Originally published in "The Lord's Coming Herald & Wesleyan Bible Prophecy Advocate," Winter Edition 1998
Shaken Foundations Of Popular Darbyism
The following quotation from Edward J. Young's commentary on the book of Daniel reveals the basic irrationality of the popular dispensational attempt to read some future seven year great tribulation/end-time Roman Antichrist saga into the text of Daniel 9:26-27. After quoting from representative dispensational writers who insist that the "prince that shall come" in Daniel 9:26 must refer to some yet future, one-world-government leader, "Roman Antichrist," Young remarks:
"Most of these statements appear to be based on the assumption that since the prince will arise out of the Roman empire he will therefore be a Roman. In other words, as Walvoord puts it 'prince of the people.' But the emphasis in vs. 26 is not upon a prince from the people, but upon the people who belong to the prince. This prince, therefore, must be one who rules over these people, who can truly say that they are his. In other words, he must be their contemporary, alive when they are alive. We cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, legitimately call the army of George Washington the army of general, and by that general have reference to Eisenhower's armies. The armies of Washington are in no sense Eisenhower's armies. And the fact that Eisenhower was born in America many years after the time of Washington's armies does not in the least permit us to say that they are his armies. The people who destroyed the city and the prince that should come (if should come is future, it is future from the standpoint of Dan., not of the destroying people) are contemporaries. Otherwise, the language makes no sense. And if the prince is a contemporary of his people, then the antecedent of 'he shall cause to prevail' cannot be some other prince other than that mentioned in vs. 26 [i. e., the Messiah]. This view, therefore, that a future Roman prince is to make a covenant with the Jews must be abandoned" (The Prophecy Of Daniel, pp. 211-212).
For a completely logical "tearing up the patch," as it were, on nineteenth century dispensationalism's profoundly influential, yet totally erroneous, hermeneutic respecting Daniel's prophecy of the Seventy Weeks, please see our books The Seventy Weeks: Sir Robert Anderson's Private Interpretation Refuted, and How To Interpret End-time Bible Prophecy: A Wesleyan View, available now at the products menu of this website.
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