Although apocalyptic writing constitutes its own independent literary genre, it still plays an important role within the gospels of the New Testament. In each of the four canonical gospels, a central story involves Jesus describing a coming apocalypse in a manner that is consistent with traditional apocalyptic literature.
Today the term “apocalypse” is usually associated with the end of the world, a time of tribulation during which humanity experiences massive suffering and death. Originally, though, the Greek terms simply means “to uncover, reveal” and refers to any secret teaching about the future or nature of the cosmos that has been revealed to a divinely ordained prophet or teacher.
Apocalyptic writing is a genre that developed specifically in the Jewish and Christian contexts, with most of the material being produced between 200 BCE and 200 CE. Biblical apocalypses are closely associated with prophetic literature, though the two aren’t identical. Their differences are, interestingly enough, united in the form of the gospels.
One first difference is that the prophets saw themselves as acting in the here and now, offering advice and guidance from God for their own generation; but apocalyptic writers were offering “secret” teachings that are most relevant to the generation that would live in the “last days.” Both are arguably true about Jesus: he was offering advice and guidance to his own generation, but also information that would be needed by the “final” generation. At times, it appears that he thinks both generations are identical.
A second difference is that the prophets saw God’s will unfolding within historical events and through the activities of the Jewish people, but apocalyptic writers saw God’s will only being manifested in some realm that exists above the historical process — historical events are, at most, symbols of what is really taking place. Again we can see both at work in the figure of Jesus: God’s will is coming to fruition in history through him as the Son of God, but also eventually in a realm beyond history when the final Kingdom of God is established.
The apocalyptic teachings attributed to Jesus share a number of basic features with the standard format of apocalyptic writings. On a literary level, the method of presentation involves visionary-type scenes that are heavily laden with symbolic imagery, an insistence that basic ideas be kept secret (at least for now) from all but an inner circle of elect believers, attribution of the revelations to some great teacher from the past, and the presence of many signs that the “predictions” of the future are rooted firmly in events that were occurring in the writer’s contemporary surroundings.
There are also a number of important themes running throughout apocalyptic literature which make their appearance in the apocalyptic teachings attributed to Jesus. The most important may be that of historical, apocalyptic determinism: all of history is united in that it has unfolded according to God’s pre-determined designs, and that includes the coming disasters and sufferings which are part of the “end times.” These are inevitable, but they are also merely “birth pains” that will usher in an age of peace and justice under the direct rule of God.
The nature of the coming disasters also constitutes a pretty common theme: wars, earthquakes, famines, stars falling, eclipses, and the like are all predicted by apocalyptic writers as either part of the final days or at least heralding the final days. These days are always worse than anything people have experienced since the beginning of creation. There is also typically a cosmic battle between good and evil, between God and Satan; usually, this battle is also reproduced on the Earth between humans allied with Satan and those allied with God (under the leadership of the Messiah).
Although apocalyptic writing constitutes only a portion of each of the gospels, it’s a core feature which is central to the whole gospel message. The “good news” of Christianity is typically conceived of as a message of love, peace, and salvation through Jesus, but the promise of some final battle between good and evil where Jesus finally and forever defeats the forces of Satan, sin, and evil is central to this. Throughout all four gospels, Jesus is constantly preaching about the Kingdom of God and God’s rule over humanity.
Thus, while the gospels are typically regarded as their own literary form, their relationship with apocalyptic literature is very close. The gospel authors may have used the figure of Jesus in multiple ways, but they definitely used him as the “great teacher from the past” who reveals secret teachings about the End Times.
