Daniel 9:24-27
The whole premise
or foundation of the Pre-Tribulation rapture theory, the Left Behind series, Hal Lindsey's 'Late Great Planet Earth', Jack Van Impes' belief and all other Pre-Trib teachers is Daniel 9:27, where it is taught that
the Antichrist is the one that passage is speaking of and that the 'one week'
is the last week of mankind.
Let's look at what the 70th week of
Daniel is (which is what the dispensationalist call it), but first, let me state what the Pre-Tribulation/Secret rapture teachers believe:
- There is a 2000 year gap (the church age) between Daniel's 69th and 70th week.
- The 70th week (a 7 year period) is the final week of mankind before the millennial reign.
- The Church will be secretly raptured before the antichrist is revealed.
- The Holy Spirit is the restrainer, holding back the revealing.
- The antichrist will make a peace treaty with Israel/Jews for 1 week (7yrs).
- The antichrist will break the treaty at the 3 1/2 year point and set up an abomination of desolation.
- All hell will break loose on earth from that point.
I want to make one point, then we'll look at the passage.
I'm a former high school math teacher, so naturally when I started studying this deeper, it didn't make sense and here's why: when you draw a number line like I used to help my kids understand negative numbers, you will see that between 0 _ 1 is the first week, NOT 'zero' week. If you do the number line all the way out, it will show that between 68 _ 69 is the 69th week. So in simple terms, the actual amount of the week that has just been completed is indicated by the number on the right of the number line! So 69 _ 70 IS the 70th week. This will become clear when we look at the verse in question.
Now here's the entire passage from Daniel 9:24-27
24“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. 25“So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. 26“Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. 27“And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.”
- There is a 2000 year gap (the church age) between Daniel's 69th and 70th week.
- The 70th week (a 7 year period) is the final week of mankind before the millennial reign.
- The Church will be secretly raptured before the antichrist is revealed.
- The Holy Spirit is the restrainer, holding back the revealing.
- The antichrist will make a peace treaty with Israel/Jews for 1 week (7yrs).
- The antichrist will break the treaty at the 3 1/2 year point and set up an abomination of desolation.
- All hell will break loose on earth from that point.
I want to make one point, then we'll look at the passage.
I'm a former high school math teacher, so naturally when I started studying this deeper, it didn't make sense and here's why: when you draw a number line like I used to help my kids understand negative numbers, you will see that between 0 _ 1 is the first week, NOT 'zero' week. If you do the number line all the way out, it will show that between 68 _ 69 is the 69th week. So in simple terms, the actual amount of the week that has just been completed is indicated by the number on the right of the number line! So 69 _ 70 IS the 70th week. This will become clear when we look at the verse in question.
Now here's the entire passage from Daniel 9:24-27
24“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. 25“So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. 26“Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. 27“And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.”
Now follow me! When you read the passage with understanding, then you'll see that NO mention of an antichrist, or a 7 year tribulation is in Daniel 9. It says that 70 weeks are determined, which is 1 year per day so it is 7 years per week, which is 490 years total. It is explained by the Hebrew word for weeks: 'Shavuot' which means set of 7 days, months, or years.
In verse 24, The angel said
that 490 years were determined for their transgressions (this was because they
didn't keep the Sabbath for 70 years and they were punished 70 x 7). It then says that
the 70 weeks (490 years) will put an end to sin, atone for their guilt, to
bring in everlasting righteousness, to confirm the prophetic vision, and to
anoint the Most Holy Place
Now If we didn't
read the next verse, we as Christians, would know by that verse that it was talking about
Messiah, that He was going to be sacrificed because He's the perfect, spotless
lamb of God and there would be no more need for blood offerings or sacrifices
after that.
Verse 25, It tells Daniel
to know and discern (understand)...from the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem
until Messiah the Prince comes, there will be 7x7 and 62x7, which is 49 and 434, which is
483 years.
We know from
other Scriptures in Nehemiah that King Artaxerxes later issued that command in 457 BC and
Nehemiah went and rebuilt the wall and started the restoration of Jerusalem
483 years after
Artaxerxes issued the command, Jesus made His public appearance.
For you to
understand this, will allow you to understand that the Rapture and the 2nd
coming are the same time, that there is NO 7 year tribulation, it only says a
time of tribulation and that we will ALL go through it.
Verse 26 says
'AFTER 69 weeks (483 years) Messiah will be cut off (killed). (It actually says after 62 weeks, but if you look back to verse 25 you'll see it says there will be 7 weeks then 62 weeks, which is 69 weeks. The verse is just saying 'after the 62 weeks part'. Besides that, Messiah can't come at 69 weeks, then be cut off at 62 weeks (7 weeks in the past). So, if it is AFTER 69 weeks, that
means that 69 weeks are complete and it is IN the 70th week sometime that
Messiah is killed. (From hindsight, we know He had 3 1/2 years of ministry then was crucified).
The Jews were expecting Messiah to come at the time Jesus appeared, but they expected a conquering king to overthrow the Romans. There was also a partial hardening in order for the Gentiles to be grafted in, which is how they missed Him. It's hard to understand how they missed the part that 'After 69 weeks Messiah would be killed, appearing to have accomplished nothing'?! But Paul explains that they had to be blinded so Messiah could atone for sin and we (the Gentiles) could be given a chance for salvation.
Next, it says 'the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.’ The word for prince in Hebrew is
'nagid' (naw-gheed), which also means leader, ruler or foreign leader, ruler or prince. The
same Hebrew word is used right before this in verse 25 when referring to
Messiah the nagid. So both the Messiah
and the person coming to destroy the temple are called nagid.
Verse 26 goes on
to say, ‘The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.' We know that the Roman army led by Prince
Titus came in and sacked Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD, which was roughly
37 years after Messiah was killed.
HERE'S WHERE THE
RUB COMES IN...
You have to be
careful what Bible translation you read because the Living Translation is NOT
accurate and will cause you to misunderstand. So I'm going to quote the New
American Standard Bible...
Verse 27 is the
MIS-interpreted verse that leads people to take the pre-trib rapture view. But
it is not talking about Prince Titus or any future antichrist, it is talking about Messiah the
Prince...lets read it...
PART A: 'And he
will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the
week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering;'
This was
fulfilled by Jesus because He was the ultimate and final sacrifice that would
put an end to the need for sacrifice and offering! The veil was torn from top
to bottom supernaturally, that opened the "MOST HOLY PLACE', the holy of
holies in the temple, where we no longer needed a man priest to atone for our
sins, because Jesus is our new High Priest forever. This took place in the middle of the 70th
week. Messiah came AFTER 69 weeks, so He
came in the 70th week and was cut off or killed in the middle of the 70th week.
Now PART B, let's
read it carefully...
'and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.'
Here it is
clearly talking about someone else that comes and makes desolate on the wing of abominations. When it says
'on the wings of abomination' it means that what had just taken place, what has been taking place and what was going to take place (past, present & future) was an
abomination (the murder of an innocent man, the son of God nonetheless) and on
the wings of all the ongoing idolatries will come someone else who makes desolate.
Several commentaries
say that 'there is an overspreading of abomination' that came from the Romans
and all their idolatries that they set up in the land and then Titus came and
made Jerusalem and the Temple
So that's
it...There is NO mention of an antichrist, a 7 year tribulation or that the
70th week would somehow be delayed for 2000 years.
There is no precedent, no type or shadow in previous Scriptures that skip a time frame when one is given by God. If He said 40 days, 40 years, 70 years, it was all done to completion. The last day or year or set of years was not somehow delayed for a later time period. Make sense?
Those passages
were fulfilled! It's amazing what something as simple as a number line will do in clarifying errors in interpretation of passages.
There is NO
pre-trib or mid-trib position to be held. It is rumored to have begun after 1830 when a
little girl, Margaret MacDonald, had a dream/vision that the church would be
secretly raptured. There is no mention of a secret rapture by any of the church
fathers in any of their writings prior to 1830!
John Darby and
Cyrus Scofield wrote study bibles that incorporated this pre-trip/secret
rapture theory and it greatly influenced western cultures. Darby apparently had this theory written down 3 years prior to Margaret's dream so he was going to run with it anyway.
The vast majority of the other Bible commentaries describe Jesus as the one putting an end to the sacrifices, NOT the antichrist. And prior to 1830, this opinion/interpretation did not exist.
The vast majority of the other Bible commentaries describe Jesus as the one putting an end to the sacrifices, NOT the antichrist. And prior to 1830, this opinion/interpretation did not exist.
The Bible says there will be ‘a
time’ of tribulation at the end of days, and we will ALL go through it.
Video explaining the end times to come soon!
Video explaining the end times to come soon!
