Mark 13:3 Commentary and Bible Study

All this is going to be destroyed, Christ had told them. All this is going to be left desolate! When? they wanted to know. They hadn't counted on this, or conceived of it ever happening. With Christ’s words on their minds, Peter, James, John, and Andrew ask him privately about it. Perhaps all the disciples heard the reply, but certainly these four. As they walked down from Jerusalem to the Kidron Valley and up the other side to the Mount of Olives, the disciples seem to have been thinking about his shocking words and discussing them, and now these four come to ask what they think is the key question, a question which is given in more detail in Matthew: ‘When shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?’ In their minds the destruction of the temple is such a significant event that it must signal the end of the world and Christ’s return at the end of time. They cannot imagine the world continuing after such a cataclysmic event. ‘What shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?’ The word ‘sign’ is in the singular. ‘What shall be the sign?’ That makes it doubly clear that they think all these things are going to happen together. They will only need one sign for the end of the world and the destruction of the temple. No, the Lord will say, it is not one event; it is two separate events.The prophets of the Old Testament, when they looked ahead at the coming of Christ and at the final judgment, tended to bring these things together. The Old Testament prophecies may have puzzled you in this respect: it is often difficult to tell whether the prophecy is speaking about Christ’s first coming or his second coming. There is an old illustration which is very helpful. The prophets when they looked forward saw two great mountains, the comings of Christ, the first coming and the second coming, and they saw them in line, one behind the other. The first coming and the second coming were difficult to distinguish as separate events, because from the perspective of the Old Testament prophets, they were in line, as it were and to some extent Christ speaks like this here.The way Christ’s great statement of the last things in this chapter is constructed, there are two mountain tops or peaks that are prominent in the future. There is a huge mountain peak with the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the Jewish era of privilege in A.D. 70. That is predicted, as will see, and that is one peak. Then there is another mountain peak at a distance, way down the centuries at the end of time, and the second peak is the return of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and end time events, and both of these are presented here as peaks, and we must distinguish between them. One is soon, near to hand prophecy, and the second far greater peak – the return of Christ – is the distant one. If you read the chapter carelessly, you can get the two separate events mixed up. But if you read it carefully, they are two distinct peaks of prophecy, and that is how we traditionally see them. With hindsight it is easier for us to distinguish the two events.