Please explain Matthew 10:22.
Matthew 10:22 reads, “And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved” (NKJV). Before we give our explanation of this verse, we need to know what this verse does NOT teach. It does NOT teach that a believer in Christ is “saved by enduring (i.e. remaining faithful) to the end of their life.” Scripture is crystal-clear that one is saved “by grace through faith alone and not by works.” Ephesians 2:8-9 declares, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that NOT OF YOURSELVES; it is the gift of God, NOT OF WORKS, lest anyone should boast.” So, whatever this verse is teaching us it is not telling us that we can earn salvation by faithful endurance.
In order to understand its meaning, we need to understand the context in which it was written. In verse 1 we read, “And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease.” He then sent them out with a special mission as we see in verses 5-8, “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, PREACH, saying, ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ HEAL the sick, CLEANSE the lepers, RAISE the dead, CAST OUT demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” The Lord Jesus, as the Messiah of Israel, was sending out His Jewish disciples to the nation of Israel to proclaim the message of the Kingdom and to confirm the message by miracles of healing. He then warns them of persecution in verses 17 & 21, “But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues…brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.” In verse 22 we learn that those disciples who were true believers would “endure to the end.” Faithful endurance in a time of persecution is thus PROOF THAT ONE IS SAVED. We know that 11 of the 12 disciples did endure to the end. But there was one, Judas Iscariot, who was never saved, and thus he did NOT faithfully endure to the end (see John 13:18-30 and 17:12).
Now let’s consider some verses in Matthew chapter 24. In verse 3 His disciples asked Him, “What will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age.” In short, they were wondering what the conditions would be like “at the end of the Jewish age” just before His glorious appearing and the establishing of His Millennial Kingdom. Jesus went on to speak of wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes (verses 6-7) and then He described another time of great persecution (much like what they would experience when they canvassed the cities of Israel as outlined in Matthew 10:17-22) where they would “be hated by all nations for My name’s sake” (verse 10). The main difference in chapter 24 is that these are future Jewish disciples who will be preaching the gospel throughout the world, and not just to the nation of Israel. This is borne out in verse 14, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be PREACHED IN ALL THE WORLD AS A WITNESS TO ALL THE NATIONS, and then the end will come.” Yet at that time they too are given a special word of encouragement in verse 13, “But he who endures to the end shall be saved.” Again, these words have been taken to mean that “one must endure to the end of their life in order to be saved.” But as we saw earlier, a person’s soul is saved “by grace through faith,” not by “enduring to the end.” It is also important to see that “the end” in this chapter is speaking of “the end of the Jewish age” and NOT “the end of one’s life.” Thus this is simply teaching us that the Jewish disciples who live to the end of the Great Tribulation (see verses 15-22) will be saved (i.e. delivered) from their enemies by the coming of their Messiah. Their lives will be spared and they will then enter into the Kingdom here on earth with their reigning Messiah. This is borne out in the following passages: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days….they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels…and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other….And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins’” (Matthew 24:29-31 and Romans 11:26). (344.3) (DO)