What are the signs of the end?

Jesus spoke about the end times and the last judgment during the last week of his earthly ministry.1 All three Synoptic Gospels relate Jesus’ eschatological discourse (Matt. 24–25; Mark 13; Luke 21). Since Christian views about the end times must be informed by Jesus’ explanations regarding the period leading up to the end,2 a study of these texts is of fundamental significance. The reports of Matthew, Mark, and Luke about Jesus’ discourse on the end times are in essential agreement; the passage in Matthew is the most extensive and provides fuller details, especially about the last judgment. Therefore, the following discussion will follow Matthew’s presentation; we will refer to material that only Mark and Luke present where necessary


Jesus mentions ten signs that herald the end of the age and the event of his return. 

The first four signs are related to world affairs: (1) seduction of many people by messianic pretenders who claim to have royal dignity and the ability to redeem Israel; (2) wars and rumors of war; (3) famine; and (4) earthquakes (order of last two signs reversed in Mark and Luke). The next four signs are related to Jesus’ followers: (5) persecution, which includes torture, martyrdom, and apostasy; (6) false prophets who deceive people in the community of Jesus’ followers; (7) injustice and lack of love among believers; and (8) the worldwide proclamation of the gospel. The next sign is (9) a specific event that relates the destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple. 

Jesus here mentions six elements: (a) the “desolating sacrilege” (or “abomination of desolation”), a term that explicitly alludes to the book of Daniel (Dan. 8:13; 9:27; 11:31; 12:11), predicts an event that ritually pollutes the temple in Jerusalem; (b) people escape from Jerusalem and from the entire province of Judea to the mountains; (c) people save their lives as they flee without their possessions; (d) pregnant and nursing women are in peril; (e) the tribulation of these events is horrific (Luke speaks of casualties by killing with the sword, of prisoners led into captivity, of Jews being led into dispersion among the Gentiles, and of pagans controlling Jerusalem); and (f) God will cut this time of great suffering short so that the elect will survive. The sign following next (10) predicts and warns again about the coming of messianic claimants and of false prophets who perform miracles and who intend to deceive Jesus’ followers with predictions of Jesus’ return. The last element of Jesus’ prophecy consists of (11) a series of events that accompany Jesus’ return.

Sign 1 speaks of the seduction of many people by messianic pretenders: people who say “I am the Messiah” are Jewish would-be leaders who claim to have royal dignity and the ability to redeem Israel. Since Christians believe that Jesus is the Messiah who has already come, Jesus refers here to Jewish leaders with messianic aspirations (the claim to be Jesus the Messiah at his return is hardly in view). This prediction was fulfilled in the first century and through history since then. Josephus mentions messianic pretenders for the years leading up to the crisis of A.D. 66–70 in Judea, among them a Samaritan, Theudas, Judas of Galilee, and a Jew from Egypt.4 Simon bar Kokhba, the leader of the second Jewish revolt in A.D. 132–135 that ended in catastrophe, had messianic aspirations.5 Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676), a rabbi who was born in Smyrna in modern-day Turkey, claimed to be the Messiah at age twenty-two. He visited Salonica, Cairo, and Jerusalem and converted to Islam in Constantinople in 1666. He still has followers in Turkey today.6 Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994) inspired such devotion among his followers, the Lubavitch community, that some believed he was the Messiah; when he died at the age of ninety-two in June 1994, some continued to celebrate him as “King Moshiach” (King Messiah).

Sign 2 speaks of wars and rumors of war. Although the period from A.D. 

• 30–60 was relatively peaceful in territories controlled by the Roman Empire, there were armed conflicts and civil disturbances in the East:
• 33 Disturbances in Armenia caused by the Parthian king Artabanos
• 36 War between Rome and Parthia (A.D. 36). War between Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee, and the Nabatean king Aretas IV
• 39/40 Large demonstrations in Ptolemais and Tiberias of Jews who protest against the Roman legate in Syria who had moved two Roman legions to Judea
• 42 Rebellion in Mauretania
• 43 Invasion of Britain by the Roman general Aulus Plautius and the emperor Claudius
• 48 Unrest in Jerusalem and Judea resulting from the provocative behavior of Roman soldiers; twenty thousand Jewish citizens killed
• 57 Armed conflict between the Roman legate in Moesia and tribes from the North; one hundred thousand resettled people in Moesia
• 58 Conquest of Armenia by the Roman general Domitius Corbulo
• 61 Adiabene is attacked by the Armenian king Tigranes V; Syria is threatened by the Parthians
• 62 The Roman general Caesennius Paetus arrives in Cappadocia with the task to annex Armenia; he forces the Parthian king Vologaeses I to capitulate
• 66 Beginning of the Jewish revolt against the Romans
• Galilee conquered by the Roman legate Cestius Gallus; defeat of the Roman army in an ambush at Beth Horon by the Jewish insurgents
• 67 Galilee reconquered by the Roman army under General Vespasian
• 68 Jewish resistance in the north is crushed by Vespasian
• Civil war between the fanatical Zealots and Jews who advocated surrender in Jerusalem
• 68/69 Civil war between the supporters of the “four emperors” Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian
• 69 Vespasian becomes emperor; his son Titus finishes the war against the Jews in Judea
• 70 Siege and destruction of Jerusalem; according to Josephus, 1.1 million Jews were killed and ninety-seven thousand were enslaved

After the first century, wars and military conflicts continued to characterize history. The number of people killed in wars throughout history increased as population numbers grew larger and as warfare affected not only the combatants but directly and indirectly (through plagues or diseases) also civilians. The following gruesome statistics are particularly frightening when we see beyond the numbers the fate of individual people and their families:     

• 1206–1227 Mongol conquests under Genghis Khan; perhaps 40 million dead
• 1492–1900 European colonization of South and North America; about 20 million dead
• 1500–1870 Atlantic slave trade; about 18 million dead
• 1618–1644 Manchu conquest of China, defeat of the Ming Dynasty; perhaps 25 million dead
• 1618–1648 Thirty Years War in Europe; 7 million dead 1803–1815 Napoleonic wars in Europe; 4 million dead 1850–1864 Taiping rebellion in China; 20 million dead 1914–1918 First World War; 15 million dead
• 1917–1922 Civil war in Russia; 9 million dead
• 1924–1953 Terror regime of Joseph Stalin; about 20 million dead
• 1924–1953 1939–1945 Second World War; 55 million dead

Sign 3 (famine; Luke adds plagues, horrible events, and signs in the sky) could be observed in Judea less than ten years after Jesus’ prophecy, when there was a severe famine (A.D. 44–46).9 In A.D. 51, there were famines in various regions of the Roman Empire.10 Famines continue to characterize the conditions of human existence. The famine in India under British occupation during the nineteenth century cost 17 million lives, and the famine caused by Mao Tse-tung’s industrialization program called “Great Leap Forward” cost perhaps 40 million people their lives.

Sign 4 could be observed in Judea as well. There was a serious earthquake in Palestine some time before A.D. 60,11 and there were earthquakes in Asia Minor in A.D. 61, in Rome in A.D. 67,12 on Cyprus in A.D. 76, and in Pompeii in A.D. 79. Josephus described the earthquake in Judea of 31 B.C. as “such as had not happened at any time,” and Pliny called the earthquake in Asia Minor of A.D. 17 that devastated Sardis the “greatest” in human memory.13 Earthquakes continue to be part of the human experience in many parts of the world, including the Middle East. It should be noted that Jesus does not predict that there was an increase in earthquakes, as some end-time “specialists” sometimes claim.

These four signs relate to world affairs and represent false alarms.15 The appearance of messianic pretenders, new wars and rumors of war, and famines and earthquakes “must take place” and can be observed and connected with Jesus’ prophecy, “but the end is not yet” (Matt. 24:6). Such events are all “but the beginning of the birth pangs” (v. 8). They characterize the distress of the messianic era that the prophets had predicted,16 which may be a protracted period until the end (to telos) finally comes. These labor pains include specifically the suffering of the people living in Jerusalem, which will be besieged and destroyed (vv. 15–22). They describe the suffering that characterizes human history between Jesus’ first and second coming.

Sign 5, which predicts persecution (Matt. 24:9), could be observed soon after Jesus’ own arrest, torture, and crucifixion, when Peter and John and the Twelve were repeatedly arrested (Acts 4:3; 5:18; 12:3), when Stephen and the apostle James were killed (Acts 7:58–60; 12:1–2), and when Jerusalem believers and missionaries such as Paul were repeatedly put into prison.Christians continued to be persecuted, even more severely, in the second, third, and fourth centuries and since then again and again, particularly in the twentieth century in Communist regimes and in Islamic countries.18 The prediction of persecution begins with a reference to “tribulation” (thlipsis, Matt. 24:9), thus the translation of RSV, ESV (NRSV translates “they will hand you over to be tortured,” and NIV has “you will be handed over to be persecuted”). The prediction that Jesus’ followers will be “hated by all nations” on account of their allegiance to Jesus reflects the missionary expansion of the church beyond Jerusalem and Judea (see sign 8).

Sign 6, which speaks of false prophets who deceive people in the community of Jesus’ followers (Matt. 24:10–11), is similar to sign 1 but focuses more specifically on impostors who seek to deceive the Christian community. Paul warned the elders of the church in Ephesus of “savage wolves” (Acts 20:29–30); his letters are evidence of the appearance of false teachers in the early church of the first century. The history of the church continues to be full of examples of heretics and heretical teachings.

Sign 7, which predicts injustice and lack of love among believers (Matt. 24:12–13), could be observed in the early church (e.g., in the church in Ephesus toward the end of the first century, Rev. 2:4–5). Despite wonderful examples of Christian charity and love, even to non-Christians,19 the history of the church has been, unfortunately and tragically, more often than not a history of harsh, sometimes violent attacks against dissenters and unbelievers.

Sign 8, the worldwide proclamation of the gospel (Matt. 24:14), was impressively fulfilled already in the first century as the ends of the earth in the south (Ethiopia), west (Spain), north (Scythia), and east (India) were reached with the gospel.20 Once the gospel has been proclaimed throughout the world, the end can come. Since the first century, the gospel has been taken to all regions and all nations of the earth.

Sign 9, which predicts the siege and the destruction of Jerusalem (Matt. 24:15–22), was fulfilled from A.D. 66 to 70. Jesus mentions five developments.
(a) The reference to “desolating sacrilege” (bdelygma tēs erēmōseōs; RSV, NRSV) or “abomination of desolation” (KJV, NASB, NET, ESV; see NIV “the abomination that causes desolation”) predicts an event that ritually pollutes the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus (in Matthew) explicitly alludes to Daniel (Dan. 8:13; 9:27; 11:31; 12:11). The prophecy of Daniel 11:31 was fulfilled when Antiochus IV Epiphanes desecrated the temple in Jerusalem by erecting an altar for pagan sacrifices in 168 B.C., which stood in the temple for three years. Interestingly, the author of 1 Maccabees 1:54 describes this altar with the same expression (bdelygma erēmōseōs).22 Because Daniel’s prophecy was fulfilled in the past, the readers are alerted to the fact that they need to “understand” (Matt. 24:15). This suggests that something will happen that “is in recognizable continuity with the devastating pollution set up by Antiochus, but just what form it will take is left to the imagination.”

Jesus’ prophecy must refer to the temple that he and his disciples see as they sit on the Mount of Olives (Matt. 24:3). The interpretive view that Jesus predicts an event shortly before the end (i.e., in the twenty-first century or in a later century) is impossible if we assume that Jesus’ prophecy in Matthew 24 was given to the disciples in the spring of A.D. 33 and meant to be understood by the disciples.24 Some relate the prophecy to the order given by Emperor Gaius Caligula in A.D. 40 to set up a statue of himself in the temple in Jerusalem, an order that caused disturbances among the Jews. This plan was averted only because Gaius was assassinated in A.D. 41. Others relate the prophecy to the events of A.D. 67–68 when the Zealots took over the temple “with polluted feet,” setting up their headquarters in the temple and murdering people in the temple precincts.25 Others relate Jesus’ prediction to the events of A.D. 70 when Roman troops broke through to the temple mount, setting up their idolatrous standards and sacrificing to them26 (by then it would have been too late to flee from Jerusalem). 

In Luke, the prophecy of the desolation is linked with “Jerusalem being surrounded by armies” (Luke 21:20) and thus seems to link the pollution (abomination) with the military standards of the Roman army.
(b) People escape from Jerusalem and from the entire province of Judea to the mountains. 
(c) People should save their lives, fleeing without their possessions. 
(d) Pregnant and nursing women are in peril. These instructions in Matthew 24:16–19 are very specific; they must refer to a specific historical event, specifically to the Jewish War from A.D. 66 to 70. Eusebius relates that the Jerusalem Christians left the city and fled to Pella, about sixty-five miles northeast of Jerusalem, before Jerusalem was destroyed.
(e) The tribulation of these events is horrific. (Luke speaks of casualties by killing with the sword, of prisoners led into captivity, of Jews being led into dispersion among the Gentiles, and of pagans controlling Jerusalem.) The language with which Matthew (as well as Mark and Luke) describes the crisis of the siege and destruction of Jerusalem compares with Josephus’s grim description of the horrors of the siege.28 Josephus relates that 1.1 million Jews were killed and ninety-seven thousand were enslaved; he asserts that in his opinion “the misfortunes of all nations since the world began fall short of those of the Jews.”

This assessment corresponds to Jesus’ prediction: “For at that time there will be great distress [thlipsis megalē], such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now” (Matt. 24:21, author’s translation.).30 The expression “great distress” (or “great tribulation,” as in KJV, NASB, RSV, ESV) refers here to the period of extreme suffering that is connected with the siege and destruction of Jerusalem.

Readers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke at the end of the first century, without doubt, would regard Jesus’ prophecy to have been fulfilled by the events connected with the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Modern readers may well wonder whether more recent events could be interpreted as fulfillment. The siege of Leningrad by the German army between 1941 and 1944 was one of the longest and most devastating sieges in history: of 2.5 million trapped inhabitants, between 640,000 and 800,000 died, mostly of hunger.

(f) God will cut “those days” of great suffering short so that the elect will survive. It seems most plausible to connect the expression “those days” (hai hēmerai ekeinai) in Matthew 24:22 with the same expression “in those days” (en ekeinais tais hēmerais) in 24:19. Jesus’ prediction does not spare the “elect” (i.e., Jesus’ followers from among the Jews living in Jerusalem and in Judea) from the horrors of the Roman invasion and the siege of Jerusalem, but he assures them that they will survive, physically, because this great tribulation will be curtailed by God. 

The Romans captured the city of Jerusalem after a siege of five months, cutting short the tribulation of the people who had remained in the city suffering severe famine. Others see a break between Matthew 24:21 and 24:22, linking verse 22 not with the siege of Jerusalem but with the entire period of the time between Jesus’ first and second coming, of which 24:15–21—the siege of Jerusalem—is only a part.33 If the expression “those days” in 24:22 is connected with “the distress [tribulation; thlipsin] of those days” in 24:29 (NIV) and thus with 24:9 where “distress/tribulation” (thlipsin) is mentioned for the first time, then the perspective of 24:22 is indeed greater than the “great distress” (“great tribulation”; thlipsis megalē) that characterizes the siege of Jerusalem.

Sign 10 predicts the coming of messianic claimants and of false prophets who perform miracles and who intend to deceive Jesus’ followers with predictions of Jesus’ return (Matt. 24:23–25). Following after sign 1, which predicted messianic pretenders, and sign 6, which predicted false prophets, sign 10 speaks both of both messianic claimants and false prophets. This prophecy appears to assume a wider reference than interpreters allow who restrict the prediction to the last years or months of the crisis in Jerusalem between A.D. 66 and 70.35 The adverb of time (the Greek term tote) at the beginning of 24:23, translated as “then” or “at that time,” does not have to be restricted to the period described immediately before (24:15–22, the siege of Jerusalem), but generally “introduces that which follows in time” and can thus indeed describe a subsequent phase of the end-time events.

Sign 11, the last element of Jesus’ prophecy, consists of a series of events that accompany Jesus’ return (Matt. 24:29–31). Jesus predicts the following: (a) the sun will become dark; (b) the moon will become dark; (c) stars fall from the sky; (d) the powers of the sky are shaken; (e) the sign of the Son of Man will become visible in heaven, and he will come on the clouds with power and glory; (f) the Son of Man will send out angels who will be accompanied by a loud trumpet call and who will gather the elect from all regions of the earth. The apocalyptic, cosmic language of the prophecy in 24:29 uses language from the Old Testament prophets who predict not the physical dissolution of the universe but, with symbolic language, catastrophic political events within history.37 This does not prove, however, that the prophecy must be limited to the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 (described both as a climactic act of judgment and as “the symbol of a new beginning, the heavenly enthronement of the Son of Man”).

The language of this section is most naturally understood as a prophecy of Jesus’ return: the celestial disturbances are linked with the coming of the Son of Man with the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory, with angels and a loud trumpet call, and with the gathering of the elect from all corners of the earth (24:30–31). The question of the disciples in 24:3 primed them (and Matthew’s readers) for comments on Jesus’ return and the end of the age. The description of the cosmic events could be meant metaphorically, symbolizing the dissolution of the first creation that will give way to the new heavens and the new earth.39 But the description could also be meant literally, describing the collapse of the universe before the “renewal of all things” that will be initiated by the Son of Man when he is seated on the throne of his glory (Matt. 19:28).
Jesus’ prophecy in signs 1–10 describes world history since the first century, with the siege and destruction of Jerusalem (sign 9) representing a particular event that happened in A.D. 70. 

With the exception of sign 8 (proclamation of the gospel) and Jesus’ return, Jesus’ prophecy characterizes world history since the fall. For end-time “specialists” such an interpretation is unexciting because it provides no opportunities for speculation about specific connections with their own time.

What would be so special about prophesying that history continues essentially unchanged? The answer to this question becomes obvious when we place it in the context of Jewish expectations about the Messiah. While there was no unified view of who the Messiah would be, what he would do, and what the consequences of his arrival would be for Israel and for the world, there was apparently an essential agreement that the Messiah, a Davidic king, would be a political savior who would liberate Israel from her enemies and subjugate the nations. 

Jesus’ prophecy about the future of the world until the end when he would return was surprising and “exciting” for his disciples precisely because it contradicted their expectations. Jesus points out that there would be no cataclysmic defeat of Israel’s enemies in the near future but that history would continue more or less as it had always been—a history of seduction and war and famine and earthquakes and injustice, with the destruction of Jerusalem as a low point for the disciples and for the Jewish people. One new factor included the proclamation of the gospel, a task for which he had called and trained the Twelve.

Jesus’ answer to the disciples’ question about the destruction of Jerusalem and the signs signaling the end of the age is a prophecy of ten signs, followed with a description of his return. The time between Jesus’ present life and ministry (in the first century) and Jesus’ return in glory is characterized by the activities of messianic pretenders and false prophets, by wars and rumors of war, by famines and earthquakes, by persecution of Christians and lack of love among believers, and by the worldwide proclamation of the gospel. The destruction of Jerusalem represents a series of climactic events (sign 9) that, however, do not constitute the end. Jesus’ return will be public and universal (intimated in sign 10), as the cosmic events illustrate.



Schnabel, E. J. (2011). 40 Questions about the End Times. (B. L. Merkle, Ed.) (pp. 33–43). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic & Professional.