Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Matthew

[Numbers]

What age is Jesus talking about in Matthew 28:20 "I am with you always, to the end of the age"?

[jimwalton]

It's the "age" we're in now—the Church age, the age of grace, the span of time between Jesus's ascension and His return.

[We Start Here]

Quite the opposite. He is with us until our condemnation passes and humanity returns to Grace.

[jimwalton]

Jesus is speaking to His disciples. He has just told them to go to all nations. Clearly what He is telling them is that He will be with them as they go—in their activity, during their lifespan, as long as they live. That same commission applies to us. It gives every follower of Christ the privilege and responsibility of taking the gospel to all nations until the end of history. This is what Jesus is talking about. "Until the end of the age"—until Jesus returns and discipleship, teaching, and baptism are no longer needed, for the judgment of the nations will come.

A common and mainstream understanding of Judaism and of early Christianity (particularly Paul, but here also Jesus) in the first century was a two-age structure of chronology: the age in which we live and move and have our being, and the "age to come" after the second coming of Christ. We already participate in this age "as through a glass darkly" (1 Cor. 13.12), and when this age is consummated by the return of Jesus, we shall see "face to face" (1 Cor. 13.12; 1 Jn. 3.2). The "age" of discipleship, teaching, and baptism is this present age in history in which we find ourselves; the long-awaited age of being with Jesus in Glory is the next "age."