In last week's Sunday morning message "Genuine Christian Faith in the Last Days" I made the categorical statement: "The phrase 'end times' is not a Biblical one." I went on to say that the phrase is not necessarily wrong or incorrect but that the terminology the Bible use is "the last days." Wouldn't you know that I would run into the very phrase "end times" in my own Bible reading only a couple days later!
In Peter's first epistle, chapter one, verse 5 we read that believers "are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time."
Several verses later Peter says of Christ, "He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake," (v.20).
In the first instance Peter uses the phrase kairo eschoto. Here the word kairo/time is the noun and eschato/end is the adjective. While this reverses the order of adjective + noun as English grammar would dictate, new testament Greek often expresses things in this way. So the meaning is "end (or last) time."
In v.20 Peter uses a different word for time saying instead eschatou ton chronon. Here the meaning is basically the same but Peter uses the plural "end (or last) times."
Is there any significant difference between these words for time kairos and chronos? Friberg's Greek lexicon says of chronos that it is "predominately... a unit, a period, a span of time; or as marking an event, a point of time..." While kairos can have this meaning Friberg also adds that kairos is used to indicate "a specific and decisive point, often divinely allotted time..." So, where chronos indicates the generic measure or span of time, kairos can distinguish a certain time as divinely appointed.
Usage of kairos in 1:5 plainly refers to the 2nd coming of Christ when our salvation will be consummated at Christ's revelation. Kairos is the word of choice here since it is the divinely appointed time of Christ's appearing of which time "no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only," Matthew 24:36.
On the other hand, v.20 uses chronos because a span of time is indicated - "these last times" in which Christ has been revealed "for your sake" - a reference to His first coming and afterward.
So between these two phrases "these last times" of v.20 seems equivalent to "the last days" - the span of time from Christ's first coming to His 2nd coming. On the other hand, "the last time" of v.5 is equivalent to "the end time" of popular usage.
No such phrase as "the end times" in the Bible? I stand corrected :-)
