[Footnote 1:  Luke xii. 13, 14.]

The apocalyptic ideas of Jesus, in their most complete form, may thus be summed up.  The existing condition of humanity is approaching its termination.  This termination will be an immense revolution, “an anguish” similar to the pains of child-birth; a palingenesis, or, in the words of Jesus himself, a “new birth,"[1] preceded by dark calamities and heralded by strange phenomena.[2] In the great day, there will appear in the heavens the sign of the Son of man; it will be a startling and luminous vision like that of Sinai, a great storm rending the clouds, a fiery meteor flashing rapidly from east to west.  The Messiah will appear in the clouds, clothed in glory and majesty, to the sound of trumpets and surrounded by angels.  His disciples will sit by his side upon thrones.  The dead will then arise, and the Messiah will proceed to judgment.[3]

[Footnote 1:  Matt. xix. 28.]

[Footnote 2:  Matt. xxiv. 3, and following; Mark xiii. 4, and following; Luke xvii. 22, and following, xxi. 7, and following.  It must be remarked that the picture of the end of time attributed to Jesus by the synoptics, contains many features which relate to the siege of Jerusalem.  Luke wrote some time after the siege (xxi. 9, 20, 24).  The compilation of Matthew, on the contrary (xxvi. 15, 16, 22, 29), carries us back exactly to this precise period, or very shortly afterward.  There is no doubt, however, that Jesus predicted that great terrors would precede his reappearance.  These terrors were an integral part of all the Jewish apocalypses. Enoch, xcix., c., cii., ciii. (division of Dillman); Carm. sibyll., iii. 334, and following, 633, and following, iv. 168, and following, v. 511, and following.  According to Daniel also, the reign of the saints will only come after the desolation shall have reached its height.  Chap. vii. 25, and following, viii. 23, and following, ix. 26, 27, xii. 1.]

[Footnote 3:  Matt. xvi. 27, xix. 28, xx. 21, xxiv. 30, and following, xxv. 31, and following, xxvi. 64; Mark xiv. 62; Luke xxii. 30; 1 Cor. xv. 52; 1 Thess. iv. 15, and following.]

At this judgment men will be divided into two classes according to their deeds.[1] The angels will be the executors of the sentences.[2] The elect will enter into delightful mansions, which have been prepared for them from the foundation of the world;[3] there they will be seated, clothed with light, at a feast presided over by Abraham,[4] the patriarchs and the prophets.  They will be the smaller number.[5] The rest will depart into Gehenna.  Gehenna was the western valley of Jerusalem.  There the worship of fire had been practised at various times, and the place had become a kind of sewer.  Gehenna was, therefore, in the mind of Jesus, a gloomy, filthy valley, full of fire.  Those excluded from the kingdom will there be burnt and eaten by the never-dying worm, in company with Satan and his rebel angels.[6] There, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.[7] The kingdom of heaven will be as a closed room, lighted from within, in the midst of a world of darkness and torments.[8]