1. Jesus’ warning on the mount is the culmination of chapters 11-13. Where is Jesus? What is Jesus responding to in Mark 13? (vv. 1, 4) Does Jesus’ answer the disciples’ questions?
2. What are the disciples continually warned to do? (vv. 5, 9, 23, 33, 35, 37)
3. What are the possible events that Jesus’ is referring to?
(a) Events up to the destruction of the temple in AD 70
(b) His own second coming
(c) His death, resurrection, and ascension
(d) Both (a) and (b)
(e) Both (a), (b), and (c)
Note: Do you know anyone who wears bi-focal glasses? Bi-focals allow a person to read close up but also to focus on things in the distance. It appears that Jesus is doing something similar in this chapter. In verses 1-13 and 28-31 Jesus refers to “these things” which seems to point to the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70AD—an event which is simply the culmination of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension in AD 33. In these passages, Jesus talks about “these things”. However, in verses 14-27 and 32-36, Jesus uses the expression “those days” or “that time”. This seems to refer to the second coming of Jesus. Jesus thus alternates between the immediate future (“these things”) relating to his death, resurrection, and ascension. and the consequent destruction of the temple; and the distant future event of his second coming (“those days”/“that time”).
4. What are the disciples not to worry about/be alarmed at? (vv. 7, 11, 13)
5. What are the disciples to be watchful about or be on their guard against? (vv. 5, 9)
6. Do you think that telling people about Jesus was meant to be easy? How does God help Christians give their evidence about Jesus?
7. How will we be able to stand when (not if) persecution comes (cf. vv. 20, 22)
Note: Consider the following background from Daniel 7:25-27. “Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens’, and sixty two ‘sevens’. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. After the sixty two ‘sevens’, the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. He will confirm a covenant made with many for ‘one’ seven. In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing of the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is poured out on him is decreed.” (NIV)
8. How is an end put to sacrifice and offering in the temple? (Mark 15:38; cf. Heb 10:11-14)
9. Some people point to miraculous signs to validate their religious claims. What is Jesus’ comment on the performance of miraculous signs? (vv. 21-22)
Discuss: What sort of reaction do people have when you tell them that “Jesus is coming again”?
10. Jesus says, in referring to the fig tree, that his disciples should “know that ‘these things’ are near’ (vv. 28-32). What do you think the disciples will know is near?
11. Jesus also says that the disciples will not know when “that time” will come—it will be like the owner going away. Who knows about that day or hour? Who doesn’t? What will the disciples not know is near?
12. How is watching for “these things” (v. 29) and watching for “that time” (v. 33) different?
Those of us over 40 generally need glasses. And some of us have bi-focal glasses. Bi-focals allow someone to read or see something up close, but they also have a different part of the lense, the upper part, for seeing things far away in the distance. Now we frequently don’t realize that we have to switch between seeing something up close, and seeing something at a distance—until we realize that we need glasses. That’s why they have bi-focals, so that as our vision declins, we don’t have to have two pairs of glasses.
Reading Mark chapter 13 is a bit like wearing bi-focals. For Jesus in Mark chapter 13 is pointing to something that is soon about to take place, but he is also speaking of something far off in the distance. He is pointing his disciples to the end of the temple, and to his second coming.
Jesus has been conducting his ministry in Jerusalem and in the temple since chapter 11 of Mark’s Gospel. The temple was the focal point for religious life in Jerusalem. The day after Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem, he sets about clearing the temple. And thereafter, essentially Jesus takes possession of it for his ministry. It is, after all, his Father’s house. And Jesus’ takeover of the temple was so complete that he silenced all his opposition—the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Scribes. All of them were silenced by Jesus. And Jesus commanded the temple floor, so to speak. He then starts asking questions, and pointing out what he wants—like the widow who gives God her whole life. And when he has said all that he wanted, Jesus leaves the temple for the last time.
And as they leave, the disciples draw Jesus’ attention to the temple building itself. Mark chapter 13 verse 1:
As he was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” “Do you see all these great buildings?”, replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” (NIV)
Herod had greatly extended the temple built under Haggai and Zechariah’s preaching. The temple enclosure could accommodate 12 football fields. Archeologists have found stones 42 feet by 14 feet by 11 feet. At one point the temple stood 15 stories above the ground below. It was a massive and overwhelming building.
But Jesus said, “It is coming down.” The massive stones would be thrown down. The temple took 83 years to complete. And then it stood complete 6 years until AD 70. And then Josephus records what happened to it:
Caesar ordered the whole city and the temple to be razed to the ground […] All the rest of the wall encompassing the city was so completely leveled to the ground as to leave future visitors to the spot no ground for believing that it had ever been inhabited. (Josephus, War, 7:3)
Thus was fulfilled Jesus’ words, “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” And so, as Jesus sits across from the temple, he speaks to them of the judgement of the temple. Just as Jesus cursed the fig tree, and so it withered, so here, Jesus will curse the temple, and it will fall.
Now, understandably, the disciples would like to know about this monumental event. If you knew that the Sydney Opera House or Harbour Bridge was soon to be destroyed, you would like to know when. How much more the Jews and their temple? And that is what the disciples ask. “When? What is the sign it will happen? Tell us, Jesus, what will be the sign of these times?”
Jesus of course does not start off giving them the answer we expect. They want to know dates and signs. But Jesus starts giving a general description of life as we experience it.
In verses 5-13, Jesus describes the nature of life between his first and second comings. This is a bird’s eye view of what life will be like during the era when the gospel is preached. Jesus is looking generally into the future, after his death, resurrection, and ascension. He is looking to the time of the Acts of the Apostles, and indeed, into our own time, 2000 years later.
There are natural disasters. Verse 8 speaks of earthquakes and famines. Welcome to our world. They are so frequent and we have such short memories, that we forget about each of the disasters that don’t effect us directly. But our world news is a steady stream of natural disasters and tragedies, and the older you get, the quicker they come, and we become numb to the tragedies of tens and hundreds of thousands killed as a result of earthquake, volcano, flood, famine, tsunami, drought, bushfire, storm, hurricane, cyclone, tornado. And they are just the more spectacular disasters that imprint on our memory. The world on which we live rises up and bites us, one way or another, and brings us down. Jesus says these things will happen “in various places” (literally, ‘according to place’: v. 8).
In verse 7, Jesus speaks of wars, nation rising up against nations across our world. Thank God that war for us at the moment is a matter of history and remembering, and hearing about it on the news. We learn about the wars that our media thinks we want to hear about. But we are blind and deaf to the scores of wars being fought in our world right now.
There are false christs, of whom Jesus’ speaks in verse 6: “Many will come in my name, claiming ‘I am he’” (literally, ‘I am’; cf. vv. 21-22). They falsely claim God’s name and the name of his Son. They are antichrists. As John says, “Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18 NIV).
Then, there is the persecution, the harassment and harm and murder of Christians for Christ’s namesake. We see this in verses 9 to 13. Jesus first addresses the four disciples. They asked him privately for the signs. But Jesus says they will publicly testify to the gospel and suffer for it. “On account of Jesus”, they will be beaten, arrested, and tried. “On account of Jesus”, they will testify to rulers great and small. For “the Gospel must be preached to all nations”. The book of Acts shows how this came true following Jesus’ ascension. James, one of the four who approached Jesus privately, was the first apostle to be martyred. In fact, at least 10 of the 12 apostles in Acts were martyred. And friends, Christians all over the world today continue to be persecuted. And the lower level forms of persecution are closer than we think. Some of you perhaps know this.
In verse 12, the gospel divides families: “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents, and have them put to death. All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.”
Friends, that is our world. It may not be our nation, or our city, yet. But it is our world, a world of suffering and betrayal and martyrdom for the sake of Christ. Don’t become a Christian because it is popular or easy. “All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.” Here is the perseverance of the saints, that we stand firm to the end, despite the hatred of all men. Father, please enable us to stand in the day of testing. We need to remember, when we pray and evangelize, that part of what we are inviting our new brothers and sisters to is to join us as the hated class. “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:31). Of course, we are inviting them to eternal life and the wedding supper of the lamb. On that day no one will regret the decision to follow Christ and the costs endured. But for now, there will be a little suffering.
Now, notice that Jesus says, that these things are not signs of the end. Notice verse 7, “Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.” Again at the end of verse 8, Jesus says, “these are the beginning of birth pains.” Luke is even more explicit that “These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away” (Luke 21:9). The signs do not indicate that the end has come. These sufferings and disasters are part of normal life between Jesus’ first and second comings.
But the command for the four inquisitive disciples is ‘watch’. Verse 5, “Watch that no one leads you astray.” Verse 9, the NIV’s “You must be on your guard” is more literally rendered, “But you, watch yourselves”. The condition of life now requires that we watch ourselves, that we persevere in difficulty, that we endure the hatred of others, even family members, and that, while we endure all this, the gospel is being preached to all nations.
Jesus has given his disciples a bird’s eye view of the future. But he also wants to deal with the temple. And my suggestion to you is that Jesus specifically deals with the destruction of the temple in verses 14-23. Verses 14 to 23 seem to be one unit of text.
Now, I should say that there are a number of different interpretations of this passage. Some take verses 14-23 to refer, as I do, to the destruction of the temple in AD 70. Others take it to refer to the second coming of our Lord Jesus. Still others take it to refer to Jesus’ death.
The first thing that makes me think these verses refer to the destruction of the temple is the context. Jesus is responding to his prediction of the temple’s destruction, and he is now sitting across from it, on the Mount of Olives, looking at it.
The second thing that makes me think that Jesus is speaking of the destruction of the temple is a comparison of Mark’s account with Matthew and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’ speech.
Mark 13:14
When you see the abomination that causes desolation standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. (NIV)
Matt 24:15-16
So when you see standing in the holy place the abomination that causes desolation, spoken through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. (NIV)
Luke 21:20-22
When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written. (NIV)
All three Evangelists record this as Jesus’ speech on the Mount of Olives. I don’t think we can say that they are different speeches. Matthew records that the abomination that causes desolation stands “in the holy place”. In other words, it is standing in the temple. Luke records as a helpful paraphrase for us, “when you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies.” Luke clearly understands the abominable desolation of Matthew and Mark as the military destruction of Jerusalem as a divine punishment. And so Luke records Jesus’ directive to the disciples to flee the city.
As a matter of fact, church history has recorded for us that the Christians in Jerusalem did escape from Jerusalem before AD 70. They did so and survived the disaster because of Jesus’ warnings in these passages. “Let the reader understand”. Well, they read and understood, and got out of there. They fled to the city of Pella, one of the ten gentile cities across the Jordan. And then, the emperor’s son, Titus, besieged Jerusalem, and on August 30, AD 70, Titus captured the temple, entered the holy of holies, and later that day, set it on fire and commanded its destruction. [1]
On this understanding, God shortened the trouble in Jerusalem for the sake of his elect, the Jewish Christians, the church in Jerusalem. Then verses 21 and 22 contain Jesus’ warnings that his disciples should not believe the false Messiah who did arise at that time—and even though the false Christ would perform miracles to deceive the elect.
My view, that Jesus is speaking here of the destruction of the temple, doesn’t remove all the difficulties. Verse 19 says literally, “For those days will be trouble as has not happened, such as from [the] beginning of creation which God created, until the present, and will never happen.” From our perspective, it is hard to see how the destruction of the temple could be worse than World War II? It is not, in terms of casualties. But Mark doesn’t record Jesus saying it is worse trouble—Jesus simply says it is unique trouble.
It may be that Jesus views the destruction of the temple differently to us. It was, after all, his Father’s house. He took the trouble to clean it up only a few days before and he had zeal for his Father’s house. Now he is predicting its doom. As far as Jesus is concerned, it is a unique and appalling event. And in the end, it is Jesus’ view that counts, much more than our view 2000 years later.
Jesus has now looked at the destruction of the temple. But he must also gaze further off into the distant future. He looks at those days “after that trouble, following the distress” (v. 24; see Matt 24:29; cf. Luke 21:25-28). He looks beyond his death, resurrection, and ascension, beyond his session at the right hand of God, beyond us and all generations of human history that will be, to his return from heaven as the coming of the Son of Man. Verses 24-27:
NIV
But in those days, following that distress, “the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.” At that time men [literally, they] will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.
My translation
However, in those days after that trouble, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the heavenly lights will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken, and then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory, And then he will send the angels and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth until the ends of heaven.
On the interpretation I’m suggesting, Jesus is warning us that Son of Man will return to earth with great power and glory. Here, Jesus seems to be looking far into the future, beyond our time, to the time when he returns in the same way that the disciples saw him go into heaven, namely taken up and hidden by a cloud (Acts 1:11).
Friends, the Lord Jesus is returning in the same way that he was lifted up, and he is coming back as the Son of Man of Daniel 7:13-14. Jesus is the one who has received from the Ancient of Days all authority, glory, and sovereign power. All peoples and nations will worship him. His kingdom will last forever. In the words of the creed, “he will come to judge the living and the dead”.
Jesus then turns to explain a time the disciples will know, in verses 28-3, a time which will come to pass within their generation and lifetime. Jesus does so in verses 28 to 31, using the analogy of the fig tree. People could tell summer was near from the tree’s new growth. So it is with “these thing”.
In Mark chapter 11 verses 12-14, and 20-21, that Jesus cursed the fig tree, and this was an enacted parable of judgement on the temple. For that passage was another of Mark’s sandwiches, the account of the cursing of the fig tree being the ‘bread’ of the ‘sandwich’, and the ‘filling’ being ‘the temple’—and the filling always flavours the bread. The leafy fig tree stood for the temple in all its magnificence, but it was in the end, fruitless, and so Jesus cursed it, and the fig tree withered awa. The same will happen to the temple. Jesus’ allusion to the fig tree hints at the temple and its destruction will just as certainly occur as that of the fig tree “within this generation” (v. 29) as happened as a matter of history in AD 70.
Jesus made it clear that there was an event which occurred at a time which the disciples could discern: that was the destruction of the temple. But there is also a time that no-one knows, and the event that will occur then I take to be the return of the Son of Man to earth. No one knows this time—not the angels, who the Son of Man sends out to gather his elect, nor even Jesus at that time—only the Father knows when that time will be.
At first glance, Jesus’ lack of knowledge it is troubling for us who rightly hold to Jesus’ full deity and dignity. For is not omniscience an attribute of God that the eternal logos, God the Son shares? But there are two facts I can give that at least give a partial explanation for Jesus’ lack of knowledge of the time of his second coming.
The first is that I can posit that Jesus consciously decides not to know the time of his return, and this is part of him not grasping onto his equality with God but taking the nature of a servant. Just as Jesus voluntarily took on various limitations by genuinely becoming human, so also Jesus as truly human appears to have voluntarily adopted a limitation of the knowledge that was properly his, and that included a decision not to know the time of his second coming as part of his true humanity. I guess it might be like if I buy a present for my wife, and because I’m overly excited, I go in and say “do you want your present now”, and she decides that she would rather wait for her birthday. That is a kind of voluntary ignorance. And I can posit that this decision by the second person of the Trinity is to bring honour and glory to the Father, as well as to be truly human, as Jesus always submits to and honours his Father. And this humility and deference to his father makes it fitting that during his incarnate ministry that he left some of his knowledge unused or perhaps unaccessed, including the time of his second coming and his bodily return to his Father.
The Scriptures do not give us a lot of information as to how Jesus the true human came to grow in knowledge and become aware of the various things about himself, including his divine identity. But if there is a principle of growth in understanding and maturation under trial and testing which reflected Jesus’ true incarnation and humanity (consider Luke 2:52), then that principle also can relate to his lack of knowledge of that particular aspect of the plan of salvation at that time.
This then leads to the second point, and that is that we have no reason to think that Jesus’ ignorance of the time of his second coming continues now: in fact, given that the risen Christ says that all authority on heaven and earth has been given to him (Matt 28:19-20), we have every reason to assume that Jesus Christ, seated at the right hand of God, knows exactly when he will return to earth.
Mark also uses a parable to describe the nature of the Son of Man’s return. The Lord of a household leaves, assigning slaves for certain jobs, but he doesn’t say when he will come back. But instead he directs the stool pidgeon on the door to watch. Verse 35:
Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back. […] If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. (NIV)
Unfortunately, the rest of the Gospel of Mark shows the disciples falling asleep. In the garden of Gesthemane, they failed to watch, while Jesus went away to pray.
And we as readers leave this chapter with the command to watch. Verse 37, “What I say to you, I say to everyone, watch!” But how should we watch? What is the way to watch?
Should we look for the signs of the times? Should we look for signs of Jesus’ coming? Is that the way we are to watch? I don’t think so, because no one knows the day or the hour. And we know from elsewhere that his coming will be like a thief in the night. But more importantly, such an understanding of ‘watching’ seems to fall into the mistake of asking for a sign. The disciples fell into this mistake in their second question. But no one knows the day of the hour. So the response is not to try to find signs. The response is always to be ready. That is the point of watching. We Christians must always be at a heightened state of alert for the Lord’s return. We need to wake up and understand that, as the RSL motto says, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”
And the way of vigilance is this: we must make every effort to be found spotless, blameless, and at peace with him. We must come to him now as risen king and saviour. He has died, and risen again for us and has ascended to heaven. And he has been patient with you, not wanting you to perish, but for you to come to repentance. But he will return. And the time for salvation and repentance will soon be past. Wouldn’t it be disastrous if he found you, me, or any of us, sleeping?
[1] F F Bruce, The Spreading Flame, 157.