“Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy.
“Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble” (Daniel 9:24-25).
Dispensationalists believe, with good reason, that there’s one “seven” left to fulfill from the promise the angel Gabriel delivered to Daniel near the end of the Babylonian captivity. From the King James translation we know the prophecy as Daniel’s 70 weeks, where each week represents 7 years. 69 of these weeks (7 plus 62) had passed when the Messiah presented Himself to Israel as their King on the only day in His life that He did so. On our calendar it became known as the first Palm Sunday.
In the prophecy 69 weeks equals 483 years (69 x 7). This is the exact time that had passed since Artaxerxes Longimonus issued his decree giving Nehemiah permission to begin rebuilding Jerusalem (Nehemiah 2:1-10). (The city had been destroyed when Nebuchadnezzar’s army conquered Judah and took its people captive to Babylon.) Daniel’s prophecy was being fulfilled in specific detail, and Israel’s failure to realize this marked the beginning of the end for them (Luke 19:41-44).
After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed (Daniel 9:26).
The Hebrew word for Anointed One is Messiah. Four days after He presented Himself to them as their King, they executed Him, which is what the Hebrew word translated “cut off” means. Nothing the angel Gabriel had promised to Mary (Luke 1:32-33) had come to pass. Three days after that He rose again, fulfilling a sign He had promised to the religious leaders to prove His authenticity, the sign of the prophet Jonah (Matt. 12:39-40). He gave them 40 days to recognize what was the most dramatic fulfillment of a prophetic sign in the history of mankind and accept Him as their Messiah, and when they didn’t He ascended into Heaven, fulfilling another prophecy in the process.
They all came together in Jerusalem, where James, the Lord’s half brother and head of the Church in Jerusalem set them straight. Israel is being temporarily set aside, he told them, while the Lord takes out of the Gentiles a people for Himself. After that He will restore Israel to allow the remnant of mankind one more chance to seek Him (Acts 15:13-18). Therefore, Gentiles would not be required to convert to Judaism in the process of becoming Christians.
The Greek word translated “take” in Acts 15:14 means to carry away for one’s own purpose and the one translated “out of” means to remove from a specified time and place. Before restoring Israel to fellowship with Him, the Lord will take a people for Himself out of the time and place of the Gentiles. James was describing the rapture of the Church and saying it will precede Daniel’s 70th Week.
Paul, who was at the meeting, confirmed this by saying Israel has been blinded in part until the full number of Gentiles has come in. After that Israel will be saved (Romans 11:25). This is another testimony that the rapture of the church will precede Israel’s restoration and redemption. From these two prophecies we understand that Israel’s rejection of the Messiah did not end the Old Covenant. It merely interrupted its 490 year post exilic duration 7 years short of its allotted time. After the Church is gone this seven years has to be completed.
“He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing of the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him” (Daniel 9:27).
The final seven years will begin with a covenant to be signed by the “ruler who will come”, mentioned in Daniel 9:26. Gabriel said this leader will come from the people who would destroy the city and the sanctuary after the Messiah’s execution. In the middle of this last seven years He will put an end to sacrifices and offerings by setting up the Abomination of Desolation which kicks off the 3 1/2 year Great Tribulation (Matt. 24:15-21).
Put this all together and you can begin to see why I believe the Rapture of the Church will precede the beginning of Daniel’s missing 70th week. According to these prophecies the church has to be gone before Israel returns to their covenant relationship with the Lord.
No comments:
Post a Comment