The Rapture scenario continues to elude me

Just a quick report. I'm struggling through Hal Lindsey's book of 1999, Vanished, which was recommended to me as a help to resolve my ongoing inability to settle the questions involving the idea of a premillennial Rapture. Well, it doesn't resolve it. Yet. But I am having a very hard time reading it. Something about the way it is organized makes it hard for me to follow, and he spends too much time, for my purposes anyway, answering other interpretive schemes that don't persuade me at all anyway -- Dominionism and Reconstructionism for instance. For some time I've found the premillennial interpretation to be the best of the field at elucidating the scripture, just not entirely convincing to me yet.

I'm MOSTLY convinced that scripture does describe the return of Jesus in two different sets of terms such that the idea of the Rapture of the Church's occurring separately from His return to earth as conquering king is a reasonable interpretation. That is not completely resolved for me either because I'm not entirely sure which references apply to which event, and there's one that's taken to apply to the Rapture that has the Lord appearing with a "shout" that hardly sounds like a quiet snatching-away of His people. BUT overall the two-stage return of Christ is plausible. And there is precedent for such a division into two in the fact that Jesus' first advent only fulfilled the Suffering Servant prophecies of the Old Testament, leaving the prophecies of his return as triumphant warrior king for the Second Coming, which wasn't clearly understood until after His resxurrection and ascension. So as we approach the last of the last days it seems perfectly reasonable that a more precise outline of His return should also begin to appear, and also to expect that it too won't be fully understood until it is upon us or even later.

Unfortunately it's hard to point to exactly what it is that gives me the most trouble with Lindsey's presentation. Cobra helicopters are the least of the problem though. There is one place Lindsey makes himself utterly untrustworthy it seems to me, when he brings up Jesus' likening the kingdom of heaven to leaven gradually worked throughout a lump. Lindsey simply insists that scripture ONLY uses "leaven" to refer to sin and evil, without explaining how on earth he can treat its use to represent "the kingdom of heaven" in the same way. The Dominionists no doubt misuse that passage to support their cause but that's no excuse to try to make it refer to something else it obviously doesn't refer to. That lost me completely and shakes my faith in Lindsey's thinking. But it's a minor point in the overall interpretive scheme.

One thing I've always had a problem with concerning Rapture scenarios that put a great emphasis on the completion of God's dealings with Israel, is how to view the covenant of the land God gave to Abraham. Certainly it was given without condition and forever, but there is also the passage in Hebrews where we are told that Abraham was not looking to an earthly land but to an eternal abode -- unless I've utterly misunderstood that passage.

Hebrews 11:8-16: By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as [in] a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker [is] God. Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, [so many] as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of [them], and embraced [them], and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that [country] from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better [country], that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

I see present-day Israel on the earthly land and can't help but attribute that to God's own purposes -- what other option is there? But does that make that earthly land the fulfillment of the covenant promise? Aren't Christians also "heirs of Abraham" and as such also heirs of that unconditional covenant, and doesn't that put the covenant on a New Testament footing that changes how we are to understand it? We are to read the Old Testament in light of the New Testament, that's our primary directive for Biblical exegesis.

Yet it's not impossible to my mind that some -- a few -- of the promises to the Jews may not be completely fulfilled in the New Covenant and remain to be fulfilled -- or that there is a double fulfillment in the Church and earthly Israel both. Of course I can't go with any interpretation that seems to imply that the Jews are not to be saved by the same means as all the rest of us, through the death of Christ. Lindsey doesn't seem to make that error but he's a tad ambiguous on that point, and others of his basic persuasion do make that error.

One thing I am very sure of is that there remains a "week" or seven years left over from Daniel's prophecy of the time required to completely fulfill God's plan for Israel, the "seventieth week of Daniel" left after the first 69 were fulfilled in the first coming of Christ. I'm just not completely sure how to understand its purpose. Apparently it includes, or is synonymous with, the Day of the Lord, the time of the Antichrist, a time of unprecedented evil on the earth, also known as the Great Tribulation, during which time the vast majority of believers will be martyred. This idea of the fulfillment of God's plan for israel is hardly a happy one.

This period is also foreshadowed in Isaiah 61, 1 and 2, the first verse of which Jesus read in the synagogue to announce His Messiahship, leaving out the second verse which refers to the Day of the Lord, now clearly to be connected with His second coming:

Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD [is] upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to [them that are] bound; 2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

It appears that it isn't primarily the Rapture itself that's the problem for me, it's the whole scenario in which the Rapture occurs, and especially what supposedly happens AFTER the Rapture. Of course a different understanding of all that could change my acceptance of the timing of the Rapture itself too.

But overall I'm still where I was when I began this book by Lindsey. Well, I'll keep reading and perhaps reread the book, since I don't feel I'm getting anything very clear out of it yet.

Open Letter to Evangelicals again: The State of Israel in the end times

An Open Letter to Evangelicals and Other Interested Parties:
The People of God, the Land of Israel, and the Impartiality of the Gospel.

This came up in conversation again recently, so although I already did a two-part blog on it last year I would like to try to say it again more briefly. This Open Letter aims to answer a statement from some evangelical leaders urging American support of Israel on the basis of scripture. According to the Open Letter, apparently some are teaching that

God's alleged favor toward Israel today is based upon ethnic descent rather than upon the grace of Christ alone, as proclaimed in the Gospel.

and others are teaching

that the Bible's promises concerning the land are fulfilled in a special political region or "Holy Land," perpetually set apart by God for one ethnic group alone.

And this is what the Open Letter seeks to answer.

The Open Letter goes on to present the Gospel of salvation as universal in answer to claims for any ethnic group. There is only one way of salvation for all.

4. Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man, came into the world to save sinners. In his death upon the cross, Jesus was the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world, of Jew and of Gentile alike. The death of Jesus forever fulfilled and eternally ended the sacrifices of the Jewish temple. All who would worship God, whether Jew or Gentile, must now come to him in spirit and truth through Jesus Christ alone. The worship of God is no longer identified with any specific earthly sanctuary. He receives worship only through Jesus Christ, the eternal and heavenly Temple ...

7. Jesus taught that his resurrection was the raising of the True Temple of Israel. He has replaced the priesthood, sacrifices, and sanctuary of Israel by fulfilling them in his own glorious priestly ministry and by offering, once and for all, his sacrifice for the world, that is, for both Jew and Gentile. Believers from all nations are now being built up through him into this Third Temple, the church that Jesus promised to build. ...

9. The entitlement of any one ethnic or religious group to territory in the Middle East called the "Holy Land" cannot be supported by Scripture. In fact, the land promises specific to Israel in the Old Testament were fulfilled under Joshua. The New Testament speaks clearly and prophetically about the destruction of the second temple in A.D. 70. No New Testament writer foresees a regathering of ethnic Israel in the land, as did the prophets of the Old Testament after the destruction of the first temple in 586 B.C. Moreover, the land promises of the Old Covenant are consistently and deliberately expanded in the New Testament to show the universal dominion of Jesus, who reigns from heaven upon the throne of David, inviting all the nations through the Gospel of Grace to partake of his universal and everlasting dominion.

The promised Messianic kingdom of Jesus Christ has been inaugurated. Its advent marks the focal point of human history. This kingdom of the Messiah is continuing to realize its fullness as believing Jews and Gentiles are added to the community of the redeemed in every generation. The same kingdom will be manifested in its final and eternal form with the return of Christ the King in all his glory. ...

The present secular state of Israel, however, is not an authentic or prophetic realization of the Messianic kingdom of Jesus Christ.

I agree, and to the extent that some see the gospel as coming to fruition through the state of Israel I disagree with them. On the other hand, while Israel is not a fulfillment of Messianic prophecy it does look like a fulfillment of some literal prophecies about the flowering of that land again, the return of the Jews to that land at the end and so on.

While the state of Israel does not fulfill MESSIANIC prophecy (except as the final stage before Jesus' second advent) I can see it as a fulfillment of prophecy of the playing out of the claims of fallen human nature under the Antichrist just before the return of Jesus. Religious Jews are still expecting their Messiah, blinded to the fact that they rejected the true Messiah 2000 years ago, and who would that be but the Antichrist?

I do see God behind all this, however. I've found some speculation on the web that Satan is behind it. That can't be so -- his part seems to be mostly against Israel. There have been miraculous events protecting Israel from its Arab enemies and that has to be God. Those who deny that Israel has a right to be on the land also see the Palestinians as the victims of Israel, but I see it the other way around. Whatever Israel's rights to the land from a biblical perspective, they acquired it fairly and the land was pretty much barren when they started the process -- see Mark Twain's description of the area as a wilderness when he was there in the 19th century. The Palestinian people did not exist at that time, there was no people with that name at all and the current "Palestinians" are not of one tribe but from many different Arab backgrounds. They were Arabs from the surrounding nations who came to work for the Israelis in building up the land, who left Israel in a mass exodus before one of the Arab attacks on Israel, having been warned of the attack BY the Arabs. They became a refugee camp that then took on the false identity of a Palestinian nation. Meanwhile Israel absorbed many Jewish refugees from those same Arab lands. The Arab nations should have absorbed back the Arab refugees but they found it more useful to leave them there with the implication that their sufferings were all the fault of Israel.

The prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27 found a literal fulfillment in a historically documented period of 69 times 7 years from a specific point in history to the revelation of Jesus Christ as King as He rode into Jerusalem on the donkey. The prophecy was literal and was exactly and literally fulfilled in the first advent of the Messiah. There is a "seventieth week" left in that prophecy that has not yet been fulfilled and must also be fulfilled in the same literal historical way the first 69 "weeks" were fulfilled. This is a last "week of years" or seven years that it seems to me can't just be palmed off with an allegorical interpretation but must be a literal time yet to come. There are many indications that this is to be a time in which not Christ but the usurper, Christ's imitator the Antichrist, possessed by the devil, will take the reins of world government in Christ's name, at the end of which time the true King will return. Some Jews will receive this fake as their Messiah. For this purpose a reinstated temple in Jerusalem would make perfect sense.

The complaints of the Open Letter that those who are looking to a literal physical Israel are misrepresenting the gospel of Christ may be true of many, and of course if so they are wrong -- literal physical Israel isn't really about the gospel, it's about the playing out of the end times drama of pure evil as all the powers of the devil and fallen human nature come together to rule the world, bringing the whole fallen creation to its fullest possible expression and final defeat. Not all prophecies are Messianic prophecies. The four empires prophesied by Daniel embody the doings of fallen humanity, and the Messiah comes into it only as He is prophesied to overthrow the fourth and last empire and usher in the Kingdom that will last forever. We are now living in the dispensation in which Christ has come and yet the fallen world continues alongside. It makes sense to me to think that the fallen world has yet to come to its own "perfection" as it were -- a "perfection" of error and evil -- before the Lord returns for good.

Israel is STILL the geographic location where God chose to place His name. It's still a type, it's not the gospel, but this earth hasn't yet fled away and while it's here that piece of geography is still where God put His name. For it to function as a magnet for all the forces of evil to come together at the very end to try to defeat God makes perfect sense. Yes, the gospel is fulfilled in the HEAVENLY Jerusalem not the earthly Jerusalem but we are still living on this planet and this planet is where the Antichrist is going to appear and rule, and the Mount of Olives is literally where the Lord Jesus is going to appear Himself as well, at the very end when he returns to take possession of His people and His entire creation.

So I'm claiming that there is still a history to be played out in the original land given to the Jews by God, although all that is now fulfilled in Christ. Scripture apparently prophesies that the Israelis will suffer terribly in that land before the final day, but that God will be their ultimate protector and defender, even fighting for them against their enemies, and that a great number of them will finally be saved.

The purpose of this is not so much about the gospel as it is about God's ownership of Planet Earth. God has always had the purpose to save through the gospel a people for Himself, but He has also always had this other purpose as well -- to demonstrate His glory and His reign over the earth to ALL people, in fact to the entire Creation in heaven and in earth. EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW to the King of Kings when He comes to claim His possession, EVERY KNEE, not just the knees of believers. The unsaved, the unregenerate, the damned and the doomed and every other living thing will bow to the true King of Creation in the end, and ALL will see Him with their physical eyes when He returns.

Evil must have its day and then the wicked will be shown their error as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords returns to claim His inheritance, His believing people but also the physical world He created.

Furthermore, a day should not be anticipated in which Christ's kingdom will manifest Jewish distinctives, whether by its location in "the land," by its constituency, or by its ceremonial institutions and practices.

However, there do seem to be prophecies about these very distinctives, but the mistake, it seems to me, is to think of any of this as manifesting CHRIST'S KINGDOM. Rather it will be the manifestation of ANTICHRIST's kingdom. The Book of Revelation calls Jerusalem Sodom after all.

Instead, this present age will come to a climactic conclusion with the arrival of the final, eternal phase of the kingdom of the Messiah. At that time, all eyes, even of those who pierced him, will see the King in his glory. Every knee will bow, and every tongue will declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.

Quite. But HOW things are going to arrive at this point looks to me like it's going to include physical Israel -- apostate Israel, yes, but an Israel in which multitudes of Jews will come to see the truth and be saved even out of the most horrifying tribulation. And THEN will come the "climactic conclusion with the arrival of the final, eternal phase of the kingdom of the Messiah."

I could be wrong about this -- and probably am wrong about SOME of it in any case -- but I'm more and more committed to something along these lines. I think BOTH sides of this argument are partly right and partly wrong. There is a both/and here. To the extent that the pro-Israel evangelicals confuse God's purposes in Israel with His purposes in the gospel they are wrong or at least have the cart before the horse, but they have something right in their reading of prophecy nevertheless, which the Reformed camp behind the Open Letter is overlooking.

An Example of Inept Criticism of the Pre-Second-Coming Rapture

I merely kvetched about the ineptness of criticism of the pre-tribbers (or to be most precise, "pre-second-coming Rapturists") in my last post, but here's an example of what I mean:

DANIEL'S 70TH WEEK 490 YEARS
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.

This 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 in
early Christian history.

As 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.

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

Considering the Amillennial View, Pt. 2: The Seventieth Week of Daniel

This is the second post I'm making on specific Biblical interpretations from the Amillennial viewpoint. I'm trying to stick to the narrow topic and avoid going beyond it into the many related issues. Since from what I've grasped of the relevant scriptures so far I've been leaning toward the idea of the pre-trib Rapture (to my own surprise), my predominant interest at the moment is in seeing whether key scriptures in support of that idea hold up. Amillennialists specifically oppose the pre-trib Rapture so their arguments should be addressed. I looked at the meaning of the "temple" in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 in the first post in this series and concluded that the Amillennialists have it wrong, so that's one for the pre-tribbers.

Now I'm going to look at the 70th week of Daniel based on Daniel 9:24-27.

Again I'm taking my information from Dr. Kim Riddlebarger's lectures. I haven't listened to all of them, but quite a few at the beginning and end of the Amillennialism 101 series plus the shorter Antichrist series. The following are notes I took from his discussion of the 70th Week of Daniel from the first tape in the Antichrist series. [below the Amil 101 series on the right-hand margin]. They may not be completely accurate so I'm not going to call them quotations.
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[The 70 weeks of Daniel, Daniel 9:24-27] which doesn't teach a seven-year tribulation.

It's a messianic prophecy. It's fulfilled by Christ's active and passive obedience. There's no reference in that passage to an antichrist making a treaty with Israel. There is a reference to Christ cutting a covenant on behalf of his people in the middle of the 70th week before he's cut off. Christ confirms his covenant with the many. It's a passage that talks about his death on the cross, not something the antichrist is going to do.

Here is the passage of scripture. The angel Gabriel has come to teach Daniel about things to come:

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. 25 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. 26 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. 27 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.

In this passage the angel Gabriel reveals the yet-future period of time in terms of "weeks" or sevens of years, between a specific event, "the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem" and the coming of the Messiah for whom Daniel's people Israel have been waiting for centuries. Four decrees were made by various of the pagan kings regarding the return of the Jews to Judea after their captivity, but only one of the decrees specifically concerned the rebuilding of Jerusalem, so that is the one taken as the starting point for the calculations based on this passage.

Those who have studied the historical facts have shown that the first 69 weeks of years were literally fulfilled as a specific time period that can be counted precisely from that particular decree up to Jesus' riding into Jerusalem on the donkey, his public revelation of Himself as the Messiah-King. The 69 weeks are exactly fulfilled and there is nothing in the time frame of Jesus' first coming that fits the 70th week of years, leaving that 70th week yet to be fulfilled.

It seems to me that with this kind of precision there is no reasonable doubt that the "weeks" of the prophecy refer to literal time. The Amillennialists apparently explain the 69 weeks in some other way but I haven't been able to find out how, except that they reject the idea that the weeks are an actual time period. This is clear in their explanation of the 70th week at least:

Kim Riddlebarger says:

"The 70th week of Daniel is fulfilled 56:20

It's a messianic prophecy. It's fulfilled by Christ's active and passive obedience."

I listened carefully and heard NO evidence for this claim. He merely asserts it. Somehow, although the first 69 weeks of years can be shown to have been literally fulfilled in a historically identifiable time period, the last week is not to be treated as a literal week of years but as representative of the Lord's obedience? I really did listen for anything that could make sense of this and came up with nothing, no discussion of the reasoning that should lead one to this view, and no offering of a criticism of the calculation of the literal time frame, nothing -- in this particular study anyway, but such an objection should be here if it's anywhere. So the Amil interpretation remains a bald assertion, and an assertion of a peculiarly bizarre and indefensible kind it seems to me.

There's no reference in that passage to an antichrist making a treaty with Israel. There is a reference to Christ cutting a covenant on behalf of his people in the middle of the 70th week before he's cut off. Christ confirms his covenant with the many. It's a passage that talks about his death on the cross, not something the antichrist is going to do.

26 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. 27 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

OK, it's possible to read the passage this way as at first it could appear that the "he" refers back to the Messiah rather than to the "prince that shall come." BUT the rest of the passage couldn't possibly refer to the Messiah as He did not "confirm" a covenant, He made a NEW covenant, and He did not make it "for one week" but for eternity. No Biblical defense has been given for the wild notion that the 70th week refers to the obedience of Christ, none, so I just have to dismiss it.

The reference to the ceasing of the sacrifice and the oblation also could indicate the destruction of the temple in 70 AD which was prophesied by Jesus, and which was the necessary demonstration that His sacrifice on the cross ended the need for animal sacrifices for all time. BUT the wording is a bit odd in that case. His death DID in a sense "cause" the destruction of the temple, of course, but the passage describes something this ambiguous "he" directly DOES to cause the temple observances to cease and Jesus didn't do anything like that.

But there is another passage in Daniel where an antichrist figure 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.

And 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. With this clear preceding reference, and a fulfilled prophecy at that, it's hard to see how the A-mils can insist that the reference in Daniel 9 MUST refer to the Messiah and not the Antichrist.

I think the last verses of Daniel 9 may be one of those deliberately ambiguous prophetic passages that are intended to obscure the truth until the time is close for its fulfillment -- or even until the events in question are already underway. I think we are getting near to that time and the passage is becoming bit by bit more intelligible, and it happens to be the pre-trib rapture scenario that is coming into view with its concomitant understanding of God's separate dealings with the Jews. (Also, the ambiguity helps to underscore the fact that the Antichrist is after all an imitation Christ who will imitate as many of the true Christ's attributes as he can. Confusing the two is his aim.)

Furthermore the Book of Revelation takes the last half of the 70th week [56:50], that 1260 days the 3-1/2 years, the times time and half a time and describes the whole interadvental period as the last half of Daniel's 70th week. And in doing that the biblical writers specifically John in the bk of Rev are doing the very thing dispensationalists tell us ought not to be done. It's JOHN -- well actually it's the angel that's revealing this to John -- it's the angel who now tells us that that last 3-01/2 weeks of daniel's final week -- that 7-yr period the last -- is the entire interadvental period.

I listened quite carefully I thought, in order to find out exactly how he thinks this is the case, what evidence he has that the angel is referring to "the entire interadvental period" -- these last 1900-plus years so far -- and not to a specific time period just as the first 69 weeks of years do. The period of 3-1/2 years is so specifically reiterated in scripture in a variety of forms there's something wildly bizarre about insisting it's not a time period. It's referred to as "times, time and half a time" in a few places, it's referred to as 42 months in others, it's referred to as 1260 days.

There's nothing vague about it, nothing that requires allegorizing it, and nothing the angel says that allegorizes it. It seems to me that Riddlebarger merely loudly asserts that John via the angel says so, but I don't see it. He's also asserted, as I quote above, that the whole last "week of years," this 70th week in question, refers to Christ's "active and passive obedience" rather than a literal time period. So he allegorizes the entire week in that way, but then separately stretches out the last half of the week to refer to a time period of almost 2000 years. The two ideas aren't even remotely compatible that I can see.

And finally there is no 7-year tribulation period affirmed anywhere in the new testament. It's not there.

First, the pre-tribbers I've been listening to take care to correct the idea that the entire seven years is a time of tribulation, saying that only the last half is to be tribulation. Second, the iterations of the 1260 days, the 42 months and so on in the Book of Revelation, are pretty specific indicators of a very specific time period that is exactly half of the "week of years" or 70th week of Daniel that is yet unfulfilled.

Rather, the destruction of Jerusalem is spoken of as great tribulation as is the entire interadvental period. We find this in Matt 24:29, John 16:33, Acts 14:22, Romans 8:35, Rev 1:9. The whole interadvental period is spoken of as a time of tribulation and a time of suffering for God's people. And then a great tribulation is mentioned in Rev 7:14. This is the great multitude with the palm branches. These are the ones coming OUT of the great tribulation. The great tribulation in that passage is the interadvental period. The NT never speaks of a seven-year tribulation, the NT speaks of the time between Christ's comings. That entire period is a time of tribulation.

Maybe I'm missing his point but I read all those verse references, all to "tribulation" in some sense or other, most of them to the tribulations all Christians are to expect, so in that general sense they refer to the "entire interadvental period" but I don't see anything that defines the multitude with the palm branches as those who suffered throughout this period -- it's possible but it's not obvious from the context as he claims it is.

Jesus in Matthew 24 refers to a worst tribulation ever, and while that probably does refer to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 it's one of those prophecies that suggests it has yet a further fulfillment to come. But also I'd point out that it was not believers who specifically suffered that tribulation, but predominantly unbelieving Jews. It was a judgment against the Jewish nation, not about followers of Christ at all. If that event is what Jesus was referring to, then He was talking about His "brethren" in the sense of the Jews rather than in the sense of His disciples. So from there I'd go on to ask whether that event was worse than the Holocaust? If not then something worse is yet to come, and to keep up the parallel this would most likely be the "time of Jacob's trouble" rather than a tribulation suffered by the church.

Jeremiah 30:7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.

"Jacob" is clearly unbelieving Jews. And if that is the case then Jesus could very well have been talking to the generation of Jews who would be alive in the very last days, all consistent with the pre-trib point of view. I haven't worked all this out myself, in fact I just now noticed that the fall of Jerusalem was a Jewish disaster, not a Christian one.

I could go over every reference and raise the relevant questions but I didn't want to get too deeply into all this here. I'd just say that it's a big leap to assume that there's no other special time of tribulation to be taken into account, and since he merely asserted his point and gave the references without arguing his case for his understanding of them, leaving me to figure out what he means, all I can say is I don't find whatever he thinks he finds.

What I wanted to address in this post is whether there is a yet-unfulfilled "week" or seven literal years prophesied in this passage and whether the Amillennialists succeed in answering this claim. At least Kim Riddlebarger doesn't succeed at this in my judgment. He insists that Amillennialists do not allegorize the Bible except where the Bible itself allegorizes, but it seems to me there's something awfully disingenuous about that claim as I compare his thinking to the literal-weeks-of-years interpretation. I search in vain for anything that supports his assertion that John himself allegorizes the last half of the 70th week in the Book of Revelation to refer to the entire interadvental period. I don't see it. The best that I can say for his position is that he's failed to prove it.

So I find for the interpretation of a yet-future time period of seven years, a literal 70th week of Daniel that was not fulfilled at the first coming of Christ and is yet to be fulfilled, and since the prophecy of the 70 weeks was a prophecy of the coming of Christ and the ending of sin, then the unfulfilled week must have to do with His second coming. Since the 69 weeks were a precise period of time, so would the 70th week be precise, which means that those alive during that period should be able to calculate when the Lord will appear. And since we are also told that no-one knows the day and to be ready so as not to be taken by surprise, this CAN be taken for evidence that there must be two comings yet future, one that will come suddenly without a clear warning, and one that will be expected at a particular time. But I'm holding this interpretation loosely for now. The point of this post was just to decide if there is yet to come a literal seven-year-period that is to finish up all the unfinished business related to the redemption and the end of the world.

I don't agree with either system completely

I'm not sure that Missler and Riddlebarger can be said to represent two opposing theological systems exactly enough to identify them as representative of those systems, but as I've been listening to their end times talks I've taken sides with one or the other of them on particular points and can sort it out that way at least:

I agree with Riddlebarger / the Reformed / the Amillennialists on the general point that there is now no more Jew nor Gentile but all are one in Christ. The Church IS both Jew and Gentile, therefore it does not "replace" Israel, it is an expansion of the people of God to include believing Gentiles with believing Jews. There was a massive influx of Gentiles into the Church in the first centuries on down to the present, and according to scripture there is yet a time coming, very soon it seems to some of us, when God's focus will shift and there will be a massive influx of Jews into the Church. Riddlebarger sees it this way and so do many on the other side of the theological divide.

To deny that physical earthly Israel must have a part in this drama, as the Reformed / Amillennialists do, seems completely blind to me. Their restoration to the land and their preservation there over the last century are marked by miraculous events. This has to be God's work even though the people of Israel do not acknowledge Him. This has to be fulfilled prophecy. And there must be more to come.

On the other hand, those who see a restored Israel as a return to Old Testament religion, as the final form to persist after Christ returns, have gone too far in this direction. Scripture does suggest that the temple will be restored, so that there will be at least an interim return to OT practices, but the revelation of the Antichrist in that temple is to wake up the Jews and bring them to Christ, and the OT practices which are clearly identified in the NT as the types and shadows of Christ will be finally done away.

I believe Paul's "Israel of God" of Galatians 6:16 refers to all believers, both Jew and Gentile. Missler says this is literal Israel, believing Israel, and does not include the Church. I disagree with Missler. Gentile believers are children of Abraham no less than Jewish believers are, are therefore all of the Israel of God.

Nevertheless I disagree with the Reformed / Amillennialists that the temple of 2 Thessalonians 2:4 refers to Christians. I posted below my conclusion that it must refer to the physical temple in Jerusalem, and if the context is the Antichrist of the very last days sitting in that temple, this has to mean the temple will be restored, and there have been plans underway for decades now for that restoration.

I also disagree with them about the 70th week of Daniel (a post I haven't yet written). The first 69 weeks were a literal period of time counting up to the revelation of Christ as King in Jerusalem. The events right after that revelation do not fit into a "week of years" no matter how much nudging you do. The Lord Jesus was crucified within days of that revelation. There is simply no week of years to be found in that time frame or any time up to the present. Therefore it is right to think of that last 70th week as yet future. The Amillennialists take that week and turn it into an allegory of the obedience of Christ. Ridiculous.

None of this proves the timing of the Rapture one way or another.

More to come.