Jesus Didn’t Say “I Will Return”: The Son of Man in Mark 13 Explained

What if one of the most familiar assumptions about Jesus and Christian prophecy is not actually what the Gospel of Mark says?

Christian tradition commonly teaches that Jesus predicted his own return at the end of the age. Yet when we slow down and read Mark carefully, a fascinating distinction appears: Jesus does not say, “I will return.” Instead, he repeatedly speaks about the coming of the Son of Man. That distinction becomes especially significant when Mark is read alongside Daniel, Isaiah, and the broader world of Hellenistic Jewish apocalyptic thought.

The question, then, isn’t, “Is Jesus coming back?” The more important question is: Who is the Son of Man, and what exactly is Mark saying will happen when this figure comes?

The completely changes the way one understands Mark 13, the destruction of Jerusalem, the fall of the Temple, and the meaning of prophecy itself.

God Says He Will Act, But Then a King Does It

There is an important pattern throughout the Hebrew Scriptures that is often overlooked. Israel’s Deity announces that something will happen, but he does not become the visible actor who performs it. Instead, God works through human rulers and their governments.

Isaiah 10 provides one of the clearest examples: Assyria becomes the instrument through which judgment is carried out. The Assyrian empire has its own ambitions, its own military power, and its own political objectives, yet Isaiah interprets its historical actions within a larger divine purpose. Assyria acts as an empire, but Isaiah sees something more happening through that empire.

The same pattern appears with Babylon: Babylon becomes the instrument through which Jerusalem experiences destruction. The city is conquered, the sanctuary is devastated, and an established political and religious order is overturned. Yet the biblical interpretation is not simply that Babylon happened to be stronger. Babylon becomes an instrument of divine judgment, its king becoming the “servant” of Israel’s Deity.

Then the pattern reverses: Cyrus, a foreign Persian ruler, becomes the instrument through which Babylon falls and restoration becomes possible. This creates an extraordinary philosophical principle:

The agent accomplishing something is not necessarily the ultimate source or meaning of what is happening.

Assyria is not God merely because Isaiah understands Assyria as an instrument of God's judgment. Babylon is not God because it becomes an instrument of destruction. Cyrus is not God because he becomes an instrument of restoration. The king acts; the prophet interprets; history becomes the medium through which divine purpose is understood. That same principle provides an entirely different way of approaching the Jesus character in Mark.

Did Jesus Actually Say He Would Return?

Mark 13 has one of the most important verses in the entire discussion of Jesus and the Christian end times. It is also one of the passages most easily read through later Christian assumptions. Jesus predicts the destruction of the Temple; his disciples ask about the signs associated with these events; Jesus describes persecution, upheaval, deception, tribulation, and the collapse of the existing order. Then he says:

“And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory” (Mark 13:26).

Notice what the passage actually says. It does not say, “Then they will see ME returning.” It says the Son of Man. That may sound like a minor difference, but it is truly important when we take the Bible’s language and context seriously. The Son of Man is not a phrase that begins with Christianity. Its imagery reaches directly into Daniel 7, where a figure “like the Son of Man” comes with the clouds of heaven and receives dominion, glory, and a kingdom. And what stands opposite this figure? Beasts.

“Beasts” represent kingdoms or oppressive pagan religious governments. They rise, exercise authority, and eventually lose their dominion. The Son of Man appears within this symbolic drama as the figure associated with the replacement of those powers. The imagery is therefore not really about an individual traveling through the sky, but about the overthrow of political power and the arrival of another order. One must also remember that as those beasts are linked to real empires, so too ought the Son of Man.

The Son of Man Was Already an Apocalyptic Idea

This becomes even more interesting when we consider the development of Son of Man imagery within Hellenistic Jewish literature. The period between the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament was not intellectually static. Jewish writers living in a Hellenistic world interpreted older Hebrew scriptural traditions through new philosophical, political, and apocalyptic frameworks. The Son of Man imagery developed within this environment as a figure associated with judgment, righteousness, wisdom, authority, and the removal of oppressive political and religious rulers.  

In the literature of the book of Enoch, where the figured called the Son of Man in the book of Mark actually originates, the Son of Man becomes an exalted figure connected with judgment against kings and powerful authorities. The imagery is therefore deeply concerned with the reversal of earthly power and the meaning is unmistakable: Those who appear permanently powerful are not permanent. Kings can lose their thrones, empires can lose their dominion, institutions can collapse, and systems that believe they possess divine legitimacy can eventually find themselves standing under judgment.

That is exactly the kind of imagery Mark places into the mouth of the Jesus character.

Jesus as the Herald of the Son of Man

This raises a very real possibility: What if Jesus in Mark is not primarily announcing, “I am going to return”, but is acting as the herald, advocate, and prophetic spokesman for the coming Son of Man, a literary figure already mythologized within Hellenistic Jewish Literature?

Consider the biblical pattern: Isaiah announces Assyria's role in divine judgment, but Isaiah is not Assyria; Jeremiah announces Babylon's coming, but Jeremiah is not Babylon; Isaiah announces Cyrus, but Isaiah is not Cyrus. The messenger does not have to be identical with the agent whose arrival he announces.

Likewise, the Jesus character can announce the coming of the Son of Man without the language necessarily meaning that Jesus himself is the figure being described, because he is not describing himself. This possibility becomes especially compelling because Jesus' prediction about the Son of Man occurs within a discussion about Jerusalem and the Temple, making the setting establishing his speech matter.

The author of Mark is not talking about an isolated cosmic event unrelated to history. They are speaking about the destruction of the Temple, the crisis surrounding Jerusalem, and the collapse of an existing religious and political structure. The Son of Man appears within that context as the symbol of what comes after the old order has been judged.

Mark 13 Is About More Than the End of the World

This is where popular Christian “end times” interpretations become misleading. Many modern subscribers to popular Christian theory approach Mark 13 expecting to discover a coded prediction about the twenty-first century, modern governments, digital technology, or some future global system. But Mark's immediate narrative concern is much closer to home: Jerusalem, The Temple, The religious establishment, The destruction of an existing order.

The Temple was not just a religious building. It represented priestly authority, sacrifice, holiness, religious administration, national identity, and the institutional relationship between Israel and the Deity of Israel. When Jesus predicts its destruction, he is not just predicting the demolition of architecture, he is announcing the collapse of an entire religious world. The Son of Man appears within that announcement as the figure associated with the reversal of the old order, and we ought to already know that this mythological literary figure is not the one scheduled to execute that judgment.

The Temple Falls, Then the Son of Man Appears

This makes the structure of Mark 13 fascinating. First comes the Temple, then comes its predicted destruction, then comes crisis and tribulation, then comes the Son of Man; the sequence is worth contemplating. The Son of Man does not appear in an empty theological vacuum; his appearance is connected to the collapse of a particular world religion and its economy.

Isaiah 10 and Mark 13 May Share a Deeper Philosophy

Now return to Isaiah 10: God says judgment will happen and that he will do it, yet Assyria becomes the instrument. Return to Babylon: Jerusalem experiences destruction through a foreign empire that Israel’s Deity says he is empowering. Return to Cyrus: A Persian king becomes the instrument through which another divine purpose is accomplished. Now look at Mark: the Jesus character announces the coming destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple by a mythological figure ultimately representing Rome. The pattern is striking:

Israel’s Deity announces a destruction that he will execute. An active world-ruling military accomplishes that destruction for Israel’s Deity. The old order falls. Another order emerges.

God will not personally descend into history to physically perform every action described by prophetic language; no God will or can do this. The Bible’s imagination works differently. God acts through kings. God acts through empires. God can act through political events. God can act through historical upheaval. The Deity of Israel can be understood as acting through the transformation of human consciousness. The instrument is not necessarily the purpose.

What If the Coming of the Son of Man Is Also About Consciousness?

This is where the Son of Man becomes philosophically fascinating. The coming of the Son of Man can be considered not merely as the arrival of a supernatural individual but as the arrival of understanding. The mind suddenly sees what it could not see before. It recognizes that institutions claiming divine authority can become corrupt. It recognizes that political power is temporary. It recognizes that religious systems can become more concerned with preserving themselves than with preserving the principles they were created to represent. It recognizes that the powerful are not necessarily righteous simply because they are powerful, and it recognizes that the collapse of something familiar is not necessarily the destruction of everything meaningful. Sometimes the collapse of an old structure is the beginning of a new understanding, and this is exactly the point that the author writing the book of Mark is making.

The Real Danger Is Reading Mark Backward

Yet there is a deeper problem here. Many readers approach Mark already knowing what they believe Mark must mean. They have inherited Christian theories about the Second Coming, the Rapture, the Antichrist, the end times, and the return of its Jesus. They open Mark 13 and look for confirmation, but what happens if we reverse the process?

What happens if we begin with Mark? What happens if we ask what Mark's Jesus actually says? What happens if we distinguish Jesus from the Son of Man rather than automatically identifying them? What happens if we examine Daniel 7 before interpreting Mark 13? What happens if we consider how Hellenistic Jewish apocalyptic thought developed in this Hellenistic period and influenced the gospels? What happens if we take Jerusalem and the Temple seriously as the historical center of the prophecy? Suddenly, the conversation becomes much more complicated, and much more interesting.

The goal is not to destroy faith. The goal is to read more carefully. The faith within the book of Mark is not the present Christian theoretical faith; we ought to understand that.

Do Not Confuse the Messenger With the Message

Perhaps the deepest philosophical lesson is the distinction between the messenger and the message.

Isaiah is not Assyria. Jeremiah is not Babylon. Isaiah is not Cyrus. Jesus is not the Son of Man. Jesus can stand as the prophetic voice pointing toward the Son of Man and the author writing the book of Mark allows this conclusion. The messenger announces, the listener watches, the historical event unfolds, the interpreter gives it meaning; this pattern appears repeatedly throughout biblical literature, and once we recognize it, the language of Mark becomes much more interesting.

Jesus is not simply telling people to wait passively for his supernatural return. He is telling his then audience, an audience already passed away, to watch for the Son of Man who, like as God was represented by Assyria, is ultimately represented by Rome. While the Christian is “looking for Jesus,” the Jesus character looked for the Son of Man. The Son of Man manifested 70AD. The “looking” and the “watching” is to now occur within.

Jesus vs Paul: Why “Doing the Will of the Father” Changes Everything

In the previous post we stepped into “the experiment”: what happens when we let the Scriptures themselves do the primary work of softening without the dominant “work” of a completed cosmic transaction? The inquiry lingers because the voices do not easily harmonize. Beneath the surface piety lies a real philosophical fork in the road regarding the nature of grace, the human self, and the location of the kingdom.

At the center stands a stark difference in how the Jesus character and the character Paul locate the path into “life” and “the kingdom.” 

Jesus insists: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). When asked directly about inheriting eternal life, the response is unadorned: “If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matthew 19:17).

Faith appears as, “Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22), a trust that orients the whole self toward this Father’s character. The will of the Father is not framed as intellectual assent to a dying-and-rising transaction. It is active alignment that cultivates inward growth, higher spiritual consciousness, and the betterment of the devotional self. The kingdom is yeast, seed, light, something that operates presently within surrendered reality. Commands are not a trapdoor to despair; they are the shaping mirror or instruments of a heart being rewritten.

Paul charts a different course. Justification comes to the one who “does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly” (Romans 4:5). “By the works of the law no one will be justified” (Romans 3:20; Galatians 2:16). The drama centers on an external, forensic reality: a righteousness not our own, secured by a cosmic transaction. The self finds rest outside itself, in the accepted sacrifice rather than in the gradual congruence of its own transformed desires.

This is not a minor interpretive disagreement. It is a philosophical divergence about the mechanics of redemption and the nature of the self before “God.”

The Anthropology at Stake

The Jesus character’s emphasis implies a higher view of human participatory capacity under divine tutelage. The self is not irreparably helpless in its stony condition; the inscription of the law on the heart (Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 36) envisions genuine internal renovation. Commandment-keeping and faith in God become synergistic forces that develop spiritual consciousness. The self can; slowly, painfully, honestly; become more. The goal is not just pardon but likeness. The Beatitudes and Sermon on the Mount read as descriptive of a heart already under transformation rather than an impossible bar set to drive us elsewhere.

Paul’s framework, by contrast, protects the self from any illusion of self-contribution by locating righteousness entirely outside. The human agent is declared whole while remaining, in a fundamental sense, the ungodly one. This offers powerful relief to the tormented conscience but raises questions about the telos of redemption. If the primary good news is a legal verdict (and Paul holds himself to be again any religiously legal thing), does the inward work of becoming remain secondary or even optional? Does the philosophical weight placed on “apart from works” subtly devalue the very transformation the prophets placed at the center of the new covenant?

Grace: Gift as Transaction or Gift as Inscription?

Philosophically, both claim grace, yet the shape differs. In the Jesus trajectory, grace is the Father’s willingness to write, teach, and indwell through the words and Spirit of Scripture. It empowers participation. The self is not bypassed but engaged, judged, healed, and elevated. Obedience is not the enemy of grace but the evidence that grace is successfully rewriting desire.

In the Pauline system, grace is most purely seen in the unmerited cosmic transaction. Any subsequent transformation risks threatening the purity of “faith apart from works.” The gravitational pull of this logic has proven powerful in Western Christianity: it provides immediate assurance untethered from messy interiority. Yet it can also externalize the kingdom, tilting heavily toward “not yet,” with the cross as down-payment on a ledger in heaven rather than a present, growing reality within.

The Jesus character refuses this postponement. The kingdom is “within you.” The words themselves are “spirit and life.” Transformation is not a secondary fruit but the very substance of salvation as presented in the Gospels.

The Deeper Tension

We must ask uncomfortable questions. If Jesus consistently points to doing the Father’s will as the decisive factor, and defines that will in terms of a commandment-shaped life rather than reliance on a blood transaction centered on himself, what does this reveal about the later apostolic reframing? Is Paul’s genius a necessary pastoral accommodation for tormented consciences, or does it represent a philosophical shift toward a more Hellenistic, transactional cosmology, one that imports categories of cosmic law-court and substitution that the Hebrew Scriptures and the Jesus character himself foreground less prominently?

Conversely, does the inward path risk a naive optimism about human self-deception? The prophets and Jesus certainly warned against it, which is why the words of the Bible themselves remain the relentless examiner, indeed sharper than any external declaration.

The philosophical divide ultimately concerns the character of “God” and the dignity of the self. Is God most glorified by a system that secures a verdict independent of our becoming, or by a process that invites the self into real, participatory congruence with his love and manner of learning? Does “divine love” express itself most fully in a completed external machinery, or in the patient, sometimes agonizing work of making stony hearts flesh?

We do not resolve apostolic tensions by forcing premature harmony. Nor do we honor the Jesus character by domesticating his emphasis to fit later frameworks. The experiment remains: what fruit emerges when we let the clearer voice of the Scriptures set the primary orientation? When the kingdom (a mental and inward experience) is sought first as an internal reality shaped by the Father’s will; commandments internalized, faith in God enacted, spiritual consciousness deepened; does the self become more alive, more compassionate, more whole? Or does the gravitational comfort of external transaction continue to win by default because it asks less of us?

This inquiry does not politely dissolve. It presses deeper: What if the path to life really is narrower and more intimate than a transaction can contain? What if the kingdom has always been closer than we allowed ourselves to believe, even within reach of a heart willing to be rewritten, one honest encounter with the Bible’s words at a time?

Let Scripture Transform You From Within

In my previous blog post, we left an inquiry hanging in the air: two distinct voices, two visions of grace, two fundamentally different placements for the kingdom. Jesus says the kingdom is within and invites unmediated trust in God. Paul reframes the drama around a completed cosmic transaction centered on “cosmic blood.” The question refuses to politely go away: will we dare experiment with the inward path the Hebrew Scriptures encourage, or will the gravitational pull of the later pagan Pauline system keep winning by default?

This post is not another round of contrast. It is an experiment. What does it actually look like, day after day, to let Scripture soften the stony heart of our devotional conversation without leaning on the scaffolding of propitiation language, imputed righteousness, or “finished work” declarations as the primary engine?

The Machinery We’re Tempted to Keep

Most of us professing relation to the Bible were handed a system in which the heavy lifting is already done. The cross is the altar; faith is assent to that altar; assurance comes from believing the transaction was accepted. There is real comfort in it. When conscience accuses or life collapses, the reflex is swift: “It is finished. I rest in His blood.” Many have found genuine relief there.

But notice what this reflex quietly displaces. The new covenant promise in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 is not primarily about a legal declaration. It is about transformation by inscription: “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts… I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone.” The mechanism is internal re-writing. The tutor is the Scriptures itself, absorbed, wrestled with, hidden in the heart until it begins to reshape desire.

Paul’s genius was to give tormented consciences a place to stand outside the self. The genius of the Jesus character (and the prophets before him) was to insist the only lasting solution is inside the self, remade by God. The tension cannot be waved away with “both/and” until we have honestly let the Scriptures work long enough to see what fruit it bears.

The Quiet Practice

This is not mysticism without content. It is stubbornly textual.

You take the Bible’s words; especially the words of Torah, Prophets, Psalms; and you let them internally dwell. Not as ammunition for doctrine. Not primarily as promises to claim. But as living instruments. You read slowly. You repeat. You carry a single sentence for days. You research the language and the context of that sentence. You let it accuse, comfort, expand, and narrow you. You argue with it. You let it argue with you.

Psalm 119 is embarrassingly blunt about this process. The psalmist does not say, “I rest in the finished work.” He says the word revives, strengthens, enlarges the heart, turns feet from evil, makes wise the simple. He hides it that he might not err. He meditates on it all day. This is the inward alchemy the new covenant envisions.

The authors of the gospels script Jesus doing the same. “The words I have spoken to you, they are full of the Spirit and life” (John 6:63). Not “my forthcoming death will be full of Spirit and life.” The words. The Sermon on the Mount is not a new law to make us feel helpless so we flee to the cross. It is a description of the heart that has already begun to be softened. The Beatitudes are not entrance requirements; they are observations of what the “kingdom” looks like when it actually takes root within.

Try it for seven days without rushing to the interpretive grid that turns every command into “law” and every comfort into “gospel.” Just sit with the Bible’s words. Let the discomfort come. Let the hunger come. Let the small moments of alignment come. This is the yeast working.

What Softening Actually Feels Like

It is rarely dramatic. More often it is the slow erosion of old spiritual defenses. A sharper devotional conscience that no longer needs external accusation. A wider compassion that does not require emotional manipulation. A quieter confidence that does not need, because the relationship is becoming real, constant reassurance of “positional” acceptance.

You will still fail. The difference is that failure is no longer proof that the transaction might not have “taken.” It is simply more data for the words to work on. Repentance becomes less theatrical, better defined, and more surgical, turning again toward the light that is already shining inside the house.

The mountain-moving faith that the Jesus character spoke of is not optimism plus correct doctrine about atonement. It is the heart that has grown so congruent with the character of God that obstacles are seen differently. That congruence is not instant. It is formed by the words becoming flesh in us.

Two Honest Objections

Some will say this slides toward works-righteousness. Fair concern. The prophets and the Jesus character themselves knew the human heart’s capacity for self-deception. That is why the constant return to Scripture is essential; the words judge the heart more deeply than any system of imputation can. The safeguard is not a legal fiction but immersion in the words that expose and heal simultaneously.

Others will worry we are diminishing the cross. Not at all. The cross stands as a figurative illustration demonstrating the character of that cross’ Deity, which character is self-giving love to the end. But demonstration is not the same as substitutionary machinery that does the softening for us. The cross can be the supreme revelation that empowers the inward work rather than replacing it.

The Kingdom That Refuses to Stay Postponed

The Jesus of the Gospels keeps refusing to locate the kingdom primarily in a future age or a heavenly ledger. It is like a seed, treasure, yeast, light; something that operates from within the present reality of a surrendered devotional life. Paul’s letters often breathe a different atmosphere: “already/not yet” tilted heavily toward the “not yet,” with the cross as the “down-payment.”

We do not have to solve the apostolic tension before we obey the clearer voice. The kingdom is within you. The words are spirit and life. The heart of stone is being replaced, one honest meditation and reflection on the Scriptures at a time.

The question from the last post remains, but now it has teeth in daily life: Will we dare the slow, un-dramatic work of letting the Bible’s words dwell richly until they change us from the inside? Or will we keep reaching for the more reassuring yet unrealistic machinery?