How Does One Explain the Two-Thousand-Year (and Counting) Duration of the End Times?
If the apostles believed that the end times—the last days—began with Jesus’ first coming, it seems difficult to understand that two thousand years later we are still waiting for Jesus’ promised second coming. If “the end times” began in the first century A.D., why are we still waiting for the end? Can “the last days” really last for so long? The delay of Jesus’ second coming was already perceived as a problem by some whom Peter calls “scoffers”—people who gleefully provoked the faithful Christians with the words, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!” (2 Peter 3:4). Peter answers that these people ignore three facts. First, they forget that God, who created the world and then sent the great flood, will one day bring about the day of judgment when the present heavens and earth will be destroyed along with the godless (3:5–7). Second, they forget that for God, “one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day” (v. 8). This means that God’s time is unlike our human time, the latter being rather limited. Third, they forget that the delay of Jesus’ second coming is due not to God being somehow negligent in fulfilling his promises but to God being patient. God does not want sinners to perish “but all to come to repentance” (v. 9). Then Peter reminds his readers that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed” (v. 10). The delay of Jesus’ second coming—a delay of now two thousand years—must not diminish our watchfulness. Christians must be ready for Jesus’ second coming, whenever it will happen.
The end times are a present reality since the first coming of Jesus. This is the conviction of Peter, Paul, John, Jude, and the author of the epistle to the Hebrews. The conviction that the present time is the “end time” derives from the belief of the apostles that Jesus is Israel’s promised Messiah in whose person, ministry, death, and resurrection God has fulfilled his promises of salvation. As the earliest Christians were all Jewish believers who knew the prophecies of the Scriptures and who were familiar with Jewish texts that spoke of the end, they linked the appearance of the Messiah with the last days. The coming of Jesus, Israel’s Messiah and Savior of humankind, inaugurated the end times. This is the reason why the early Christians prayed earnestly and regularly for the return of Jesus, with the prayer call marana tha, “Our Lord, come!” (1 Cor. 16:22; cf. Rev. 22:20). End-time “specialists” who describe the last days or the end times as a future period misunderstand the structure of New Testament eschatology. Jesus and the apostles taught that the end (eschatos) is near, the last days have begun, and the end times are now a present reality. As some of the passages have shown, this conviction was not a source of speculation about the nearness of the “last day” or the period of “last days.” Rather, it was the cause of great concern that Christians make sure that their everyday lives conform to the truth of the gospel and to the holiness of God so that they are ready to hear the knock of the Lord who is standing at the door.
Schnabel, E. J. (2011). 40 Questions about the End Times. (B. L. Merkle, Ed.) (pp. 24–25). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic & Professional.
