Explanatory Notes -- Mark 13:1-23

I've been writing explanatory notes this week on Passion Week in Mark's Gospel. Thus far:

• Palm Sunday (Mark 11:1-11)
• Monday Money Changers (Mark 11:12-19)
• Tuesday Debates I (Mark 11:20-33) 

My aim is to go back to Mark 12 on Saturday, which is Tuesday still. Today, let's try Mark 13, which is probably still Tuesday. Here is a first installment.

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13:1 And him going out from the temple, one of his followers says to him, "Teacher, see what stones and what buildings!" 2. And Jesus said to him, "See these great buildings? Not a stone on a stone will be left here that shall not be destroyed."

After a day full of arguments and debates, Jesus leaves the temple precincts with his disciples to begin their way presumably back to Bethany. As they leave the temple, we get the "little apocalypse," the "eschatological discourse." It is the clearest picture of Jesus' eschatology in the Gospel of Mark. One of Jesus' followers is amazed at the impressive stones of Herod's temple. Jesus predicts it will be completely destroyed.

And it was. This destruction took place in AD70 when the Romans encamped around Jerusalem and eventually burned the city and the temple. This came at the climax of the Jewish War, in which the Jews rebelled against the Romans. It started in 66 and effectively ended in AD70. However, some might extend that date to AD72, when the fortress at Masada finally fell.

The wailing wall, which you can still visit today, was not part of the temple but a retaining wall to hold the dirt of the temple mount in place. Not one stone indeed was left on top of another.

13:3 And him sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew were asking him privately, 4. "Tell us at what time these things will be, and what [is] the sign when all these things are about to be completed?"

The framing of the chapter is clear. Jesus is about to tell them when that temple is going to be destroyed and what the signs are that the destruction of that temple is about to happen. Mark 13 and its parallels have often been used by end times teachers to try to predict things that have not yet taken place. Such teaching often involves predictions about a temple being rebuilt in Jerusalem today.

However, the context of Mark 13 is crystal clear. It is about the destruction of the temple that was standing in Jesus' day. In other words, this prophecy has already been fulfilled. Granted, the last part of the chapter does seem to jump a couple thousand years to the second coming of Jesus that has not yet happened. But the starting point of this chapter is Herod's temple and its destruction. God can do whatever he wants, but there is no clear teaching in this chapter about an end-times temple.

We see here the inner circle of the disciples, two sets of brothers from Capernaum. Peter and Andrew are brothers, and then James and John are the sons of Zebedee. At least in terms of the material that God has preserved for us, they feature at the center.

13:5 And Jesus began to say to them, "See that someone does not deceive you. 6. Many will come in my name saying, 'I am [he],' and they will deceive many. 

At this point in context, we have every reason to think that Jesus is speaking of the period between then and the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70. Jesus is saying that there will be many false claimants to be the Jewish Messiah in those four decades. The Jewish historian Josephus mentions a revolutionary named Theudas who died sometime around AD46. [1] In Acts 21:38, a Roman centurian mentions an Egyptian who led four thousand men in revolt. Presumably, around the time of the Jewish War there were militants who had pretenses of becoming the ruler of a liberated Israel.

We are so used to thinking of Jesus as the divine second person of the Trinity that is hard for us to imagine that someone would pretend to be the Messiah or that people would believe them. But we have to remember that the Jews were not looking for a divine Messiah. They were looking for an anointed human to come and overthrow the Romans. They were looking for an anointed revolutionary like the Maccabees, who managed to gain some independence from the Syrians in 167BC.

[1] Josephus, Ant. 20.97-98. If this is the same Theudas of Acts 5:36, then Luke was blurring his time with that of Gamaliel. Acts 5 also mentions a Judas from about AD6. 

13:7 "And whenever you should hear of wars and reports of wars, do not be troubled. It is necessary to come to be, but not yet is the end. 8. For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in places. There will be famines. These are the beginnings of birthpains.

It is amazing that individuals would use these verses to argue today that Jesus must be about to return. On the one hand, such remarks seem thoroughly unaware of how many wars, earthquakes, and famines there have been in the last two thousand years. Even more to the point, nothing in the context has yet distracted us from the context of Jesus' day. Jesus is presumably still talking about the years between AD30 and 70.

The Romans fought the Parthians to the east of Israel in AD58-63. But the verses likely refer especially to the Jewish War from 66-70, the war that culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem itself. The city of Colossae was destroyed by an earthquake around the year 61. No doubt there were Christians in the city that lost their lives. We hear of a famine in Acts 11:28 that took place around the year 44.  

13:9 "And you, watch yourselves. They will deliver you to courts and to synagogues. You will be beaten, and you will stand before governors and kings because of me as a witness to them.

Certainly this sort of witness took place repeatedly in the years AD30-70. Peter and Paul were both martyred under the rule of the emperor Nero. Acts records Paul appearing before multiple Roman governors. Paul was beaten five times with thirty nine lashes in synagogues (2 Cor. 11:24). Such a witness is what 2 Peter 3:15 had in mind when it says to be ready to give an account.

13:10 "And to all nations first it is necessary for the gospel to be preached.

Again, the context still leads us to see this comment in relation to the years AD30-70. It is common to hear individuals say that Jesus will not return until every people group on the earth has heard the good news. On the one hand, the church is indeed commanded to go and make disciples of every nation. Who are we to tell God that he cannot come back when the Scriptures are translated into every known language?

But this verse is not about today but about the early church. For one thing, imagine how many people groups have come and gone since Jesus' day. If the verse means every single nation of Jesus' day then it was a failed prophecy, since so many of them are gone forever without having heard. What of those in the Americas of that day, cultures that never heard and are gone forever? If Jesus has tarried so everyone can hear, then far more people have come and gone by his waiting than would have been lost if he had simply returned back then! 

More to the point, Colossians considers this prophecy already fulfilled in the first century. It refers to the gospel as "having been preached to every creature under the sky" (1:23). The statement is hyperbole of course, an overstatement, but it suggests that the whole of the "civilized" world had heard before Colossae was destroyed by earthquake in the early 60s of the first century.

13:11 "And whenever they should lead you, handing you over, do not worry what you should say, but whatever should be given to you, in this hour, be speaking. For you are not the ones speaking, but the Holy Spirit. 12. Brother will deliver brother to death, and father child. And children will rise up against parents and will put them to death. 13. And you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one having endured to the end--this [one] will be saved.

The word martyr developed from the Greek word for witness. These verses speak to the early Christian witness to Christ under persecution. Many have sensed long after the first century that the Holy Spirit gives us the words to say when we are under pressure or on trial for our faith.

In a close-knit family, it can be difficult to imagine brother turning brother over or child a parent, but such things have certainly happened. I write this commentary in a period when many friends and families were divided over the intersection of politics and values. We can imagine in a context like the Jewish War or the persecution in Rome around 64 under Nero, that family members would have turned on each other to save their own skin or in sheer disgust of them in sharp disagreement.

Note that it is those who endure to the end who are saved. There is no sense here of "You were baptized. You will be saved no matter what." Whatever theology you might use to explain it, Jesus indicates that it is those who endure in faith who will be received in the end by God, not those who start out in faith. Jesus implies that there will be individuals who certainly appeared to be Christians who will not make it to the kingdom of God.

13:14 "And whenever you should see the abomination of desolation having stood where it is not supposed to," (let the one reading understand) "then those in Judea, let them flee to the mountains. 

This statement alludes to Daniel 11:31. In its original context, Daniel 11 was about the Maccabean crisis. The abomination of desolation there was the defilement of the temple in 167BC by the Syrians. Jesus predicts another defilement of the temple here. Again, we remember the context. Peter and others have asked when that temple will be destroyed. Accordingly, Jesus at least in the first place is telling of a coming desolation of that temple, which of course happened in AD70.

It is generally agreed that Luke used Mark as a source. Here, Luke's paraphrase of this statement is revealing. Luke interprets this statement to refer to the surrounding of Jerusalem by the Roman armies (Luke 21:20). Tradition has it that the early Christians did indeed flee Jerusalem for a place called Pella before the Romans had so thoroughly surrounded the city that no one could get out.

The comment, "let the reader understand" may provide clues to the dating of Mark. Peter and the others are not reading Jesus. They are listening to him. This comment is thus not the words of Jesus to Peter. It is a comment from Mark to his audience. If Jesus' words are in red, then these words would be in black. [2]

A reader in this context is a person reading the Gospel of Mark aloud to an assembly of believers. The early Christians would mostly not be able to read. Rather, they would have memorized Scripture and heard it read regularly to them aloud. This parenthetical comment thus is a note to the reader to emphasize this point of the eschatological discourse to the audience.

Some have argued that the emphasis on the statement has to do with the time of Mark's writing. Perhaps these events were unfolding as Mark was first being put together. It is thus common to date the Gospel of Mark either to the late 60s or the early 70s. 

[2] Some have of course suggested that Jesus means the reader of Daniel. This is a plausible reading of Matthew's version (Matt. 24:15), but it is not clear that the reader of Mark would understand that. 

13:15 "The one on the housetop, let him [or her] not come down nor enter to take something from his [or her] house. 16. And the [one] in the field, do not let him [or her] return for the things behind to take his [or her] clothing. 17. And woe to those having in womb and the [ones] nursing in those days. 18. And pray that it might not be in winter. 

Thankfully, the five-month seige of Jerusalem did not take place in winter. It began in April and ended in August. The Jewish day of Tish b'Av remembers. You did not want to be stuck inside a city under siege. Conditions become horrible. Food and water become scarce. People can resort to cannibalism. The exhortation to get away while you can was completely apropos. 

13:19 "For those days will be tribulation such as not has been such from the beginning of creation that God created until now and shall certainly not be. 20. And if the Lord had not shortened the days, no flesh would have been saved. But because of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened those days. 

It is probably best to take these statements as hyperbole, overstatement. Make no mistake, the events immediately prior to the destruction of Jerusalem were horrific. But we do not need to argue over whether they were the absolutely most horrific tribulation of all history. On the other hand, someone might argue that, since Jesus seems to blur into the second coming in 13:24, the blurring begins slightly earlier here at this point. 

However, keeping to the context and flow of the chapter thus far, Jesus would still be referring to the events of AD70. The thorough loss of life would thus be a local reference. Jesus would not be speaking of a whole world tribulation, as perhaps in Revelation, but to the situation of the Jews and Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. [3] Let us be clear though. Those were horrific days. 

The elect refers to those who would escape the destruction of the Romans, especially Jewish Christians. The Jewish War did finally come to an end. Many Christians from Jerusalem did escape to the mountains. Not all Jews were taken back and executed in Rome. 

We probably should not read too much theology into the term elect. It is simply a way of referring to the group who, by God's grace, did not perish. It was not God's will that all Jews perish or that all Christian Jews perish. A remnant survived. God chose that a group would be saved from destruction. 

We need to be careful not to make our theological expectations about the times before the return of Jesus into a self-fulfilling prophecy. These verses on horrific times have often played into a "pre-millennial" perspective that expects things to get worse and worse before Jesus returns. It can lead to an abandonment of effort to change the world for the better. "Things are just going to get worse and worse anyway."

There are two reasons why this is bad theology. First, we do not know when Jesus will return. There have been many times in history when God has graciously made things better. We best not be like the man in the parable who buries his talent in the ground. We work till Jesus comes!

And further, we have seen that this picture was especially focused on the time before the destruction of Jerusalem. Whether it applies to the time just before Jesus returns remains to be seen.  

[3] It is interesting that in his editing of this chapter, Luke omits the statements on the crisis being the worst of all time and the shortening of the days (Luke 21).

13:21 "And then if someone should say to you, 'Look, here is the Christ. Look, there,' do not believe them. 22. For false christs and false prophets and will give signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, the elect. 23. But you watch. I have told you all things ahead of time.

These verses again hearken back to 13:5-6. Around the time of the Jewish War there must have been many claiming to be the revolutionary who would decisively overcome the Romans. Some of them must have even performed signs and wonders, as Jesus did. We are reminded of 2 Thessalonians 2:9. Scholars have long pointed out the parallels between that chapter and Mark 13. 

It is sobering to think of the possibility that God's people, the "elect," might be deceived about who Jesus is. We can at least imagine that there were some Christians who got caught up in the nationalistic fervor of the Jewish War. [4] There were Christians in Nazi Germany who mistook Hitler for a kind of messianic figure and confused their enthusiasm for Germany with a divine imprimatur. It is a warning to us to remember who Jesus is and never to confuse him with human political figures that we may find extraordinarily inspiring. Religious and nationalistic fervor are easily confused, it turns out.

[4] The epithet of Simon the Zealot is particularly curious (Luke 6:15), since the Zealots as a specific group did not exist until the time of the Jewish War. It is of course possible that the term is being used generically.