Not-the-End Signs

In Mark’s version of the Olivet Discourse (Mark 13:1–37), Jesus told his disciples about the Temple’s destruction (Mark 13:1–2). They asked two questions about “these things”: when would they happen and what would be their sign (Mark 13:3–4)? Jesus answers the questions in reverse order. He gives the sign in Mark 13:5–27 and the when in Mark 13:28–37.

This post will make four simple points about the first group of signs Jesus mentions. Here are his words:

And Jesus, answering them, began to say: “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He,’ and will deceive many. But when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be troubled; for such things must happen, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be earthquakes in various places, and there will be famines and troubles. These are the beginnings of sorrows.” (Mark 13:5–8)

Not the End

First, these signs were not signs of the Temple’s impending destruction. Jesus makes this clear: “such things must happen, but the end is not yet” (Mark 13:7). These were not-the-end signs.

Many modern prophecy teachers remove these signs from their context. They say Jesus is speaking about something in our future, not about the fall of the Temple standing before him (cp. Mark 13:1). They say the Jews will build a third Temple, but do not base this teaching on Scripture. Instead, they say, “the rebuilding of the temple after its destruction in AD 70 is an inferred necessity.”¹ This is a pernicious way to interpret Scripture.

Such writers often mention present-day statistics about “wars and rumours of wars.” They use these data to show we are nearing the end of the church age.

This is ironic. Jesus said these things were not signs of the end. They do not show the near demise of the Temple.

The End

Second, this list and its context define the term the end. In Mark’s version of the Olivet Discourse, it appears twice (Mark 13:7, 13). Jesus and his disciples are discussing the Temple’s destruction (Mark 13:1–3). Their conversation is about “these things” (Mark 13:4, 29–30).

“The end” is not the end of history, planet earth, or the church age. It is the end of “these things”—the events leading to the Temple’s demise.

We must not inject another meaning of “the end” into the Olivet Discourse (cf. Rev 22:18–19). The Temple’s end is in view, nothing else.

A Surprise

Third, Jesus’s “wars and rumors of wars” not-the-end sign was surprising. One reason for this was Rome’s military power. The Empire had risen during the generation before Jesus’s birth. This rise produced many significant effects for the nations surrounding the Mediterranean. None was more noticeable than the Pax Romana. This “Roman Peace” lasted from about 31 BC to AD 250.

This situation made Jesus’s prediction of the Temple’s fall incredible. Who could challenge the Roman armies and violate their enforced Peace? Yet Jesus’s “wars and rumors of wars” sign suggested things would move in that direction. “In fact, the ‘Pax Romana’ was broken by the First Jewish–Roman War.”² This 3-1/2 year war brought the Temple’s destruction in AD 70. 

Another reason for the surprising nature of Jesus’s prediction was Rome’s financial investment. King Herod had spent vast amounts of Roman tax money to enhance the Temple buildings (cp. John 2:20). Was Jesus saying someone would invade the Roman Empire and destroy their prized asset?

During the generation following Jesus’s death, “wars and rumors of wars” began to abound. Jewish zealots advocated rebellion against Rome. Their agitations led to war and the Temple’s fall. Rome’s investment lay in utter ruins by their own hands. Jesus’s prediction had come true. 

So, “wars and rumors of wars” were not a direct sign of “the end” of the Temple. But they were a surprising sign of movement toward that unlikely event.

Birth Pains

Fourth, these preliminary signs were the onset of Israel’s birth pains. Walter W. Wessel makes an important point about them:

 Ladd says that the last statement of [Mark 13:8] is perhaps the most important of the discourse. He points out that

the Old Testament speaks of the birth of a nation through a period of woes (Isa 66:8, Jer 22:23; Hos 13:13; Micah 4:9f.) and from these verses there arose in Judaism the idea that the messianic Kingdom must emerge from a period of suffering that was called the messianic woes or “the birth pangs of the Messiah.” This does not mean the woes that the Messiah must suffer, but the woes out of which the messianic age is to be born.³

Wessel and Ladd are correct: Israel’s birth pains would establish the messianic age. But they make a significant error when they put those pains at the end of the church age. Jesus connected them to the Temple’s destruction in AD 70. Nothing in Mark’s version of the Olivet Discourse supports placing them anywhere else. They marked the end of the Mosaic age. The “messianic Kingdom”—the messianic age in which Jesus now reigns—emerged from them.

The context of Ladd’s first reference makes an interesting point about Israel’s birth pains. Isaiah had said, “Before she was in labor, she gave birth; Before her pain came, She delivered a male child” (Isa 66:7; emphasis added). This is a prophecy of “the birth and appearance of Christ, before the troubles of their nation came on.”⁴

Christ’s resurrection in AD 30 gave birth to “a holy nation” (cf. 1 Pet 2:9). This fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy: a nation was born in one day (Isa 66:8). Israel’s birth pains came later, in the Jewish-Roman War (AD 66–70) that caused the Temple’s destruction. Israel’s “birth pains” (Mark 13:8 HCSB) occurred where Jesus placed them—after her new birth through his resurrection (cf. 1 Pet 1:3) and during the “great tribulation” (cp. Matt 24:21) that came later.

Conclusion

Inmillennialism accounts for these four observations. The signs Jesus listed in Mark 13:5–8 occurred in his generation. They were not immediate precursors of the Temple’s fall, but they led to Israel’s birth pains that produced the messianic age.

Nothing in these not-the-end signs suggests the subject of the Olivet Discourse has changed. Jesus is speaking of the Temple’s destruction and the signs leading to it.

Our next post will (D. V.) consider the next group of signs Jesus gives.

1. Brock D. Hollett, Debunking Preterism: How Over-Realized Eschatology Misses the “Not Yet” of Bible Prophecy (Kearney, NE: Morris Publishing, 2018), 30. Emphasis in the original.
2. “Pax Romana,” wiki, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Romana.
3. Walter W. Wessel, “Mark,” in Matthew, Mark, Luke, vol. 8 of The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 745. Wessel is quoting George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, ed. Donald A. Hagner, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 202.
4. John Gill, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, 9 vols. (1809–1810; repr., Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989), 5:390. Emphasis added. Gill goes on to say this prophecy pertains to “the regeneration of a spiritual seed in [Messiah’s] church.”