The ministry of Jesus is represented by the evangelists as itself an eschatological event. This presentation involved them (writing as they did from thirty to seventy years after the event) in paradox, but the paradox is of the essence of their faith.

It is a primary feature of the gospels that the story of Jesus is set forth as the fulfilment of OT prophecy. This is sometimes done in the crudest and most artificial manner, as for example when Jeremiah's picture of Rachel weeping for her children (Jer. 31.14 (38.15)) is applied to the massacre of the innocents (Matt. 2.17 f). Sometimes again the appeal to the OT is made in general terms without citation of a particular passage (e.g. Mark 14.21 ). The passion narratives in particular are marked by OT references and allusions, but the whole ministry is introduced by Mark (1.15) with the proclamation, πεπλ⋯ρωται ⋯ καιρóς, and the καιρóς in question is evidently the time foretold (or currently believed to have been foretold) by the prophets. That which in the past they had longed to see and hear, and had not seen and heard, was now before men, visible and audible: blessed indeed were those who could see and hear (Matt. 13.16 f; Luke 10.23 f).

The classical discussion of the doctrine of Predestination and the problem of Free-will is still to be found in Luther's book, the Bondage of the Will. In the course of four hundred pages he ranges through profound Biblical exegesis, trenchant theological statement, narrow scholastic argument, virulent vituperation—developing, through it all, the most powerful exposition of the doctrine ever made. The question naturally arises: How far can we, in our generation, go with him? The following paragraphs suggest the main points involved, and discuss the modifications of his position that would seem to be necessary.

The initial point where Luther joins issue with Erasmus is on the unlawfulness of human speculation before the final mysteries of the Faith, and the need to put the hand upon the mouth at that point, and simply confess. Erasmus has argued that certain Christian doctrines are ambiguous, and should therefore be rejected in the interests of a more rational theology. Luther quotes Erasmus as follows and replies:

In like manner, your examples which you subjoin, not without suspicion and bitterness, are nothing at all to the purpose. Such are those concerning the distinction of Persons, the union of the divine and human natures, the unpardonable sin, the ambiguity attached to which, you say has never been cleared up. If you mean the questions of Sophists that have been agitated upon these subjects, well. But what has the all-innocent Scripture done to you, that you impute the abuse of the most wicked of men to its purity?

‘I Acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins’ ‘There is one body and one Spirit, … one Lord, one faith, one baptism’ (Eph. 4.4 f). What precisely is here the significance of the word ‘one’ ? It would clearly be inadequate to see this unity simply as a matter of Church order—though it may yet be more significant than we have allowed that, in spite of everything, divided Christendom still today recognises a single baptism. We should be nearer the heart of the matter to say that baptism is one because it makes one. Just as it is ‘because there is one bread’ that ‘we, who are many, are one body’ (I Cor. 10.17), so it is baptism which in the first place creates this unity: ‘In one Spirit were we all baptised into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free’ (I Cor. 12.13); ‘for as many of you as were baptised into Christ … are all one man in Christ Jesus’ (Gal. 3.27 f).

Yet there are other elements in the NT doctrine of baptism which suggest that even this does not exhaust the meaning of the phrase. To be baptised ‘into Christ’ is not merely to find a new and given unity among ourselves. It is to be ‘baptised into his death’ (Rom. 6.3), to be ‘circumcised … in the circumcision of Christ’ (Col. 2.11).

The Old Testament is, from one point of view, primarily the X record of the growth of religious ideas among the Hebrews. Yet, despite the variety of the religious ideas of the Old Testament at different stages in Hebrew history, it is possible to speak of the theology of the Old Testament without the word ‘theology’ being just another name for religious development. This is because there are certain beliefs about God and man and their relationship one to the other as saviour and saved which characterise the Old Testament as a finished and complete whole, as an entity. From another point of view the Old Testament is the record of the divine revelation in salvation vouchsafed to Israel by her God. If God speaks now through Moses, now through Isaiah of Jerusalem, now through the nameless exilic prophet, at different times ‘by divers portions and in divers manners’, yet His revelation is basically ever the same. The essential unity of outlook and faith in the Old Testament, transcending its diversities, is a pointer to the genuineness of the revelation and a guarantee of its substantially correct though inevitably imperfect apprehension by those to whom it was granted.

The differences within the Old Testament are, nevertheless, often more obvious than this basic theological unity. The opposite might be said of the New Testament. This is just what we should expect, because while the Old Testament spans many centuries, the New was completed within a matter of decades.

Jesus' answer, which takes up the rest of the chapter, falls quite naturally into three divisions: vv. 5–23, 24–27, and 28–37.

It is very hard to find an altogether satisfactory single title for this section. We might call it The End is not yet; for Jesus is certainly warning His disciples that much has still to happen before the consummation of all things. They were, apparently, like people who ‘wish to reap the harvest before the season arrives’, inclined to ‘confound the perfection of Christ's reign with the commencement of it’. So they needed to be warned that ‘the end is not yet’ (v. 7) and that they must resist the deceivers who would be only too ready to play on their impatience. Or we might with equal fairness entitle this section The Characteristics of the Last Times, i.e., of the time between the Incarnation and the Parousia; for that is what we have here. Jesus warns His disciples what they are to expect during the time before the End. Or again, we might call it, as Roux does, The Signs of the End; for these characteristic marks of the time before the End are also signs which point to the End. Though not to be mistaken for the End, they are nevertheless eloquent of it.

The first of these signs of the End is the presence of deceivers and the possibility of the disciples of Jesus being led astray. Throughout the last times they will be liable to seduction.