When Jesus got baptized and anointed with holy spirit, he became the Mediator of a new covenant that was to be made with spiritual Jews, or Israelites. This spelled the “last days” for the Jewish Law covenant and the Jewish system that revolved around the Herodian temple there at Jerusalem.

When this occurred in 70 C.E., then the Jewish system of things in the Middle East ended. That was the “end” that Jesus had in mind when he made his prophecy to his disciples.

11. (a) What shows that Jesus had the “end” of earthly Jerusalem in mind when giving his prophecy to his disciples on the Mount of Olives? (b)Was Jesus there saying that the “appointed times of the nations” would first begin after Jerusalem’s destruction, which was to take place 37 years after Peter’s speech at Pentecost?

¹¹ Peter and Andrew, James and John asked Jesus: “When will these things be?” What things? When Jesus was touring the temple, he had said: “Do you behold all these things? Truly I say to you, By no means will a stone be left here upon a stone and not be thrown down.” (Matt. 24:1-3; Mark 13:1, 2; Luke 21:5, 6) In the prophecy that Jesus gave afterward on the Mount of Olives, he said: “There will be great necessity upon the land and wrath on this people; and they will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the nations, until the appointed times of the nations are fulfilled.” (Luke 21:23, 24) Jesus was not there saying that the “appointed times of the nations” would first begin in 70 C.E. at Jerusalem’s destruction and the depopulating of all Judea. That calamitous ending of the Jewish system of things in and around Jerusalem and its temple occurred 37 years after Peter’s speech on the day of Pentecost, so that he was correct in saying that the outpouring of God’s spirit was taking place “in the last days”​—of the Jewish order of things.

12. Besides false Christs and prophets, what else was to enter into the “sign” that his Jewish disciples lived in the “last days”?

¹² In his prophecy of Matthew 24:4-22 Jesus showed that the mere coming of false Christs and false prophets would not be all that there was to the “sign” that his Jewish disciples were living in the “last days” of the Jewish system of things. Jesus added: “You are going to hear of wars and reports of wars; see that you are not terrified. For these things must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be food shortages and earthquakes in one place after another. All these things are a beginning of pangs of distress.

13. What human activities would be part of the “sign”?

¹³ “Then people will deliver you up to tribulation and will kill you, and you will be objects of hatred by all the nations on account of my name. Then, also, many will be stumbled and will betray one another and will hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and mislead many; and because of the increasing of lawlessness the love of the greater number will cool off. But he that has endured to the end is the one that will be saved. And this good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end [télos] will come. Therefore, when you catch sight of the disgusting thing that causes desolation, as spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in a holy place, (let the reader use discernment,) then let those in Judea begin fleeing to the mountains.”​—Matt. 24:3-16.

14. According to Paul, till then, what would be the case of the Jews?

¹⁴ Till then, what? Writing about the year 50 C.E., the apostle Paul refers to the Jews and says: “They always fill up the measure of their sins. But his [God’s] wrath has at length come upon them.” (1 Thess. 2:16) Such a thing was to be expected in the “last days” of the Jewish system of things there in the Middle East.

15. Were the efforts of the Jews to stave off the “end” of their “last days” successful or not, and why?

¹⁵ The unchristianized Jews tried to stave off the end of the “last days” of their Palestinian system of things. In 65 C.E. they rose up against their Roman overlords. This resulted in an independent Jewish state for about five years. Even Jewish money coins were stamped to mark those desperate years. But remorselessly the end (télos) came in 70 C.E. at the hands of the face-saving Romans.