In evaluating the questions that the disciples asked Jesus in Matthew 24, they could not have been asking Jesus about His return in some distant future to end the world and judge all mankind. First, they could not have been asking Jesus about signs of the end of the world because they refused to believe that he was going away. It is true that they heard him speak of it, but it did not register to them that he was going to die and leave them. This would not fit their expectation of the coming kingdom. They didn’t understand when He told them, “In a little while you will not see me and a little while and you shall see me” (Mat. 16:16-18). They refused to believe it. When Peter drew his sword at the garden entrance when Jesus was being arrested, he intended to fight for a physical cause. They didn’t expect Jesus to go away the night before he died. They didn’t expect Him to die, or be resurrected after three days. Even forty days after the resurrection, the apostles still did not expect his departure and ascension (cf. Acts 1:6). They were expecting him to stay there and restore the kingdom to Israel.
Therefore, why would they have asked Him when he would return to judge the world at the end of time when they didn’t even believe he was going away. Add to this the fact that their questions were in response to the statement that no stone would be left upon another that would not be cast down, the clear connection is between their questions and the temple’s destruction. The end of the world was never their concern.
In summary, Jesus could not have been referring to a final day of judgment because (1) The language of his return was imminent. (2) Jesus’ use and context of “the end” referred to the end of the Jewish era that would fit the context of the temple’s destruction. (3) The judgment of which Jesus spoke was an escapable judgment. (4) They admittedly didn’t expect Jesus to leave to return in judgment at some distant future.
Therefore, we dismiss the notion that we are in “the last days,” awaiting his return in judgment at the end of time. We neither accept the idea that the “last days” are yet at some future time nor that it began on Pentecost (Acts 2) and continues to our present generation in the Christian age. The last days refer to the end of the Mosaic covenant when God’s judgment came upon that generation (cf. Matthew 24:34).