Coming to the proper historical context for such terms as "end times," "last days" and "end of the age" requires an understanding of the whole history of Old Testament Israel from the time of the Exodus onward, and how that history met its climax in the cataclysmic events during the period of A.D. 30-70.
Almost from the moment the Israelites left Egypt, there began to emerge among them a spirit opposed to God and his will for his "chosen people." Later, the prophets would call it a spirit of "prostitution" or "adultery." The seeds of this contrary spirit are seen being planted in the recurrent "quarrelings" of the Israelites as they journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. Whenever, it seems, they face the slightest adversity, they raise their voices in the whining chorus, "Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?" (Exodus 17:3), or hunger or any number of other physical or material inadequacies.
While it would appear, in most instances, that the Israelites are merely complaining about a lack of material or physical necessities, there are also strong hints that the real problem runs much deeper than its surface manifestations. This is seen, most dramatically, in the infamous "golden calf" episode (Exodus 32).
The essence of this contrary spirit would appear to be nothing more than a desire tor return to the comfortable life of subjugation. Freedom is too heavy a responsibility for the Israelites. It is won only through suffering, tribulation and living in a manner wholly distinct from that of the "nations," that is, the Gentiles. Seeing such freedom as a burden instead of a blessing, the Israelites long to go "back to Egypt" and live as slaves. But their real "spiritual" desire is to be "like the other nations." Their desire to return to a life of bondage reflects their inward corruption by a demonically inspired force of wickedness.
Ultimately, this spirit of prostitution becomes so deeply embedded that the Israelites fall into overt apostasy, forcing God to, in essence, grant them the true desire of their heart to be subjugated again, this time at the hands of the Babylonians.
But not all of the Israelites were enslaved by the spirit of prostitution. As God promised Elijah the prophet, "Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him" (1 Kings 19:18). This is the remnant, the true Israel, chosen not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
By that same Spirit, God raised up prophets who foretold the coming of a deliverer , an "Anointed One," God's Messiah, who would lead Israel out of captivity, vanquish all Israel's enemies, and establish a kingdom that would last forever. Yet the message of the prophets was a double-edged sword. Those enslaved by the spirit of prostitution would hear one thing, while the true children of Israel would hear another. Israel "according to the flesh" heard the prophets speak merely of deliverance from their physical captivity: God would (and eventually did) deliver them out of Babylon and bring them home to the Promised Land.
The true children of Israel, however, heard in the prophets' message a promise of an even greater deliverance: the deliverance of the true Israel from the demonic forces which had enslaved her for generations and, by the time of Jesus, was personified by the very establishment which claimed to be the guardian of Israel's religious heritage.
From the time of Israel's establishment as the covenant people of God, then, the "wheat" and the "tares" had been growing alongside each other. When Jesus arrived on the scene, his message, like that of the prophets before him, was a double-edged sword: imminent judgment upon the enemy of Israel, but swift and sure deliverance of the true people of God. But Israel's enemy was not Rome and the true people of God were not the religious elites who had set themselves up as spiritual leaders. On the very contrary, Israel's enemy was the religious establishment itself and the true people of God were the very people being oppressed by the religious elites. This is the message which Jesus proclaimed in cryptic parables whose true meaning would escape the children of the world, but which would be understood by the true Israel as announcing that the "age" of her captivity was coming to an "end."
But that "end" would not come before a time of testing; a trial by fire which would burn off the dross and refine the gold. The true children of Israel would endure suffering, tribulation and persecution. They would not complain or fall away, although many of their family and friends would. As Christ endured suffering and death and was vindicated in his resurrection, so the true firstfruits of God's new creation, his New Covenant people, the true Israel, would likewise endure even unto death, holding firm to the sure hope that they, like Jesus, would at last be vindicated and share with him in the glory of the resurrection.
For the first generation of Jesus' disciples, that vindication came with the fall of the Jerusalem temple in A.D. 70. From that ordeal, which brought the history of Old Testament Israel to its decisive climax, the Church emerged as the true Israel of God, a people not bound by ethnic origins or national boundaries, but scattered throughout the ends of the earth, to be gathered together by the "angels," that is the "messengers" of the New Covnenant, in anticipation not of "the end of the world," but of a "world without end." As God raised Jesus from the dead, as he raised up a New Covenant out of the smoldering ruins of the Old Covenant, so he will redeem his whole creation to reflect his glory, with Jesus himself being personally present in our midst. To this hope the Church still presses, even as she embodies it, through every trial and tribulation, at this very moment.
(Matt. 25)
