At the heart of Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of God is the prediction that within a generation Israel would experience a devastating political and religious crisis. There would be a period of increasing disorder and anxiety (the eschatological ‘birthpangs’ which mark the onset of judgment and the inauguration of the messianic age) during which the disciples would find themselves persecuted, isolated, tempted by false hopes of security. 2 Thessalonians 2:3 (‘the rebellion comes first’) may suggest that Jewish revolt against Roman rule would set the chain of ‘end-time’ events in motion. The nation would be invaded; Jerusalem and its temple would be destroyed. The vivid apocalyptic language, echoing Old Testament texts, suggests both that this catastrophe would be the outworking of God’s judgment on the people and that it would constitute an irrevocable overthrow of Israel’s religious system. The destruction of Jerusalem is also prophesied, or perhaps described (depending on how we date the text), in the sequence of seven seals and seven trumpets in Revelation.
Those disciples who endure to the ‘end’ of this period of turmoil will be ‘saved’ – not least in the sense that the embryonic Jewish church will survive the war against Rome (Mk.13:13; Matt.24:13; cf. Mk.13:20). But this ‘end’ will not be reached before the gospel has been preached ‘in the whole world as a testimony to all nations’ (Matt.24:14; cf. Mk.13:10). This expectation, though commonly invoked now as a motivation for mission, must be interpreted historically: it is Jesus’ own disciples – the sect of the Nazarenes (Acts 24:5) – who will fulfil this prophecy as they bear testimony before governors and kings for the sake of Jesus (Mk.13:9-10). We must assume that, in the special and limited sense that it was intended, it has been fulfilled.
The climactic moment in the judgment on Israel is the installation of the ‘abomination of desolation’ in the holy place (Mk.13:14; Matt.24:15). The phrase originally alluded to the erection of an altar to Zeus in the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes in 167 BC, but it had become the archetypal act of desecration and readily finds fulfilment in the impiety of Titus’ soldiers, who offered sacrifices before their standards as the sanctuary burned. Paul describes the same event in the narrative of the man of lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4.
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