No One Knows the Day or Hour, and Every Eye Will See Him

Test the Teaching · Article 3 of 9 · 2026-11-03 · Key passages: Matthew 24:36; 24:27; Acts 1:11. Quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB); please check each one in your own Bible.

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What we confess.

To us there is “one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we live through him.” (1 Corinthians 8:6). Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31), who “has come in the flesh” (1 John 4:2). He “died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3), was buried, and “was raised on the third day” (1 Corinthians 15:4). “God has made him both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36), and “This Jesus, who was received up from you into the sky, will come back” (Acts 1:11).

Can the day be known in advance? Twice, Jesus was asked about the timing by the men closest to him. On the Mount of Olives his disciples came to him privately: “Tell us, when will these things be? What is the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3). After his resurrection, the apostles asked him again: “Lord, are you now restoring the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). Both times, Jesus answered the hope and refused the date. What he gave instead is the subject of this article.

The question is asked in two forms, and this article takes them in turn. Some teach that the time of the end can be calculated from Scripture's numbers — the days of Daniel, the times of the nations — so that believers may know, at least roughly, when the Lord comes. Others teach that his coming can pass unseen: that Christ's presence has already begun, invisibly, known only to those with insight, or that he will come first secretly and silently for his own before any public appearing. The return itself — that Jesus will come again, raise the dead, and reign — is taught in The Good News, Article 10. This article tests the claims made about its timing and its manner. Where Scripture is silent, we will say so and stop.

Passages: Matthew 24:3; Acts 1:6.

Read These First

  • Matthew 24:36–44: no one knows the day or hour.
  • Acts 1:6–11: times and seasons are the Father's; he will come back in the same way.
  • Revelation 1:7: every eye will see him.
  • 1 Thessalonians 4:16–5:4: the descent, the shout, and the thief.
  • 2 Thessalonians 2:1–3: our gathering to him, and the order of the day.
  • Deuteronomy 18:20–22: the test of a word spoken in Yahweh's name.

First: the teaching that the day can be calculated.

No One Knows the Day or Hour

What the text says. Jesus answers the disciples' question about the end with a refusal, stated as plainly as words can state it:

“But no one knows of that day and hour, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

— Matthew 24:36

Mark's account adds the Son himself to the not-knowing: “But of that day or that hour no one knows—not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Mark 13:32). What Jesus commands instead of knowing is watching. “Watch therefore, for you don’t know in what hour your Lord comes.” (Matthew 24:42). “Therefore also be ready, for in an hour that you don’t expect, the Son of Man will come.” (Matthew 24:44). The risen Jesus gives the apostles the same answer to their own question about times: “It isn’t for you to know times or seasons which the Father has set within his own authority.” (Acts 1:7). Passages: Matthew 24:3; Acts 1:6.

What we conclude. This is not inference; it is the text. No one knows the day or hour — not the angels, and on Mark's words not even the Son; the Father only. The times and seasons are set within the Father's own authority, and it is not for us to know them. Scripture plainly rules out a calculated day, whether the calculation claims the exact date or an approximate year. Jesus does not leave the church with a gap to fill by arithmetic. He leaves it with a command: watch, and be ready, precisely because the hour is not known (Matthew 24:42, 44).

The strongest objection. Those who calculate cite Paul's words to the Thessalonians:

But you, brothers, aren’t in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief.

— 1 Thessalonians 5:4

As they argue it, the day will overtake the world like a thief, but not believers who are awake and watching. Those who watch will discern the time, so the day will not surprise them — and the numbers of Daniel are given so that they can.

Our answer. Read the verses Paul sets around it. He begins: “But concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need that anything be written to you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:1). Why no need? “For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.” (1 Thessalonians 5:2). What the Thessalonians already knew was not a date; it was the manner — sudden, unannounced. The darkness of verse 4 is a moral state, and Paul names it in the next breath: “You are all children of light and children of the day. We don’t belong to the night, nor to darkness,” (1 Thessalonians 5:5), and “since we belong to the day, let’s be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation” (1 Thessalonians 5:8). Jesus uses the thief the same way, in his own voice: “Behold, I come like a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his clothes, so that he doesn’t walk naked, and they see his shame.” (Revelation 16:15). The blessing is on the one who watches — not on the one who knows. Our conclusion is that 1 Thessalonians 5:4 promises the watchful believer that the day will not find him living in darkness. It does not give him, or anyone, the date.

Daniel's Numbers Were Sealed Until the End

What the text says. The calculations rest on numbers given in Daniel. A voice tells the prophet: “To two thousand and three hundred evenings and mornings. Then the sanctuary will be cleansed.” (Daniel 8:14). At the book's end: “From the time that the continual burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate set up, there will be one thousand two hundred ninety days.” (Daniel 12:11). “Blessed is he who waits, and comes to the one thousand three hundred thirty-five days.” (Daniel 12:12). But hear what Daniel himself is told about his own words. “I heard, but I didn’t understand. Then I said, ‘My lord, what will be the outcome of these things?’” (Daniel 12:8). The answer: “Go your way, Daniel; for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.” (Daniel 12:9). Of the earlier vision he says the same: “I wondered at the vision, but no one understood it.” (Daniel 8:27). The angel had told him, “seal up the vision, for it belongs to many days to come” (Daniel 8:26).

What we conclude. Daniel's numbers are real words of God, given to a prophet who confessed that he did not understand them, and who was told they were shut up and sealed until the time of the end. The last number given comes as a blessing on those who wait through it: “Blessed is he who waits” (Daniel 12:12). Our conclusion is that the numbers are given as a reason to endure, not as a key to a calendar: a seal that runs until the time of the end is lifted at the end, and hands no earlier generation a count to work. And the matter does not rest on Daniel at all. Jesus, who himself pointed his hearers to Daniel's prophecy (Matthew 24:15), still said that no one knows the day or hour (Matthew 24:36). What the Son refused to give, no reading of Daniel can supply.

The strongest objection. The holders state the calculation in their own words, and we let them. The Watchtower writes: “Counting forward from 607 B.C.E., 2,520 years takes us to the year 1914.” (Watchtower, November 2014: Kingdom Ruling 1). “Jehovah's Witnesses are convinced that Jesus began ruling as King of God's Kingdom in 1914 and that the last days began in that same year.” (Watchtower, November 2014: Kingdom Ruling 2). The count rests on Daniel's words to Nebuchadnezzar — “seven times shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever he will” (Daniel 4:25) — counted forward from 607 B.C.E., as the holders' magazine counts them. As they argue it, the numbers God gave in Daniel are in Scripture to be counted; a God who gave the numbers meant his people to use them.

Our answer. The count itself is answered where Jesus answers every count: “no one knows of that day and hour” (Matthew 24:36), and “It isn’t for you to know times or seasons which the Father has set within his own authority” (Acts 1:7). Those words are spoken to the church about the very thing the calculation claims — the time of the Kingdom's coming — and they are not qualified by any exception for a well-worked sum. Our conclusion is that a calculation, however carefully built, cannot give what the Father has kept within his own authority. What became of the year the count produced is taken up in the next section, under the test God himself gave. The holders' own words for the calculation are quoted in The Teaching We Differ From.

A second objection. They also cite Amos: “Surely the Lord Yahweh will do nothing, unless he reveals his secret to his servants the prophets.” (Amos 3:7). As they argue it, God does nothing — and above all, not the greatest thing, the ending of this age — without first revealing his secret. The day, therefore, is revealed to those who listen to his servants, even if the world cannot see it.

Our answer. Amos speaks of what God does among his people in judgment in Amos's own day: the lion roars, the trumpet sounds in a city, calamity comes — and God has spoken first, through his prophets, so that the prophet must speak (Amos 3:6–8). The verse promises that God does not strike in secret; he warns beforehand, in the open, through the prophets he names. It does not say that every detail of the future is given in advance, and it does not set aside Jesus' words on the one detail this article is about. What God has revealed about the day, he has revealed: that it will surely come, that it will come suddenly, and that no one knows when. That is the secret made known, and it is enough to live by. Our conclusion is that Amos 3:7 does not open what Matthew 24:36 closes.

A third objection. They also cite Jesus weeping over Jerusalem: “and will dash you and your children within you to the ground. They will not leave in you one stone on another, because you didn’t know the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19:44). As they argue it, Jerusalem fell because it failed to discern the time when God visited and inspected his people. Discernment of the time is therefore both possible and required of God's people, even in an age that cannot see it.

Our answer. Read what the visitation was. Jesus “saw the city and wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had known today the things which belong to your peace! But now, they are hidden from your eyes.” (Luke 19:41–42). The time Jerusalem missed was not a year to be counted but a person to be received: their Messiah stood in front of them, weeping, and they did not know him. The failure Jesus names is unbelief toward the one present, not an error in arithmetic. The passage speaks of his first coming, to that city, in that generation; it gives no method for discerning a later year, and it cannot set aside his own word that the day and hour of his return are known to the Father only (Matthew 24:36). Our conclusion is that Luke 19:44 mourns a rejected visitation. It does not promise a calculable one.

Pause. In Matthew 24:36, who alone knows the day and hour — and what was Daniel told about his own words in Daniel 12:9? (See No One Knows the Day or Hour and Daniel's Numbers Were Sealed Until the End.)

A Prediction That Fails Is Judged by Its Own Test

What the text says. God gave his people a test for any word spoken in his name, and he gave it before any of these calculations were made:

When a prophet speaks in Yahweh’s name, if the thing doesn’t follow, nor happen, that is the thing which Yahweh has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him.

— Deuteronomy 18:22

The test is about the thing spoken: “if the thing doesn’t follow, nor happen” (Deuteronomy 18:22). And its last words are a kindness to the hearer: “You shall not be afraid of him.” (Deuteronomy 18:22). The one who trusted a failed word is not bound to keep fearing it, or to keep defending it. Passages: Deuteronomy 18:20–21.

What we conclude. Failed predictions are judged by this text as claims. The 1914 date was not fixed after the year had passed; it was published in advance — the holders' own dictionary records that the year was identified in 1880, a generation early, as “the close of ‘the appointed times of the nations’ (and the end of the lease of power granted the Gentile rulers)” (Insight on the Scriptures: Appointed Times 1). So the claim, as spoken, can be checked. The lease of power granted the Gentile rulers did not end in 1914. The nations' rulers did not stop ruling then; they rule still. The thing spoken did not follow, nor happen. What is now said of that year is a different thing — that God's Kingdom was established in heaven then, and that an invisible presence began — and a thing no eye can check is not the thing that was spoken in advance. Our conclusion is that the claim, as spoken, fails the test God gave. We judge the claim. Those who believed it — many of them sincere, careful readers of the Bible, who ordered their lives by what they were taught — are owed gentleness, not scorn. Some of us were taught this teaching and held it for years.

The strongest objection. The holders answer that the calculation was presented as understanding, not as inspired prophecy, and that understanding grows: what was seen dimly in one generation is corrected in the next, and revision is a mark of honesty, not of falsehood. As they argue it, Deuteronomy 18 condemns the prophet who presumes to speak for God, not the student who studies the numbers and corrects his sums.

Our answer. The test in Deuteronomy is not about the speaker's office. It is about the word: “When a prophet speaks in Yahweh’s name, if the thing doesn’t follow, nor happen, that is the thing which Yahweh has not spoken.” (Deuteronomy 18:22). The 1914 date was published in advance, in God's name and from his word, as the close of the appointed times of the nations and the end of the Gentile rulers' lease of power — the holders' own dictionary records the identification, and a date so published is a word Deuteronomy knows how to test. The lease did not end. A date taught as God's revealed timing, which does not arrive as taught, is not made sound by calling it study afterward. Our conclusion is narrow, and we keep it narrow: the failed claim may not be carried forward as revealed truth. Nothing in this article says that those who taught it, or those who believed them, are lost. God settles his servants' standing; the text settles the claim.

Second: the teaching that his coming can pass unseen.

Every Eye Will See Him

What the text says. Jesus describes his own coming with an image no one can hide. “For as the lightning flashes from the east, and is seen even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.” (Matthew 24:27). He says who will see it: “Then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.” (Matthew 24:30). “He will send out his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together his chosen ones from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.” (Matthew 24:31). John opens his Revelation with the same word: “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, including those who pierced him. All the tribes of the earth will mourn over him. Even so, Amen.” (Revelation 1:7). And the last words spoken to the apostles before their work began fix the manner of it: “This Jesus, who was received up from you into the sky, will come back in the same way as you saw him going into the sky.” (Acts 1:11). He went up visibly, watched, until a cloud received him. He comes back in the same way. When he comes, “the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory” (Matthew 25:31), and “Before him all the nations will be gathered” (Matthew 25:32).

What we conclude. This is the text, and it is not hedged. The coming is once, public, and visible: as the lightning across the sky, seen by all the tribes of the earth, by every eye, in the same way he was seen to go. Scripture plainly rules out a coming that passes unseen — whether it is said to have begun already, invisibly, or to be still to come, secretly, for his own before the public appearing. A presence that no eye sees is not the coming the Son of Man described.

The strongest objection. Those who hold the unseen coming cite Jesus' words on the night before he died: “Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more; but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also.” (John 14:19). As they argue it, the world will see Jesus no more — ever. His return, therefore, is not an appearing the world can see. The faithful will see him, with eyes of understanding; the world will not.

Our answer. Read the verse in its night. Jesus speaks hours before the cross, of the little while until his death and his rising. The verse before it: “I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you.” (John 14:18). And so it happened: after the cross the world saw him no more, and his disciples did see him — risen, over forty days, shown “not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen before by God” (Acts 10:41). The verse's own second half fixes its subject: “Because I live, you will live also.” (John 14:19). It is a word about his resurrection life shared with his own, not a description of his final coming. For that coming, Jesus' own descriptions stand: the lightning (Matthew 24:27), the tribes of the earth seeing (Matthew 24:30), every eye (Revelation 1:7), and the same way he went (Acts 1:11). Our conclusion is that John 14:19 speaks of the days after the cross, and does not make the coming unseen.

The Gathering Is Loud, Public, and in Its Order

What the text says. Paul describes the gathering of God's people to the Lord, and nothing in his description is quiet: “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with God’s trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first,” (1 Thessalonians 4:16), “then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So we will be with the Lord forever.” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). A shout, an archangel's voice, God's trumpet, the dead raised, the living caught up to meet him openly in the air. Paul then protects the Thessalonians against exactly the claim this article tests. He joins the two things together in one sentence: “concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him” (2 Thessalonians 2:1). He warns them not to be troubled by any claim “that the day of Christ has already come” (2 Thessalonians 2:2). “Let no one deceive you in any way. For it will not be unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction.” (2 Thessalonians 2:3). The gathering belongs to the day, and the day follows that order. There is no earlier, quiet stage of it.

What we conclude. Our conclusion: there is one coming and one gathering, and it is neither secret nor already begun. The catching up of 1 Thessalonians 4 belongs to the descent of its own verse 16, with its shout and trumpet. And the claim that the day has in any sense already arrived — by an unseen presence or otherwise — is the very claim Paul told the church not to be shaken by (2 Thessalonians 2:2). The day has its order, and the gathering waits for it.

The strongest objection. Those who hold that the world will not know of the coming cite Jesus again: “As the days of Noah were, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.” (Matthew 24:37). “For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ship,” (Matthew 24:38), “and they didn’t know until the flood came and took them all away, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.” (Matthew 24:39). As they argue it, they did not know — so the world will not know when he comes. The faithful, watching the signs, will discern it; the world will be taken unawares, and his own will be taken quietly: “one will be taken and one will be left” (Matthew 24:40).

Our answer. Read how the not-knowing ends. They did not know “until the flood came and took them all away” (Matthew 24:39) — and then everyone knew. The flood was not secret; it was sudden, and it was public, and it took them openly — “so will the coming of the Son of Man be” (Matthew 24:39). The likeness is in the suddenness and the exposure, not in secrecy. Our conclusion is that the taking of the next verses follows the flood's pattern: taken in judgment, and in the open, as the flood took them. And no date is given to the faithful in these verses either. What Jesus gives them, immediately after, is the command already heard: “Watch therefore, for you don’t know in what hour your Lord comes.” (Matthew 24:42). Our conclusion is that Matthew 24:37–39 teaches that the coming will surprise a heedless world in public judgment. It does not teach that it will pass unseen, and it does not teach that the faithful can date it.

Pause. In Acts 1:11, how do the two men in white say Jesus will come back — and in 2 Thessalonians 2:1, what two things does Paul join together? (See Every Eye Will See Him and The Gathering Is Loud, Public, and in Its Order.)

The Teaching We Differ From

The two teachings this article tests agree in one thing. Both claim for the coming of Christ something Jesus' own words refuse: a time that can be known beforehand, or a coming that no eye will see. We take them in turn.

The first teaching: the day can be calculated. In its best-known present form, this teaching counts the appointed times of the nations forward from 607 B.C.E. to the year 1914. Jehovah's Witnesses hold this teaching, and we state it in their own words. Their Bible dictionary records the date's history: “the March 1880 edition of the Watch Tower magazine identified the year 1914 as the time for the close of ‘the appointed times of the nations’ (and the end of the lease of power granted the Gentile rulers)” (Insight on the Scriptures: Appointed Times 1). The Watchtower states the count: “Counting forward from 607 B.C.E., 2,520 years takes us to the year 1914.” (Watchtower, November 2014: Kingdom Ruling 1). “Jehovah's Witnesses are convinced that Jesus began ruling as King of God's Kingdom in 1914 and that the last days began in that same year.” (Watchtower, November 2014: Kingdom Ruling 2). Their website teaches every reader: “Bible chronology indicates that God's Kingdom was established in heaven in 1914.” (jw.org: Bible Chronology and 1914 1). “In 1914, Jesus began to rule as King of God's heavenly Kingdom.” (jw.org: Bible Chronology and 1914 2). Other teachers, in other years, have run other counts from Daniel's numbers and named other dates; the form is the same, and Jesus' answer covers them all.

We share much with those who hold this teaching. They long for God's Kingdom to rule and for evil to end, and so do we. They take Daniel's prophecy seriously as the word of God, and so do we. They believe the last days are real and that Christ will reign, and so do we.

The 1914 holders' case is the count itself, stated above in their own words. The wider form's verses — Daniel 8:14 and 12:11–12, Amos 3:7, Luke 19:44 and 1 Thessalonians 5:4 — are read above where the objections are answered. Where Scripture speaks, it refuses the date: “no one knows of that day and hour, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only” (Matthew 24:36), and times and seasons are the Father's own (Acts 1:7). And where a date spoken in God's name has passed without the thing spoken, Scripture gives its own verdict on the claim (Deuteronomy 18:22). The failure of 1914 as it was announced is not a small correction to the teaching. It is the teaching's center: a year published in advance as the close of the appointed times of the nations, which did not close them — the lease of power granted the Gentile rulers did not end.

The second teaching: his coming can pass unseen. Jehovah's Witnesses hold this form also, joined to the first: the presence that began in 1914 is invisible. Their dictionary defines the word at its root: “Hence, pa·rou·siʹa means, literally, ‘being alongside,’ that is, a ‘presence.’” (Insight on the Scriptures: Presence 1). It allows what the teaching requires: “This, however, still allows for an invisible presence that goes undiscerned by all but the faithful.” (Insight on the Scriptures: Presence 3). Their book for worshipers states it directly: “The nearness of it all was emphasized by evidence that Christ's invisible presence as ruling King began in 1914 C.E. and that since then we have been in the last days of this wicked world.” (United in Worship: Jehovah's Day 1). And their website: “Nevertheless, the Bible does show that Armageddon takes place during Jesus' invisible presence, which began in 1914.” (jw.org: Armageddon 1). In another dress, the same form is taught without the date: Christ will come first secretly and silently, take his own away unseen by the world, and only later appear in glory. The dresses differ; the claim is one — a coming of Christ that the world does not see.

We share the starting point of those who hold this teaching. Christ is coming, and the dead will rise at his voice, and we confess it with them. We share, too, the watchfulness: they keep the coming before their people's eyes, and that is no small thing in a sleepy age.

Their verses are John 14:19, Matthew 24:37–39 and 1 Thessalonians 4:17, read above where the objections are answered. We answer from the text both sides open. The coming Paul joins to our gathering is a descent “with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with God’s trumpet” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). The men in white promise a return “in the same way as you saw him going into the sky” (Acts 1:11). And John sees it whole: “every eye will see him, including those who pierced him” (Revelation 1:7). Our conclusion is that Scripture knows one coming of the Son of Man — once, future, and seen by all — and no unseen presence before it, whether dated 1914 or left undated.

A verse that rules out a teaching does not say that those who hold it are lost, and we do not say it either. Many who hold these teachings love the Lord Jesus, watch for his coming, and read their Bibles with care. Some of us were taught the first two in our own homes of worship, and one of us held them for fifteen years. We ask every reader to do with us what we ask throughout this series: open the text, and read it in context. Keep what is true.

Questions Answered

These questions touch this article. Each is answered from Scripture and labeled. The Statement of Faith, section 15, gives the same answers.

When Jesus takes David’s throne. Our conclusion: Jesus takes David’s throne at his return. Now he sits with his Father on the Father’s throne, at God’s right hand, until his enemies are made his footstool (Matthew 25:31; Revelation 3:21; Acts 2:34–35). Read the other way: Acts 2:30; 15:16. Confidence: Solid. Matthew 25:31 and Revelation 3:21 are plain; Acts 2:30 is answered by its own context — Peter “spoke about the resurrection of the Christ,” (Acts 2:31), and the seat the passage gives the risen Christ is his Father’s right hand. Acts 15:16 is James quoting Amos for the agreement of the prophets that Gentiles would be called by God’s name (Acts 15:14–15); Peter says heaven must receive Jesus “until the times of restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21).

The thousand years. Our conclusion: after his return, Christ reigns with his raised people for the thousand years Revelation states. We take the number as given and count no dates from it (Revelation 20:4). Read the other way: Revelation 20:4. Confidence: Solid. The order is stated in the passage itself: those who “lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years” (Revelation 20:4) are raised first, and “The rest of the dead didn’t live until the thousand years were finished.” (Revelation 20:5); Satan is released only “after the thousand years” (Revelation 20:7). Paul gives the same order: Christ the first fruits, “then those who are Christ’s at his coming” (1 Corinthians 15:23), then the end, with death abolished last (1 Corinthians 15:23–26). Taking the stated number as given, in a book of signs, is our step; it is a small one, and we name it.

The seventy weeks of Daniel 9. Our conclusion: the seventy weeks run to the Anointed One, who is cut off, and to the city’s destruction. Jesus placed that destruction in his hearers’ generation, and we find no verse that teaches a seven-year tribulation (Daniel 9:26). Read the other way: Daniel 9:27. Confidence: Solid. Daniel 9 names no tribulation and no seven-year period; its one week has an unnamed “he” (Daniel 9:27), and Revelation’s periods are forty-two months and time, times and half a time. Scripture does not say who makes the covenant of Daniel 9:27, and we leave that one point unsettled.

This generation and Jesus’ time sayings. Our conclusion: This generation means Jesus’ hearers, and Jerusalem fell in AD 70, as he said. His return, the resurrection and the judgment are still future, after the times of the Gentiles (Matthew 24:34). Read the other way: Matthew 16:28; 10:23. Confidence: Solid. Luke 21:20–24 shows both the near event and the long interval. Matthew 16:28 was met within the week: after six days three of them saw his glory (Matthew 17:1–2), and Peter calls that sight “the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:16–18). In Matthew 10:23, has come is the word Jesus also used to the high priest, who would himself see the Son of Man coming (Matthew 26:64).

The day of the return, and an unseen presence. Jesus will come again, once, publicly and visibly, and every eye will see him (Revelation 1:7). No one knows the day or hour, so we set no date and teach no hidden coming (Matthew 24:36). Read the other way: 1 Thessalonians 4:17. Confidence: Explicit. The catching up of 1 Thessalonians 4:17 belongs to the descent of verse 16 — “with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with God’s trumpet” (1 Thessalonians 4:16) — and Paul ties “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him” (2 Thessalonians 2:1) to the day that follows the rebellion and the revealing of the man of sin (2 Thessalonians 2:2–3). Jesus said in plain words that the Father alone knows the day. That is the definite answer.

Whether salvation depends on these questions. Our conclusion: salvation depends on believing the good news about Jesus and remaining in his teaching. It does not depend on settling every question in this document (John 8:24). Read the other way: John 8:24; 1 John 2:23; Galatians 1:9. Confidence: Solid. John names the belief he requires: “that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31). John’s denial is denying that Jesus is the Christ (1 John 2:22), and his test of teaching is the confession that Jesus Christ came in the flesh (2 John 7, 9). Galatians 1:9 curses a rival good news, not an unsettled question; Romans 14:1 shows that not every question divides.

What Scripture does not say. Scripture does not say in what year, generation, or season the Lord will return, beyond the signs Jesus gave and the day he refused to give. It does not give a date for the close of the appointed times of the nations, or say that God's Kingdom was established in heaven in 1914, or in any other year. It does not say that Christ's presence has already begun, invisibly, or that he will come twice — once secretly for his own, and once openly for the world. It does not say that believers will discern the day in advance and the world will not. It does not name the year of the end, and neither do we. Where Scripture is silent, we do not build.

“The secret things belong to Yahweh our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 29:29).

Where We Stand

Scripture says

  • No one knows the day or hour — not the angels of heaven, not the Son; the Father only (Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32).
  • Times and seasons are set within the Father's own authority, and it is not for us to know them (Acts 1:7).
  • The coming of the Son of Man will be as the lightning, seen from the east even to the west (Matthew 24:27).
  • All the tribes of the earth will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory (Matthew 24:30).
  • Every eye will see him, including those who pierced him (Revelation 1:7).
  • Jesus will come back in the same way as he was seen going into the sky (Acts 1:11).
  • The Lord himself will descend with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with God's trumpet, and the dead in Christ will rise first (1 Thessalonians 4:16).
  • Our gathering together to him belongs to the day that follows the rebellion and the revealing of the man of sin (2 Thessalonians 2:1–3).
  • Daniel did not understand his own words, which are shut up and sealed until the time of the end (Daniel 12:8–9).
  • A word spoken in Yahweh's name that does not happen was not spoken by Yahweh, and we are not to be afraid of it (Deuteronomy 18:22).
  • The day and hour are not given to be calculated by any count of years: no one knows them, and the times and seasons are the Father's own (Matthew 24:36; Acts 1:7).
  • His coming has not already begun unseen: he will come back in the same way he was seen to go, and every eye will see him (Acts 1:11; Revelation 1:7).

We conclude

  • Our conclusion: there is no secret coming for his own before the public appearing; the one gathering is loud and open (1 Thessalonians 4:16; 2 Thessalonians 2:1–3).
  • Our conclusion: 1 Thessalonians 5:4 promises that the day will not overtake watchful believers like a thief — it does not give them the date (1 Thessalonians 5:1–5; Revelation 16:15).
  • Our conclusion: John 14:19 speaks of the world seeing Jesus no more after the cross, while his disciples saw him risen; it does not describe the final coming (John 14:18–19; Acts 10:41).
  • Our conclusion: a prediction that failed is judged by Deuteronomy 18:22 as a claim; the people who trusted it are owed gentleness, not scorn (Deuteronomy 18:22).

Hope

The day we cannot date is the day we are promised. The men in white did not leave the apostles staring at an empty sky; they left them with a word: “This Jesus, who was received up from you into the sky, will come back in the same way as you saw him going into the sky.” (Acts 1:11). Jesus had promised it himself the night before he died: “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also.” (John 14:3). When he comes, he comes in glory: “when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory” (Matthew 25:31).

And the gathering Paul describes ends in the sentence he tells the church to comfort one another with: “So we will be with the Lord forever.” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). “Therefore comfort one another with these words.” (1 Thessalonians 4:18). We do not know the day. We know the Lord of the day, and we know how the story ends: seen by every eye, and forever with him.

Open the text. Read it in context. Keep what's true.

Living It Out

These are applications, offered as invitations.

  • Try reading Matthew 24 in one sitting, and marking every place where Jesus says the day is not known beside every place where he says the coming will be seen.
  • When a date, a chart, or a confident count is shared with you, you might ask one quiet question: what did Jesus himself say about knowing the day? (Matthew 24:36.)
  • If you once built your hope on a date that came and went, Deuteronomy 18:22 may free you: the failed claim is not to be feared, and the day itself is still coming.
  • Practice the readiness Jesus commands — watch, and be ready — by staying at the work he gave, rather than by watching a calendar (Matthew 24:42–44).
  • Where the timing stays hidden, it may help to rest in what is revealed (Deuteronomy 29:29), and in the promise that we will be with the Lord forever (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

Questions for Reflection

  1. What did the disciples ask Jesus on the Mount of Olives, and what did the apostles ask him after his resurrection?
  2. What does Jesus command instead of knowing the day — and why? (See No One Knows the Day or Hour.)
  3. What was Daniel told about his own words, and how does that bear on counting them? (See Daniel's Numbers Were Sealed Until the End.)
  4. How do 1 Thessalonians 5:1–2 help us read 5:4? (See No One Knows the Day or Hour.)
  5. How will Jesus come back, according to the two men in white — and who will see him? (See Every Eye Will See Him.)
  6. What does it mean for you that the day is unknown, but the Lord of the day is not? (See Hope.)

Check It Yourself

  • Opening: Matthew 24:3; Acts 1:6.
  • No one knows: Matthew 24:36, 42, 44; Mark 13:32; Acts 1:7; 1 Thessalonians 5:1–5, 8; Revelation 16:15.
  • Daniel's numbers: Daniel 4:25; 8:14, 26–27; 12:8–9, 11–12; Matthew 24:15; Luke 19:41–44.
  • The test of a claim: Deuteronomy 18:20–22.
  • Every eye: Matthew 24:27, 30–31; 25:31–32; Revelation 1:7; Acts 1:9–11; John 14:18–19; Acts 10:41.
  • The gathering: 1 Thessalonians 4:16–18; 2 Thessalonians 2:1–3; Matthew 24:37–42.
  • The teachings tested: Insight on the Scriptures: Appointed Times; Insight on the Scriptures: Presence; Watchtower, November 2014: Kingdom Ruling; jw.org: Bible Chronology and 1914; jw.org: Armageddon; United in Worship: Jehovah's Day.
  • Answered: Statement of Faith, section 15; Deuteronomy 29:29.
  • Hope: Acts 1:11; John 14:3; Matthew 25:31; 1 Thessalonians 4:17–18.

Notes on the Text

The word rendered coming in Matthew 24:27, 37 and 39 can also be rendered presence; by either word, Jesus describes it as lightning seen across the whole sky and as a flood that took a world openly, so the rendering does not make the coming an unseen one.

Next

Next in Test the Teaching: God's Word, Not Human Tradition. Can a teaching bind the believer that Scripture itself does not state?

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© 2026 Elvis Lucas, Open the Text. Original: https://openthetext.com/series/test-the-teaching/03-no-one-knows-the-day-or-hour-and-every-eye-will-see-him/
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