Can we know when Jesus will return?
Question 10079
Few questions generate as much popular fascination as the timing of Jesus’ return. Books predicting specific dates have sold millions of copies. Websites track supposed prophetic signs in real time. Social media amplifies every earthquake, eclipse, and geopolitical development as a potential harbinger of the end. The question of whether we can know when Jesus will return deserves a careful, biblically grounded answer, because what Scripture actually says is both more restrained and more urgent than most popular treatments suggest.
What Jesus Said
The most direct statement on this question comes from Jesus Himself. In the Olivet Discourse, having described the signs of the end and the events of the Tribulation, He declared: “But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36). Mark’s account adds “nor the Son” with particular force (Mark 13:32). During His earthly ministry, operating within the voluntary limitations of the incarnation, the Son did not know the specific timing of His own return. If the incarnate Son did not possess this knowledge, the claim of any human being to have worked it out from biblical numerology or current events is, at minimum, presumptuous.
Jesus reinforced this in Acts 1:7, responding to the disciples’ question about whether He was about to restore the kingdom to Israel: “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.” The Greek chronous e kairous covers both the duration of time and the strategic moments within it. God has not disclosed the timing, and believers are not meant to spend their energy trying to calculate what God has deliberately withheld.
Signs and Seasons
This does not mean Scripture is silent about the general shape of events. Jesus gave signs that would characterise the period leading up to His return: wars, famines, earthquakes, persecution, the rise of false prophets, the gospel being preached to all nations, and the abomination of desolation in the temple (Matthew 24:4-31). Paul described the trajectory of the last days as one of increasing moral and spiritual decline (2 Timothy 3:1-5). The Tribulation itself is mapped out with remarkable precision in Daniel and Revelation, with identifiable midpoints, specific durations, and clearly described events.
But a vital distinction must be maintained. The signs Jesus described in the Olivet Discourse relate primarily to the Tribulation period and His second coming to earth, not to the Rapture. The pretribulational position holds that the Rapture is signless and imminent. No prophetic events are required to take place before it happens. The signs that precede the second coming belong to the Tribulation, and by that point the Church will already have been removed. Believers living now are not waiting for signs. They are waiting for Christ.
The Danger of Claiming to Know
The history of date-setting is a history of embarrassment and spiritual damage. William Miller predicted Christ’s return in 1843, then 1844. Harold Camping set dates in 1994 and 2011. Edgar Whisenant published 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988. Every prediction has failed, and every failure has done real harm: to the credibility of the gospel, to the faith of those who believed the claims, and to the reputation of biblical prophecy itself. The pattern is consistent and instructive. Jesus said no one knows, and every attempt to prove Him wrong has confirmed that He was right.
So, now what?
We cannot know the day or the hour. We are not meant to. What we are meant to do is live in readiness, with the kind of faithful obedience that does not depend on a timetable. Jesus’ own application of His teaching about the unknown timing was not a puzzle to be solved but a command to be obeyed: “Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42). The uncertainty of the timing is not a problem to be overcome. It is the very thing that keeps us watchful, faithful, and occupied with the work He has given us until He comes.
“But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” Matthew 24:36 (ESV)