Are we living in the end times?
Few questions get asked more often, and few get answered more loosely. The writers in this collection take the question seriously, but they answer it in a way that may surprise you: the "last" period of God's dealings did not begin with our headlines — it began with the apostles — and the Christian's expectation was never tied to reading the times at all.
The last hour started long ago
Writing to believers of his own day, John already called the moment "the last hour." One commentator insists on that literal wording, and explains why the hour has run so long:
William Kelly"Children, it is the last hour" — is it not better to keep to the literal wording here? Clearly this goes beyond "later times" (1 Tim. 4:1) and "last days" (2 Tim. 3:1). Yes, it is a "last hour" — a very long hour, no doubt; and the reason is not delay but the patience of God, who is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Grace has more souls to save and bless, more to make members of Christ's body; and so God waits. But from the apostle's day it is the "last hour." What made it so? Not Christ known, but "many antichrists."
So the answer to "are we in the last times?" is older than any of us. Another writer adds a further step — a late stage inside that long period — and draws a practical consequence for how we read prophecy:
F. B. HoleThe period we live in — the Christian dispensation, we may call it — is "the time of the end," or as John calls it in his letter, "the last time" (1 John 2:18). The Holy Spirit has come, and what was once sealed is now open, and what is now revealed is not to be sealed. No doubt it is also true that we are now in the last days of the last time, so that all this unsealed prophecy should have a special interest for us.
What actually marks the period
The mark is not political drama but moral decline inside Christian profession — and Scripture holds out no reversal of it:
J. N. Darby"But understand this," says the apostle, "that in the last days there will come times of difficulty" (2 Tim. 3:1). Then follows (vv. 2-5) a picture of the sad state of Christendom, become like heathenism. (Compare Romans 1 with 2 Timothy 3.) Will the church then not be roused again out of this state? No: it will grow worse and worse (v. 13). There is not a trace of restoration.
The signs that count
One writer points to the very people described in those warnings as the evidence, and then names a sign of a different kind:
J. T. MawsonThe Scriptures do instruct us as to the character of the last days — "people will be lovers of self… lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power." "Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing… They will say, 'Where is the promise of his coming?'" And this state of things is in the professing Church… Sad signs indeed they are. But there is another and a brighter one; it is the awakening of desire in the hearts of multitudes of the saints of God to see the Lord… it will not be signs that will occupy our thoughts but Himself — the bright and morning Star.
Why the Christian is not a sign-watcher
Commentators here draw a sharp line: signs and timetables belong to God's dealings with the earth and with Israel, not to the church's hope.
The Bible TreasuryAs belonging to heaven, the church has nothing to do with times and seasons on the earth. Her duty is simply to wait for the Lord from heaven. Before His ascension, He told the disciples, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons"; and Paul likewise says to the Thessalonians, "Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you." We, therefore, have no sign given to us, no event but the coming of the Lord to look for, and no event before it.
Date-setting is ruled out
The same writers are blunt about calendars and predictions:
J. T. MawsonFixing dates for the coming of the Lord is a harmful thing, and those who do it are presumptuous people. The Lord Himself said, "But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." Yes, someone says, but we know the year. Really? Then why did the Lord add, "Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come"?
The right effect of the answer
If the question only feeds curiosity, it has done nothing. Held rightly, this truth changes how a person lives:
F. B. HoleAs to the use of this truth, in practice no fact has a more sobering effect on the consciences of sinners. No truth has a more separating effect upon believers. Shall we join hand in hand with the world which is shortly to come under judgment? No. "Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure" (1 John 3:3). The one whose hope is in Christ and His speedy return puts far from himself every defiling thing.
Summary
- Late already — the "last hour" was announced in the apostles' own day, marked out by many antichrists, not by modern events.
- Long by mercy — the hour has stretched on not through delay but through God's patience, while more souls are still being saved.
- Downward, not upward — the period's character is decline within Christian profession, with no promised recovery of it in Scripture.
- No signs for us — the church has no timetable, no required event before the Lord comes; date-setting is presumption the Lord Himself forbade.
- Purity, not prediction — the proper fruit of this hope is separation from evil and hearts occupied with Christ Himself.