The parousia is preceded by certain signs heralding its approach.
19:38; 1 Corinthians 4:3). The phrase is found in Matthew 7:22; 24:36; Mark 13:32; Luke 10:12; 17:24; 21:34; Acts 2:20; Romans 13:12; 1 Corinthians 1:8; 3:13; 5:5; 2 Corinthians 1:14; Philippians 1:6; 2:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:2, 4 (compare 5:5, 8); 2 Thessalonians 2:2; 2 Timothy 1:12, 18; 4:8; Hebrews 10:25; 2 Peter 3:10.
2. Signs Preceding the Parousia: The parousia is preceded by certain signs heralding its approach. Judaism, on the basis of the Old Testament, had worked out the doctrine of "the woes of the Messiah," chebhele ha-mashiach, the calamities and afflictions attendant upon the close of the present and the beginning of the coming age being interpreted as birth pains of the latter. This is transferred in the New Testament to the parousia of Christ. The phrase occurs only in Matthew 24:8; Mark 13:8, the idea, in Romans 8:22, and allusions to it occur probably in 1 Corinthians 7:26; 1 Thessalonians 3:3; 5:3. Besides these general "woes," and also in accord with Jewish doctrine, the appearance of the Antichrist is made to precede the final crisis. Without Jewish precedent, the New Testament links with the parousia as preparatory to it, the pouring out of the Spirit, the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, the conversion of Israel and the preaching of the gospel to all the nations. The problem of the sequence and interrelation of these several precursors of the end is a most difficult and complicated one and, as would seem, at the present not ripe for solution. The "woes" which in our Lord's eschatological discourse (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21) are mentioned in more or less close accord with Jewish teaching are:
(1) wars, earthquakes and famines, "the beginning of travail";
(2) the great tribulation;