Chapter 13 – One God Translation

Mark

   13 As Jesus was leaving the Temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Teacher, look at these massive stones and magnificent buildings!” 2 Jesus responded, “You see all these great buildings? There will not be left one stone on top of another. Everything will be demolished.”
    3 As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the Temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be fulfilled?” [295] 5 Jesus began by saying to them, “Be careful that no one deceives you. 6 Many people will come in my name saying, ‘I am the Messiah,’[296] and they will mislead many. 7 Do not be troubled when you hear of wars and rumors of wars. These things must happen,[297] but that is not yet the end.[298] 8 Nation will fight against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.[299] There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the start of birth pains.[300]
    9 “Be on your guard! They will hand you over[301] to the courts, you will be beaten in the synagogues, and you will have to stand before governors and kings for my sake, as a testimony to them. 10 The Gospel[302] must first be preached to all the nations. 11 When they come to arrest you, do not worry about what you should say. Say what you are given to say at that time, because it will not be you speaking, but the holy spirit.
    12 Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rise up against their parents and have them put to death. 13 You will be hated by everyone because of my name, but whoever endures until the end[303] will be saved.
    14 “When you see the ‘Abomination of Desolation’ standing where he[304] should not be (readers, understand!), then whoever is in Judea should escape to the mountains. 15 Whoever is on the roof should not go back inside the house to get anything. 16 Whoever is out in the fields should not go home to get his coat. 17 How hard it will be for those who are pregnant or nursing babies at that time! 18 You should pray that this will not happen during the winter. 19 For those will be days of tribulation[305] as never before — not since the beginning of the creation which God created until now, nor ever will be. 20 If God does not cut short those days, no one will survive, but for the sake of His elect, His chosen ones, He has cut them short. 21 If anyone says to you at that time, ‘Look, here is the Messiah,’ or ‘Look, there he is,’ do not believe it. 22 For false Messiahs and false prophets will appear, and they will perform miraculous signs and wonders to deceive God’s elect, if possible. 23 Stay alert! I have told you everything before it happens.
    24 “In those days, after that tribulation,[306] the sun will grow dark, and the moon will not shine, 25 the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly powers will be shaken. 26 Then everybody will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with overwhelming power and glory. 27 He will send out the angels to gather together all his chosen ones from every direction, from the most distant part of the earth to the furthest point of heaven.
    28 “Learn a parable from the fig tree. When its branches become soft and sprout leaves, you know that summer is near. 29 In the same way, when you see these things happening, you will know that it is near, right at the door. 30 I am telling you the truth: this present evil society[307] will not pass away until all these things happen. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
    32 “No one knows that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[308] but the Father alone. 33 Keep watching, stay awake — because you do not know when the time will come. 34 It is like a man going on a trip, who before leaving his house gave his servants the authority to do what he instructed each of them, and commanded the doorkeeper to stay alert. 35 So be alert, because you do not know when the owner of the house is coming back — during the evening, in the middle of the night, at dawn, or in the morning. 36 And you do not want him to come suddenly and find you sleeping. 37 What I am telling you, I am telling everyone: Stay awake!”

Mark

[295]

Many mistakes in Bible explanation derive from a failure to know and follow the OT background of the NT. Particularly is this true in the case of the Olivet Discourse, where Jesus expressly says that the Abomination of Desolation, the key figure in the events of the end of this age, is to be understood on the basis of what Daniel had written. In 13:4 we already have a clear reference to Dan. 12:6-7 in which Daniel had asked, “How long will it be to the end?” The angel had answered, “When the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things will be accomplished.” These are the exact words of 13:4 and we are invited to go back to Daniel for further information. Daniel had been asking about the final events of the final vision which ends in the resurrection. We know that the first resurrection will occur at the Second Coming of Jesus (1 Cor. 15:23, etc.). It is to Daniel that we must go to see how Jesus’ Olivet Discourse is to be understood. Daniel understood after inquiry what “all these things” were. They were related to the “end-time,” which is certainly not “the end of time”! The visions of Daniel, in ch. 2, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12, end with the establishment of the Kingdom of God, when the power of evil and the deceptions of Satan will be cut off forever. Thus all the visions end at the same future point of time. They complement each other and the Olivet Discourse is the ultimate revealing commentary on them by Jesus. The chronological information which unites the prophecies is “a time, times and half a time” (Dan. 7:25; 12:7; see Rev. 11:2-3; 12:6, 14; 13:5). Daniel’s great prayer in ch. 9 was a plea for the restoration of the city and sanctuary, and when that would be. To make either AD 33 or AD 70 the endpoint of the 490 years of Dan. 9:24-27 leaves Daniel’s prayer unanswered and thus the whole biblical hope unresolved. The Pulpit Commentary says wisely that “our Lord correlates the destruction of Jerusalem with the end of the world” (Daniel, p. 335). Daniel 12:1-3, quoted by Jesus, provides the indispensable key to end-times teaching — Great Tribulation, resurrection, and immortality in the future Kingdom (Mt. 13:43).

[296]

Or perhaps, “I represent Christ as a minister of his.”

[297]

This is an echo of Dan. 2:28ff and 2:45. These events must happen in the divine plan. “The end is yet to be at the appointed time” (Dan. 11:27).

[298]

That is, “not yet the end of the age” which is the subject of their question and Jesus’ answer (13:4; Mt. 24:3; Lk. 21:7; Dan. 9:27).

[299]

Cp. 2 Chron. 15:6; Isa. 19:2.

[300]

Leading to the rebirth of the world when the Kingdom will be established worldwide (Mt. 19:28; cp. Tit. 3:5).

[301]

Cp. Dan. 7:25 where the saints are to be handed over to the last blasphemous king (ruler) for “a time, times and half a time.” This is evidently the same period as Dan. 9:27, the last half of the final seven-year period (heptad, a “seven” of years).

[302]

Matthew defines it as “this Gospel about the Kingdom” (Mt. 24:14) and this is always what the Gospel means in the NT. There is only one saving Gospel and it is defined by Jesus as the Gospel of the Kingdom. See Acts 8:12 for the early, clear definition of what it means to become a Christian.

[303]

For the endurance under persecution of the holy people, cp. Dan. 11:32 and 12:12. Dan. 11:35 says that this trial will go on until the end. The end in question in the whole discourse is the end of the age about which the initial question was asked. Dan. 12:1 is of course the future Great Tribulation at the end of which the faithful will be finally delivered. AD 70 was a disaster for Israel and certainly did not produce the Kingdom of God on earth. So-called preterism fails to understand the Gospel.

[304]

The masculine participle (esteekota) shows that Mark and Jesus had in mind a person as the Abomination, or perhaps a statue of a person. A number of good modern translations make this point. Albrecht’s good translation in German states: “According to the original Greek, the Abomination is to be understood to be a male person” (my trans. from the German). Deut. 19:16-29 show how abominable acts attract the wrath of God, just as the homosexuality of Sodom brought destruction in the days of Lot. Lam. 4:6 speaks of “the iniquity of the daughter of my people being worse than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment. The punishment of my dear people is greater than that of Sodom, which was overthrown in an instant, supernaturally.” A supernatural destruction will likewise eliminate the antichrist (2 Thess. 2:8; Isa. 11:4). Jesus describes the Abomination of Desolation as explicitly the Abomination described by Daniel in Dan. 9:27; 11:31; 12:11, and a parallel reference in Dan. 8:13. The time period indicated by Dan. 9:27 is clear. The sacrilege connected with the altar will continue “until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.” The critically important words “final and decisive end” are found only here in Dan 9:27, in Isa. 10:23 and 28:22, in which God’s wrath falls on the whole earth, or land. Paul reads these same words as a prophecy to be fulfilled at the return of Christ. Rom. 9:28: “a final and decisive end” (quoting the LXX) is a great key to the apostolic application of the phrase “final and decisive end” of Isa. 10:23, 28:22 and Dan. 9:27. The decisive and final end is to be when Jesus comes back, not earlier. All attempts to apply the end of the 70th week to AD 33 or AD 70 are thus incoherent. The final wicked person will be broken “without hand” (Dan. 8:25; cp. 11:45). He will “come to his end” (Dan. 9:26b). The same evil figure, the Man of Sin, will be supernaturally destroyed at the coming of Jesus, according to 2 Thess. 2:8, which cites the final destruction of the Assyrian of Isa. 11:4. This gives the clue to the national identity of the final wicker ruler, or at least to the general area in which he will be active, which is not Europe but the Middle East. Dan. 7:11 says that the final blasphemous beast will be destroyed by fire, the lake of fire of Rev. 19:20-21. The Assyrian is destroyed in the sulfurous lake of fire of Isa. 30:33. See also notes on Luke 21:21ff.

[305]

The very days themselves will be characterized by unparalleled affliction and distress (see Zech. 13:8; 14:2; Jer. 30:7). “It will be the characteristic of those days that they are tribulation itself” (Lange). Matthew and Mark agree that the signs of the second coming will occur “immediately” after (Mt. 24:29) the tribulation of those days. This chronological precision rules out any concept of AD 70 being the stated time of “great tribulation.” The great tribulation, days in which it will be impossibly difficult for pregnant and nursing women (v. 17), are the immediate precursors of the future arrival of Jesus to inaugurate the Kingdom of God worldwide. The 70th “week” of Dan. 9 is the time of the Abomination of Desolation, and Jesus by placing the Abomination just before the Second Coming obviously read that 70th “week” as future, just before the end of the age. A fulfillment of the 70th week in AD 33 or AD 70 is thus decisively excluded.

[306]

The Great Tribulation connected with the appearing of the Abomination. There is only one Great Tribulation, and it was obviously not in AD 70, which was not followed by the Coming of Jesus.

[307]

Much unnecessary speculation has been based on the false idea that “genea” here means a period of 40 or 70 years. In Acts 1:7 Jesus said that “the times and seasons” for the coming of the future Kingdom are not known. He could have said, “I told you it will be 40 or 70 years.” The word “genea” here means this evil society or world-system lasting until the Second Coming. This evil system will not come to an end before all the striking events outlined by Jesus have occurred. The same use of genea as “brood” or “group of people characterized by a similar quality” is found in Prov. 30:11-14, Lk. 16:8 and Mk. 8:38 where genea is equivalent to age.

[308]

This statement of Jesus that the Son of God does not know the time of the Parousia rules out any dogma about Jesus being God Himself. Orthodox authorities were reduced to hopeless evasion on this verse. Athanasius says that Jesus did not know as a human being! Augustine said that Jesus did not know in such a way as to impart the information! Lange is frank enough to admit that “dogmatic theology has not reached the point of being able to do perfect justice to the economic and dynamic import of the Son’s not knowing,” which is a confusing way of conceding that once one says “Jesus is GOD,” nonsense is made of Jesus’ plain and easy statement that he, the Son of God, did not know! Jesus also increased in wisdom (Lk. 2:52), again showing that he was a human being and not “God the Son.” Jesus is Son of God explicitly based on Luke 1:35; Mt. 1:18, 20 (“begotten, fathered in her”). The idea of a “beginningless beginning” (eternal generation) is not a coherent concept.