“Learn this analogy from the fig tree: When its branches bud, and put out leaves, you all know summer is near. Same with you: When you see these things happening, you all know the Son of Man is near, at the gates.Amen, I promise you: This generation might not pass away before all these things happen. Heaven and earth will pass away. My words won’t pass away. Nobody’s known about that day or the hour. Neither the heavenly angels, nor the Son. Just the Father.” —Jesus,
Mark 13.28-32 KWL
So. After the Great Tribulation, after the heavenly battle, the Son of Man will arrive. Be prepared for it.
Here’s the thing. Since the Great Tribulation has taken place already, and since the heavenly battle is currently going on, what more needs to take place before the Son of Man arrives?
Yeah, I know: End Times prognosticators will go on and on about how this ’n that have to occur before the rapture does. Every single human on the planet (or, some of ’em claim, every single Jew on the planet) needs to hear the gospel. Everybody in Israel needs to follow the Law perfectly for one whole day. The temple needs to be rebuilt. The seven ages of the church (which they figure are represented and allegorized by the seven churches in Revelation) need to be complete. The Four Horsemen need to do their thing in some sort of world cataclysm. The Antichrist needs to show his face, and make a special seven-year peace treaty with Israel. The sun, moon, and stars need to literally go out or fall down. Christianity needs to be outlawed worldwide in some extra-great Great Tribulation. Pick your catastrophe: Some Christians will insist upon it.
But Jesus said his return could happen even in that generation.
“This generation won’t pass away”?
Most Christians are more familiar with the usual mistranslation of verse 30,
Problem is, if you translate it that way, you make Jesus wrong. Because the Son of Man didn’t return to collect that generation. Heck, he hasn’t returned yet for our generation. Plus, two verses later, Jesus contradicted himself by stating “the Son”—meaning he—didn’t know the day or hour of his return. So how could he, not knowing the day of his return, make the claim this generation would see it?
Yet because of this mistranslation, skeptics like to point to this verse in our bibles and say, “See? Jesus wasn’t infallible. He didn’t know when he’d return, but apparently he expected to return in the very near future, in the first century. And apparently the first-century church expected he’d return in their lifetimes. But Jesus was wrong, and they were wrong, and nobody knows when he’ll return. If he ever does; we’re betting he never will.”
In fact Jesus said their generation might not pass away. For those of you curious about the original language, parélthi isn’t a future indicative verb; it’s an aorist subjunctive. That means it’s about what might happen, not what will happen. Jesus was saying he might return in their generation. It was possible. Not that he knew for certain—because he didn’t, as he clearly said in verse 32.
But he firmly believed he could return in their generation: All the future events he revealed in the Olivet Discourse were gonna happen within that time. The destruction of Jerusalem would take place less than 40 years in their future. The generation he was speaking to—his students, Simon Peter, James, John, and Andrew
So why does the NIV, and many other translations, have “This generation [certainly] won’t pass away”? Because Jesus used a double negative, u mi. He sorta said, “This generation might not-not pass away.” So translators have to figure out which part of the sentence to emphasize in English: The double negative, or the subjunctive verb? Did Jesus want to make clear the generation might NOT pass away, or MIGHT not pass away?
Well, it all depends on your personal bias. If you believe you can’t interpret it, “This generation might not pass away,” because there are still End Times events yet to take place, you gotta go with “This generation won’t pass away.” And if you believe you can—and really you should, partly ’cause it makes more logical sense, and partly ’cause the other way makes Jesus sound like a false prophet—you’ll go with “This generation might not pass away.” As I have. Or as Eugene Peterson put it, cleverly splitting the difference:
“Don’t take this lightly. I’m not just saying this for some future generation, but for this one, too—these things will happen.” —Jesus,
Mark 13.30 The Message
Date-setting.
Many Christians, many times, have tried to calculate the date of Jesus’s return. Yeah, Jesus said nobody’s known it but the Father, but that hasn’t stopped ’em from trying. Harold Camping, one of the more recent date-setters, figured since Jesus said “Nobody’s known”—past tense, not present—it means nobody in the past knew it, but maybe people of the present, like him, could figure it out. So he gave it a shot—several shots, really—and failed.
And will fail. “Nobody’s known” doesn’t mean people can now figure it out. Jesus’s next several verses in Mark are about how, since we don’t know, we need to stay alert. Not calculate dates: Watch. Pay attention.
Like the fig tree. Jesus used it as an analogy: You can tell summer is coming, not just by the calendar, nor the position of the noonday sun in the sky, nor by how hot it’s getting, but by noticing how the fig trees are budding. Now, a fig tree is hardly an exact indicator of the time of year: I’d rather look at a calendar. You know they had calendars back then, too. But Jesus pointed to the fig tree because when it comes to the return of Jesus, we don’t have any calendar. There are no precise calculations we can make which pinpoint the day of his invasion. There are, at best, the inexact observations we can make by looking at current events. That’s all we get.
The End Times fans figure they can do better than that: Find some number in the bible, multiply by x, add it to the year 33, and see whether we can hit a year close to ours. Or look for some event which they’re certain must happen before Jesus returns. The seven-year treaty with Israel, fr’instance: Some Christians believe such a treaty has to be made before Jesus returns. And in Glorious Appearing, one of the Left Behind novels, thanks to that treaty, all the Christians in the book knew the precise date Jesus would return: Seven years to the day after the treaty was signed. (But, as a caveat to Jesus, the authors had Jesus take his own sweet time in returning that day, because “no man knows the hour.” Groan.)
When you say Jesus can’t return before this or that End Times event takes place, you’re essentially saying you do know the day of Jesus’s return: It’s the day that event finally takes place, or soon after. The day all the End Times events line up. And as a result you aren’t watching for Jesus’s return, ’cause you’re pretty sure he’s not gonna do anything till then.
In fact, if you want to delay his return, all you gotta do is find a way to delay those End Times events. If the seven-year treaty is the harbinger of the End, fight tooth-and-nail every seven-year treaty our President and Secretary of State might make between Israel and the Palestinians. Yeah, it might mean you’re not on the side of peace (and hence you’re fighting the Holy Spirit), but that’s a risk you’re willing to take: The Great Tribulation comes next in your timeline, and you don’t wanna slog through that. Seems incredibly selfish and short-sighted—delaying the Kingdom of God indefinitely because you don’t feel like suffering for Jesus—but that’s another rant.
And a moot point. It doesn’t matter what people believe has to happen next. As Jesus said in this passage, nothing has to happen next. He can return at any time. So watch for him. Maranatha.