What does Matthew 24:34 mean?
It's seldom noticed that the Greek text of Matthew 24:34 uses a grammatical form called the ingressive aorist. Taken literally, this means Jesus DID NOT SAY the generation He was speaking to would live to see all that He said come true. But that they (or the Jewish nation) would not pass away until everything He said started to come true. When understood this way, His words were fulfilled to the letter, because the first thing He spoke of was the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple. Whether He was speaking of the generation then living, or of the Jewish people, His words were true, brcause that destruction began in that generation. In fact, in the parallel passage in Luke 21, He speaks of the Jewish people being again taken into captivity, and being scattered among the nations, while Jerusalem is being "trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." And this would seem to imply a long time. Furthermore, the following quote suggests this is how the church understood Christ's words in the earliest centuries of the Christian era.
"...prophesying concerning the temple, He said: 'See ye these buildings? Verily I say to you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another which shall not be taken away; and this generation shall not pass until the destruction begin."
(Clementine Homilies, Homily III, Chapter XV.)
Note: The Wailing Wall (which was part of the Jewish Temple in Christ's day, remains to this day, and may be part of a future 3rd Temple) stands as a witness that the judgement Christ spoke of was only begun (not finished) in the first century.
Can we pray for those long dead?
“The objection is raised: What sense does it make to pray for someone who has already died, perhaps in a state of mortal sin? Is his fate not already decided? ...The answer lies in God’s eternity. For the eternal God there is no past that is simply gone. In his sight, all times are present. Hence, the intercession of the Church is not in vain even for those who have long since died...If God’s eternity embraces all times, then the prayer of the Church today can be drawn by God into the moment of decision of a man who died long ago. God, who is Lord of time, can let this later intercession be co-present at the hour of death. The decisive moment is not closed to him. This is not to say that such prayer guarantees salvation. It remains a hope. But it is not meaningless, because for God the past is not absolutely past.”
Hans Urs von Balthasar, Dare We Hope That All Men Might Be Saved? 2nd ed. (2014) Ignatius Press. Pages 144 -150.
What about the idea that hell is forever, but that the torment of hell may be reduced over time?
The thesis that the pain of loss may be unending, but the pain of sense may be gradually reduced over time (as an act of Divine Mercy) may be a legitimate theologoumenon (Theological opinion.)
This article was written by an Orthodox Philosopher, and recently appeared in AGATHEOS - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion.
"...after the final judgment, God may grant the damned a special grace, restoring them to a state of natural love for God as the author of their being. This would thus involve a mitigation of their suffering—a transfer from the depths of hell to a higher state of natural felicity. In the proposed framework, the damned, who remain experiencing hell, and thus are irreversibly deprived of supernatural grace and theotic communion with God. Nonetheless, through a miraculous intervention prompted by the prayers of the saints, the damned may come to possess a form of ‘natural felicity’ rooted in a restored capacity for the natural love of God as the author of their being. Importantly, this restoration does not imply salvation or participation in the supernatural order of grace; it remains strictly a natural orientation. Thus, while Maritain (a 20th century Roman Catholic Philosopher extensively quoted by author, parentheses mine) does not affirm universalism or apokatastasis, he envisages a transformative scenario in which the damned, though still enduring the pain of loss, gain a modicum of natural appreciation for divine goodness, thereby moderating certain aspects of their suffering."
Sijuwade, J. (2026). The Problem of Hell: The Presence-Union Model. AGATHEOS – European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 2(4), 111–136. https://doi.org/10.69574/aejpr.v2i4.44725
..