” ~Revelation 20:12-15.
The point is, the generation of Jesus’ day was indeed subjected to temporal judgment, but that was not the judgment of hell. It was a taste of God’s righteous wrath against sin, a sign of what every nation is in for if they reject His Son. To turn eternal judgment into a local, historical event is to contradict the clear teaching of Scripture. The Word of God is clear: Gehenna, the final judgment of hell, is still in the future, and all who reject Christ will face it when they stand before the Judge.
Got it. so your exegesis is:
Verse 31: “Therefore you testify to yourselves that you are children of those who killed the prophets.
(breaking the Mosiac law)
Verse 32: “Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers.
(Judgment coming for breaking the Mosiac law)
Verse 33: “You serpents, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna?
(judgment that has nothing to do with breaking the Mosiac law!!!)
Verse 35: “that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar.
(Judgment coming for breaking the Mosiac law)
Verse 36: “Most certainly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.
(Judgment coming in their lifetime for breaking the Mosiac law)
Verse 37: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! (
A lament over Jerusalem because of coming judgment for breaking the Mosiac law)
Verse 38: Behold, your house is left to you desolate.
(Judgment coming against the temple for breaking the Mosiac law)
Verse 39: “For I tell you, you will not see me from now on, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
(the coming of the son of man in Matthew 24:34, which will come in that generation for breaking the Mosiac law)
The judgement of Gehenna is Israel facing national extinction like in Jeremiah
32Therefore behold, the days come”, says Yahweh, “that it will no more be called ‘Topheth’ or ‘The valley of the son of Hinnom’, but ‘The valley of Slaughter’; for they will bury in Topheth until there is no place to bury.
33The dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth. No one will frighten them away.
34Then I will cause to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land will become a waste.” (Jer 7:32-34)
the narrative continues in the next chapter
1“At that time,” says Yahweh, “they will bring the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of his princes, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves.
2They will spread them before the sun, the moon, and all the army of the sky, which they have loved, which they have served, after which they have walked, which they have sought, and which they have worshiped. They will not be gathered or be buried. They will be like dung on the surface of the earth.
3Death will be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places where I have driven them,” says Yahweh of Armies.
this is the body and soul/life destroyed in Gehenna/Hinnom in Matt 10:28
