Matthew 24:5

Jesus has just foretold the destruction of the temple (Matthew 24:2). On the Mount of Olives, overlooking Jerusalem and the temple, the disciples come to him privately with their question: “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” (Matthew 24:3, within Matthew 24:1–3). His answer fills the rest of Matthew 24 and all of Matthew 25, and Mark and Luke record the same teaching (Mark 13, Luke 21). He gave it shortly before his crucifixion.

For the disciples the temple stood at the heart of their faith and their nation, and its fall, which came in A.D. 70, was almost beyond imagining. Judea lay under Roman rule, and many of their people longed for a Messiah who would free them from foreign rule and set up God’s kingdom at once. That hope gave room to impostors and rebels who claimed to be him. The disciples wanted a timetable. Jesus begins with what they will need in order to stay faithful: a warning, an honest account of what is coming, a promise to hold on to and a work to do. Later in the same discourse he tells them that no one knows the day or the hour of his coming (Matthew 24:36).

Jesus’ first words in answer are a warning. “Take heed” translates blépō, the ordinary verb for looking at something, which also means to perceive, to regard and to beware. Jesus uses it as a command in the plural, blépete, so the whole group is to keep watch together, with eyes open. “Deceive” is planáō, which comes from plánē, a wandering. It means to cause someone to roam, to lead them astray from safety, truth or goodness and off the true path of faith. “No man”, mē tis, means anyone at all, so the danger may come from any quarter.

Deception comes first because it does the deepest harm. Wars and earthquakes strike from outside, while deception works on the mind and the heart. A believer who has been deceived will misread every other sign, may follow a false Christ or prophet, and can end by leaving the faith altogether. That is why the warning comes back again and again in this chapter: in verse 5, in verse 11, and in Matthew 24:24, where false Christs and false prophets show great signs and wonders. Everything that follows is meant to keep us alert, and the call to watch leads straight on to the call to endure in Matthew 24:13.

Jesus turns next to events in the world. “Ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars.” Wars (pólemos) are actual fighting, and the “rumours” are the reports and threats of war, from akoḗ, a hearing, something heard. Together they describe a world unsettled by conflict near and far. The disciples lived under Roman occupation, where unrest, revolt and its suppression were never far away, and the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple lay ahead of them.

Then comes a command: “see that ye be not troubled.” The verb throéō, here in the passive, means to be alarmed or terrified, as by a great noise or uproar. Jesus forbids his disciples that inner panic, and he gives his reason: “for all these things must come to pass.” The word deî, “must”, expresses necessity, and here it is God’s necessity. These wars belong to his appointed plan for history, and he remains in control of them.

The verse ends, “but the end is not yet.” Télos, the end, is the goal or limit something moves toward, the conclusion it reaches. Here it means the completion of the age at Christ’s return. Wars are early signs, and further events and a span of time lie between them and the end. Jesus says so to keep his people from declaring the end too soon, and Mark records the same words: “be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet” (Mark 13:7).

Verse 7 explains the wars: “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” The word for nation, éthnos, means a race or people, and it is often used of foreign or non-Jewish peoples, the Gentiles. So Jesus speaks of strife between peoples as well as between states, including the hostility of one tribe or race toward another. “Rise”, egeírō, is to waken or rouse, and here it is a people rousing itself to attack another. “Kingdom against kingdom” says the same thing again of organized powers, and the doubling stresses how widespread the conflict will be.

Then come disasters: “famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.” Famines often follow war, which ruins harvests and trade. Pestilences, loimós, are plagues and epidemics, which spread among people weakened by war and hunger. Ancient manuscripts of Matthew differ over whether this word belongs in the verse, and the KJV includes it. Earthquakes were a known danger around the Mediterranean, and the Roman Empire of Jesus’ day had its share of revolts, famines and local disasters. “In divers places”, katá tópos, means place after place. These troubles will appear in many separate regions, though they need not strike everywhere at once.

Jesus’ hearers knew the prophets’ pictures of the day of the LORD, with judgment, upheaval among the nations and signs in the heavens (Isaiah 13:9–13, Joel 2:30–31). Mark and Luke record this verse too (Mark 13:8, Luke 21:10–11), and the same picture returns with the four horsemen of Revelation 6:3–8. These sorrows show a world broken by sin, in human conflict and in a creation that groans, and they show how badly the world needs its King. Christ will bring them to an end, when “the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ” (Revelation 11:15).

Verse 8 tells us how to read all of this: “All these are the beginning of sorrows.” Pâs, “all”, gathers up every sign so far: the false Christs, the wars and rumours of wars, nation against nation, famines, pestilences and earthquakes. Archḗ is a beginning, the first stage of something. These events start the process. The end itself, and the great tribulation Jesus describes later (Matthew 24:21), are still to come.

The word the KJV renders “sorrows” is ōdín, which means birth pangs, the pains of labour, so the Greek phrase archē ōdinōn is “the beginning of birth pains”. The picture carries three truths. Labour pains grow stronger and come more often, and so will these troubles. Labour pains have a purpose, which is a birth, and through these troubles God is bringing forth his kingdom in its fullness. And once labour has begun the birth will surely follow, as surely as Christ will return and reign.

Jesus’ Jewish hearers knew this picture. The prophets used a woman in labour for the anguish of God’s judgment and the dawn of a new era (Isaiah 13:8, Jeremiah 30:6–7), and Jewish hope spoke of the “birth pangs of the Messiah” (chevlei Mashiach), a time of suffering expected before the Messiah’s kingdom. Paul uses the image twice. Sudden destruction will come as travail upon a woman with child (1 Thessalonians 5:3), and “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22) as it waits for the revealing of the children of God (Romans 8:18–25). The pain is real, and it leads to the new heaven and new earth, where God will wipe away every tear (Revelation 21:1–4).

Christ himself bore the deepest sorrows on the cross, and his resurrection brought new life to a redeemed people. So we can meet these pains with hope. Jesus said, “when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

With “Then” (tóte) Jesus turns from troubles that fall on everyone to suffering aimed at his own followers: “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.” To deliver up, paradídōmi, is to hand someone over, often to the authorities for judgment and punishment, as Jesus himself was delivered up to be crucified (John 19:16). “To be afflicted” is literally “into affliction”, eis with thlîpsis, a word for pressure. It covers anguish, distress and tribulation of body, mind and spirit, and the New Testament uses it often for what God’s people suffer. “Shall kill you”, apokteínō, foretells martyrdom plainly. Stephen was the first of many (Acts 7:54–60).

The verb for hate, miséō, means to detest, especially to persecute, and by extension to love less. It is active hostility that seeks to harm. “Of all nations” is hypó pâs éthnos, hated “by” all the peoples, so the opposition reaches across every culture and border. The reason is “for my name’s sake”, diá moû ónoma, “because of my name”. A name stands for the whole person, with his authority, reputation and teaching. Believers are hated because they belong to Christ, follow him as Lord and proclaim his gospel, and the world’s hatred of them is hatred of him.

This came true quickly. The first believers were at first taken for a sect within Judaism, and as the church grew it met hostility from Jewish authorities and from Rome. Roman officials accused Christians of atheism, because they refused to worship Rome’s gods and its emperors, and of other evils, and fierce persecutions broke out under Nero around A.D. 64 and later under Domitian.

Jesus had told his disciples, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18), and “The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20, in John 15:18–20). The world hated him without a cause (John 15:25), and following him means bearing the cross (Luke 14:27). Peter tells believers who suffer as Christians to glorify God for it (1 Peter 4:12–16), and he points to Christ, who suffered and left us an example (1 Peter 2:21–23). Paul speaks of his own sufferings as sharing in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of the church (Colossians 1:24). The risen Lord promises, “be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life” (Revelation 2:10), and the name we suffer for is the name above every name, at which every knee shall bow (Philippians 2:9–11).

Verse 10 turns inward: “And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.” The KJV’s “offended” means far more than annoyed. The verb skandalízō comes from skandalon, the bait-stick of a trap, a snare, or anything a person trips over. To be offended in this sense is to stumble and fall away, from faith, from moral integrity or from loyalty to Christ. Jesus described the same thing in the parable of the sower, where the seed on stony ground springs up quickly, and when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, “by and by he is offended” (Matthew 13:20–21).

“Betray” is paradídōmi, from para, “alongside”, and didomi, “to give”, the same verb as “deliver you up” in verse 9. The handing over now comes from within, as people give one another up to enemies or authorities, out of fear, for gain, or to save themselves. Judas did this to Jesus himself (Matthew 26:47–50). Last comes hatred, miséō again, where love and unity once stood. The three steps go steadily downward, from stumbling, to betraying, to hating.

Jesus’ Jewish hearers knew how persecution and national crisis could split a people, as had happened in the time of the Maccabees and would happen again in the wars with Rome. Jesus warns that the trust holding families and communities together, even among those who profess faith, will give way under pressure. The verse leads straight into the cold love of Matthew 24:12.

Christ himself became the stone of stumbling and rock of offence (Isaiah 8:14, 1 Peter 2:8), the one betrayed by his own disciple and hated by the world. Through his death he broke the power of the sin that shows itself in stumbling, betrayal and hatred, and by his Spirit his people can keep his new commandment, “That ye love one another; as I have loved you” (John 13:34). “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God” (1 John 4:7–8).

Verse 12 gives a cause and its effect: “because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” Iniquity is anomía, lawlessness, the breaking of law and wickedness in general. It is a settled disregard of God’s law and a rebellion against his order, far more than a scattering of separate sins. “Abound” is plēthýnō, to increase or multiply, so the lawlessness will spread and grow. Jesus had already spoken of an evil generation that sought a sign (Matthew 12:39).

The effect falls on love, agápē, the self-giving love God shows and asks of his people. “Wax cold” is psýchō, a verb that first means to breathe gently and then, figuratively, to chill. Love that once burned will cool, the way a fire dies down to embers. The chill shows itself in fading devotion to God, in less compassion and care among believers, and in indifference to the needs of others.

Love lies at the heart of what God asks, for on love of God and love of neighbour hang all the law and the prophets (Matthew 22:37–40). When lawlessness spreads and love fails, the very centre of discipleship is under attack. The risen Lord warned the church at Laodicea that it had become lukewarm (Revelation 3:15–16).

Verse 13 stands against all that has gone before: “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” To endure is hypoménō, to stay under, to remain, and so to bear trials, show fortitude and persevere. Its noun, hypomonē, is the word for patient perseverance. It means holding firm with courage under pressure, suffering and temptation, and keeping faith with Christ for a whole lifetime. “The same” points back to that one person. “Shall be saved” is sṓzō, to save, deliver or protect, a word that can also mean to heal and to make whole. It can include being kept through trials, and here it speaks above all of eternal salvation, deliverance from God’s wrath and entry into his kingdom.

The rest of Scripture says the same. Paul writes that “tribulation worketh patience”, and that hope follows (Romans 5:3–5). “For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise” (Hebrews 10:36). The crown of life is promised to those faithful unto death (Revelation 2:10). The way that leads to life is narrow (Matthew 7:13–14), and those who walk it to the end show that their faith is real.

Last comes a sign of hope: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” The gospel, euangélion, is the good news. Matthew calls it “the gospel of the kingdom” (euangelion tēs basileias), the message at the centre of Jesus’ own ministry: God’s reign has broken into the world through Jesus Christ, and it will be fully and visibly established when he returns. Jesus began preaching with it: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Through his cross God has delivered us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his dear Son (Colossians 1:13–14). So the gospel is good news of forgiveness for each person who believes, and it is also the announcement that God is King over all.

To preach, kērýssō, is to proclaim as a herald does, in public and with authority. “The world” is oikouménē, the inhabited earth. The word sometimes meant the Roman Empire, but joined to “all nations” it reaches every land. “All nations”, panta ta ethnē, means every people and ethnic group, and recalls God’s promise that in Abraham all families of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3). For disciples raised to think of Israel first, this opened the way to a mission among the Gentiles, which the early church soon took up.

The preaching is “for a witness”, martýrion, a testimony that makes God’s truth known. Every people will hear, and that establishes their accountability before God and the justice of his final judgment.

Jesus told his disciples these things to prepare them, and his words prepare us in the same way. Keep watch, and test every voice by Christ and his word, however impressive the voice may be. When news of war or disaster comes, you can grieve and pray in peace, because Jesus said these things must happen and God holds them in his hand. Where following Christ costs you something, remember that he was hated first, and that the name you bear is the name above every name. Guard your love for God and for his people while lawlessness spreads, and stay close to Christ, who keeps those who are his to the end. And take your part in the work Jesus says will go on through all of it, praying, giving and speaking, so that the gospel of the kingdom reaches every nation. The sorrows are only the beginning, and the end belongs to him.