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19

Signs of Christ’s Return—Part 3: Birth Pains
(Luke 21:8–19)

And He said, “See to it that you are not misled; for many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not go after them. When you hear of wars and disturbances, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end does not follow immediately.” Then He continued by saying to them, “Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be great earthquakes, and in various places plagues and famines; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for My name’s sake. It will lead to an opportunity for your testimony. So make up your minds not to prepare beforehand to defend yourselves; for I will give you utterance and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute. But you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death, and you will be hated by all because of My name. Yet not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives. (21:8–19)

The currently popular questioning of the perspicuity (clarity) of Scripture has led many to view the biblical prophecies regarding the future as especially mysterious, hidden, and obscure. Some think themselves noble for considering prophecy as unfathomable and incomprehensible. That view, however, is seriously troubling. What the Bible says about the future is as clear and accessible as what it says about the present or the past. To argue that prophecy cannot be understood is to deny both the clarity of Scripture, and its importance (cf. 2 Tim. 3:16–17; Rev. 1:3).

The foundational interpretive question of how the recipients of biblical revelation would have understood it applies to prophecy just as it does to the rest of Scripture. Biblical revelation was given in specific historical and cultural settings; therefore the correct interpretation of any text—including prophetic texts—must be consistent with how the original author and hearers understood it and thus apply the normal grammatical principles.

The Lord did not give this prophetic sermon, known as the Olivet Discourse, to the theological elite of Israel. The disciples were plain, simple, straightforward men, who had not been educated in the rabbinical schools. They would have found the bizarre, esoteric, mysterious interpretations of this sermon that some have invented to be inconceivable and incomprehensible. Since Jesus obviously intended for the disciples to understand what He was saying, such interpretations cannot be correct. Walter C. Kaiser notes a further difficulty with rejecting the literal approach to interpreting prophecy:

Who or what will arbitrate among the various [non-literal] meanings suggested and decide which are to be accepted as authoritative and which are spurious? Short of saying that every person’s fancy is his or her own rule, there does not appear to be any final court of appeal. … There simply are no justifiable criteria for setting boundaries once the interpreter departs from the normal usage of language. (Back Toward the Future [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989], 129–30)

The disciples were familiar with the Jewish eschatology of their day, which emphasized Messiah’s coming to destroy the Gentile nations and establish His kingdom, in which Israel would be the centerpiece (for a summary of the Jewish eschatology of the time, see chapter 17 of this volume). They eagerly anticipated that Jesus would fulfill all their messianic expectations at His first coming. But by the time this sermon was given (Wednesday of Passion Week) that hope had faded. Rather than the pagan nations, Jesus had publicly assaulted Israel by attacking the temple. In a series of conversations with the leaders of Jewish religion, He had refuted their attempts to discredit Him, and unmasked their hypocrisy. He had also predicted His death at their hands. Certainly Jesus had not done what the disciples expected Messiah to do, leaving them wondering if and when He would display His glory, judge Israel’s enemies, and establish the promised kingdom.

Many who observe the way the world is going today fear what may happen in the future. The world seems to be careening toward ultimate apocalyptic disaster, leading some to wonder if God has lost control. After all, Jesus promised to build His church and not allow the gates of hell to prevail against it. He is the risen, death-conquering Lord, who has ascended to the Father, and His kingdom is steadily progressing toward its glorious consummation at His second coming (cf. Luke 13:18–21). In light of that, should everything not be getting better and better, as postmillennialists believe, until Jesus returns to reign over the kingdom that the spread of Christianity has inaugurated? Has something gone terribly wrong what God’s plan? Not at all.

In this text, Jesus told His followers what to expect in the interval between His first and second comings. His predictions demonstrate His deity by revealing both His knowledge of and control over future events. The present era between the Lord’s two comings will be marked by deceivers, disasters, and distress, which, like the birth pains of a pregnant woman, will intensify as the time of His coming draws near.

DECEIVERS

And He said, “See to it that you are not misled; for many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not go after them. (21:8)

As noted in the previous chapter of this volume, false messiahs and false teachers have been around since the time of Christ. Through the centuries, they have led millions of people onto the broad road that leads to destruction (Matt. 7:15–20; cf. the discussion of false teachers in chapter 16 of this volume). Religious deceivers and the lies they propagate will increase as the return of the Lord Jesus draws near (cf. Matt. 24:11).

DISASTERS

When you hear of wars and disturbances, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end does not follow immediately.” Then He continued by saying to them, “Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be great earthquakes, and in various places plagues and famines; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. (21:9–11)

The alarming and dangerous conditions in the present world will continue unabated for the rest of human history. They do not signal that the end will follow immediately; however, disasters will increase and worsen as the end approaches, just as a woman’s birth pains intensify as the time for birth draws near.

Human history is largely the history of wars, which have increased in number and intensity over the centuries. By some estimates there were seventy significant wars before the time of Christ, fifty in the first one thousand years after Him, one hundred between A.D. 1000 and 1500, two hundred fifty between 1500 and 1800, and five hundred since 1800. Those numbers do not include the numerous lesser conflicts that took place during those time periods. The wars mankind has engaged in have resulted in the deaths of millions of people (approximately seventy-five million in World Wars 1 and 2 alone).

But all the wars of human history are insignificant in comparison to the devastating conflicts that will take place during the tribulation, when, on a scale never before seen in history, nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. In Revelation 6:3–4 John wrote, “When [Christ] broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, ‘Come.’ And another, a red horse, went out; and to him who sat on it, it was granted to take peace from the earth, and that men would slay one another; and a great sword was given to him.” This worldwide conflict, and the famine and disease that will accompany it (vv. 5–6, 8), will kill one fourth of the earth’s population (v. 8). By way of comparison, less than 3 percent of the world’s population perished in World War 2.

Revelation chapters 16 and 19 describe the final, climactic battle of the tribulation:

The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river, the Euphrates; and its water was dried up, so that the way would be prepared for the kings from the east. And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs; for they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them together for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty. … And they gathered them together to the place which in Hebrew is called Har-Magedon. (16:12–14, 16)

Under the influence of three particularly foul and vile demons, pictured here as “frogs,” the rulers of the east and their armies will march to “Har-Magedon” (Armageddon) to meet their doom. Armageddon refers to the plain of Megiddo, about sixty miles north of Jerusalem, and the site of many historical battles (cf. Judg.4–5 [cf. 5:19], 7; 2 Chron. 35:22). While Megiddo and the nearby Plain of Esdraelon will be the focal point of the battle, the fighting will stretch throughout the length of Israel, including the vicinity of Jerusalem (Zech. 14:1–3).

But this final battle will be brought to an abrupt end by the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. The world’s armies, under the command of Antichrist (Rev. 19:19), will be annihilated, and Antichrist and his henchman, the false prophet, cast alive into the lake of fire (v. 20). So great will the carnage be that blood of the slain will be splattered several feet high, and perhaps run in streams in places, across two hundred miles (Rev. 14:20). The battle will end in a slaughter, when Christ returns to judge and execute His enemies (19:17–21).

In addition to the manmade disaster of war, disturbances in the natural world have also caused great damage and loss of life. There have been many severe earthquakes in recorded history, both in magnitude and in terms of fatalities. Since the invention of the Richter scale, there have been thirty-five with a recorded or estimated magnitude of 8.5 or greater. The most powerful earthquake ever recorded took place in Chile in 1960, registering a magnitude 9.5. A dozen other earthquakes with a magnitude of 8.5 or greater have also taken place in Chile. The 1964 Alaska earthquake measured 9.2, the 2004 earthquake in the Indian Ocean near Sumatra measured 9.1, and an earthquake in 1952 on the Kamchatka Peninsula in far eastern Russia and the 2011 earthquake in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan both measured 9.0.

Earthquakes have also resulted in massive loss of life. An earthquake in China in 1556 killed an estimated 830,000 people. Another earthquake in China in 1920 resulted in the deaths of nearly 275,000 people, while a third Chinese earthquake, this one in 1976, caused a quarter of a million fatalities. The 2004 Sumatra earthquake, mentioned above, killed more than 230,000 people, while a 1923 earthquake in the Kanto region of Japan took the lives of more than 140,000 people. Earthquakes in Sicily in 1908, Turkmenistan in 1948, and Japan in 1703 also killed more than 100,000 people.

But as is the case with wars, the unparalleled earthquakes that will devastate the earth during the tribulation will dwarf all previous ones. The sixth seal judgment will unleash one of those earthquakes:

I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. (Rev. 6:12–14)

So terrifyingly powerful will that earthquake be that in John’s vision

the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (vv. 15–17)

Another earthquake will destroy one tenth of the city of Jerusalem (Rev. 11:13). But the most catastrophic earthquake that will ever strike the earth is described in Revelation 16:18–20:

There was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the great was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of His fierce wrath. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.

This devastating, unprecedented earthquake will drastically alter the topography of the entire planet.

Plagues and famines have ravaged mankind throughout history. The play on words in the Greek text, loimos (plagues) and limos (famines), shows that the two are often connected. Epidemics of various diseases, including smallpox, measles, typhus, influenza, and, most notoriously, bubonic plague, have struck repeatedly throughout history. There were plagues in Athens in the fifth century B.C., and various locations in the Roman and Byzantine empires in the second, third, sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries A.D. The notorious pandemic outbreak of bubonic plague known as the Black Death, which took place in the middle of the fourteenth century, killed an estimated one third to one half of Europe’s population. There were other bubonic plague epidemics in European countries in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, including Italy, England (most notably, the great plague that ravaged London in 1665–1666), Spain, Austria, France, and Russia. A prolonged pandemic of bubonic plague, which began in China in the middle of the nineteenth century and lasted until the middle of the twentieth century, killed millions. Recent decades have witnessed outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), bird flu, and AIDS.

Often associated with and resulting from plagues and wars, famines have also been common throughout history. According to some sources, there have been more than 1,800 famines of varying degrees of severity in China alone, and ninety-five famines in Britain during the Middle Ages. There were famines in Rome in the fifth century B.C., India in the eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, and Spain in the eighth and sixteenth centuries. A severe famine lasting from the ninth through the eleventh centuries helped destroy the Mayan civilization, and the Great Famine in nineteenth-century Ireland (also called the Potato Famine) changed the course of that nation’s history. Far greater famine will mark the tribulation period (Rev. 6:5–6), and contribute to the deaths of one fourth of the earth’s population (v. 8).

Terrors is a broad term encompassing events and experiences other than wars, earthquakes, plagues, and famine that produce fear. Among those terrors are the deadly fires that have always been a destructive part of human experience. Fires have damaged or destroyed numerous cities, including Rome, Constantinople, London (in 1135, 1212, 1666), Chicago, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Washington, D.C. (burned by the British during the War of 1812), Moscow, Montreal, Tokyo, New York, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Boston, Vancouver, Seattle, and Shanghai, among many others. In addition, bombing raids during the Second World War caused fires that severely damaged such cities as London, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki (the latter two caused by atomic bombs), as well as numerous other cities, primarily in Germany and Japan.

Wildfires have also scorched the planet with destruction. On the same day that the infamous urban Chicago fire started (October 8, 1871), the most deadly rural wildfire in US history, the Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin, broke out. It burned an estimated one million to three and a half million acres, destroyed the town of Peshtigo and a dozen other villages, and took the lives of an estimated fifteen hundred people. Also on that same day, a series of fires known collectively as the Great Michigan Fire damaged or destroyed several cities, towns, or villages. More than a million and a half acres were burned, and hundreds of people were killed. Ten years later another wildfire in that same part of Michigan burned over one million acres and took the lives of nearly three hundred people. A fire in 1910 burned more than three million acres in Idaho and Montana. Fires in 1982–1983 in Indonesia burned more than seven million acres; another outbreak in 1997–1998 consumed a staggering 24 million acres. The 1988 fire in Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding region scorched one and a half million acres. In the summer of 2011, more than twenty-one thousand fires raged across Texas, burning nearly four million acres and destroying approximately seven thousand homes.

Vast, incinerating fires, unprecedented in extent, will also be a weapon of God’s judgment during the tribulation. As a result of the first three trumpet judgments, fires will destroy one third of the earth, one third of the trees, and all the green grass, and will pollute one third of the sea and one third of the planet’s sources of fresh water (Rev. 8:6–11). Fire associated with the sixth trumpet will contribute to the deaths of one third of mankind (Rev. 9:17–18). Ultimately, evil angels and wicked men will be cast into the ultimate eternal fire of hell (Rev. 19:20; 20:10, 15).

The Lord also warned of great signs from heaven. Those signs include objects falling to earth from space, such as meteors or comet showers (Rev. 8:8, 10), along with atmospheric events, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, severe thunderstorms with large hail, flooding rains, blizzards, and lightning strikes. During the tribulation, those and even more terrifying signs will take place:

I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up. (Rev. 6:12–14)

The fourth angel sounded, and a third of the sun and a third of the moon and a third of the stars were struck, so that a third of them would be darkened and the day would not shine for a third of it, and the night in the same way. (Rev. 8:12)

The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. (Joel 2:31)

Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, cruel, with fury and burning anger, to make the land a desolation; and He will exterminate its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not flash forth their light; the sun will be dark when it rises and the moon will not shed its light. (Isa. 13:9–10)

Do not expect things to get better, Jesus warned. Conditions in the world will deteriorate as ours is a scarred, stained, cursed planet, suffering the consequences of the fall and groaning for its redemption (Rom. 8:22).

DISTRESS

But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for My name’s sake. It will lead to an opportunity for your testimony. So make up your minds not to prepare beforehand to defend yourselves; for I will give you utterance and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute. But you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death, and you will be hated by all because of My name. Yet not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives. (21:12–19)

Before all these things about which Jesus had just warned the disciples, the final, apocalyptic wars, earthquakes, plagues, famines, fires, and signs from heaven—the birth pains presaging His return—will come the persecution of believers. That persecution came first to those in the first century who heard this message.

And it came first from the Jewish people. As He had earlier done (Matt. 10:17), Jesus warned the disciples, “They (the Jews) will lay their hands on you (i.e., arrest them) and will persecute you.” The synagogues served as the local Jewish courts, and handled both civil and criminal cases. To be brought before the synagogue court was considered to be a humiliating and degrading experience. In those courts, Christ’s followers were to be flogged (Acts 5:40; 2 Cor. 11:24) and imprisoned (Acts 5:18; 8:3).

The early church faced Jewish persecution from the outset, as the book of Acts records. After Peter’s miraculous healing of a congenitally lame man (3:1–11) and the powerful evangelistic sermon that followed (vv. 12–26), the Jewish authorities arrested Peter and John, and imprisoned them (4:1–3). Threatened and jealous of the apostles’ continued popularity, the high priest and the Sadducees again “laid hands on the apostles and put them in a public jail” (Acts 5:18). Stephen was falsely accused (Acts 6:8–11), put on trial before the Sanhedrin (6:12–7:56), and stoned to death (7:57–60). In the aftermath of Stephen’s death, persecution, spearheaded by Saul of Tarsus, broke out against the church in Jerusalem (8:1–3). Currying favor with the Jews, Herod Agrippa I “laid hands on some who belonged to the church in order to mistreat them. And he had James the brother of John put to death with a sword. When he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also” (12:1–3). Paul faced persecution from his fellow Jews throughout his ministry (Acts 9:23–24, 29; 13:6–8; 45; 14:2, 19; 17:5, 13; 18:6, 12–16; 19:8–9; 20:3, 19; 21:27–32; 23:12–22; 25:2–3; 28:23–28; cf. 2 Cor. 11:24, 26).

Not only would Christ’s followers be persecuted by the Jews, but also by the Gentiles, as the phrase kings and governors indicates. Paul was imprisoned at least five times by the Romans (at Philippi [Acts 16:23–24], Jerusalem [Acts 22:24–29; 23:10, 18], Caesarea [Acts 23:35; 24:27], and twice at Rome [Acts 28:16–31; 2 Tim. 1:8]). Writing at the end of the first century, the church father Clement of Rome reported that the apostle had been imprisoned seven times. In addition to the floggings he received at the hands of the Jews, Paul was judicially sentenced to being beaten by the Romans at least three times (2 Cor. 11:25), only one of which is recorded in Acts (16:22, 37; cf. 1 Thess. 2:2). The last apostle was also brought before other pagan rulers, including the chief magistrates at Philippi (Acts 16:19–22), the proconsul Gallio at Corinth (Acts 18:12–16), the commander of the Roman cohort stationed in Jerusalem (Acts 21:31–33; 22:24–29), the Roman governors Felix (Acts 24:1–22) and Festus (Acts 25:1–12), King Herod Agrippa II (Acts 26:1–32), and Emperor Nero (Acts 25:11–12, 21; 27:24; 2 Tim. 4:16–17).

Official persecution of Christians began with the Romans. As I explained in an earlier volume in this series,

The Romans persecuted Christians for several reasons. At first, they viewed Christianity as merely another Jewish sect. Since Judaism was a legally tolerated religion (religio licita), the Romans left the Christians alone. Thus, when the Jews at Corinth accused Paul before the Roman proconsul Gallio, he refused to intervene, deeming the matter an internal dispute within Judaism (Acts 18:12–15).

Eventually the Jews’ hostility toward the Christians and the influx of Gentiles into the church led the Romans to recognize Christianity as distinct from Judaism. Christianity then became an illegal religion, proscribed by the Roman government. In addition to Christianity’s illegal status, several factors prompted Roman persecution. Politically, the Christians’ allegiance to Christ above Caesar aroused suspicions that they were disloyal to the state. To maintain control over their vast empire, the Romans required that their subjects’ ultimate loyalty be to the emperor as the embodiment of the Roman state. And since “there was a union of religion and state in ancient Rome … refusal to worship the goddess Roma or the divine emperor constituted treason” (Howard F. Vos, Exploring Church History [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994], 26). Because the Christians refused to make the required sacrifice offered in worship to the emperor, they were seen as traitors. They also proclaimed the kingdom of God, which caused the Romans to suspect them of plotting to overthrow the government. To avoid harassment by government officials, Christians often held their meetings in secret and at night. That heightened the Romans’ suspicions that they were hatching an anti-government plot. That Christians generally refused to serve in the Roman army also caused them to be viewed as disloyal.

The Romans also persecuted Christians for religious reasons. They allowed their subjects to worship whatever gods they liked, as long as they also worshiped the Roman gods. But Christians preached an exclusive message that there is only one God and only one way of salvation. That, coupled with their evangelistic efforts to win converts from other religions, went against the prevailing atmosphere of religious pluralism. Christians were denounced as atheists because they rejected the Roman pantheon of gods, and because they worshiped an invisible God, not an idol. The secrecy of the Christians’ meetings led to lurid, false rumors of gross immorality. Misunderstanding about what was meant by eating and drinking the elements during the Lord’s Supper led to charges of cannibalism. The Christians’ practice of greeting each other with a holy kiss (Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; 1 Thess. 5:26; cf. 1 Peter 5:14) gave rise to allegations of incest and other sexual perversions.

Socially, the leaders of Roman society feared the influence of the Christians on the lower classes, from whose ranks the church drew many of its members (cf. 1 Cor. 1:26). Haunted by the ever-present specter of slave revolts, the wealthy aristocrats felt especially threatened by the Christians’ teaching that all people are equal (Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11; cf. Paul’s letter to Philemon), though the church did not openly oppose slavery. Christians also held themselves aloof from much of the public life of the time. For obvious reasons, they could not be involved in the idolatrous temple worship that was such an important part of social life. But even sporting and theatrical events involved sacrifices to pagan deities that Christians could not participate in. The purity of their lives rebuked the debauched lifestyles of rich and poor alike and provoked further hostility (cf. 1 Peter 4:3–4).

Economic factors played an often overlooked role in the persecution of the early believers. Paul’s exorcism of a demon from a fortune-telling slave girl at Philippi caused her masters, incensed by the loss of the revenue she brought them, to stir up hostility against him (Acts 16:16–24). Economic factors also played a significant role in provoking the riot at Ephesus (Acts 19:23–27). Early in the second century Pliny, the Roman governor of Bithynia, lamented in a letter to Emperor Trajan that the spread of Christianity had caused the pagan temples to be deserted and sales of sacrificial animals to plummet. In that superstitious age people also attributed plague, famine, and natural disasters to the Christians’ forsaking of the traditional gods, prompting the Christian apologist Tertullian to remark sarcastically, “If the Tiber reaches the walls, if the Nile does not rise to the fields, if the sky doesn’t move or the earth does, if there is famine, if there is plague, the cry is at once, ‘Christians to the lion!’ What, all of them to one lion?” (Apology 40.2, as cited in M. A. Smith, From Christ to Constantine [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1973], 86).

For these and other reasons, Christianity became a hated and despised religious sect in the Roman Empire. In his letter to Emperor Trajan, Pliny scorned Christianity as a “depraved and extravagant superstition.” Pliny went on to complain that “the contagion of this superstition [Christianity] has spread not only in the cities, but in the villages and rural districts as well” (cited in Henry Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church [London: Oxford University Press, 1967], 4). The Roman historian Tacitus, a contemporary of Pliny, described Christians as “a class hated for their abominations” (cited in Bettenson, Documents, 2) while Suetonius, another contemporary of Pliny, dismissed them as “a set of men adhering to a novel and mischievous superstition” (cited in Bettenson, Documents, 2).

The first official persecution of Christians by the Roman government came during the reign of Emperor Nero. In July of A.D. 64 a fire ravaged Rome, destroying or damaging much of the city. Popular rumors pinned the blame for the fire on Nero. Though the rumors were probably not true, Nero sought for scapegoats to shift the suspicion away from himself. He therefore blamed the Christians, who were already despised by the populace (as the quotes in the preceding paragraph indicate), and began to savagely persecute them. Christians were arrested, cruelly tortured, thrown to wild animals, crucified, and burned as torches to light Nero’s gardens at night. The official persecution apparently was confined to the vicinity of Rome. But attacks on Christians undoubtedly spread, unchecked by the authorities, to other parts of the empire. According to tradition, Peter and Paul were martyred during Nero’s persecution.

Three decades later, during the reign of Emperor Domitian, another government-sponsored persecution of Christians broke out. Little is known of the details, but it extended to the province of Asia (modern Turkey). The apostle John was banished from Ephesus to the island of Patmos, and among those martyred was a man (probably a pastor) named Antipas (Rev. 2:13).

In the second century and the first half of the third century, official persecution of Christians was sporadic. During the reign of Emperor Trajan early in the second century, Pliny, in the letter mentioned earlier, asked Trajan how to deal with the Christians in his region. Trajan replied that they were not to be sought out, but if accused (Trajan instructed Pliny to ignore anonymous accusations), they were to be brought to trial. Those who refused to recant were to be punished. Though Trajan’s policy did not result in widespread persecution, it did result in the martyrdom of some, most notably the famous church father Ignatius. Trajan’s policy remained in force for several decades, until the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Under his rule the state took a more active role in ferreting out Christians. During his reign the famous Christian apologist Justin Martyr was executed, and a savage persecution broke out against the Christians in Lyons and Vienne in Gaul (modern France).

The first empire-wide persecution of the church took place under Emperor Decius in A.D. 250. Rome at that time faced serious internal (an economic crisis and various natural disasters) and external (barbarian incursions) problems. Decius was convinced that those difficulties resulted from the neglect of Rome’s ancient gods. He issued an edict requiring everyone to offer a sacrifice to the gods and to the emperor and to obtain a certificate attesting that they had done so. Those who refused faced arrest, imprisonment, torture, and execution. Thankfully for the church, Decius’s persecution was cut short by his death in battle in July, A.D. 251.

The final and most violent empire-wide persecution of the church began in A.D. 303, during the reign of Diocletian. This persecution was nothing less than an all-out attempt to exterminate the Christian faith. Diocletian issued a series of edicts ordering that churches be destroyed, all copies of the Bible be burned, and all Christians offer sacrifices to the Roman gods on pain of death. The persecution subsided when Constantine and his co-emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan (A.D. 313), granting freedom of worship to members of all religions. But Licinius reneged on the agreement and persecution continued in some parts of the empire. It was not until Constantine became sole emperor in A.D. 324 that Roman persecution of Christians ended permanently. (John 12–21, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary [Chicago: Moody, 2008], 167–70)

But persecution of believers did not end with the fall of the Roman Empire:

Under the Roman Catholic Church, which replaced Imperial Rome as the dominant power during the Middle Ages, persecution broke out anew. Ironically, this time the persecution against true believers came from those who called themselves “Christian.” The horrors of the Inquisition, the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, and the martyrdoms of many believers, epitomized the Roman Church’s effort to suppress the true gospel of Jesus Christ. More recently, believers have been brutally repressed by Communist and Islamic regimes. In fact, it has been estimated by none other than a Roman Catholic source that, in all of church history, roughly 70 million Christians have been killed for their profession of faith, with two-thirds of those martyrdoms occurring after the start of the twentieth century (Antonio Socci, I Nuovi Persequitati [The New Persecuted] Casale Montferrato: Edizioni Piemme, 2002). The actual number is likely much greater. The Catholic journalist cited in this news article estimates that an average of 100,000 Christians have been killed every year since 1990. (John 12–21, 170)

Christ’s warning of the persecution to come shocked the disciples, who were still expecting Him to inaugurate the golden age of the messianic kingdom. Incredibly, the very next evening, during the Last Supper they, unable to shake the persistent hope of the kingdom, bickered over which of them would be elevated to the greatest honor in the kingdom (Luke 22:24). There was no place in their theology or their minds for Messiah to be killed and His followers persecuted.

But persecution of Christians would have an outcome opposite what the enemies of Christ intended. Far from destroying the Christian faith, it would help spread the gospel by leading to an opportunity for believers’ gospel testimony. Over the centuries persecution has provided opportunities to proclaim the gospel, purified the church, and demonstrated the triumph of saving faith. As the late second and early third century Christian apologist Tertullian triumphantly wrote, “The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed” (Apology, chap. 50).

To those who might fear that they will not know what to say when on trial for their faith, Jesus promised, “Make up your minds not to prepare beforehand to defend yourselves; for I will give you utterance and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute” (cf. Matt. 10:17; Mark 13:11; Luke 12:11–12). That promise has been fulfilled repeatedly throughout history. The confident manner in which Peter and John addressed them amazed the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:13). Facing martyrdom Polycarp, the second-century bishop of Smyrna, when urged by the proconsul to deny Christ, replied, “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?” (The Encyclical Epistle of the Church at Smyrna Concerning the Martyrdom of the Holy Polycarp, chap. 9).

As he was about to be burned at the stake, the Czech reformer John Huss confidently proclaimed,

The Lord Jesus Christ, my Redeemer, was bound with a harder chain, and I, a miserable sinner, am not afraid to bear this one, bound as I am for his name’s sake. … In the same truth of the Gospel which I have written, taught, and preached, drawing upon the sayings and positions of the holy doctors, I am ready to die today. (David S. Schaff, John Huss, His Life, Teachings and Death After Five Hundred Years [New York: Scribners, 1915], 257)

As he stood before the emperor and the Diet (general assembly) of the Holy Roman Empire, having been ordered to recant his teaching, Martin Luther boldly declared,

Since then your serene majesty and your lordships seek a simple answer, I will give it in this manner, neither horned nor toothed: Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. I cannot do otherwise, here I stand, may God help me, amen. (Cited in Lewis W. Spitz, The Protestant Reformation 1517–1559 [New York: Harper & Row, 1985], 75)

The persecution believers endure, Jesus said, would be for His name’s sake. The risen, glorified Lord whom His enemies hate is beyond their reach. Driven by their animosity toward Him, they lash out instead at His followers. Even those closest to believers will turn against them; they will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends. Their persecutors will put some of them to death, and they will be hated by all because of the name of Jesus (cf. Matt. 10:22; Luke 6:22; John 15:18; 16:1–4).

In light of the deceivers, disasters, and distress in the form of persecution that Jesus warned were coming, the disciples must have wondered if their faith and cause would survive. So in the brief closing verses of this section, Jesus reassured them, and by extension all Christians, that it absolutely would. Despite the trials they would face, the Lord pledged to them, “Not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives.”

Those words introduce the vitally important subject of the permanence of salvation. The issue is whether a true believer, genuinely forgiven and granted regeneration and salvation by God from sin, death, and hell, can then behave in such a way as to have that salvation taken away by Him. Can a true believer forfeit the eternal life granted by God? The Westminster Confession of 1646, one of the most important doctrinal statements ever compiled, sums up the biblical teaching on this issue: “They, whom God has accepted in His Beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by His Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.”

Jesus repeatedly emphasized the permanence of salvation. In the familiar words of John 3:16–18, He made it clear that eternal life can never end. Those who possess it will neither perish, nor be judged. He told the Samaritan woman at the well, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life” (John 4:13–14). In John 5:24 He declared, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” Jesus is the bread of life, and those who come to Him for salvation will never again hunger or thirst spiritually (John 6:35). He unequivocally declared, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (v. 37), because it is “the will of [the] Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and [Christ Himself] will raise him up on the last day” (v. 40). His sheep have eternal life and will never perish, because no one has the power to take them away from either Him or the Father (John 10:27–29). Christ’s prayer to the Father that He keep those whom He had given to Him (John 17:11) is being answered.

The apostles also affirmed the truth that salvation is forever. Paul reminded the Corinthians that God “will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:8). To the Thessalonians he wrote, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass” (1 Thess. 5:23–24). In Romans 8:30 he described the unbreakable progression from predestination to effectual calling to justification to glorification, and eloquently pointed out the impossibility that anyone whose faith is genuine could ever be lost (vv. 31–39). In his first epistle Peter revealed the promise from the Holy Spirit that saving faith results in obtaining “an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for [those] who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1:4–5). Though they may be “distressed by various trials,” their faith, “even though tested by fire, [will] be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (vv. 6–7); Jude’s epistle concludes with a marvelous benediction that emphasizes the reality that salvation is absolutely permanent: “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen” (vv. 24–25).

Like all other elements of salvation, saving faith is a gift from God (Eph. 2:8–9). It is permanent, unfailing, and undying. Unlike human faith in the routine aspects of everyday life, which is based on natural experience, saving faith is supernatural and divine, so that it cannot wane or die; the nature or essence of the gift of the faith is that it endures.

But just as there have always been false believers, so also will there be in the future. In Matthew’s account of the Olivet Discourse, Jesus warned, “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold” (Matt. 24:12). John characterized those who appear to lose their faith as never truly possessing it: “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19).

Jesus’ promise to those whose faith is genuine, “Not a hair of your head will perish,” is a proverbial saying expressing safety and protection (cf. 1 Sam. 14:45; 2 Sam. 14:11; 1 Kings 1:52; Acts 27:34). Since He had just warned that believers would die in the coming persecutions, this cannot be a guarantee of absolute physical protection. The point of the saying is metaphoric—that though they may die physically, true believers will not perish spiritually.

Some have interpreted the Lord’s concluding statement, “By your endurance you will gain your lives,” as a reference to physical survival. That, however, reduces it to a meaningless tautology, saying in effect that those who do not die will not die. What Jesus was actually pointing out is that those whose trust in Christ endures to the end (cf. Matt. 10:22; 24:13), so that they do not fall away, prove that their faith is the authentic gift from God. Such will receive the final aspect of salvation, glorification, and live forever in the joy of God’s glorious kingdom.