RE: Endure to the End
This verse has nothing to do with salvation in the sense of eternal security or "once saved-always saved". This verse is directed to a specific audience (the apostles) regarding a specific near-future historical incident (the Fall of Jerusalem in AD70). The Holman Christian Standard Bible translates "saved" as "delivered", a much more accurate rendering considering the context. To encourage the apostles to remain faithful to their charge to be witnesses to Jesus, He promises that if they stay the course, they will be "delivered" or "escape" God's judgment on Jerusalem. The following verse clearly states the time limitations of the passage, i.e. "For I assure you: You will not have covered the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes." Jesus returned in judgment upon the faithless city in AD70. If He was referring to a return 2,000+ years in the future, the apostles would indeed have had time to go throughout all the towns of Israel before His return.
Immediate context must be a constraint on one's interpretation of any given verse/passage, otherwise any verse/passage can be made to mean anything. A cardinal rule of interpretation is that no verse can mean something to us that it didn't mean to the original audience or was not in the mind of the speaker/writer. Hence, Jesus is not speaking of something to happen to future generations 2,000 years removed from His then-present audience. What meaning would that have had to the apostles? How would that have encouraged them to be faithful in their task?
The questions of the eternal security of the believer and whether works are required for salvation are in view in this passage. They can be read into it but not out of it. When interpreting any verse/passage of Scripture, one must remember three things: Context, context, context.
Created about 2 years ago
