The End Times or Last Days?

Hebrews 1:1–2; 9:26. The author to the Hebrews begins his homily with the assertion that God’s revelation has taken a major turn in the recent past: while he had spoken to the Israelites and the Jewish people in the past through prophets “at many times and in various ways,” he has now been speaking to his people through his Son (Heb. 1:1 NIV). 

The author dates God’s speaking through Jesus his Son as having happened “in these last days” (ep’ eschatou tōn hēmerōn, Heb. 1:2). The demonstrative pronoun (toutōn, “these”) indicates that the last days have begun: “in these days which are the last days.” 

The entire period between Jesus’ first coming and the future consummation of God’s purposes constitutes “the last days.” When the author asserts that Jesus Christ, our High Priest, did not have to suffer many times but appeared once for all “to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:26 NIV), he relates Jesus’ appearance both to the “foundation the world,” emphasizing the universal scope of Christ’s work, and to “the end of the age” (synteleia tōn aiōnōn; lit. “the end of the ages”), emphasizing that Jesus’ death had inaugurated the last days. 

The coming of the Messiah, and in particular his salvific death, marks the beginning of the end. The time that extends from Jesus’ coming into the present (of the author) is the end time.

Schnabel, E. J. (2011). 40 Questions about the End Times. (B. L. Merkle, Ed.) (pp. 22–23). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic & Professional.