For many shall come in my name, saying, *I* am the Christ, and they shall mislead many.
The disciples had asked when the temple would fall and what would signal the close of the age. The Lord's first answer is not an event but a danger: people will use His name to pull others away, and many will fall for it.
The disciples asked for signs. The Lord starts instead with a danger they must guard against:
The Lord does not answer the disciples' question at once. Instead He warns them about the dangers they would meet in their service after He left them. Satan would raise up false Christs to deceive the Jews, and many would be taken in. They would have to be on their guard.
The warning fits people who are waiting for the Messiah to appear on earth. That is why commentators tie it to a faithful Jewish remnant rather than to the church:
The Epistles never really carry this kind of thought — a warning against false Christs — because they are written to Christians, and a Christian could not be fooled by a man's claim to be Christ... These disciples stood for the godly remnant of the nation, who were looking for the Messiah to bring in glory. So the Lord warns them: if anyone stood up among them saying, "I am Christ," they were not to believe him.
Another writer turns the point around. Their hope is right, and that is what leaves them open:
The godly remnant will be right to look for Christ to appear on the earth, so a report that He had come could easily fool them.
Kelly then names the deceit Christians have to watch for instead:
The great thing that marks the Church out is the presence of the Holy Spirit. So the deceit we have to watch against is false spirits, not false Christs, though there are many antichrists... What gives Satan power over someone who claims the name of Christ is allowing sin. Satan has not one atom of power against a child of God who is looking to Jesus. But where self is allowed, it is an opening for Satan to come in.
Refusing the real Messiah does not leave a person neutral; it leaves an empty place. One writer traces the deceit back to what the heart already wanted:
They received glory from one another. They did not seek it from God. They had not the love of God. So they would not receive the One who came in His Father's name. But that would hand them over to the Antichrist. He will come in his own name, doing his own will, and they will welcome him. It is a solemn thing to realize, and yet completely certain: everything that would displace Christ in the soul makes room for the Antichrist.
Daniel's seventieth week is a seven-year period named by the prophet Daniel. One writer places verses 5–8 in its first half, while noting that the same things show up more widely:
He warns them not to be fooled by the lies of the many who would come claiming to be Christ. These verses 5-8 apply in particular to the first three and a half years of Daniel's seventieth week. Yet of course similar things have appeared in our own age too... These things would be only the beginning of sorrows, signs of things more serious to come.
History shows the warning was needed. One writer names an early case:
In A.D. 131 a fanatical deceiver, Bar-chobab, arose, giving himself out to be the promised Messiah.
Other imposters are less obvious. They never claim the title, yet they take His place:
Many have already come claiming to be Christ. Some of them do not use this exact title, yet they lift themselves into the place that belongs to the Lord Jesus alone. They have deceived many. These first words of the Lord's prophecy have already been fulfilled again and again.
The Lord warned us ahead of time. So if a lie catches us, the fault is ours:
When it comes to prophecy there are countless deceptions. But if we are deceived, we are to blame, for God is not deceived. Honest fellowship with Him, staying under His Word, will keep us safe.
- Rejection — Turn down the true Christ, and the search does not stop. Whatever displaces Him in the soul makes room for the fake.
- Imitation — The deceiver borrows His name. Many come claiming the title, and others take His place without ever saying the word.
- Expectation — The warning fits people who are right to look for Messiah on earth. A true hope, aimed at the wrong man, is the deceiver's opening.
- Multiplication — "Many" come and "many" are led away. This is only the beginning of sorrows, and heavier things follow.
- Preservation — God is not deceived. Honest fellowship with Him, staying under His Word, keeps you. We were warned, so we have no excuse.
But ye will hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that ye be not disturbed; for all [these things] must take place, but it is not yet the end.
Jesus is speaking about what lies ahead. His first words are not a timetable. They are a warning against two things: being fooled, and being frightened. He names wars, and even the talk of wars, before they happen. Then He takes away the one meaning people most want to give them.
The Lord guards His hearers at two points before He gives any sign. One writer sets the two side by side:
Notice that our Lord gives two great moral warnings. First, they were to beware of a true hope wrongly applied. The Jews ought to be looking for Christ, and false Christs would exploit that by claiming to be Christ. Second, the enemy, who knows how to use such circumstances, might terrify them. So verse 6 guards them against alarm.
Where the ESV says "alarmed," the older translation this writer used says "troubled." The word does not describe wrong hope. It describes a mind shaken by present trouble:
Matthew 24:6 and Mark 13:7 use "be troubled" in exactly the same sense as here: present troubles should not make them think the end is near, or the day of the Lord come. In neither case is it wrong expectation. It is trouble from present circumstances, alarming the mind and taking away its security, so that it fears as if the day of the Lord were already here. "When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, see that you are not troubled." The trouble plainly came from disturbing causes at work and felt at the time.
The Lord takes away their alarm for a practical reason. Upheaval is no sign that He is about to appear, so His servants can stay at their posts:
Besides the false Christs, political unrest, restlessness, real wars and rumours of them would draw attention and mark the state of things on earth. But the disciples were not to be troubled. All this would happen; these things were no signs of His coming; the end was not yet. So the Lord provides what would guide and strengthen His witnesses, keeping them calm and steady in their places... He gives them the kind of instruction that would keep them calm in service — not stirred up by circumstances or by false hopes, not saying, "Look, here!" or "Look, there!", not shaken by what shook the world. They might still serve quietly on.
The word translated "must" carries the weight of what God has appointed:
The Greek word dei is the more general word. It points to any kind of necessity: what lies in the nature of the case, or, in particular, what comes about by God's appointment. That last sense gives it greater strength, and "must" is its most common translation... These passages, out of many, show the necessity established by the will and word of God: Matt. 16:21; Matt. 17:10; Matt. 24:6...
That necessity has a cause. Peace on earth waits for the King, not for human progress:
Moral improvement, truth winning the day, peace for mankind — these were still misleading dreams, and they were to be on their guard against them. His own rejection would open the door for many false claimants to lead many astray. Wars and their rumours would be heard. Only when He takes His great power and reigns could it be otherwise, as Isaiah predicts.
So which "end" has not yet come? One writer marks off two different comings:
Notice that this chapter deals with a "beginning of sorrows" and the "time of the end." Wars and disasters are "the beginning of sorrows," "but the end is not yet" (vv. 6-8)... "The end" is not the end of the church period described in 1 Thess. 4:15-18 when the Lord comes for the church, but the end of the age when the Lord comes and appears to the world.
Who was the Lord speaking to? One writer draws a sharp line:
But the passage we are looking at does not speak of Christians. It speaks of the Jewish disciples as they were then, and as they will be... Do we ever find the apostles saying, "The end is not yet," about us? On the contrary, 1 Cor. 10 says of us that "the ends of the world have come upon us." But when the Lord speaks to the Jewish remnant, He says, "the end is not yet" — because many things must still happen before the Jews can come into their blessing.
- Deceived, then dismayed. Two dangers come first. False Christs claim a real hope. The enemy stirs real fear through events.
- Alarmed. The word means a mind shaken by present trouble into thinking the day of the Lord has come. It is not wrong expectation, but lost security.
- Must. The upheavals are not accidents. The "must" is the necessity established by the will and word of God.
- Not yet. Wars are the beginning of sorrows, not the signal of His appearing. So the answer to alarming news is steady, quiet service.
- Then peace. Lasting peace waits for the King to reign. Hopes of peace through human improvement are the dreams the Lord warned about.
For nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places.
Jesus is answering His disciples' question about the sign of His coming and the end of the age. He starts with troubles the world has always known — war, hunger, shaking ground. Why do such ordinary miseries count as prophecy? And are this year's headlines what He meant?
The wording describes the exact reverse of what the prophets had promised for the kingdom:
The new age is not yet come, nor can it while the Lord Jesus is away. Whatever men promise and hope for, their scheming will not succeed. All their expectations must prove false. "Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom"; that is to say, a state quite contrary to what is held out for the kingdom. The prophets glowed as they looked forward in the Spirit to the time when "the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains... and all the nations shall flow to it. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem" (Isaiah 2:2-3).
These are not random misfortunes. One writer ties them to the judgments God sends when He steps into human affairs:
...The four judgments of God on earth; Ezek. 14:21. They are the four deadly plagues which God sends to carry out His judgments. Here it is something that stamps God's character on the state of things in the prophetic earth. It shows that He is intervening. Men should pay attention to this; Matt. 24:5-8.
Writers read the shaking on two levels — the ground itself, and what it pictures:
In the future judgments on the earth, earthquakes are often mentioned. Isa. 29:6; Matt. 24:7; Mark 13:8; Rev. 6:12... As symbols they point to an uprising of the lower classes of society, overturning the social order in part or in full.
Verse 8 tells us how to read verse 7. The word it uses there carries one picture:
The Greek word translated "birth pains" occurs only four times in the New Testament. It refers literally to the pangs of a woman in childbirth, in which sense it occurs in 1 Thess. 5:3; twice it refers to the pangs that will seize the wicked when God's judgments are poured out upon the earth, Matt. 24:8; Mark 13:8; and once in reference to the pains of death endured by the Lord. Acts 2:24.
Labour pain points forward. That is the hope buried inside the catalogue of disasters:
He gives them, though, a very significant character: they are the beginning of labour pains. It is as if nature were pressing on to the birth of a new and better time, unable to rest content with the present evil. Nor is there anything forced in this... The apostle says: "For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now" (Rom. 8:22).
Commentators differ on how far verse 7 reaches into the present day. Older translations also read "famines and pestilences and earthquakes" here. Some tie verses 5-8 to a set future period, with echoes in our own time:
These verses 5-8 apply in a special way to the first three and a half years of Daniel's seventieth week. Even so, similar things have been seen in our own age... Famines, pestilences and earthquakes would occur in many places. These things would be only the beginning of sorrows, signs of things more serious to come.
Others hold that no war so far has matched the words of the text:
In a general way you could predict wars for the whole period of the world's existence. But this prophecy speaks of something special. There is not now, nor has there been, any condition that would fulfil the language of the text.
The verse also closes a door on a popular hope:
Men vainly dream of a new order, and are busy with their plans to end war and establish a world marked by peace and safety. But the world is not improving through the efforts of men. These prophecies teach that the evils of the world will increase. In the end all mere religious profession heads up in apostasy under Antichrist, and the government of the world becomes utterly corrupt under the rule of the beast energised by Satan.
- Contrast — Isaiah promised that nations would flow to God's house. "Nation against nation" is the mirror image: the kingdom has not yet come.
- Cause — Famine and earthquake are not accidents. They are plagues God sends, and they show that He is stepping in.
- Pain — The Greek word here is the word for a woman's labour pains. Creation strains toward a birth, not toward a death.
- Timing — Commentators differ. Some place verses 5-8 in a set future period, with echoes now. Others hold that no age yet has matched the wording.
- Warning — Man's plans for world peace without Christ's return run against this verse. The birth still lies ahead of the pangs.
But all these [are the] beginning of throes.
The disciples had asked Jesus what would signal His coming and the close of the age. His answer lists wars, famine and earthquakes. Then He calls the whole list a beginning. A beginning of what — and how far off is the end?
The word the Lord uses is not a general word for trouble. One study of the New Testament words for pain sets it apart:
The Greek word odin occurs only four times in the New Testament. Its literal sense is the pangs of a woman in childbirth, and it carries that sense in 1 Thessalonians 5:3. Twice it refers to the pangs that will seize the wicked when God pours out His judgements on the earth: Matthew 24:8 and Mark 13:8. Once it refers to the pains of death the Lord endured, Acts 2:24.
The word "beginning" sets a limit. The Lord points to a different marker for the start of the end:
Notice that this chapter deals with a "beginning of sorrows" and the "time of the end." Wars and disasters are "the beginning of sorrows," "but the end is not yet" (vv. 6-8). Further on, the Lord says the time of the end will start when the gospel of the kingdom is preached in all the world.
Labour pains have a destination. One writer sums up the whole stretch of trouble by what it arrives at:
There would also be wars, and rumours of wars. The disciples were to stay calm. The end — that is, the end of the age — would not be yet. Nation would rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There would be famines and earthquakes in various places. It was the beginning of sorrows that would end in the accomplishment of the ways of God.
So what ends the pangs? One writer traces the line from these first pangs to the only thing that stops them:
These beginnings of sorrows are to continue until the time of tribulation ends them. It will be tribulation "such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be" (v. 21). And His own personal appearing ends the tribulation in its turn, and nothing else ends it — not the wide spread of Christian principles among the nations of Europe, or in any other part of the globe.
One writer places these pangs inside a fixed stretch of time — the last "week" of seven years in Daniel's prophecy:
Verses 4-14 contain the prophecy of our Lord about the beginning of the end of the Jewish age. The 15th verse describes the end itself, in its fearful great tribulation and "the abomination of desolation." The whole period is the last week of Daniel's great prophecy, a prophetic week of seven years. That week cannot begin as long as the church is on the earth. The first part of it is now before us. The Lord says, in answer to the question about the sign of His coming and the end of the age, that these things He mentions first are "the beginning of throes" (verse 8).
The list in this verse reappears elsewhere in Scripture, in the same order:
Many have recognised that these first four judgments match what the Lord calls "the beginning of sorrows." When telling His disciples of the future judgments coming on the prophetic earth, He speaks first of "wars and rumours of wars." Then He speaks of internal warfare — "nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom." Third, the Lord foretells famines, and last of all pestilence (Matt. 24:6-8).
Commentators differ on how far current events answer to this verse. One warns that identifying a present war with these pangs proves the opposite of what people assume:
My own feeling, judging from Scripture, is that this war is certainly not one of those spoken of in Matthew 24. Those wars come after the church is gone, when the Jewish remnant has been formed and false Christs are presenting themselves to the Jews. See Matthew 24:3-8, and especially verse 6: "You will hear of wars and rumours of wars… this must take place, but the end is not yet." So if this were one of the wars and rumours of wars of Matthew 24, that would be proof of the opposite: the end is not yet.
Another writer rules out a popular hope about where the world is heading:
The Lord never says that this present age and world are getting better, or that the end will be righteousness and peace. Neither does the Spirit in giving the Letters of the New Testament. The testimony of the Scriptures is wholly on the other side.
- Pangs — the word means the cry of childbirth, not just grief. The same word describes the pains of death Christ endured.
- Beginning — wars, famine and earthquakes open the sequence. The Lord Himself says the end is still ahead.
- Escalation — these first pangs run on until the great tribulation ends them. Only His own appearing ends that.
- Pattern — wars, nation against nation, famine, then pestilence: the same four blows fall in the same order in another line of judgments.
- Outcome — birth pains end in a birth. The sorrows close with the ways of God accomplished, not with a world that slowly improves.