Goal/tax
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Τέλος is a theologically layered New Testament word because it can hold together ideas English often splits apart: end, goal, completion, and outcome. In ordinary Greek usage, τέλος could name the finishing point of a race, the goal toward which athletes strained, the completion of a task, and the outcome of a decision.
Reader summary
Full entry for τέλος (G5056) · Open the biblical lexicon
Τέλος is a theologically layered New Testament word because it can hold together ideas English often splits apart: end, goal, completion, and outcome. In ordinary Greek usage, τέλος could name the finishing point of a race, the goal toward which athletes strained, the completion of a task, and the outcome of a decision.
The BSB source-word alignment has 40 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include end (12), [the] end (7), outcome (4), goal (2), . . . (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 10:22. Its strongest book concentrations include Matthew (6), Romans (5), 1 Peter (4), Hebrews (4).
This entry includes 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
Τέλος is a theologically layered New Testament word because it can hold together ideas English often splits apart: end, goal, completion, and outcome. In ordinary Greek usage, τέλος could name the finishing point of a race, the goal toward which athletes strained, the completion of a task, and the outcome of a decision. The NT can draw on those resonances in redemptive-historical contexts.
The most exegetically contested use is Romans 10:4: 'For Christ is the τέλος of the law, to bring righteousness to everyone who believes.' Whether Paul means Christ is the law's termination, its goal, its fulfillment, or some combination of those ideas depends on the full argument of Romans and cannot be resolved by word study alone. The word can support more than one of those readings, so Romans itself must govern the conclusion.
Beyond that contested verse, τέλος marks the end of the age (1 Corinthians 10:11), the sustaining of believers through to the final day (1 Corinthians 1:8), the outcome of moral choices (Romans 6:21-22), and the character of Christ Himself as Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End (Revelation 21:6; 22:13). This usage is theologically weighty: when God names Himself as the τέλος, Revelation is not merely describing how things conclude. It is identifying the One who determines every conclusion. In Revelation's own grammar, the end is bound to the person and rule of God. That reframes what the NT says about endurance, outcomes, and the completion of faith. Perseverance to the τέλος (Matthew 10:22; Hebrews 3:14) is not mere grit. It is orientation toward the Lord who brings His people to the promised end.
The local Greek artifact currently counts about 40 NT occurrences of τέλος across the Gospels, Pauline letters, Hebrews, and Revelation. It operates across three closely related semantic fields: temporal end (the close of an age or period), purposive goal (the aim toward which something moves), and outcome (the result or consequence of an action or life). These fields can overlap in NT passages, so the immediate context must decide which emphasis is in view.
For Christ is the end of the law, to bring righteousness to everyone who believes.
The most debated τέλος in the NT corpus. 'End of the law' can mean termination, goal, or fulfillment — and the Greek holds all three without forcing a decision. In context, Paul has been arguing that Israel pursued the law as if it led to righteousness by works, missing the one the law was always pointing toward. Christ is not merely the law's conclusion in time; he is its destination and its completion in purpose.
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the fruit you reap leads to holiness, and the outcome is eternal life.
Here τέλος functions as 'outcome' — the destination toward which a life shaped by God-slavery moves. Paired with Romans 6:21 (where the τέλος of a life shaped by sin is death), the contrast is absolute: two kinds of life, two kinds of telos. This is the word used as moral diagnostics: what is the end of this path? Paul's answer forces readers to think eschatologically about present choices.
He will sustain you to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God sustains believers εἰς τέλος — toward the end, all the way through to the finish. The word here marks the outer boundary of the Christian life: the final day of Christ's appearing. Paul's reassurance is not that Christians will maintain their own grip to that day but that God will sustain them there. Τέλος as the horizon of divine faithfulness.
You will be hated by everyone because of My name, but the one who perseveres to the end will be saved.
Endurance εἰς τέλος — to the end — is the mark of those who are saved. Jesus is not teaching salvation by endurance in a works sense; the context of Matthew 10 is the cost of mission and the promise of the Father's care through it (10:28-31). The τέλος here is both temporal (the end of persecution) and eschatological (the final salvation). Perseverance is the expression of faith, not its replacement.
Now these things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.
The 'ends' (τέλη) of the ages — plural, a rare construction — have arrived in Christ's coming. Paul's argument is that the church lives at the completion-point of the ages' purposes, which is why Israel's wilderness failures function as warnings for the present generation. The eschatological τέλος is not future horizon only; it has arrived and is defining the present.
And He told me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give freely from the spring of the water of life.
God himself is named as the τέλος — the End that frames all created history. This is the word's highest theological register: not merely the conclusion of a sequence but the Person who is himself the destination of all things. When τέλος is applied to God in Revelation, every other use of the word in the NT gains a relational dimension: the end toward which believers persevere is not an abstract finish line but the living God.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Greek word. End denotes both termination of time/action and ultimate purpose or goal toward which something aims.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 42 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
an end, purpose, tax
Read versean end, purpose, tax
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Read versean end, purpose, tax
Read versean end, purpose, tax
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Read versean end, purpose, tax
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Read versean end, purpose, tax
Read versean end, purpose, tax
Read versean end, purpose, tax
Read versean end, purpose, tax
Read versean end, purpose, tax
Read versean end, purpose, tax
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 5 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 3 selected witnesses from 40 lexical occurrence verses.
Shows that Christ is the culmination and purpose of the law. 1 Peter 4:7-11
Refers to final consummation, not every crisis. Luke 21:7–11
Signals redemptive culmination shaping present conduct. Romans 9:30-10:4
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Τέλος gives teachers a word for endurance that is more than bare survival or grim determination: movement oriented toward the goal God Himself sets. Many English renderings must choose either 'end' (temporal) or 'goal' (purposive), while NT usage can hold those senses close together. Romans 6:21-22 uses τέλος to press the congregation to think about the end of their current trajectory.
Matthew 10:22 uses it to press the church toward sustained faithfulness under pressure. Revelation 21:6 uses it to reveal that the End has a face and a name. A sermon that handles τέλος carefully can help people see that in the NT, 'end' is often not merely chronological. It can also be purposive and personal. The believer's ultimate end is not death or time-running-out.
The believer's end, the one toward whom the whole life moves, is Christ, who is Himself the Alpha and the Omega. That reframes suffering, endurance, moral decision-making, and eschatology together. The τέλος of discipleship is governed by the same Lord who will speak over the final chapter of all history. Teachers who hold that together will teach with both urgency and peace.
Rev.21.6
Τέλος belongs to a word family that includes τελειόω (to complete/perfect), τέλειος (complete/mature), and τελευτάω (to end/die). The root sense in classical Greek is completion of a task or purpose — an end that arrives because a goal has been reached, not merely because time has elapsed. Abbott-Smith notes the LXX uses of εἰς τὸ τέλος to translate נֶצַח (perpetuity, forever) — which enriches the NT uses of εἰς τέλος with a sense not just of chronological endpoint but of permanence and sustained orientation.
The phrase εἰς τέλος in John 13:1 ('he loved them to the end') likely carries both senses: to the last moment of his earthly life and to the uttermost degree of love.
The Hebrew אַחֲרִית (acharit, 'latter end' or 'outcome') and קֵץ (qes, 'end' often in apocalyptic contexts) together provide the OT substrate for τέλος. Deuteronomy 8:16 speaks of what God intends 'in the latter end' for Israel — good coming through the testing of the wilderness. Ecclesiastes uses אַחֲרִית repeatedly to press readers toward honest reckoning with outcomes.
Daniel's visions are structured around the קֵץ — the appointed end of kingdoms and the establishment of God's kingdom. When the NT inherits τέλος, it inherits this entire OT tradition of purposive ending: ends are not accidents, they are appointed. The fullest NT development of that inheritance is Revelation 21-22, where God as Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, recapitulates the OT's vision of a purposive creation that moves toward its Maker.
Romans 10:4 — Christ as the τέλος of the law — is the christological hinge between the two testaments: the law was not an end in itself but pointed toward its own completion, which arrived in the person of Israel's Messiah.
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