Podcast: On the End Times: The Best of ‘The Crossway Podcast’

June 16, 2025 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

The Mark of the Beast, Christ’s Second Coming, and a New Heaven

Welcome to another episode of The Crossway Podcast. I’m Matt Tully, and today we have something special lined up for you. Today’s a compilation episode featuring some of the best moments from past interviews on the topic of the second coming of Christ and the end times. Over the years we’ve had the privilege of speaking with many authors and scholars who have shared answers to some of the most pressing and tricky questions related to the book of Revelation, Christ’s second coming, the mark of the beast, and more. But as this episode seeks to answer some of the most pressing questions that we often have, our main hope is that it helps us all to take comfort in the certainty of our Lord’s return. Let’s start with this excerpt from an interview with Tom Schreiner, who contributed to the ESV Expository Commentary on Revelation. In this clip, Tom discusses one of the most infamous topics related to the end times—the mark of the beast. Let’s get started.

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ESV Expository Commentary

ESV Expository Commentary

Six experienced Bible teachers walk through some of the richest but more challenging books of the New Testament, helping Bible readers understand what they say about Christians’ hope for the future.

Topics Addressed in This Interview:

01:00 - The Mark of the Beast

Matt Tully
So before we talk about the mark itself, let’s just talk about that beast. We have that vivid description that sounds like this mythical creature, a combination of multiple animals. What or who is it? Walk us through how you understand the beast.

Tom Schreiner
In the passage you read (Rev. 13), the beginning of the passage compares the beast to these various animals. If you just read that and you’ve never read any other part of the Bible, you just think, What in the world is going on? Why was he doing this? But the key to reading Revelation—and this is so important for us—is not to engage in what I call “the newspaper eschatology,” which is what a lot of people do today. They read something like that in Revelation and then they go to the newspaper and they try to figure out what it means. But I think that’s exactly the wrong way. Those who know their Bibles well know that the language of the beast that John uses is referring to Daniel 7. Daniel 7 talks about these four beasts, and they refer to four empires, starting with Babylon, then Media-Persia, Greece, and Rome. So Daniel’s talking about these four empires that resist Israel, that resist the people of God. John picks up that language of the beast from Daniel 7, so there we see right from the beginning if you know the Old Testament, John gives a signal to the readers, "When I’m talking about “the beast,” I’m talking about government. I’m talking about a governing authority." This is a longer argument, but I think what John is telling us is this beast is a combination of all the beasts in Daniel 7. He’s that fourth beast in Daniel 7. And I would argue that the fourth beast is Rome. But here’s our problem. Our problem is most of us don’t know the Old Testament that well, and so that makes Revelation hard.

Matt Tully
So then turning to the mark itself, what’s the purpose of this mark? If we know that the beast is Rome, what’s going on with this idea of a mark on a forehead or on a hand?

Tom Schreiner
The first thing I’d say is notice it’s a means of persecution. It’s a means of singling out those who belong to the beast and those who don’t. So there’s economic discrimination against those who belong to the Lord. Here’s a key question—and good people disagree—but is there a literal mark? And I would argue there’s not. Now, I could be wrong on that. We’ll see if in the future there’s a mark. But I think he alludes to Ezekiel 9, where there’s a mark put on those who belong to God, and then there’s those who are wicked. So I don’t think we ought to interpret such marks literally because of Ezekiel 9. And so it’s just a way of signaling those who belong to God and those who don’t.

04:37 - Tough Passages Related to the Return of Christ

Matt Tully
Our next clip is with John Piper, author of Come, Lord Jesus: Meditations on the Second Coming of Christ. In this bit of our interview, he reviews three famous tough passages related to Christ’s return.

Matt Tully
Let’s talk about a few of the New Testament passages that you’ve already alluded to that maybe seem to suggest that Jesus was going to come back sooner than he is. There are a few passages where the apostles and early disciples seem to be saying things that indicate he would be coming back soon, even within their own lifetimes. You address a number of these in the book, and I’ve just picked out three that I thought are representative of some of these challenging passages. The first one I was hoping you could read for us and then we could talk a little bit about is Matthew 16:27–17:2.

John Piper

"For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.

My understanding of all these several connections between coming within one generation—“some are standing here that will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming”—I think this particular passage is intended to say Peter, James, and John are those “some are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man.” And then he took them up on the mountain and showed them a preview of the second coming. Now, the reason I say that is not because it is immediately obvious from this text, although the juxtaposition of the end of Matthew 16 and the transfiguration suggests that to me. My main reason is that in 2 Peter 1, that’s the way Peter treats the transfiguration. He treats it as a preview of the coming of the kingdom. So Peter, James, and John did not taste death until they saw the preview of the second coming on the mount of transfiguration. That’s my understanding of that text.

Matt Tully
Another passage that is equally challenging sometimes is Matthew 24:30–34. Could you read that one and then walk us through that as well?

John Piper

Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

The key there to understanding what it’s saying about the second coming is to understand what “these things” refers to. “When you see all these things”—this is verse 33—“when you see all these things, you know he is near.” So the “these things” does not include the coming of Jesus. It’s the run-up. “He’s at the very gates. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” In general, here’s my take. In my understanding, there are various ways that you can understand the nearness or the soonness of the Lord’s coming. One of them I call the prophetic perspective or the holistic perspective. And that means that when the prophets, or Jesus in this case, looked at the future—in fact, I’m looking at the screensaver on my computer right now, which has about ten mountain ranges in it. On a misty day, those ten mountain ranges look like one mountain range. And if you say that it’s one mountain range and then you see something happening on that mountain range, you say that’s happening soon, because that first mountain range is not far away. As time goes by, as you move through the mountain range and you realize, Oh! There were a lot of valleys between that particular peak and the ones that went just before it. Now, when Jesus talks here, I think he’s scoping out or he’s describing the kinds of things that will happen—some of them in 70 AD when Jerusalem was destroyed; some of them all through the last days. We’re in the last days. That mountain range, from ten years out to 2,000 years out, is the last days. And anything in the last days is, in a sense, near because they’re present. We are in the last days. So my understanding here is yes, these things—these kinds of things—were happening already. Earthquakes have been happening, wars have been happening, the kinds of stresses and anxieties that are coming have been happening, and they are within a generation. But it explicitly distinguishes, “Then you’ll know that he has not yet come”—when Jesus described some of the things he said—“but the end is not yet”—earlier in the chapter in verse 24. That’s my effort to see how the things here can happen in a generation and yet Jesus himself not arrive within a generation.

Matt Tully
Let’s look at one last passage, this time in Paul’s writings, in Philippians 4:4–5. He says something here that can be a little bit perplexing to us.

John Piper

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; [Literally, you could say “the Lord is near.”] do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

The Lord is at hand. James says “he’s at the gate”—which is interesting. I think those mean basically the same thing. There’s no huge distance between the gate right here—my life, this world—and God’s existence, as though Jesus would have to traverse a long, long travel in order to get to the gate. It is at the gate, and it could break in at any moment. That is, near. I argue against an any moment return, but I could say there’s an any decade return. I think the times between now and his coming and the things that Paul says need to happen in between is such that the time is very short. I’m 77 years old. I fully anticipate it could happen within my lifetime. I don’t know if I’ll live that long, but that’s the way I think about it. If you said, Paul, you know that Jesus said we don’t know the day or the hour, so when you’re saying this, are you telling us it has to say within twenty years? I think Paul would say, No, no, no, no. I’m not making that kind of prediction, because that would go against what Jesus actually said and what I’ve said elsewhere. So, no. I think it means potentially near. When I say “potentially near” I mean it seemed like Jesus told parables to say if you say my master is delayed and begin to beat your servant, he will come at an hour you don’t expect. And then Paul says, “But we are not children of the night. We are children of the day. That day will not overtake us like a thief.” So those who get drunk and are morally and spiritually asleep are going to be overtaken in an instant, and the “soon” will catch you off guard. For those who are awake and alert and expectant, they’re going to discern the timing so that as the Lord draws very near, they won’t be overtaken. They’ll be morally awake. And so we should be like that. We should be alert and expectant and ready for his soon coming all the time.

14:22 - The New Heavens and the New Earth

Matt Tully
This next clip is from Nancy Guthrie, author of Blessed: Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Revelation. In this bit, she talks about the great hope and blessing that we have in Christ as we think about the victory that God has promised and the eternal safety that we’ll enjoy in the new heavens and new earth.

Matt Tully
Going back to the garden—which, as a side note, just a couple of books ago with Crossway you wrote a book called Even Better Than Eden that is unpacking some of these things back in the book of Genesis. You write, “We are bombarded by scenes of bombings in the heart of major cities, refugees risking their lives to escape poverty and danger, news reports about deadly viruses, killer bees, natural disasters, polluted waters, nuclear weapons, cyber-attacks, and civil unrest. And we know we’re vulnerable.” Obviously, that rings so true right now in our world today. But then you go on to say, “But that vulnerability has an expiration date.” Help us understand how the book of Revelation speaks to that.

Nancy Guthrie
That picture and the beautiful promise that that kind of vulnerability has an expiration date. We live in a world that is filled with so much cruelty and injustice and suffering. And honestly, through a lot of Revelation we see just more of that—the unjust way that believers are slain for their allegiance to Jesus.

Matt Tully
For a lot of the book, as you read it afresh, for a lot of the book it seems like God’s enemies are prevailing.

Nancy Guthrie
And that’s a fascinating thing about the book, because that’s how it looks from a human, earthly standpoint. But one of the big A-has! of Revelation is what it’s giving us in this vision. It’s presenting it to us from heaven’s vantage point, and so it wants us to understand that what looks like defeat to the world is actually victory. And we actually need Revelation to show us that. By that I mean the book as well as the larger reality of we need divine revelation to reveal to us that this world is not all there is, and this life is not all there is. Over and over again in Revelation it’s calling people to overcome. It speaks of those who overcome, those who conquer. What’s mystifying is that these people who overcome, quite often in Revelation they’re being slain. If you’ve got only the world’s vantage point to look at that from, that just sounds like it cannot be victorious. They’ve truly been overcome. But Revelation says no, they are actually the ones who overcome. And on what basis? Because while they may lose their life in this world, Revelation shows us a picture of them being protected under the altar of God; them being sheltered by this Shepherd; by them calling out to Christ saying, How long until you deal with this evil? How long until we are vindicated? And then we get this picture of Christ coming to accomplish that vindication. We hear them celebrating his justice and righteousness, that finally he is vindicating their deaths. We get to see him come as a victorious King as he cleanses away the evil in this world and then brings his people into this new creation. When you get to the descriptions of the new creation—I’m especially thinking about Revelation 21. John uses a number of images that have been used throughout the Bible to describe the new creation, and all of them show us the realities of that from a different angle. He shows it to us in terms of a marriage, in terms of inheritance, in terms of a city and a temple and a garden. As we look at this city, and it gives us all this detail about it—the walls of the city and the foundations of the city—you get the sense as you read it that this will be a perfectly secure city. He says evil is never going to enter it. That makes us think about the first garden, that something evil entered it. Adam and Eve were vulnerable there. They were vulnerable to evil, to deception, to death. But here we learn about this new garden/city/temple (as Greg Beale would call it), and when we enter into this place, all the imagery that John uses in Revelation 21 seems to communicate to us a profound security. We realize that the vulnerability of life in this world as it is now does have an expiration date, because we’re going to enter this new creation where nothing will ever harm God’s people again.

19:51 - The Millennium and the Two Witnesses

Matt Tully
Next we’re hearing again from Tom Schreiner. This clip comes from an interview where Tom answered listeners’ questions about the book of Revelation following the release of his book, The Joy of Hearing: A Theology of the Book of Revelation. In this clip, he answers two questions. One about the millennium and the other about the two witnesses of the book of Revelation.

Matt Tully
A lot of people also had questions about the millennium. A listener in Georgia asks, “Does Revelation 20 refer to a literal thousand-year earthly reign of Christ, or is it allegorical for the Church Age?”

Tom Schreiner
That is an excellent question, and Christians have disagreed on this all through history. Do you want me to give you a brief typology of the different views out there?

Matt Tully
Yes, maybe give us the short, concise version of that.

Tom Schreiner
You have a premillennial view. A premillennial view is that Jesus Christ will return (this is why it’s called pre-millennial) before the millennium, and he will reign on earth. There are different views about whether or not he will reign literally in Jerusalem, but he will reign on earth—we’ll just keep it simple. Most premillennialists believe he will reign literally for a thousand years. Actually, that’s not necessary for the premillennial view; you could just say the thousand years are symbolic for a long period of time. What is necessary for the premillennial view is that Jesus will reign on this earth when he returns. But most premillennialists think those thousand years are a literal period of time. Then we have a view called postmillennialism, and that means after the millennium. That means that Jesus will come at the end of the millennium. For postmillennialism, the millennium could start right at the time of the resurrection—some postmillennialists say that. Some say maybe it started at a particular point in history. But for evangelical postmillennialists, by the power of the gospel the world is gradually transformed so that by the end of history things are getting better and better by the power of the gospel. Most of the Puritans were postmillennialists. Jonathan Edwards was a postmillennialist. It was very popular in the 1700s and 1800s especially, in the United States for instance. And then there’s amillennialism. That is not a very good name because amillennialism literally means no millennium.

Matt Tully
It also sounds like you’re just trying to figure out how to pronounce the word.

Tom Schreiner
Right! You could call it realized millennialism. Amillennialists believe that the millennium started at the resurrection and exaltation of Christ. I didn’t say this with postmillennialists, but for most postmillennialists the thousand years is symbolic of a long period of time. That’s definitely true of amillennialists—the year period isn’t a literal amount of time, but Christ reigns in heaven. Maybe the most popular view today is that the first resurrection in Revelation 20 is the intermediate state—when saints die they immediately go to be with Christ and reign with him in heaven. There’s a new view out there (a fourth view), by the way, called new creation millennialism. This view argues that the millennium is the first stage of the new creation. It’s sort of a via media between premillennialism and amillennialism. I’m kind of attracted to that right now, but no one should trust me on the millennium; I’m constantly changing my mind.

Matt Tully
That’s an interesting comment because you’re a Bible scholar who has done a lot of work and written commentaries on the book of Revelation. Explain the fact that you’re constantly changing your mind on this issue. Does that speak to inherent ambiguity in the biblical text about this, or is it something else?

Tom Schreiner
I think it’s a difficult question. Some people wouldn’t say that. I’ve talked to a lot of people who say it’s easy and simple, but I don’t think so. I think it’s difficult to tell. It’s the only passage in the Bible that specifically speaks of a thousand-year reign. I think it’s instructive that if you go back to the earliest history of the church, there were pre-millennialists and there were amillennialists. I think it’s so interesting what Eusebius, writing in the fourth century, says about Papius. Papius is a pre-millennialist, and Eusebius is an amillennialist. Eusebius says, basically, that Papius is stupid and that he doesn’t have very much intelligence that he interpreted in pre-millennial terms. I just want to say that this debate has been going on a long time. Good Christians who love the Lord have disagreed on it. The other thing I always like to say about the millennium is sometimes evangelical Christians get more interested in the millennium than the new creation and eternity. But whatever your view of the millennium, it will end! It will not be forever. It can’t be the most important thing. You might say, Why wouldn’t God reveal it so clearly? Well, it’s a temporary period. Anything that is temporary can’t be the most important thing.

Matt Tully
Maybe that’s a clue that we’re not supposed to be too concerned about it.

Tom Schreiner
Or too dogmatic about it.

Matt Tully
Another issue that we got some questions about are the two witnesses that are mentioned in Revelation 11. A listener from Essex, England asks, “Will the two witnesses be actual, physical beings of some sort (humans), or are they merely symbolic of God’s protection of his church?”

Tom Schreiner
Again, that’s a great question and something that’s been debated all through history. When you look at those two witnesses, many have taken them to be two individuals. It could be Enoch and Elijah. A lot of people have been attracted to that because—

Matt Tully
Because they never died.

Tom Schreiner
Yes, because they never died, and then they do die in Revelation 11, if you hold that view. Another view that is attractive is that it’s Elijah and Moses because of the things they do. They stop up the heavens, turn water to blood, and things like that. There have been some really bizarre choices in this, some that would even make you laugh. People that you’ve never even heard of have been identified as the two witnesses. I believe pretty strongly—I could be wrong—that the two witnesses represent the church. When you come to Revelation 11 it’s sort of a parting of the ways in terms of how you interpret the book. Some people say you ought to interpret the book as literally as possible, but my response to that is how do you know that? If you say that in advance, you’re deciding in advance how it should be interpreted, but what if the author wanted you to interpret it symbolically? How can you say in advance, no, that can’t be? I would argue that’s cheating hermeneutically. You can say that, but I don’t think you can say that convincingly, that it ought to be interpreted as literally as possible. It’s apocalyptic literature. Again, it’s just a parting of ways. He says that fire comes out of the mouth of the two witnesses. Is that literal? Is he literally saying fire flows out of the mouth of the two witnesses? I would say you see in the Old Testament where even Jeremiah says, “My words are like fire.” They’re words of judgment. I think John is clearly saying, Look, they speak a word of judgment. Fire comes out of their mouths. They strike the earth with plagues. Those plagues stand for judgment. Why are there two witnesses? Because in the Old Testament we read that the credibility of an account is verified by two witnesses. John pulls on all kinds of things here. In Zechariah 4 and the two witnesses there; in Joshua with Zerubbabel. I think he’s talking about the church that proclaims. This is one of the things that excites me about this chapter. One way of reading it is to say, Yeah, this is going to take place at the end of history. Isn’t that fascinating? God will fulfill his purposes. But if I’m right, the two witnesses represent us—the church of Jesus Christ today. It represents our story, and what is John saying? He’s saying the church of Jesus Christ proclaims God’s word of salvation and judgment, that the church will be persecuted, and that the church will finally be vindicated by God. He will raise us from the dead. Therefore, those who hear the message of the witnesses need to repent. That’s a very mainstream Christian message clothed in apocalyptic garb.

29:30 - The Second Coming of Christ

Matt Tully
Our last clip today is from an interview I did with Cameron Cole, the author of Heavenward: How Eternity Can Change Your Life on Earth. In this clip Cam explains why Christians can take hope in the truth of the second coming as the punctuation mark on the story of history and the story of our lives.

Matt Tully
Another thing that you highlight is how the second coming of Christ is so important for us. And you call it a punctuation mark. What do you mean by that?

Cameron Cole
Another way that I characterize this is I talk about how if you are watching a basketball game or a football game, you have in mind that there’s a clock, and the clock is unwinding. You’re constantly paying attention to how much time is left. How much time is left? Are we going to be able to hold on to this lead, whatever it may be? And so your head is, in a sense, on a swivel. And so in the Christian life, the second coming of Christ is the punctuation mark. That’s the end of the sentence. That’s the punctuation mark on our life and on human history. And so the idea is that we’re constantly living with our head on a swivel, looking to the second coming.

Matt Tully
Not in the sense of trying to predict when it’s going to happen—

Cameron Cole
Oh, no, no, no.

Matt Tully
So you’re not getting at that. You’re just talking about the awareness that there is an end coming.

Cameron Cole
Yeah, and that’s where this story is headed. A lot of people like to watch the same movies over and over again, and I like to watch YouTube videos of old Alabama football games. And people will be like, Why do you want to watch it if you already know what the outcome is going to be? That’s the whole point! That’s the whole point! I know the end of the story. I know the end of the story, and so I can watch things unfold with the comfort of knowing the outcome. I know that we win this game.

Matt Tully
When we watch a scary movie or an intense movie, a lot of the fear, the anxiety, and the tense nature of it is really cut down when we know the end of the story. We’ve seen it before.

Cameron Cole
Exactly. Exactly right. There’s a visceral rush when you don’t know the end of the story. And that can be fun for a movie, but in terms of your life, living perpetually in a horror movie is not very comforting. And so there is just this stability and security when you’re aware that I know where this story is headed. I know that this story is headed to a day when Christ returns and he eradicates the world of pain and evil and suffering, and where I see him face to face and I have perpetual joy in my communion with God.

Matt Tully
Thanks for joining us on this journey through the archives of The Crossway Podcast. We hope these excerpts have been enriching and encouraging to you as you think about the reality of Christ’s return. If you want to hear more from any of the interviews featured today, we’ve added links to all of them in the show notes below. And if you liked this compilation episode, check out the other two we’ve done on the topics of apologetics and marriage. Find a link to those episodes in the show notes as well.

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