The End of the World and the Final Coming of God’s Kingdom (Part 17)
One of the most perplexing questions about the life and mission of Jesus (at least, in so far as His life is accessible to historical research) is whether or not Jesus predicted that the end of the world would come soon after His death, even within a single generation. Several passages in the gospels seem, at first glance at least, to suggest that He did (e.g., Mt 16:28 and 24:34; Mk 9:1, 13:30; Lk 9:27, 21:32). Several more passages suggest that the earliest Christians believed that He did (e.g., I Thess 4: 13-19; cf. I Cor 7:26). In his book The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus (2009), Dale Allison, a leading expert on New Testament apocalyptic (whose work on the historical Jesus we discussed in depth in our series, In Search of Jesus of Nazareth) generally sides with the tradition of Weiss, Schweitzer, and Sanders in New Testament scholarship on this matter:
Jesus apparently did expect the coming of God sooner rather than later, and it is only natural that the passing of time witnessed, if not a far-flung crisis of faith, then at least some uneasiness here and there. … If the quest [for the historical Jesus] has produced an apocalyptic Jesus with a near expectation, then honouring him and the truth means coming to terms with that expectation. Anything else, however sophisticated or attractive, is escapism. (p. 100-101)
“If the quest has produced an apocalyptic Jesus with a near expectation....” But that is a big “if,” for, arguably, there is no assured result of historical research on this subject. It is unfortunate that Allison mentions only N.T. Wright among contemporary New Testament scholars who support a more or less classical Christian view that Jesus did not, in fact, predict that the world would end soon, only that it would end suddenly (like a flash of lightning, like a thief in the night: see Mk 13:35-37; Lk 12:39, 17:24, 21:35). Another one would be Evangelical scholar R.T. France, who made an important, fresh contribution to the debate on this subject in Jesus and the Old Testament (1971).
To begin with, there are certainly indications in the synoptic gospels that Jesus believed the end of the world would in fact be a long time coming, including his prediction that “first the gospel must be preached to all nations, and then the end will come” (Mt 24:14, Mk 13:10). That was hardly a task that could be accomplished in a single generation! Moreover:
In Matthew 24:48, Jesus tells a parable of a wicked steward who mistreats the servants and squanders the property entrusted to him under the pretext, “my Master is delayed” in coming back.
In Matthew 25:5, in the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, the bridegroom “tarries long” before coming to the feast, so that the foolish virgins fall asleep waiting for him.
In Matthew 25:19, in the Parable of the Talents, the industrious servants are able to double the talents entrusted to them before their Master returns “after a long time.”
Moreover, if Jesus clearly had taught that the end of the world would be coming within just a single generation, the ancient Jewish polemicists would have seized on this fact, and made it a cornerstone of their critique of Christian belief that Jesus was the Messiah. After all, how could the Messiah be a false prophet? But there does not seem to be any evidence that the Jews made such an argument.
In addition, with regard to some of the passages in which Jesus seems to predict an imminent end of the world, the wider context shows that this cannot have been his intended meaning. For example, in Mark 13:30, after speaking about many signs (seemingly of the world’s end), Jesus says, “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” And yet, almost immediately after that, in Mark 13:32, Jesus expressly refuses to make any pronouncement regarding the timing of the end: “But of that day and hour, no man knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Is it likely that in verse 30 He predicted the end would come within a single generation, and then two verses later He contradicted himself by saying that He did not actually know when the end would come? And if Jesus predicted an imminent end of all things in Mark 13:30, then why did the Risen Jesus later tell his apostles in Acts 1:7 (in response to their question: “Will you at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel?”—that is, the New Jerusalem, the final reign of God): “It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.” If it was not for them to know, then why did He (allegedly) tell his apostles explicitly in Mark 13:30 that “this generation will not pass away” until all the signs of the end of the world would be fulfilled? It would seem that the only way to unravel this knot is to admit that in Mark 13:30, Jesus was probably not speaking of the end of the world, but of some other event of cosmic importance (an event to which he must have been referring in some or all of the preceding verses). In any case, the matter is certainly complex, and resists simplistic solutions.
Catholic scholar Roch Kereszty in Fundamentals of Christology (2002) gives us a summary of an alternative view of the final coming of the Kingdom in the preaching of Jesus:
In Matthew, the Kingdom of the Son of Man is clearly distinguished from the Kingdom of the Father. The first is established with the resurrection when all power has been given to Christ (13:41, 16:28; 28:18-20). This Kingdom of the Son of Man is provisional and becomes visible in the community of the Church. It still contains the good and the bad, and at the end it will yield to the kingdom of the Father (13:43)[Similarly, see I Cor 15: 24-28; Col 1:13].
What this means for Matthew becomes clear in the words with which Jesus replies to the interrogation of the high priest at his trial before the Sanhedrin. He distances himself from the claim the high priest wants to attribute to him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of God?” He replies: “You have said so.” That is, these are your words, not mine; it is your attempt to impose a claim on me, not necessarily my claim. Then he adds: “But I tell you: from now on you will see the Son of Man at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Mt 26:64).
Thus, according to Matthew Jesus is established as the heavenly Son of Man [through his condemnation, crucifixion, and resurrection] a transcendent king who, according to Daniel 7:13-14, will share in God’s power and dominion. This conception is very close to that of John, according to which Jesus will be exalted as Son of Man, the universal eschatological king, at the moment he is lifted up on the cross (12:32).
We must then conclude that the saying of Jesus underlying Mark 9:1 and Matthew 16:28 does not necessarily mean the coming of the Kingdom as the end of the world, but rather the rule of the Son of Man through his death and resurrection.
The precise time of the Last Judgment and the end of the world in the eschatological discourses of Jesus remains obscure. Mark 13:30 and Matthew 24:34 do indeed suggest that “all these things” will happen before this generation passes away. However, the words “all these things” (tauta panta) seem to refer both in Mark and in Matthew primarily to the destruction of Jerusalem that anticipates the catastrophic end of the world. … The phrase “all these things” certainly includes the condemning judgment of the Son of Man over Jerusalem but not necessarily the consummation of judgment over the whole world. Jesus described the destruction of the city as a prophet and apocalyptic visionary. In the prophetic and apocalyptic traditions of Israel, an historic event, whether one of doom such as the collapse of the Hellenistic Empire (Dn 7:8-27), or of peace, prosperity, and religious renewal (such as the rule of King Hezekiah described in Is 7 and 11) is seen as the anticipation and guarantee of the final doom and final Messianic Kingdom. In a similar way, according to Mark and Matthew, Jesus announces the destruction of Jerusalem as the beginning and guarantee of the end and final judgement of the world. (p. 133-135)
To be sure, arguments for and against Kereszty’s interpretation of the eschatological sayings of Jesus can be put forward, and it was not to Allison’s purpose in his own book to plunge into such debates in depth and detail. But it was also somewhat disingenuous of him to say that we may just have to face up to the fact that the modern quest for the historical Jesus has given us “an apocalyptic Jesus with a near expectation,” when it has done nothing of the sort with any assurance.
From the standpoint of historical research, therefore, what can we say with confidence on this difficult matter? How can we sort out which of Christ’s sayings about the end were intended to be understood, first of all, of the coming destruction of Jerusalem, and which ones (if any) refer primarily to the second coming of Christ at the end of time, and the final triumph of His Kingdom? In a way that echoes Kerseszty’s final comments on this subject (quoted above), Catholic Scripture scholar Tim Gray wrote:
The prediction of the end of the Temple and the prediction of the end of the world are indistinguishable [in the teachings of Jesus] for a reason. Jesus’ first coming ushers in judgment upon the Temple and Jerusalem; the [prophetic] description of their demise is a foreshadowing of the second coming of Jesus when He will judge the whole world. What happens to the Temple when it is found unfaithful is intended to be a sign of what will happen when Jesus comes back to the world. At the end of the Old Covenant, the master returned to settle accounts. This is not simply a history lesson but a preview of what the master will do when He comes at the end of the New Covenant. The events are so similar that they seem identical. (Tim Gray, Mission of the Messiah. Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road, 1998), p. 108.
Next Time: Jesus is Lord
Robert Stackpole, STD
©2020, Mere Christian Fellowship
