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Is the End of History at Hand?
Are we living in the last days? Is Jesus coming very soon? According to Hebrews 1:2, we’ve been in the last days since Jesus’s ministry, death, and resurrection, which means the last days have now spanned 2,000 years. We aren’t only in the last days; we’re in the final hour, for John declares, “It is the last hour” (1 John 2:18). So the last hour has been ticking over for two centuries. The end of the age has arrived with the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is “the firstfruits” of our future resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20).
Can we say we’re in the last days of the last days, or the final minutes of the last hour? Can we say Jesus will come in our generation? What does the New Testament tell us? Jesus emphasizes that he’s coming soon (Rev. 22:20), and we’re told that “the time is near” (1:3). It’s important we interpret these verses accurately to understand the timing of his return.
No One Knows
God has revealed his truth to us in a fascinating way. We can’t calculate the day, hour, year, or even century of Jesus’s coming. Many have tried setting the exact date in history, and we know how that has turned out. Echoing a book written in 1988 about Jesus’s return, we could say there are 88 reasons for not picking a precise date for Jesus’s return.
At the same time, there’s a reason we’re tempted to set dates. Chief among them is Jesus’s declaration that he was coming soon. In addition, Jesus taught us to be ready and to watch for his appearing (Matt. 24; Mark 13). As we long and wait for Jesus’s return, we’re inclined to become more precise than the Bible, to set a date when the Bible refuses to do so. No one knows that day or hour—even Jesus as a human being didn’t know when he’d return (Mark 13:32). It’s ironic that so many in history, in setting a date, have in effect claimed to know more than Jesus himself.
The End Is Near
I suggest the following. God in his wisdom has set up history so we rightly think in every generation, The end is near. Jesus is coming soon. And we pray the words of Revelation 22:20: “Come, Lord Jesus!” At the same time, we can’t nail down precisely when the end will be. We long for Jesus to come. We wait for him to come, but we can’t specify when he’ll come. Thus every generation in church history has rightly said, “All the signs point to the coming of the end in our generation.” From the first generation up to and including our day, Christians have discerned the times and seasons, and they’ve rightly thought that Jesus could come very soon.
Even Jesus as a human being didn’t know when he’d return.
The apostle John’s words in his first letter are instructive in this regard. John predicts that before the end there’ll be “many antichrists” (1 John 2:18). Then, out of the many antichrists, there’ll be one final and climactic antichrist, the person whom Paul identifies as “the man of lawlessness” (2 Thess. 2:3).
Since we don’t know the identity of the final antichrist, we’re to be alert, realizing that one of the many antichrists in our day may turn out to be the final antichrist. And every generation of believers has been right to think that one of the antichrists may turn out to be the final one. They’ve erred, however, when they set an exact date for the end.
Come, Lord Jesus
How does this apply to us today? Are there signs in our generation that the end is coming? Indeed there are.
Yes, the gospel is still the power of God leading to salvation (Rom. 1:16). The good news is going to the ends of the earth and many are being converted. Faithful churches are proclaiming the Word and building up their congregations. This isn’t a call to despair or defeatism. We aren’t called to hide away and await Jesus’s coming. We serve a Christ who rules the kings of the earth (Rev. 1:5), and the gates of hell will not prevail over the church (Matt. 16:18). Jesus’s words to suffering churches still ring out today: “Do not be afraid” (Rev. 1:17, NIV). He is the King of kings and Lord of lords.
God in his wisdom has set up history so we rightly think in every generation, The end is near. Jesus is coming soon.
At the same time, false teaching threatens on every side. Many deny the final judgment, the truthfulness of God’s Word, justification by faith, and the sexual morality clearly taught in Scripture. We may be living in the days when the restrainer is removed, when common grace is withdrawn (2 Thess. 2:5–6). We look around our world and see that evil has increasing influence and Christian teaching on morality is denounced as wicked and dangerous to society. The moral degeneration of our day and the intense hostility to the gospel are signs of the end. We aren’t delusional for thinking in a world where there are nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence, virulent diseases and pandemics, and negative ramifications from social media that the end is coming.
We’re reminded that this world isn’t our home, that our destination is the heavenly city, that paradise isn’t on earth. We think, Jesus is coming soon. And yet, we can’t set a date. We can’t know for sure. God keeps us alert, waiting, longing, hoping, and expecting. He’ll fulfill his promise in his wisdom at the right time and in the right way. In the meantime, we keep on with our work: preaching the gospel to a lost world, living in a way fitting for citizens of the kingdom, and praying, “Come, Lord Jesus!”
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