CHAPTER 13
The Final Crisis Before the Appearing of Christ
The Covenant Crisis in Israel and the Climax of the Present Evil Age
Introduction
The True Shape of the End of This Age
When the Scriptures are read in their given order—Torah, Prophets, the teaching of the Lord Jesus, and the Apostolic writings—a coherent, steady pattern emerges concerning the end of “this present evil age” (Galatians 1:4). That pattern is very different from the dramatic, globalized, apocalyptic scenarios that have developed when the Book of Revelation is treated as the controlling blueprint for Christian eschatology. Once Revelation is set in its proper place, as a disputed and heavily symbolic early Christian writing that cannot be allowed to overturn the clear teaching of the rest of Scripture, the larger witness of the canon comes into focus.
The unified pattern that emerges from Moses, the Prophets, the Lord Jesus, and the Apostles can be summarized in this way. The end of this age is not defined by worldwide destruction, a distinct worldwide “tribulation period” uniquely targeting the Church, or the collapse of ordinary societal life. Instead, it is marked by an atmosphere of deceptive normalcy in which buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage, planting and building continue, even while lawlessness steadily increases and dulls moral perception. At the heart of this closing season stands a focused covenant crisis in Israel, centered not in the nations at large but in Judea—a crisis involving a sanctuary, a blasphemous ruler, and a sacrilegious act that defiles the holy place, bringing Israel’s long accountability under the Torah to its climax. Within this environment the Church, scattered among the nations, does not pass through a unique, globally orchestrated tribulation aimed specifically at Christians. Rather, it experiences deception, negligence, and widespread apostasy, as many professing believers are swept along by the spirit of the age instead of watching, overcoming, and preparing for the appearing of the Son of Man.
The Lord’s own comparisons underline this atmosphere of deceptive normalcy. He says that His day will be “as in the days of Noah” and “as in the days of Lot.” In Noah’s generation people ate and drank, married and were given in marriage; in Lot’s generation they ate and drank, bought and sold, planted and built. Life went on in its ordinary patterns until the very day judgment fell. The problem was not that visible catastrophe had already arrived, but that spiritual perception had been lost. The same pattern will mark the end of this age. The world will appear stable and functional; religious institutions will operate; people will plan for the future; many will say “peace and safety” and assume that present conditions will continue indefinitely. Yet this apparent normalcy will mask a deepening lawlessness and an approaching judgment.
In this way Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, the Lord Jesus, Paul, and Peter together affirm a single, integrated pattern. Their testimony reveals that the “great tribulation” is Israel’s covenant judgment, not the Church’s final persecution, and that the age does not wind down through a long series of symbolic stages but comes to its close in the sudden and radiant appearing of the Lord Jesus.
Daniel’s Prophetic Foundation: The Mediterranean Kingdoms and Israel’s Final Distress
The Great Sea and the Scope of Daniel’s Visions
The prophetic foundation for the end of the age is laid in the book of Daniel. From the beginning, the angel fixes the focus: the visions concern “your people” and “your holy city” (Daniel 9:24). Daniel is not being given a history of global geopolitics; he is being shown the succession of powers that dominate Israel’s world and the way in which those powers bear on the sanctuary and the covenant people.
Daniel 7 opens with a clear geographic marker: four winds stir up “the Great Sea,” and four beasts rise out of it (Daniel 7:2–3). Throughout the Torah and the Prophets, the “Great Sea” is the Mediterranean—the western boundary of Israel’s land, the sea that defines the horizon of Israel’s world (Numbers 34:6–7; Joshua 1:4; Ezekiel 47:10, 15, 20). Daniel’s beasts therefore arise from the Mediterranean world. They are the successive empires that rule the Near Eastern and Mediterranean region that directly affects Israel’s life under the covenant. When the text later speaks of these kingdoms ruling ‘over all the earth’ (Daniel 2:39), this universal language must be read in its ancient Near Eastern frame—just as Luke’s ‘all the world’ at the census of Augustus refers to the Roman oikoumenē (the inhabited imperial world), rather than the entire globe. Scripture often speaks of the “world” in terms of the inhabited sphere known to the biblical writers, the lands that surround Israel and bear on its covenant story.
Within this Mediterranean frame, Daniel sees the same four empires twice. In Chapter 2 they appear as the four metals of the statue revealed in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream; in chapter 7 they appear as four beasts rising from the Great Sea. In both visions, the fourth kingdom is the focus of the end.
The Four Kingdoms in Succession
Daniel first interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s statue. The head of gold is the king of Babylon, to whom the God of heaven has given a kingdom, power, strength, and glory, and into whose hand He has delivered wherever the children of men dwell within the sphere of that empire (Daniel 2:37–38). This is dominion in the Near Eastern and Mediterranean world: Mesopotamia, the Levant, and the territories surrounding Israel. The chest and arms of silver represent the Medo-Persian empire that succeeds Babylon and spreads from Iran through Mesopotamia, across Asia Minor and the Levant, and down into Egypt. The belly and thighs of bronze represent the Greek dominion under Alexander and his successors, whose rule and culture permeate the Mediterranean basin and the Near East. Scripture can say that each of these kingdoms rules “over all the earth” because each, in its time, dominates the whole of that known world around the Great Sea.
The fourth kingdom appears as legs of iron with feet and toes partly of iron and partly of clay. It is described as “strong as iron,” breaking in pieces and shattering everything, and crushing “all the others” (Daniel 2:40). In context, “all the others” are the previous empires within the same region. This fourth kingdom does not merely succeed the third; it overwhelms, absorbs, and tramples the remnants of Babylon, Persia, and Greece, integrating their lands and peoples into a single, unified Mediterranean empire.
From the vantage point of the New Covenant, this fourth kingdom is most naturally identified with Rome and its long legacy. Rome swallowed the Hellenistic kingdoms, encircled the entire Mediterranean, extended its rule deep into Europe, North Africa, and the Near East, took Judea under its authority, and eventually destroyed the Second Temple and scattered the Jewish people. Under Roman rule the Lord Jesus was condemned and crucified; at the height of Roman imperial unity He rose from the dead, ascended to the right hand of the Father, and received the kingdom as the Son of Man (Daniel 7:13–14; Acts 2:32–36).
The Fourth Kingdom’s Difference and Persistence
In Daniel 7 the fourth kingdom appears again, now as a beast “dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong,” with iron teeth devouring, crushing, and trampling what remains (Daniel 7:7, 19, 23). It is said to be “different” from all the beasts that preceded it. That difference includes its sheer strength, but also its capacity to integrate and endure. Rome did not simply demand tribute; it built roads, imposed law, organized administration, and established a civilizational pattern that continued long after the unified empire fractured. The imprint of Roman law, governance, and culture persisted in the Byzantine East, in the Latin West, and in the later Western nations that inherited its forms.
If Daniel, a sixth–century BC exile, was shown not only ancient Rome but the far downstream effects of this fourth kingdom—the forms of power, communication, surveillance, and warfare that would one day develop out of that legacy—it is not hard to see why the beast appeared to him “dreadful and terrible.” The text leaves room for a final configuration of this kingdom that would seem utterly alien to his world, yet still recognizably the heir of Rome.
At the same time, Daniel sees that this fourth kingdom does not remain a single, unified empire all the way to the end. In the statue, the iron legs eventually give way to feet and toes in which iron and clay are mixed. The angel explains that “the kingdom shall be divided,” partly strong and partly brittle, in a form where the parts do not cleave to one another (Daniel 2:41–43). In the beast vision, this divided remnant appears as ten horns upon the head of the fourth beast. The angel interprets: “The ten horns are ten kings who shall arise from this kingdom” (Daniel 7:24). These ten horns are not a fifth, separate empire; they are the final arrangement that arises out of the fourth kingdom itself. They belong to the same broader Mediterranean and European sphere once dominated by Rome, yet in a fractured, coalition form—still marked by “iron” strength in some respects, yet unstable and fragile like clay in others.
This ten-king configuration is the last political arrangement of the Roman-derived world-order at the end of this age. Whether the ten are individual nations, regional blocs, or heads of transnational structures, they stand within the historic sphere of Roman influence—the Mediterranean basin, Europe, and the Near Eastern lands that surround Israel.
The Little Horn: Final King of the Mediterranean Remnant
It is among these ten that Daniel sees another horn arise, “a little one,” which comes up among them and uproots three of the first horns (Daniel 7:8). At first it appears small and insignificant; yet it displaces other rulers and becomes greater than its companions. It has eyes like the eyes of a man, signaling intelligence and perception, and a mouth speaking “great things”—pompous, blasphemous words against the Most High (Daniel 7:8, 20, 25). The angel explains that this horn is “another” king who arises after the ten, different from the first ones, who subdues three kings (Daniel 7:24).
This “little horn” is thus a personal ruler who emerges from within the divided remnant of the fourth kingdom—a Mediterranean power figure who unseats other rulers and gathers authority into his own hand. He is the last king produced by the Roman-derived order, and he becomes the focal point of the final covenant crisis.
Daniel’s description of his actions is decisive. He speaks against the Most High, wears out the saints of the Most High, and intends to change “times and law” (Daniel 7:25). In Daniel’s context, “times and law” are not generic social customs; they refer first to the covenant calendar and ordinances given to Israel—the appointed feasts, sacrifices, and statutes of the Torah that order Israel’s worship. Later visions confirm this. Daniel sees a king who magnifies himself against the Prince of the host, takes away the daily sacrifice, casts down the sanctuary, and throws truth to the ground (Daniel 8:11–12). He hears that sacrifice and sanctuary will be trampled for an appointed period (Daniel 8:13–14). He is told that a covenant will be confirmed with many for one “week,” that in the middle of that week sacrifice and offering will cease, and that on the wing of abominations one who makes desolate will stand until the decreed end (Daniel 9:27). He watches a king who profanes the sanctuary fortress, abolishes the daily sacrifice, and sets up the abomination that makes desolate (Daniel 11:31). He hears that from the time the daily sacrifice is taken away and the abomination is set up, one thousand two hundred and ninety days will pass (Daniel 12:11).
Every structural element binds this crisis to Israel, Jerusalem, and the sanctuary. The fourth kingdom arises from the Great Sea and dominates the Mediterranean world. Its ten-horned remnant provides the final Gentile backdrop. The little horn emerges among those powers, yet directs his campaign specifically against Israel’s covenant life: against the sanctuary, the sacrifices, the appointed times, and the people called “holy” under the Torah. The time of unparalleled distress that follows is explicitly “for your people” and “your holy city” (Daniel 12:1; 9:24). In Daniel’s horizon, the “saints of the Most High” are Israel in their covenant calling, and the “time of trouble such as never was” is the climactic discipline of that nation under the Law.
At the same time, Daniel also sees that not all within this covenant community share the same outcome. Many within Israel fall; a purified remnant is delivered, written in the book; and at the end “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,” some to life in the Age to Come, others to shame and contempt in that same age (Daniel 12:1–2). Later revelation makes clear that those who finally receive the kingdom with the Son of Man are the faithful—from Israel and from the nations—who are counted worthy of the Age to Come and the resurrection of life (Luke 20:35). Daniel’s “saints” who inherit the kingdom (Daniel 7:18, 22, 27) are thus, in New Covenant terms, those believers who are united to the Lord Jesus and glorified at His appearing.
Even so, the shape of the crisis remains fixed: a fourth kingdom arising from the Mediterranean world, persisting in a fragmented form until the end; a final king, the little horn, arising from that remnant; a literal sanctuary in Judea; the removal of its sacrifices; the setting up of an abomination that desecrates it; and an unparalleled time of trouble for Israel under the Torah. This is the crisis the Lord Jesus will later identify as the “great tribulation.” It is the only tribulation Scripture ever calls by that name.
The Lord Jesus Confirms Daniel and Locates the Crisis in Judea
When the Lord Jesus teaches about the end of the age, He does not introduce a new scheme. He explicitly affirms Daniel and locates the decisive crisis in the land of Israel. “When you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place,” He says, “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains” (Matthew 24:15–16). His language is deliberate. He speaks of “the holy place” using the ordinary term for a consecrated physical location. He describes the abomination as “standing,” using a verb form that suggests a fixed, installed presence, not a passing metaphor. And He directs His warning to a specific population in a specific region: “those who are in Judea.”
The danger He describes is not everywhere in the world at once, but concentrated in the land around the sanctuary. Those on the housetop in that region are not to go down to gather possessions; those in the field are not to return home for a cloak. Pregnant women and nursing mothers in those days are to be pitied. The instructions are the language of immediate, physical flight from a localized danger. The Lord Jesus does not issue a call for global evacuation, nor does He frame this tribulation as a worldwide assault on Christians. He speaks as Israel’s Messiah about a covenant crisis in Israel’s land.
The larger discourse underscores the atmosphere in which this crisis unfolds. The Lord compares the days before the revealing of the Son of Man to the days of Noah and the days of Lot (Matthew 24:37–39; Luke 17:26–30). In both cases He emphasizes not visible chaos but ordinary life. People are eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, buying and selling, planting and building. Society continues its ordinary rhythms. Life appears “business as usual.” Yet in Noah’s time the earth was already filled with violence and the imaginings of the heart were continually evil; in Lot’s time the outcry of Sodom’s wickedness had reached heaven. The evil was real; the judgment was near; but the visible texture of daily life remained largely unchanged until the day the ark’s door closed and the day Lot left the city.
So it will be at the end of this age. Ordinary activities will continue; the world will feel stable; the sense of crisis will not be universal. People will say “peace and safety” even as sudden destruction stands at the door (1 Thessalonians 5:3). In Judea, a sanctuary will be restored, sacrifices renewed, and feasts observed. Many will assume that the visible re-establishment of temple service signals covenant blessing. Yet all of this will be taking place without repentance toward the true Messiah and outside the New Covenant in His blood. Into that setting, the abomination of desolation will be set up in the holy place, and the covenant crisis Daniel foresaw will reach its peak.
Quoting Daniel 12:1, the Lord declares: “Then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21). By echoing Daniel’s wording, He ties His “great tribulation” directly to Daniel’s “time of trouble” for “your people” and “your holy city.” Jeremiah had already spoken of this as “the time of Jacob’s trouble,” yet promised that “he shall be saved out of it” (Jeremiah 30:7). Zechariah likewise saw a refining fire coming upon the land in which two thirds would be cut off and perish while a third is brought through, refined as silver and tested as gold, calling on the name of the Lord and being owned by Him as His people (Zechariah 13:8–9). The Lord Jesus speaks in this same prophetic voice. The great tribulation He warns of belongs first and foremost to Jacob, to Israel under the Law, in the land of Judea.
The Church is not a Sinai nation. It does not possess a physical holy place on earth. It is never told to flee from Judea. Its calling is heavenly, its sanctuary is above, and its members are scattered among the nations. The “great tribulation” that the Lord and Daniel describe is therefore not the climactic suffering of the Church but the final covenant judgment of Israel under the Torah, out of which a purified remnant will be saved and the stage set for the appearing of the Son of Man.
Paul’s Apostolic Expansion: The Man of sin and the Defiled Sanctuary
Paul takes up this prophetic pattern and unfolds it further for a New Covenant audience. Writing to the Thessalonians about the appearing of the Lord and “our gathering together to Him,” he warns that this Day will not come “unless the falling away comes first and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition” (2 Thessalonians 2:3). He describes this figure as one who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, and who sits in the temple of God, displaying himself as God (2 Thessalonians 2:4).
The word Paul uses for “temple” is naos, the term for the inner sanctuary—the holy place and the most holy place—rather than the larger precincts. Elsewhere he uses this same word to describe believers and the Church as God’s dwelling in the Spirit, revealing the high calling of the faithful to become an inner-sanctuary people in union with Christ (1 Corinthians 3:16–17; Ephesians 2:21–22). In those passages, naos is figurative, showing the Church’s destiny as the true house of God.
Here, however, the surrounding prophetic pattern draws the reference back to a literal sanctuary in Judea. Paul writes in continuity with Daniel’s visions of a holy place where daily sacrifices are taken away and abominations are set up, and with the Lord’s warning about “the holy place” in which the abomination stands (Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11; Matthew 24:15–16). In this context, naos refers to a restored inner sanctuary in Jerusalem. Paul is not saying that the man of sin will sit mystically in the midst of the global Church; he is saying that this ruler will occupy the physical inner sanctuary, taking the seat that belongs to the God of Israel alone.
Paul’s description deliberately gathers Daniel’s images into a single apostolic portrait. The “little horn” who speaks great words against the Most High, wears out the saints, changes times and law, removes the daily sacrifices, and sets up the abomination of desolation (Daniel 7:8, 20–25; 8:11–13; 9:27; 11:31; 12:11) is the same person Paul calls “the man of sin” and “the son of perdition.” His lawlessness is not merely general immorality; it is covenantal, it consists in overturning, from within, the Law of God entrusted to Israel. He takes the very institutions of the Torah and rewrites them around himself.
The Lord Jesus had already warned Israel’s leaders, “I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive” (John 5:43). Paul shows that this “other” is the man of sin. He arises out of the Mediterranean remnant of the fourth kingdom, within the ten-horned arrangement of power, yet he presents himself as an insider to Israel’s covenant life—a leader welcomed by many in Israel, perhaps as a protector or even as a messianic figure, who then uses that position to expropriate the sanctuary and enthrone himself in the holy place.
Scripture does not specify whether this ruler is ethnically Jewish or a Gentile who has entered Judaism. Daniel presents him as a king of the fourth kingdom; Paul places him in the Jewish sanctuary; the Lord’s warning suggests that many in Israel will receive him in place of the true Messiah. The safest description is that he is a covenant insider: a man recognized within the religious world of Israel who uses his standing to desecrate the holy place and overturn the covenant order.
Paul also introduces the reality of restraint. He teaches that the “mystery of lawlessness” is already at work, but that it is presently being held back until the one who restrains is removed; only then will the lawless one be revealed, whom the Lord will destroy by the breath of His mouth and by the brightness of His appearing (2 Thessalonians 2:7–8). Scripture does not plainly identify the restrainer. Some have seen in this the Spirit’s particular restraining ministry, others the preserving presence of the faithful, others the order of civil authority, and others simply the sovereign decree that fixes the appointed time. What is clear is that the restraint is providential. The man of sin does not break through by his own brilliance or strength; he is allowed to be revealed when God determines that the hour has come. Even in the manifestation of open rebellion, God remains Lord of the timing.
Paul emphasizes that the unveiling of this ruler will be accompanied by powerful deception. The man of sin will come “according to the working of Satan,” with all kinds of power, signs, and lying wonders, and with every form of unrighteous deception among those who are perishing (2 Thessalonians 2:9–10). Yet the deeper root of this deception lies in the human response to truth. Those who are deceived are those who did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved, but took pleasure in unrighteousness. Because they rejected the love of the truth, God gives them over to a strong delusion so that they believe the lie (2 Thessalonians 2:10–12). The final lawless one does not appear in a vacuum; he embodies and concentrates a lawlessness that has been working in hidden form throughout the age—the “mystery of lawlessness”—and he finds his audience among those who have already chosen lies over truth.
In this way Paul shows that the man of sin and the abomination in the sanctuary are not an isolated aberration at the end of history, but the mature fruit of a process that has been at work throughout this age. The “mystery of lawlessness” has already been advancing quietly in doctrine, by diluting and twisting the apostolic gospel; in worship, by retaining religious forms while losing the fear of God and the obedience of faith; and in Christian living, by redefining sin, excusing disobedience, and accommodating the flesh. In the man of sin this hidden rebellion comes to harvest as the final outworking of Adamic corruption: the spirit of rebellion that has long worked in the “sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2) reaches full, unveiled expression in one man, who embodies it and enthrones himself in the holy place, turning the restored covenant order toward himself. At that moment the Lord Jesus will appear, and in a single instant the long-growing revolt will be brought to its end, even as the Spirit of grace brings the faithful to full, unveiled likeness to the Last Adam at His appearing.
The Great Tribulation as Israel’s Covenant Judgment
Because the Lord Jesus explicitly quotes Daniel 12:1 when He speaks of the “great tribulation,” the covenantal nature of that tribulation is firmly established. Daniel’s “time of trouble such as never was” concerns “your people” and “your holy city.” Jeremiah names it “the time of Jacob’s trouble.” Zechariah sees it as a refining fire in “all the land” of Israel. In every case the focus is Israel as the nation placed under the Torah, bearing covenant responsibility before God.
Israel is the firstborn nation, the only people to have stood at Sinai and said “All that the LORD has spoken we will do” (Exodus 19:8). They received the Law, the promises, the covenants, the sanctuary service. They also broke that covenant and suffered repeated judgments under its terms. Yet their covenant accountability did not end with the exile, nor with the destruction of the Second Temple. As long as Israel seeks to stand before God on Sinai ground, clinging to the Torah apart from the New Covenant in Christ, Israel is accountable to the blessings and curses of that Law.
The great tribulation is the final, concentrated expression of that accountability. It is the last sifting of Jacob under the Law before the Lord appears. A remnant within Israel will be preserved and refined through this fire, calling on the name of the Lord and being acknowledged by Him as His people; many others will fall under judgment. The Church, by contrast, is not placed under Sinai. It is not a nation with a land-covenant, an earthly sanctuary, and a calendar of feasts. Its relation to the Law is different. It is not called to flee from Judea when the abomination is set up. It participates in this crisis indirectly—through prayer, through witness, and through the inward sifting of its own members—but the “time of Jacob’s trouble” is not a final “tribulation of the Church.” It is the last covenant judgment of Israel under the Law.
The Church’s Experience at the End: Deception, False Peace, and Spiritual Negligence
While Israel passes through this covenant crisis in Judea, the Church scattered among the nations faces a different, equally serious trial. The Lord Jesus does not present a distinct, end-time global persecution of Christians as the defining mark of the close of the age. Persecution is a constant reality for the faithful: “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33). In some places and times it intensifies; in others it lessens. But the unique feature of the end is not a universal spike of suffering; it is a universal spread of deception and spiritual lethargy.
The Lord’s warnings to His disciples in the Olivet discourse begin with deception. “See that no one deceives you,” He says, “for many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many” (Matthew 24:4–5). Later He warns that many false prophets will arise and deceive many, and that because lawlessness will increase, the love of many will grow cold (Matthew 24:11–12). The danger is not merely that open enemies of God will attack the Church from outside, but that false teachers and false prophets will arise within the visible Christian sphere, speaking in the Lord’s name, performing signs and wonders, and leading multitudes astray. He even says that false christs and false prophets will show great signs and wonders so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect (Matthew 24:24). Miraculous phenomena, therefore, are no guarantee of truth; they must be tested by the apostolic gospel in the written Word.
Paul echoes this emphasis. He speaks of a coming “falling away,” using the word that denotes not mere drifting but deliberate rebellion—a departure from the faith once professed (2 Thessalonians 2:3). He describes people who do not receive the love of the truth, who reject sound doctrine, and who prefer teachings that suit their desires. He warns Timothy that in the latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons (1 Timothy 4:1), and that a time will come when people will not endure sound teaching but will accumulate teachers to tell them what they want to hear, turning their ears away from the truth and turning aside to myths (2 Timothy 4:3–4). He portrays an environment in which religious forms continue—people have a “form of godliness”—but the power of godliness is denied in practice (2 Timothy 3:5).
This is the Church’s distinctive crisis at the end of the age. Outward structures may remain intact. Meetings may be held, ministries may function, songs may be sung. Yet beneath the surface, love grows cold, truth is traded for pleasant illusions, holiness is neglected, and watchfulness for the Lord’s appearing is lost. The parable of the ten virgins shows all ten—wise and foolish alike—falling asleep while the bridegroom delays (Matthew 25:1–5). The parable of the talents shows a servant judged not for enduring suffering, but for fear, laziness, and refusal to trade with what was entrusted to him (Matthew 25:26–30). The danger is not primarily being crushed by external pressure, but being lulled into inactivity by internal complacency.
At the same time, the “mystery of lawlessness” is at work. Long before the man of sin is revealed, the spirit that will culminate in him is already reshaping doctrine, morality, and worship. It undermines Scripture’s authority, suggesting that the Word of God is partial, unreliable, or subject to the veto of culture. It renames sin as freedom or authenticity, dissolving the categories of good and evil. It exalts human autonomy, teaching that each person may be a law to himself. It often advances not through obvious revolt but through gradual erosion—small compromises, tolerated errors, unaddressed leaven. False teachers arise “from among you,” speaking twisted things to draw disciples after themselves (Acts 20:29–30). Destructive heresies are brought in secretly, and many follow, so that the way of truth is slandered because of them (2 Peter 2:1–2). In this way, the hidden operation of rebellion prepares the ground for the final open manifestation in the man of sin.
For the faithful, the call is clear. They must receive and keep a love for the truth, not merely a bare knowledge of it. They must test the spirits and test every teaching by the Scriptures. They must guard their own hearts against the cooling of love and the spread of lawlessness. And they must live in watchful expectation, ordering their lives in the light of the appearing of the Lord Jesus and the resurrection of life, rather than in the light of a presumed long future in this age (for more on this see Appendix E).
The Appearing of the Lord Jesus Ends the Crisis Instantly
The appearing of the Lord Jesus—the epiphaneia—is the decisive moment that ends both the covenant crisis of Israel and the Church’s age-long trial. Paul teaches that the Lord will destroy the man of sin with the breath of His mouth and bring him to nothing by the brightness of His appearing (2 Thessalonians 2:8). Daniel saw the same moment in the heavenly realm: the heavenly court sits, the books are opened, the little horn’s dominion is removed and destroyed, and the kingdom already given to the Son of Man in His exaltation is publicly enforced and shared with the saints of the Most High (Daniel 7:9–10, 22, 26–27).
Peter describes this Day of the Lord as coming like a thief in the night, in which the heavens pass away with a great roar, the elements are loosed, and the earth and the works in it are exposed (2 Peter 3:10–12). The Lord Himself says His coming will be like lightning that flashes from one end of the sky to the other, sudden, visible, unmistakable (Matthew 24:27). There is nothing gradual or hidden about this appearing. It is a single, cosmic moment in which the present age comes to its end and the Seventh Day, the Day of the Lord, begins.
At that appearing, all who are in the graves hear His voice and come forth, as He Himself declared (John 5:28–29). In that one hour the resurrection divides immediately into two destinies. Those who have done good—those whose souls have been saved through obedience to the truth, who have walked by the Spirit and persevered in faith—enter the resurrection of life. They receive celestial, incorruptible bodies, are caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and are brought into the Heavenly Jerusalem and the heavenly court as the Royal Priesthood for the Seventh Day (1 Corinthians 15:50–53; 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). They stand with the Son of Man in the inner sanctuary above, sharing His rule and waiting before Him until the restoration is complete.
Those who have done evil, unfaithful believers who walked according to the flesh and neglected the salvation of their souls, along with the ungodly who rejected God, enter the resurrection of judgment. They stand before the Lord in mortal bodies, are judged according to their works, and are delivered into the corrective disciplines of the Seventh Day. The earth becomes the furnace of Gehenna, the purging field of God’s holy fire, where the remaining Adamic corruption is burned away and the stubborn are brought, through severe mercy, to the end of their rebellion.
Conclusion
The Unified Scriptural Portrait
When the Scriptures are allowed to interpret one another in their given order, without being overridden by speculative readings of Revelation, the portrait of the end of this age is neither chaotic nor obscure. It is remarkably coherent.
Daniel shows four Mediterranean empires rising from the Great Sea and dominating Israel’s world. The fourth, Rome and its continuing legacy, is “different” from the rest: stronger, more integrated, more enduring. Over time it reappears as a divided order of ten kings that still carries the iron of Roman influence but no longer shares its former unity. From among these ten arises a final king, the little horn, who speaks against the Most High, changes times and law, removes the daily sacrifice, profanes the sanctuary, and sets up the abomination that makes desolate. The crisis he initiates is the “time of trouble” for Daniel’s people and city, the climax of Israel’s accountability under the Torah.
The Lord Jesus confirms Daniel and locates this crisis in Judea. He warns of the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place and instructs those in Judea to flee. He identifies this moment as the great tribulation by quoting Daniel 12:1. At the same time, He describes the end as days like those of Noah and Lot: ordinary life continuing while judgment approaches, an atmosphere in which many say “peace and safety” and are surprised by sudden destruction.
Paul then gathers Daniel and the Lord Jesus into his teaching on the man of sin. This man, the son of perdition, arises from the Mediterranean remnant of the fourth kingdom, sits in the inner sanctuary of God in Judea, exalts himself above every so-called god, and embodies the age-long mystery of lawlessness in one final, concentrated form. He deceives those who refused to love the truth and preferred unrighteousness. Yet his revelation is limited and his end is certain: the Lord Jesus will destroy him by the word of His mouth and the brightness of His appearing.
While Israel passes through this covenant crisis, the Church faces its own end-time test: not a distinct worldwide tribulation uniquely targeting Christians, but the spread of deception, false confidence, moral collapse, and spiritual sleep. Forms of godliness persist while its power is denied. Many fall away from the faith; false prophets multiply; the love of many grows cold. The mystery of lawlessness works in hidden ways, undermining Scripture, reshaping morality, exalting self-rule, preparing the way for the final open rebellion.
All of this converges at the appearing of the Lord Jesus. In that pivotal moment, the man of sin is consumed, and Israel’s great tribulation reaches its inevitable conclusion, leading to the salvation of a faithful remnant. The Church’s period of waiting is over; the faithful are glorified; the falsehoods are exposed and judged. The present heavens begin to pass away, and the Seventh Day, the sabbath-long age of judgment, begins.
With the crisis defined and the distinct roles of Israel, the Church, and the nations clearly distinguished, we are now prepared to consider the appearing of the Lord Jesus Himself—the hinge of the ages and the central event upon which the entire order of judgment and restoration depends.
Restoration Theology Press 