DANIEL'S 70TH WEEK 490 YEARSThis is typical of the critics of the Pre-trib rapture as I've been encountering them. They misrepresent the argument and they carry on at great length about the supposed foolishness of the popularity of it. I can't claim to be particularly knowledgeable of the many versions of the pre-trib position myself as I'm mostly trying to understand what the Bible says, but I think it is completely false to reduce the idea of an as-yet-unfulfilled 70th Week of Daniel to this particular verse.
The Bible says, "He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease." Daniel 9:27.
Have you ever heard of the "seven-year period of great tribulation"? The whole idea is rooted in two words of the above sentence! The two words are "one week." Supposedly, that period of "one week" applies to the final seven-year period of great tribulation at the end of time. Right now, all over planet Earth, in books, in magazines, in videos, on the radio, in seminaries, on the Internet, and at Bible prophecy conferences, Christians are talking about events that they firmly believe will occur during a final seven years of tribulation.
First I should point out that while there has been confusion on this point, most pre-tribbers don't claim the entire 70th week is a time of tribulation but only the last half of it, after the major event of the "midst of the week" (causing the sacrifice and oblation to cease). This event is considered to be synonymous with the appearance of the "abomination of desolation" that Jesus says in Matthew 24 will be the trigger for the most terrible time of tribulation ever to occur in this world.
The idea of the 70th week comes from the calculations of the seventy weeks as given by the angel to Daniel, which show that 69 of the prophesied 70 weeks, or 483 of the total 490 years, were clearly fulfilled by Jesus' first coming, but that the 70th week has no fulfillment in that time period. It just doesn't. There is no coherent period of seven years counting from the end of the 69 at Jesus' riding into Jerusalem on the donkey. If the 69 had counted to the beginning of His ministry then there might be an argument that HALF the week was fulfilled, as His ministry lasted about 3-1/2 years, but you'd still have another 3-1/2 years left from the prophecy that has no fulfillment in that time period and has to be regarded as future anyway. But the count goes to the entry into Jerusalem, not the beginning of His ministry, and that's shortly before He is crucified, and that leaves seven years yet unfulfilled. THIS is the main source of the concept. The covenant of Daniel 9:27 simply suggests some content for the yet-to-come week.
According to the popular interpretation of Daniel 9:27, the "he" refers to a future Antichrist who will eventually make a covenant, or peace treaty, with the Jews during the final seven years of tribulation. In the "midst" of this tribulation, this Antichrist will cause "the sacrifice … to cease." In order for the sacrifices to cease, they must have been restarted. Therefore, according to countless modern interpreters, there must be a rebuilt third Jewish temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.He makes it sound as if the idea of the rebuilt temple were invented to accommodate a pre-existing theory, but this rests on Paul's teaching in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 about the "man of sin" who will present himself as God in the temple, as I argued in a previous post:
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
A popular Christian magazine called Endtime reflects this current view: "Three and one-half years after the confirming of the covenant [by the Antichrist] the Jews’ Third Temple must be completed and sacrifice and oblation be in progress. We know this because Daniel 9:27 states that in the middle of the seven years the Antichrist will cause the sacrifice and the oblation to stop." Much of the Christian world is now locked in a fierce debate about whether Jesus will return for His church before the 7 years (the pre-tribulation view), in the midst of the 7 years (the mid-tribulation view), or at the end of the 7 years (the post-tribulation view). Yet by far the most explosive question, which few seem to be asking, should be "Is and end-time ‘seven-year period of great tribulation’ really the correct interpretation of Daniel 9:27 in the first place?"Since that verse is not the only source of the interpretation the question is misleading. To make sense of this, the whole Bible passage needs to be considered, not just verse 27:
Daniel 9:24-27 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
Historically, Protestant scholars have not applied Daniel 9:27 to a future period of tribulation at all! Neither have they applied the "he" to the Antichrist! Rather, they applied it to Jesus Christ. Notice what the world-famous Bible commentary written by Matthew Henry says about Daniel 9:27: "By offering himself a sacrifice once and for all he [Jesus] shall put an end to all the Levitical sacrifices." Another famous Bible commentary, written by Adam Clarke, says that during the "term of seven years," Jesus would "confirm or ratify the new covenant with mankind." Finally, another well-respected old commentary declares: "He shall confirm the covenant—Christ. The confirmation of the covenant is assigned to Him."It is true that the pre-trib Rapture is a relatively new interpretation of scripture, but as I've studied the passages in question I've had to conclude that the older interpretations do quite a bit of stretching to bring about a fit and fail completely to make a fit at some points:
Grammatically the verse is NOT referring to the Messiah but to the "prince who shall come" whose people will destroy the temple and the city. THAT "he" is the nearest previous referent grammatically speaking, not the Messiah.
It also takes some stretching or word-fudging to claim that Jesus Christ "confirmed" a covenant, because in fact He established a NEW covenant.
But the most telling problem with this interpretation is that His covenant was not for "one week" in any sense of the phrase that I can think of, but forever.
The following 10 points provide logical and convincing evidence that the "one week" spoken of in Daniel 9:27 does not apply to any future seven-year period of tribulation at all. Rather, this great prophetic period has already been definitely fulfilled in the past!OK, I'm listening.
1) The entire prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27 covers a period of "seventy weeks." This period applies to one complete, sequential block of time. This prophecy would start during the Persian period and would end during the time of the Messiah.Uh huh, but why be so vague about it when those who have done the calculations have found that EXACTLY 69 weeks of years, or 483 years, can be counted from the relevant decree to Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, leaving one week of the prophecy unaccounted for? According to these calculations, the entire 70 weeks would go beyond the crucifixion almost but not quite seven years, and that number simply does not connect with anything historical at all, leading to the idea that this week is as yet unfulfilled and yet future. If you want to answer the Pre-tribbers you are going to have to show that the amazingly precise calculation of the 69 weeks is in fact wrong. Why don't the critics ever do this? Why do they rely on such vague statements as that quoted here when the scriptural numbers so clearly imply precision and it has been demonstrated that they ARE precise?
Off to a bad start with this list it seems to me.
2) Logic requires that the 70th week follow immediately after the 69th week. If it does not, then it cannot properly be called the 70th week!Yes, that would be the logical expectation, but the fact of the matter is that there is no full 70 weeks between the decree and the ministry of Jesus. We can count a very specific 69 weeks in fulfillment of the prophecy but there is a very specific one week left out at the end. The integrity of the prophecy REQUIRES that we put that one week off to the future. This Biblical necessity simply trumps logic.
AND consider how it is worded:
. . . from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself:Although as far as I know nobody has been able to account historically for the separating of that first seven weeks or 49 years in the prophecy -- although there have been various guesses -- the 69 weeks are quite clear and have a clear historical fulfillment. This period is FOLLOWED BY the crucifixion, but not followed by the last or 70th week. A few days AFTER the Lord Jesus' entry into Jerusalem at exactly 69 weeks (the 7 plus 62 weeks), He WAS "cut off," that is, He was crucified, and not for Himself but for the sins of everyone who believes in Him. Again, this 69-week period is an EXACT count according to the prophecy given to Daniel. Since it is so exact we have to expect that there will be a seventieth week and that it will be just as exact, and it is very clear that it did not occur during the time of the Lord's first coming or immediately afterward either.
As a matter of fact there is a clue in the wording of the relevant passage that the last week is to be separated by some time period from the first 69. The last week is mentioned in the passage AFTER the fulfillment of the Messiah's mission, in the context of the destruction of the city and the temple that is to follow:
And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.We know that historically the temple was destroyed in 70AD, almost forty years after the crucifixion and not in any time frame by which we could eke out a last seven years to fulfill the prophecy. And we seem now to be catapulted into a different time frame altogether with the reference to a "flood" that had no historical fulfillment in the first destructions of the temple or the city by the Romans. The "end of the war" now seems to apply to a yet-future war. And it is only after these apparently unrelated insertions after the crucifixion that there is a mention of "one week" which most logically must be the so-far-unfulfilled 70th week, in a position rather removed from the 69 weeks. The "he" that shall confirm the covenant for one week now appears to be separated from the Messiah not only by grammar and factual incidentals but by time.
The crucifixion made the temple sacrifices forever unnecessary, but to say that "he" as the Messiah "caused" them to cease with the 70AD destruction is stretching language. And there also just happens to be ANOTHER reference in Daniel to another "prince" who DOES remove the sacrifice:
Daniel 8:11 Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.As I also pointed out in my previous post about the 70th week, this prophecy WAS fulfilled, by Antiochus Epiphanes a few centuries after Daniel (175-163 BC), whose desecration of the Jerusalem temple was the cause of the Maccabean revolt, now commemorated in the celebration of Hannukah.
So it isn't just the Messiah's death that ends the sacrifice, but at least one antichrist figure who was yet future to Daniel, the Greek Antioches Epiphanes. With this clear preceding reference to a political-military leader who desecrates the temple, and a fulfilled prophecy at that, along with all the other differences I've pointed to, it's hard to see how anyone can insist that the reference in Daniel 9 MUST refer to the Messiah and not a yet-future representative of the Roman empire.
3) It is illogical to insert a 2,000-year gap between the 69th and the 70th week. No hint of this gap is found in the prophecy itself. There is no gap between the first 7 weeks and the following 62 weeks. Why insert one between the 69th and the 70th week?I think I must have shown by now that no-one is simply gratuitously inserting "a 2000-year gap" but deriving the necessity of a gap from the scriptural requirements. If this critic had succeeded in showing that the full 70 weeks of the prophecy had indeed been fulfilled at the first coming of Christ as he claims, I could not argue with him, but he failed to show this. He claimed it, he said it was fulfilled between the Persian period and the Messiah, a very vague period of time, denying the specific count that underlies the interpretation that 69 weeks were exactly fulfilled, and that makes his argument rightly not even worth answering. EXCEPT that it's an aggressive argument and it has a following, and that is why it must be answered.
4) Daniel 9:27 says nothing about a seven-year period of tribulation, or about any Antichrist.No, but by now I've surely shown that the "he" can't be the Messiah but a yet future prince of the people who destroy the city and the temple, that is, the Romans.
5) The focus of this prophecy is the Messiah, not the Antichrist. Modern interpreters have applied "the people of the prince" who would come to "destroy the city and the sanctuary" (verse 26) to the Antichrist. Yet the text does not say this. In the past, that sentence has been applied to the Romans, who under Prince Titus did "destroy the city and the sanctuary" in A.D. 70.This is rather garbled it seems to me.
Grammatically, it is not even the prince who destroys the temple in 70AD but his people. We know Titus was their leader, but no one speaks of Titus as a prince that I know of. Even if he was a prince, the prince in question is of these same people who destroyed the temple and the city, but is yet future.
and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;It is the people who are said to destroy the city and the sanctuary, not the prince that shall come. However, granting that the 70AD destruction is a partial fulfillment of this part of the prophecy doesn't preclude the possibility of a yet future and more perfect fulfillment. But again, it is the PEOPLE, grammatically speaking, who did the destroying, not the prince in question, putting this particular prince off to another time.
6) "He shall confirm the covenant." Jesus Christ came "to confirm the promises made unto the fathers." Romans 15:8.Confirming PROMISES is not the same thing as confirming a COVENANT. This is playing fast and loose with the language. Jesus Christ did NOT "confirm a covenant," He established a NEW covenant in His own blood.
Nowhere in the Bible is Antichrist ever said to make or confirm a covenant with anyone! The word "covenant" always applies to the Messiah, never to the Antichrist!If it weren't for all the other discrepancies that show that this part of the passage is not referring to the Messiah but to a "prince that shall come" this might carry some weight. But political leaders make covenants all the time so there is nothing inherently unlikely about the last greatest evil political leader's doing the same.
7) "He shall confirm the covenant with many." Jesus said, "This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many." Matthew 26:28. Jesus used the same words, because He knew that He was fulfilling Daniel 9:27!There is not as great a similarity here as he is claiming. I see only the similarity between"with many" and "for many," the former referring to a covenant with many and the latter the Lord's blood shed for many. These are not really "the same words." However, as I said in my other post on the 70th week, there is reason to believe there is some intentional ambiguity in the text here, as there often is in prophetic passages, and of course the Antichrist is to imitate Christ in as many ways as he can so confusion between his attributes and doings and Christ's is to be expected.
Again, Jesus did not "confirm" a covenant, He initiated a new covenant, and He certainly did not do it "for one week" but for all eternity. This leaves the covenant in question to be the work of the "prince who shall come" as there is no other possibility.
8) "In the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease." The 70th week was from A.D. 27 to 34. After three and a half years of ministry, Christ died in A.D. 31, "in the midst [middle] of the week." At the moment of His death, "the veil of the temple was rent [torn] in twain from the top to the bottom." Matthew 27:51. This act of God signified that all animal sacrifices had at that moment ceased to be of value. The Great Sacrifice had been offered!This would be a reasonable and intriguing interpretation except for the fact that the 69 weeks of the Daniel prophecy don't count to the beginning of the Lord's ministry but to His entry into Jerusalem just a few days before His crucifixion. If the critic wanted to show that this alternative interpretation carries weight he would have to show that the counting of the 69 weeks is wrong and that in fact it counts to the beginning of Christ's ministry. One can only wonder why he doesn't do this.
He would also have to show that there is some significance in relation to the Lord's mission to the year 34 AD three and a half years after the crucifixion, to make it a fitting end point to the prophecy. He mentions no significance whatever here and I know of none. However, he does later suggest such a significance which I'll get to when it comes up.
9) "For the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate." Jesus plainly applied this "abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet" (Matthew 24:15) to the time when His followers were to flee from Jerusalem before the destruction of the second temple in A.D. 70. Jesus told His 12 disciples, "When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies [the Roman armies led by Prince Titus], then know that its desolation is near." Luke 21:20, emphasis added. Those disciples did "see" those very events. Christ’s very last words to the Pharisees from inside the second temple were, "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." Matthew 23:38. Thus Daniel’s prophecy about Jerusalem becoming "desolate" was exactly fulfilled in A.D. 70! Jesus understood this perfectly.The problem with this is that there already had been such an experience held in memory and commemorated by the Jews at the time of this prophecy, the "abomination of desolation" having been a pig that was introduced into the temple by Antioches Epiphanes, which is generally considered to be at least the first fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy, with another or others yet to come, which makes the abomination of desolation a more specific thing than the desolation brought by war.
Da 11:31 And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.I am not clear whether the Romans also placed an "abomination of desolation" in the temple but that would be the more specific fulfillment of the prophecy in 70 AD if so. Still, there appears to be yet a future "abomination of desolation" to come involving a future temple, but I admit to being weak on this part of the scripture and will have to come back to it at some later time.
Da 12:11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.
Also, Jesus in Matthew 24 refers to a time of tribulation so extreme nothing like it has ever occurred before. While the tribulations of the time of the destruction of the temple and later of Jerusalem were very great I don't think they compare to the Holocaust, or to the final time of "Jacob's trouble" as prophesied in Jeremiah, which is yet future.
10) Gabriel said that the 70-week prophecy specifically applied to the Jewish people (Daniel 9:24). From A.D. 27 to A.D. 34, the disciples went only "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Matthew 10:6. At the end of the 70 weeks, in the year A.D. 34, Stephen was stoned by the Jewish Sanhedrin (Acts chapter 7). Then the gospel began to go to the Gentiles. In Acts chapter 9, Saul became Paul, "the apostle of the Gentiles." Romans 11:13. Then in Acts chapter 10, God gave Peter a vision revealing that it was now time to preach the gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 10:1-28). Read also Acts 13:46.Now this is very interesting if so as now he IS showing a significance to the year 34 AD. IF this is correct it would fulfill the 70 weeks as a specifically Jewish dispensation. But he really has an obligation to demonstrate that the stoning of Stephen did occur in 34 AD EXACTLY three and a half years after the crucifixion (or whatever marker of the Lord's ministry he has in mind, which he doesn't identify) and he hasn't done this.
But there is also the question of whether the objectives of the seventy weeks were fulfilled:
Da 9:24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.This would take some pondering but I would guess that the transgression has not been finished, and there has not yet been an end of sins, but it depends on whether you take this to refer to the mission accomplished by Jesus or to actual ongoing history, and I'm not going to get into this here.
But again, he has not shown that the familiar counting of the 69 weeks to the Lord's entry into Jerusalem is wrong and that it actually counts to the beginning of His ministry. This is absolutely necessary if this interpretation is to be taken as a valid possibility.
The explosive evidence is overwhelming! Point by point, the events of the 70th week have already been fulfilled in the past! The following eight words found in Daniel 9:27: "confirm...covenant...many...midst...sacrifice...cease... abominations...desolate": all find a perfect fulfillment in Jesus Christ and inAs long as the terminology is presented so vaguely and suggestively out of context, while the specific scriptures in question are not examined in detail in context, you can make it seem like the evidence is there although it is not. All those terms take on different applications when examined in context. I'd also point out again that if we are talking about the Antichrist we have to expect that he will mimic Christ in as many ways as possible. In any case, when the specific statements of scripture are examined, even to the small extent I've tried to do above, this claim of an overwhelming case for the fulfillment of the 70th week just falls apart.
early Christian history.
One reason why the Jewish nation as a whole failed to receive its Messiah was because its leaders and scholars failed to correctly interpret the 70-week prophecy. They failed to see Jesus Christ as the Messiah who died in the midst of the 70th week. The same thing is happening today! Amazingly, sincere Christian scholars are now misinterpreting the very same prophecy.I have to agree that SOMEBODY is misinterpreting the very same prophecy but it's not so clear who, or just how it's being misinterpreted, either now or at the time of the Lord's first coming.
The entire "seven-year period of great tribulation" theory is a grand illusion. It may go down in history as the biggest evangelical misinterpretation of the 20th century! It can be compared to a big, fat hot air balloon. Inside, there is no substance, only air. As soon as Daniel 9:27 is understood correctly and the pin of truth is inserted, the balloon will pop. The fact is that no text in the Bible teaches any "seven-year period of great tribulation." If you look for it, you will end up like Ponce de Leon, who tirelessly searched for the famous fountain of youth but never found it.Again, the 70th week is not considered to be entirely a period of tribulation; the great tribulation is considered to occur in the last half of the 70th week. In any case, it isn't all that difficult to track down this seventieth week, as I hope I've shown above.
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I thought I'd be back to make changes in this post but I'm leaving it as is after all. 12/08/10
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