The End Times

 

I confess to getting annoyed at nominal Christians who go on about the end times. Because this goes counter to what the Bible actually says.

The main point in the Bible is “the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” (Matthew 24:44). “About that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matthew 24:36) “You do not know when that time will come.” (Mark 13: 33)

So watching for signs of the end is at best ignoring the Bible. Claiming to know is blasphemous.

Millenarians generally point to wars around the world as the sign. Look at Ukraine! And Gaza! “There will be wars and rumours of wars.” But what the Bible says is that, when you hear wars and rumours of wars, “see to it that you are not alarmed.” These are “birth pangs,” not the end. “The end is still to come.” (Matthew 24:6-8)

If wars are signs of the end times, these signs have been present since the day Jesus spoke these words—and for long before. Can anyone claim the level of conflict around the world is greater now than in the 1940s? We are actually in a long period of relative peace. Stephen Pinker has made the argument that violence ha been declining throughout history.

But we must be alert, I am told, to avoid the Tribulation. At a particular sign, everyone has to flee to the mountains. This is from Matthew 24:15-22; Mark 13: 14-23; Like 21:20-24. So it makes sense to be watching for signs.

But what is the sign? Matthew and Mark say “When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ standing where it does not belong.” This quotes the Book of Daniel; it refers to a statue of the Seleucid emperor being erected in the temple in Jerusalem. More generally, then, the defilement or desolation of the Temple.

One problem: the temple was demolished in 70 AD.

Taken literally, Jesus is predicting some local event. He says “people in Judea” should flee to the mountains. Not everyone around the world: people in Judea. 

Luke serves to clarify. Luke says “When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near.” “Let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city.” “Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” (Luke 21: 20-24). Jesus is predicting the desolation of Jerusalem, not the end times. This indeed happened, in 70 AD. And it was indeed a bad time to be a Jew in Judea. This is when the diaspora began.

There are, indeed, many more “signs” in Revelations: the four horsemen and the seven seals and so on. But the timeline seems to stretch for thousands of years: “When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison 8and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle.” (Rev. 20:7). That’s rather imprecise if you want to use this to predict the end times. All you can say from this is that the end is due in the next few thousand years.

If, indeed, Revelations is really about the future, rather than events in eternity. It seems more reasonable to see things like beasts rising from the sea and so forth as spiritual events, not things that are happening in the material, temporal world.

And how does the doom patrol deal with this?  In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” Some standing there as he spoke. They will not taste death first. How does this tally with waiting now for the kingdom to come? Clearly, by this, it has already come. 

Luke illuminates: “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.” (Luke 17:20-21)

The end times are not something coming soon or late, but something in the direct experience of every one of us. And that is where our focus needs to be: on our own hearts, not the news of the day. To project it all on others, in Gaza or in Russia or in Washington or Zurich. is to avoid our own necessary transformation.