The last day, and/or the last days:
What is meant by the last days? Let’s examine the word last, and how it is used in the New Testament. Its’ meaning is:
1. That which follows all the others; that which is behind all the others in place; hindmost; as, this was the last man that entered the church.
2. When applied to time. That which comes after all the others; the latest; as the last hour of the day; the last day of the year.
2. Beyond which there is no more. When Christ said, “It is finished,” He means there is nothing beyond what He has done that can bring man into a saving condition. Or when we are told in Genesis, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished.” There will never be anything new under the sun, that will ever be created. The creation was finished.
3. Next, before the present; as, the last week of this month; the last year of this century, or, I saw him last in Birmingham Alabama.
4. It is applied to the uttermost; that beyond which there is nothing greater. When Jesus said in Revelations 1:8, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending.” What He means is, there is nothing spiritual, human, either living or dead, material, invisible, etc., that falls outside of His dominion and rule, for He is all is all.
The Greek word for “last,” that we are looking at is, eschatos. It can be studied in the verses below, and means the following:
In regards to extreme, uttermost, this speaking of both place and time.
Acts 1:8, Jesus said, “Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.” The apostles would receive certain powers from God, once the Holy Ghost had come upon them. God’s power would be shown through them. The apostles being the instruments that He would use to announce the Gospel message, and to establish the foundation of His Kingdom.
God chooses the very moment, and the very place. This at His pleasure.
Acts 13:47, “The Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.” Jesus Christ the only saviour of mankind, is to be proclaimed as such, to the ends of the earth. This is His design and mission.
It is applied to the things that are last, in reference to two or more. Example, the later of the two. Or the later state, or condition of a person, or persons.
2 Peter 2:20, This is written for those who have made a conscientious decision to function within the world of materialism, walking after the flesh. “If after they have escaped the pollutions of the world = (left the ways of the world) through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein = (return to their old ways), and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.”
Job 42:12. “The LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.” Because Job was found righteous in the eyes of the Lord, his last days of life, proved to be more fruitful than his early years.
Revelation 2:19, Jesus said, “I know thy = (the church in the city of Thyatira) works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first.” This people in the church of Thyatira not only retained what they had received from God, but now grew in both spiritual knowledge and love.
Revelation 15:1, John writes, “I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues.” These seven last plagues appear to fall under the seventh and last trumpet of Revelation 8:2. The seventh seal, contained the seven trumpets, and the seventh trumpet contains the seven plagues. The results of the last of the seven plagues can be found in Revelation 16:17.
John is given a future vision of the great and new city Jerusalem, this descending out of heaven from God. Revelation 21:19, describes the foundations of this new city, and it is said that their were four wall, the last of the four being made of emeralds. The other three walls were adorned with various other precious stones.
1 Corinthians 15:52, “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump = (trumpet): for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
Because the phraseology of this chapter is Jewish, we will look to the Jewish writers for the meaning of this verse. There are a total of seven trumpets. The last trumpet to sound, shall revive the dead from their place of sleep, they shall than be clothed in the garments or God, and be taken into the air, to be with the Lord forever.
1 Corinthians 15:21, “For since by man = (Adam the first man) came death, by man = (Jesus, the second man) also the resurrection of the dead.” Mortality came by Adam, immortality by Christ Jesus, He being the last of two.
When “last” is used the noun, day, or days.
When used in regards to a festival.
John 7:37, “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
When speaking of the last days of the world, or the day of judgment.
John 6:39, 40, 44, 54, Jesus said, Verse 39-40, “And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of Him = (the Father) that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Verse 44, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Verse 54, “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
For the young Christian, verse 54 may need to be explained. “To eat my flesh, and drink my blood,” implies, those in Christ have partaken of His blessings, those purchased by His bloody sacrifice, and violent death. As a person must eat bread and meat, in order to live physically, so also must we receive God’s grace. The gift of grace is given by the Holy Spirit in order to receive eternal salvation.
John 12:48, Jesus said, “He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one = (Jesus) that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.”
In the last or latter days:
Acts 2:17, Peter was speaking to many in the square on the day of Pentecost. He said, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”
Here in the time of Christ, all the Israelites shall be prophets. The word prophesy, signifies to teach and to proclaim the truths of the Gospel. Having now been given the Holy Spirit, the truths concerning the new covenant established in the sacrificial death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, were to be proclaimed to all men.
2 Timothy 3:1, “In the last days perilous times shall come.” The last days spoken of here, are the days preceding the second coming of the Lord Jesus. Traitors from within the church, can do more damage than an army outside. Charity, opposed to self love. Those who become lovers of themselves, boasters, blasphemers, etc. These things will dominate the church in the days before the Lord’s return.
James 5:3, James writes, “Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.”
If our worldly possessions do not honor God, these possessions will be to us as a fire that destroys the flesh. This was a truth in the last days of the Jewish commonwealth, when they, were completely crushed by the Roman armies. This end most likely will be the result of our modern day civilization, pride, self-deception, materialism, greed, boasters, etc., will rule the day.
Hebrews 1:1, “God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,”
In the last time.
1 Peter 1:5, “Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
1 Peter 1:20, “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,”
Jude 18, “How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.”
In the last hour.
1 John 2:18, “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come,”
Scripture speaks of the last times, the times since the coming of Christ, in which the power of this world is in part broken. but will be wholly destroyed only at his second advent.
1 Corinthians 10:11, “Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for out admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.”
The following expressions seem strictly to cover the whole interval between the first and final advent of Christ; but they sometimes refer more particularly to the period in which the writers of Scripture lived, adjacent to the first coming.
Acts 2:17, “And it shall come to pass, in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh:”
Elsewhere Scripture speaks of the latter times, before the second coming of Christ.
2 Timothy 3:1, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.”
2 Peter 3:3, “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days, scoffers, walking after their own lusts,”
Phillip Laspino www.seekfirstwisdom.com