Questions for Jesus | When Will The End Come?

Jun 29

About this series:

In each of the gospels we find Jesus asking questions of his disciples, the crowds and his opponents. And we also find Jesus being asked questions - by his disciples, the crowds and his opponents. Here, we will take 10 questions people asked of Jesus, the first from Luke’s gospel to set up the series and then the rest from Matthew’s gospel.

As well as working through the specific passages, we will aim to encourage people to consider what questions they would like to ask Jesus. The hope is that by looking at Matthew’s gospel in this way, we will see more clearly who Jesus is, be inspired to follow him and learn to be honest about our own questions as we grow to become more like him.

About this talk:

Eschatology is ‘the study of the last things’ which includes such things as Christ’s return, how things on earth will develop as that time approaches and the complex matter of the millennium. It’s an area of theology that causes endless fascination for some and huge confusion for others. The primary certainty is that Jesus will indeed return one day. The timing of that day is unknown to all except God the Father: “About that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matthew 24:36).

Christ’s return is intended to be something we long for because it will mark the time when all God’s enemies will be banished forever, when God creates the new heaven on the new earth, when all God’s people will be united with him and when we will receive our resurrection bodies. No wonder the penultimate line in the New Testament is, “Come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20). Peter repeatedly encourages us to look forward to that day (2 Peter 3:10-15). However, debate continues to swirl among Christians about how close we are to Jesus’ return. Whether that be a general sense that things are growing worse and must therefore be coming to an end, or an assessment that the signs of the end times (Matthew 24) are coming to fruition, or the occasional specific prediction, such as that of Harold Camping.

In May 2011, Camping predicted (from calculations he’d made in the Bible!) that Jesus was definitely going to return at 6pm on Saturday 21st May. Followers spoke of settling their affairs and spending their final days with loved ones. No one knows how many people rushed into marriages, scrambled to repent, ran up credit-card debts, threw last parties, quit their jobs or gave away their possessions. But the reaction was widespread and in some cases tragic, especially among people who feared being left behind to face an agonizing end. With three days to go, a mother in California stabbed her daughters, 11 and 14 years old, and cut her own throat, the police said, to avoid the calamity. All survived. A man in Taiwan, fearing that recent earthquakes / tsunamis signalled imminent doom, leapt to his death from a building. And in California a man who couldn’t swim tried to reach God across a lake and drowned, the police said.

The BBC news website wrote afterwards, ‘The evangelical broadcaster who left followers crestfallen by his failed prediction that last Saturday would be Judgement Day, says he miscalculated. Harold Camping said it had “dawned” on him that God would spare humanity “hell on earth for five months” and the apocalypse would happen on 21 October. Mr Camping said he felt “terrible” about his mistake.’

Matthew 24 is set in Jerusalem, during the week before Jesus was crucified and raised. He had been teaching in the temple (Matthew 21-23) and is walking away from the temple when his disciples “came up to him to call his attention to its buildings” (v 1). A little later, “As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. ‘Tell us,’ they said, ‘when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’” What Jesus then says is a long list of signs and warnings about the end times (the days between Jesus' ascension and his return). Wayne Grudem summarises these signs as: the preaching of the gospel to all nations, the great tribulation, false prophets working signs and wonders and signs in the heavens. Debate exists over whether these signs have already occurred (and therefore Jesus could, indeed, come at any moment) or whether they have yet to occur.

Jesus concludes with two points:

That no one knows when that day will come: “But about that day or hour no-one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (v 36).
That they should always be ready for his return: “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come” (v 42). This is illustrated by the two parables in 25:1-30.

Other much-debated matters connected to the return of Jesus are the coming of the man of sin and the rebellion (see 2 Thessalonians 2:1-10; 1 John 2:18), the salvation of Israel (see Romans 11:12,25-26) and the Millennium (see Revelation 20:1-7 which speaks of a thousand years when Satan is bound and the faithful reign with Christ). There are three primary views about the millennium:

i) Premillennialism: Christ will return before / pre the thousand years (literal or figurative) which will be a time when Christ reigns physically on earth with believers in resurrected bodies. After the thousand years there will be judgement and eternity.

ii) Postmillennialism: Christ will return after / post the thousand years (literal or figurative) which will be a time of growing gospel influence, after which the second coming will bring judgement and eternity.

iii) Amillennialism: the thousand years are a figure of speech meaning ‘a long time’ and refer to the current age of the church; there is no future thousand years.

Whichever view we may hold about these matters, as James Edwards comments on the parallel passage in Mark’s gospel, ‘the purpose of the eschatological discourse in Mark 13 is not primarily to provide a timetable or blueprint for the future so much as to exhort readers to faithful discipleship in the present.’