Mark 13:12-13

“And brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child. And children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all men, for my name's sake. But he who endures to the end, the same will be saved.”

These words surely bring a chill to the heart. Jesus did not hide from His disciples the intensity of feeling that being a believer might cause. It had already been spoken of in Micah 7:6. ‘For the son dishonours the father, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man's enemies are they of his own house.' Such would be the intensity of feeling aroused by the Gospel that blood relatives would feel bitterly towards their kin who had believed, to such an extent that they would be prepared to betray them and bring about their death either through anger or fear. That this was sadly true in 1st Century AD and has been sadly true throughout history is unquestionable. It is often literally true in Islamic countries today when a Muslim becomes a Christian and is baptised, and among many other religions as well. The pastor of a local church where I live is a former Hindu who has been cut off by his family.

See Matthew 10:21 where we find similar words. Jesus may well have been aware of disciples who had already received threats and family persecution, and have recognised from it the severity of the opposition that His disciples would have to face in the future, seeing it in terms of Micah 7:6. He did not want them to be in any doubt about the possible severity of such opposition. It is usually assumed that Matthew very much had in mind the future after Jesus' death when He included these words in Jesus' message there, and that they were hardly applicable to the mission of the Twelve at that time. But the truth is that we know almost nothing about the lives and background of most of His Apostles, some of whom might already have been threatened by their families, just as Jesus knew that they would be in the future. He had after all Himself experienced something of it in Nazareth (see Luke 4:28). So dogmatism is ruled out. The only history that we have of the Apostles and disciples of Jesus is in Acts, and in that there was persecution a-plenty.

The hatred that the Gospel aroused in men would be incredible (see Matthew 5:11; John 15:18; John 17:14; 1 John 3:13; Matthew 10:22). The message of Christ would make men uneasy, for it undermined their cherished and deeply held beliefs, and it pulled down much of what they had built their lives on, and this would especially be so in such a hotbed of fanaticism as Galilee. And later non-believers would not like the way that Christians kept themselves separate from the normal ‘joys of life' such as the games and idolatrous feasts. And so they hated the message bearers. When Tacitus accused Christians of hatred of the human race he was really depicting the state of his own heart. He would call Christianity ‘an accursed superstition'. He never dreamed that one day it would irrevocably alter the Roman Empire.

‘But he who endures to the end, the same will be saved.' Compare Matthew 10:22. This was further encouragement to endurance in faith and obedience that was going to be greatly needed. They could face all that came with the certainty that in the end they would triumph. Those who stood against them would face the judgment, but they themselves could anticipate deliverance and salvation (compare Mark 10:26), and would through it find eternal life (see Mark 8:35).

‘Enduring' is necessary and is required (compare 2 Timothy 2:12), but it need not cause fear and despair. Elsewhere we are assured that they would endure because it would be God Himself Who would enable them to endure (1 Corinthians 1:8; Philippians 1:6; Philippians 2:12; Jude 1:24), and we may have the same confidence. The guarantee of endurance is an essential part of what it means to be ‘saved'. We rely on the faithfulness of the Saviour.

‘To the end.' Not the end of time but the end of their need to endure, whenever that came.