An eschatological hope

In Matthew 24 Jesus gives his disciples a prophetic overview of the events to transpire in both the near and distant future. Given that it is the last time he will speak to his disciples before he dies it is at first glance surprising that he burdens them with so much bad news. You would think that with the prospect of his death looming large Jesus would take this last opportunity to encourage, inspire and motivate his disciples. Instead he paints what seems to be a rather depressing and macabre picture of what awaits them in the future. 

In general terms Jesus is quite specific that suffering will be a hallmark of the entire age leading up to his return. So much so that his disciples were not to interpret political upheavals and military conquests as indicators of imminent apocalyptic events but as the normal and expected course of history. Jesus talks of wars and rumours of wars and of violent uprisings between nations and kingdoms. He promises famines and earthquakes in various places and even says that such things must happen (24:6). Such will be the scale of the suffering before Jesus returns that he even says that if those days had not been cut short no one would survive and that the distress of those days will be unequalled in all human history (24:21-22). That he tells his disciples not to be alarmed suggests that a natural response to what will happen in the future would be one of alarm.

Jesus’ vision of the future is certainly a far cry from the utopian dreams often articulated by our political (and sometimes religious) leaders.

With specific regard to his disciples, Jesus warns that life will be far from easy. He promises that they will be persecuted and put to death and that all nations will hate them. They would need to stand firm (24:13), which means to endure and bear up courageously under suffering. Worse still, he says that many will turn away from the faith and that the disciple group itself will be, in the words of R T France, the scene of betrayal, hatred, false prophecy and wickedness. France explains that Jesus’ words paint a sombre picture of a church in decline. 

This was probably not what his disciples expected when they asked him about his return and the end of the age and it is not something we hear talked about much in church circles. Of course we are free to ignore Jesus’ words and to continue in the blind optimism that often characterises our thinking about the future or we can take Jesus’ words to heart and prepare ourselves appropriately. 

The climax of this passage and the tonic to everything that has already been said is found in 24:31 where Jesus says:

And he [the Son of Man] will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. 

Jesus promises his disciples that when he returns he will gather his people to himself that they might be with him for all eternity. Their ultimate hope was to be gathered to God himself and to enjoy his presence and it was this that would sustain them during periods of hardship, suffering and persecution. What Jesus was saying to his disciples was that however bad things got in this age nothing could compare to the glorious reality of being gathered to God in the age to come. The prospect of sharing in the benefits of the elect was the single biggest motivating factor that would help the disciples stay the course in the difficult days ahead. 

The Christian hope is nothing if it is not eschatological and we should be wary of Christians who emphasise the benefits to be enjoyed in this age at the expense of what is promised us in the age to come. After all, do not all other pleasures, even legitimate ones, pale in comparison when compared to the pleasure of having God himself? To have our hope anchored in anything other than the return of Jesus and us being gathered to him is to sell ourselves woefully short and I suspect that our superficial preoccupation with the blessings of this age is largely down to our failure to appreciate just how generous God is. Ultimately God wants not simply to give us good things but to give us himself. 

Having our hope anchored in anything other than the return of Jesus will also rob us of our most reliable weapon to fight despair in the days ahead. The prospect of enjoying God’s unmitigated presence should act as a bulwark against all forms of despair and anxiety and should fill us with joy as we anticipate his coming. That is what carried the Apostle Paul through all his tribulations and is why he could say:

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)

Paul’s was not a unique or special experience but one common to all Jesus’ disciples. He warns us that we must go through many hardships if we are to enter the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22). 

The prophetic overview given by Jesus to his disciples was at the same time brutally honest and wonderfully encouraging. And had he not promised them that at the end of it all they would be gathered to himself I am sure they would have seriously considered whether the rewards of discipleship were worth the risks.

Much of our hope today is rooted in a superficial expectation of what we might receive now and is devoid of the great promise of God himself. C S Lewis famously addressed this issue in his sermon The Weight of Glory when he said:

If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Ours is an eschatological hope that is built on the expectation of the grace to be given us when Jesus Christ is revealed (1 Peter 1:13). Whilst we may well experience many blessings in this age, and we should certainly thank God for them, only the hope of being gathered to God in the future will prepare us to face the challenges ahead. That was true of Jesus’ first disciples, most of whom gladly gave their lives for the gospel, and it should be true of us.


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