As we continue to examine the discourse of Jesus to his disciples, it is good to be reminded that the emphasis upon this chapter in scripture is to answer the disciple’s questions on when will the things He revealed about the destruction of the temple happen, and what would be the sign of His coming. We continue to examine those two questions.
MISLEADING FALSE PROPHETS AND THE COLD LOVE (Matthew 24:11-12)
Let’s now move to verses 11-12.
Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.
The Lord continues his discourse by cautioning the disciples to look out for false prophets. Prophets were considered men appointed by God whose responsibility was to represent Him in communicating a message to the people for their benefit. Yet a false prophet would do completely the opposite. He would bring a false message and dishonestly claim to represent God with the result of deceiving the people. These false representatives would lead the people of God into the opposite direction of God’s will and law. The Old Testament is full of warnings to be prudent and not be deceived by the works and tactics of false prophets to the extent of even avoiding them (Isaiah 9:15; Jeremiah 14:13-14; 23:14, 25-26; 27:15; Ezekiel 13:9; 22:28). In the same way that they were warned not to be mislead by false Messiahs, they were equally warned to take heed of being misled by coming false prophets. The Lord tells His disciples that these two categories of deceivers will come “showing great signs” (Matthew 24:24) and, even, if possible, they will deceive those of the elect. While many modern interpreters of this passage pushed the arrival of these false prophets into our future, the New Testament seems to point to its fulfillment by those even within the Christian church (Matthew 7:15; Acts 20:29-30) and this happened within just a few short years after these words were uttered. Peter records of false prophets that had arose among the people (2 Peter 2:1-3) and the apostle Paul also dealt with imposters within the church (2 Corinthians 11:13; 2 Timothy 2:16-18) as did the apostle John (1 John 4:1; 2 John 7). Yet, we know that many claiming to be prophets and messiahs came to deceive the people even from outside the Christian community. Theudas (Acts 5:36-37) and Simon (Acts 8:9-11) were among those. Simon was a prominent figure as a false messiah and was mentioned by early church historians as saying, “I am the Word of God, I am the Comforter, I am Almighty, I am all there is of God”. As previously mentioned, Theudas deceived many by claiming that he could part the Jordan river, and many others claimed revelation.
In this same period, there will also be a surge in lawlessness and of people’s love for others running cold. During His encounter with the Pharisees, The Lord Jesus summarized the law in terms of “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40). The apostle Paul would express it For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5:14). The idea of lawlessness is that which is against God’s law and the increase in this behaviour would drive people’s love to grow cold. They would abandon the people and the faith they had once loved. We see this happening to the apostle Paul (2 Timothy 1:15; 4:16) and to the apostle John (1 John 2:19). It was also made abundantly clear in the actions of the people within the walls of Jerusalem during the Roman siege.
ENDURE TO THE END (Matthew 24:13)
The Lord Jesus continues with the words:
But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.
Matthew begins v.13 with the term “but” distinguishing what Christ had just stated. In contrast to not being mislead by false prophets, they are commanded to endure to the end! The question becomes, to the end of what and saved from what? The term “end” here is a translation of the term Telos which refers to the termination or final state of something. There are at least two ways of interpreting this term in this context. It can refer to the end in the coming destruction of Jerusalem but could also be in the sense of “to the end of their lives”. Gary DeMar seems to think it is a command to endure to the end of the Jewish age which ended climactically with the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. He writes:
The end of what? Jesus is answering questions about the destruction of the temple and the “end of the age”, the end of the Jewish dispensation, the Old Covenant order…this is the end that Jesus had in mind. Great social, religious and political upheavals would come upon the Roman Empire that would engulf the first-century state of Israel. Those who would endure to the end of this conflagration would be saved; that is, they would not die in Rome’s war with the Jewish rebels[1]
Another interpretation of this text could be that it is speaking of those followers of Christ who would remain faithful and persevere when delivered into tribulation even to the point of martyrdom. Keeping in mind that these events from verses 9-12 took place within a generation from the discourse. There is a parallel with Matthew 10:16-23 where the Lord exhorts them to persevere to the end when they are hated, handed over to the officials to be scourged. The lawlessness and the cold love of others should not hinder them from bringing the message of the word to the world. They would need to be willing to give their lives and endure the incredible circumstances of their day, a perseverance that would result in their salvation. This is not to say that this is how they are saved, but that their salvation would be demonstrated in their willingness to persevere to the end.
THE GOSPEL SHALL BE PREACHED TO THE WHOLE WORLD (Matthew 24:14)
We will conclude this segment with the words of verse 14.
This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is the central message of the faith and the message that needs to be believed for sinners to be justified before a holy God and in return to be saved. While this message is in of itself good news, it is even greater to think that this gospel will be preached throughout the whole world. The gospel of the Kingdom is not limited to the house of Israel (Matthew 10:5-6) but will be heralded to the whole world (Matthew 28:18-19). The gospel brought through the endurance of hostility and suffering will be a testimony to all the nations (Matthew 10:18). The proclamation of the gospel to the whole world will be a sign of the end and that end will not come until it has been accomplished. This is not to say that the evangelism of the world will bring back Jesus but that we can confidently look to the gospel of God being apparent all over the earth. N.T. France writes: In particular, this passage does not speak of worldwide evangelization as the cause of the “end”, but as a necessary preliminary [2]
It’s important to note that the term “world” in this passage is not cosmos but oikoumene which signifies “the inhabited earth”. Once again, N.T. France writes:
The “world” here is he oikoumene, the “inhabited world”, the world of people, which at the time meant primarily the area surrounding the Mediterranean and the lesser known areas to the east, around which stretched mysterious regions (compromising much of our “old world”) beyond the fringes of civilization. More narrowly it was sometimes used for the area covered by the Roman Empire (as in Luke 2:1)[3].
We tend to read the scriptures as 21st century men and place ourselves in its pages as a personal communication to our person but the proper way of interpreting scripture is to understand what a term or expression meant to the original readers in the 1st century. The world would not have meant the whole land mass of the earth but, as we just saw, to those who were a part of the Greek or Roman world. The gospel would go forth into all the inhabited Roman and Greek world as a testimony to the nations and the gathering of God’s elect. The apostle Paul seemed to believe that this was accomplished in his lifetime. The scriptures tell us that:
Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith (Romans 16:25-26)
and that: because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing (Colossians 1:6) and that believers be not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven (Colossians 1:23)[4].
The testimony of this gospel would have as its goal reaching the Gentiles! The gospel of the Kingdom was proclaimed (and continues to be proclaimed) throughout all the inhabited earth by roughly A.D. 50 and in return prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. The end spoken of here is once again telos which, in essence, contextually refers to the end prior to the destruction of the temple.
I want to stress that this interpretation doesn’t negate the responsibility we have today to preach the gospel to the whole world and to bring in the nations, it is simply to show that the Lord Jesus had the destruction of the temple in mind when He uttered these words and that these exigences were completed prior to the destruction of the great city.
In our next segment, we will take a look at the infamous Abomination of Desolation.
[1] Last Days Madness, Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1999, Gary Demar, Page 86
[2] France P. 909
[3] IBID
[4] Also see Romans 1:8; 10:18
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