Originally published in "The Lord's Coming Herald & Wesleyan Bible Prophecy Advocate," Fall Edition 1998
The Key Unsealing End-time Bible Prophecy, Part II
The key to unsealing the age-long
mystery of end-time Bible prophecy lies in the concept of the elongation of the
last, or second, half of Daniel's seventieth week to embrace the entire period
of time now stretching between Christ's first and second advents, irrespective
of how long or short in years this Christian dispensation may actually turn out
to be. The concept is logically valid, for it is solidly based on the biblical
revelation of Christ's person and his work.
The work of Christ was to fulfill the role of
"covenant-maker," as was prophesied in Daniel 9:27. "He shall confirm the
covenant with many for one week." The words of the text are significant, and
we must pay close attention to them.. It does not say that he shall "cut" a
covenant with the Jews for seven years (which should have been the case if the
dispensational emphasis on some future Roman Antichrist orchestrating a peace
treaty in the Middle East for seven years were correct), but rather, the
"causing" of one that already exists "to prevail."
This construction of language (wherein the Hebrew word for confirm, "causing to prevail," rather than the usual Hebrew word, "cut," is used) beautifully points to the saving work of Christ, whom St. Paul said came "as a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers" (Romans 15:8). The Old Testament had predicted that the Messiah would administer a covenant to the nation of Israel. "I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light to the Gentiles" (Isaiah 42:6). "Thus saith the Lord, In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages" (Isaiah 49:8).
Other texts confirmatory of this
thought are found in Isaiah 59:20-21; 61:8; and Malachi 2:6-7; 3:1, to name a
few. The biblical connections between the
mission of the Messiah and the establishing of a new covenant with Israel may be
set forth thus: (1) the Old Testament had foretold that Messiah, as
covenant-maker, would bring individuals deliverance through personal, spiritual,
and moral transformation; (2) the institution of the messianic covenant would
result in peace and social blessedness; (3) the blessing of the new covenant
would be forfeited by the Jews if they rejected their Messiah; and, (4) a new
people obedient to the Messiah would be called to inherit the promises of the
new covenant.
All these New Testament gospel themes, and more, were clearly
revealed in the Old Testament! Of course, the architects of dispensationalism
have typically attempted to obstruct and obscure these issues by suggesting that
the Church age was not revealed in the Old Testament, but, friends, the old
cadgers were simply lying through their teeth whey they tried to sell us that
baloney. Sadly, that whole generation that fell for those Darbyite distortions
of the truth was radically deceived about the revelation of God, and this is a
very heavy matter indeed.
Friends, it is not possible to evade these issues by
attempting to sweep them under the rug via the irrationality of thinking that
what we have here are only opinions and the truth cannot be known. No, friends,
that liberalizing subjectivity must be laid aside, and one must be willing to
deal honestly and forthrightly with what the Bible really teaches. (Please see
our new book, Is The Great Tribulation In Daniel 9:27?, for the complete Scripture
demonstration showing how Christ, not Antichrist, is the divinely intended
covenant-maker of Daniel 9:27.)
Friends, we realize that many professed Christians today are
not ready to be objective about the confrontation that our ministry raises, but
we are not discouraged thereby. Darbyism has caused a great deal of emotional
and spiritual immaturity among the people of God. As the subjective (liberal)
theory that it really is, it does not farewell when objectively evaluated in
total openness to the Word of God. Entirely sanctified minds, however, can and
should put dispensationalism to the rational test.
Herman Ridderbos, in The Coming of the Kingdom (pp.
200-201) has well pointed out that "The whole structure of the gospel
preached by Jesus. . . the whole of salvation given in Christ . . . is
concentrated in the idea of the covenant. . . . The entire gospel of the kingdom
can be explained in the categories of the covenant promised by God." The
text of Daniel 9:27 is thus predictive of this event. It is talking about the
Messiah and his ministry to Israel in establishing his kingdom—a kingdom of
salvation fully realized in the New Testament examples and teaching of the
Christian faith.
With this background in mind, we are
now ready to assess our main points again: (1) that Christ is the covenant-maker
of Daniel 9:27; (2) that the first half of Daniel's seventieth week was
fulfilled in Christ's three-and-a-half year public ministry two-thousand years
ago; (2) that the second, or last half of the seventieth week has been elongated
since the death and resurrection of the Savior in the midst of the week to
embrace the entire period of time now stretching between Christ's first and
second advents; (4) that this over-arching continuum for the present gospel age
is portrayed in the "1,260 days" in Revelation 11:3 and 12:6, the "forty-two
months" in Revelation 11:2 and 13:5, and the "time, times, and a half"' in
Daniel 11:25; 12:7,11-12 and Revelation 12:14.
What we have here, then, is a total reconstruction, or
recasting, of biblical salvation history motifs, away from Darbyite' futurism,
which sees all of the biblical apocalyptic materials compacted into some
imaginary future time frame of either seven, or three-and a half, years, to a
covenantal/historical approach to prophetic revelation that sees
characterizations for the whole Christian age portrayed in apocalyptic
symbolisms that points to a destiny for planet earth foreknown and foretold by
God, yet sufficiently veiled as to prevent human preclusions that circumvent the
responsibilities of man's free moral agency.
Thus, the prophetic materials are intended to give us a big, broad picture, both of the variant nature of this present gospel age, and of that awesome end-time social judgment that will come upon the world, if and when, the children of light forsake the glorious gospel. Please see our published works for diagrams that help the reader to visualize this present age foretold in prophecy under the apocalyptic rubric of the symbolic 42 months, the 1,260 days, and the time, times, and a half expressions. All of these expressions point to the last half of the seventy weeks, or that period of the messianic age now called the time of the calling of the Gentiles.
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