Was Jesus Wrong About the End of the World?

Today I wanted to look over a passage in the Gospel of Mark which had me a little confused back when I was in college. 

In the thirteenth chapter of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus predicts a cataclysmic event which would be marked by signs in the sky and the “coming of the Son of Man”.  It reads:

"But be alert; I have already told you everything. But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven." - Mark 13:23-27

Many interpret this as describing the end of the world – and it certainly sounds like that.  But then folks get really confused when Jesus says:

"Amen, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place." - Mark 13:30

Wait… did Jesus say the end of the world would occur within the lifetime of His original hearers?  That’s odd….

Even the great Christian writer CS Lewis saw this verse as a scandal – a time when Jesus Christ was factually incorrect. 

What is going on in this passage? 



Another Cataclysm:

The answer lies in looking at the whole chapter and the corresponding accounts in the other Gospels.  Those would be Matthew 24 and Luke 21.  Jesus begins the prophecy by predicting the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem:

"While some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings, he said, 'All that you see here--the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.'" - Luke 21:5-6

His disciples – clearly troubled - ask when it will occur.  Jesus tells them to look for a few signs:

• A sacrilege occurring in the Temple. [Matthew 24:15]
• Signs in the clouds [Matthew 24:30, Luke 21:25]
• Jerusalem being surrounded by armies [Luke 21:20]. 

Then Jesus gives them very specific advice on what they need to do when these signs manifest:

"Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains. Let those within the city escape from it, and let those in the countryside not enter the city, for these days are the time of punishment when all the scriptures are fulfilled. Woe to pregnant women and nursing mothers in those days, for a terrible calamity will come upon the earth and a wrathful judgment upon this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken as captives to all the Gentiles; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." - Luke 21: 21-24

In other words:

DROP EVERYTHING AND FLEE!!  GET OUT OF JERUSALEM!!!  THE GENTILES WILL KILL YOU ALL!!

Then Jesus concludes His prediction by saying these things would transpire within the lifetimes of His listeners.   [Matthew 24:34, Mark 13:30, Luke 21:32]

With all that in mind, there is another event which fits these descriptions even better:

The destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD at the hands of the Roman Empire.

In fact, I would propose that A LOT of the New Testament makes more sense when keeping this event in mind.  (But we won’t go into that now.)



Heavenly Signs:

But now you might think:

Alright, I can see that as plausible.  But what about all that nonsense with signs in the sky?  What’s that about?

Some of that might be owed the apocalyptic style and imagery Jesus was trying to evoke… but perhaps not….

The signs in the clouds were, in fact, recorded by two historians contemporary with those times.  The Jewish historian Josephus recorded in his account of Jerusalem’s fall that there were miraculous portents seen in the sky prior to the invasion:

"Thus it was that the wretched people were deluded at that time by charlatans and pretended messengers of the deity; while they neither heeded nor believed in the manifest portents that foretold the coming desolation, but, as if thunderstruck and bereft of eyes and mind, disregarded the plain warnings of God. So it was when a star, resembling a sword, stood over the city, and a comet which continued for a year."

"Besides these [signs], a few days after that feast, on the one- and-twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared; I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armour were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the] temple, as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, ‘Let us remove hence’" - Jewish Wars 6.5.3,  75AD

The Roman historian Tacitus recorded the same thing:

"Prodigies had occurred, but their expiation by the offering of victims or solemn vows is held to be unlawful by a nation which is the slave of superstition and the enemy of true beliefs. In the sky appeared a vision of armies in conflict, of glittering armour. A sudden lightning flash from the clouds lit up the Temple. The doors of the holy place abruptly opened, a superhuman voice was heard to declare that the gods were leaving it, and in the same instant came the rushing tumult of their departure. Few people placed a sinister interpretation upon this. The majority were convinced that the ancient scriptures of their priests alluded to the present as the very time when the Orient would triumph and from Judaea would go forth men destined to rule the world." - Histories, Book 5, v. 13 , 115AD

So we have good reason to take those predictions of supernatural signs seriously. 

Multiple Fulfillments:

I wanted to close with a word about Biblical prophecy. 

I mentioned in a post a while back that Old Testament prophecies tended to have more than one fulfillment.  There would be an initial fulfillment which came to pass a short time after the prophecy was given – but then there was a greater fulfillment later on.  Jesus was very much acting in the mode of an Old Testament Hebrew prophet.  So it should not come as a surprise if Christ’s words also fit this multiple-fulfillment mold. 

If Jesus prophecy regarding Jerusalem seems to have overtones of the end of the world, it is probably on purpose.   We are probably looking at another example of a prophecy with multiple fulfillments.  While Jesus’ prediction may contain a secondary reference to the end of the world, the primary fulfillment was the destruction of the great city of David. 

And by bringing about the definitive end of the Jewish sacrificial system, dashing their cultural ambitions of restoring the kingdom of Israel, and forcing a major rethinking of the whole Jewish religion - it was rightly referred to as the “end of the age”. 


Thanks for joining me.