10:22 Necessity of Endurance
and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.
This verse is the climax of the increasingly bleak-looking picture of the persecutions to be endured by the twelve. ‘For my name’s sake’ echoes ‘for my sake’ in verse 18.
The second half of this verse is unclear. Both ‘to the end’ and ‘saved’ can have multiple meanings. Elsewhere in Matthew ‘to the end’ can refer to the destruction of the Temple in 70, the Second Coming of Jesus, the end of persecution, the close of the age, or the end of an individual’s life. France notes that there is no context to say for certain to what it refers here, and opts to view it as being as long as necessary to be saved, with reference to the rest of the verse. Thus he does not believe it to refer to any particular historical or eschatological event. Hill rejects this, saying that ‘to the end’ refers not to death by martyrdom, nor to the close of the age, but asserts, with no apparent reason, that it refers to the end of persecution. Davies and Allison examine the possible meanings, and how they are expressed elsewhere in Scripture, and believe that ‘to the end’ refers to the parousia (Second Coming).
France notes that ‘saved’ is used several different ways in Matthew: being saved from physical death or disease, corporate salvation from sins, a disciple’s life being saved by losing his life, or it can be co-identified with entering the kingdom of God. Because he had already as much as told them they would be martyred (verse 20), Jesus would not be speaking here of salvation from death or disease. His meaning had to lie among the more spiritual meanings of the word. Hagner says that to be saved is to ‘enter finally into the blessed peace promised to the participants in the kingdom.’ The Catechism of the Catholic Church uses this verse to orient Catholics towards the hope of obtaining salvation.
Read more about this topic: Coming Persecutions
Famous quotes containing the words necessity and/or endurance:
“The objects of a financier are, then, to secure an ample revenue; to impose it with judgment and equality; to employ it economically; and, when necessity obliges him to make use of credit, to secure its foundations in that instance, and for ever, by the clearness and candour of his proceedings, the exactness of his calculations, and the solidity of his funds.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“Tortures are a dangerous invention, and seem to be a test of endurance rather than of truth.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)