The 70 weeks Prophecy four times refers to an awaited personage at the the end of the 69 weeks and/or the 70th week.
Messiah The Prince in verse 25
The Messiah in verse 26
The Prince that shall come in verse 26
He in verse 27
The standard view among Christians who are Premillennial Futurists (and even some Preterists) has been that the first two are Jesus Christ and the last two the person commonly called "The Antichrist". Chris White however promotes a theory he didn't invent himself that makes each of the four something different. predicating it largely on how unclear it is which of the earlier personages the He in verse 27 appears to be.
However most people reading this Prophecy without a Christian starting point, as well as many Christians who are Preterist, see the clear grammatical logic as saying all four are the same person.
When verse 25 says to await the coming of a Messiah The Prince and then verse 26 says The Prince that shall come logic dictates that it's the same Prince. And if there aren't two or three different people refereed to earlier, figuring out who He is, isn't that complicated.
It's also pretty much unique to Christians to see a Villain in any of the four references. Because you see the "he" after "Abominations" in the KJV of verse 27 isn't in the Hebrew. So the first He is not the one who sets it/them up.
Going back to Daniel 9:24, let's look again at what the purpose for the 70 Weeks are.
"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."
It is commonly argued that the Second Advent is required for this to be fully fulfilled, that certain aspects of this clearly aren't fulfilled already. In fact I've even seen some Christians try to remove the First Advent from this altogether, like Chris White. To me that grossly undervalues what happened in that Aviv in a way no Christian, no matter how Futurist and Premillennial they are, should be willing to do.
If you think "make an end of sins" means no one will be sinning anymore then you have to move the end of the 70 Weeks to after the Millennium, not before it. I would be curious to hear someone argue such a theory. This is referring to Jesus paying the price for Sin on The Cross, when He said "It Is Finished".
Some take "seal up the vision and prophecy" to mean no more Prophecies left to be fulfilled. Again you have to move the 70th Week to after the Millennium in that case.
I think that the anointing of the most Holy can be seen as fulfilled at Pentecost.
Every argument that the first advent wasn't enough to fulfill that requires an interpretation that places the fulfillment after not before the Millennium.
I feel there is a perfectly very real sense in which all those details were satisfied in 30-37 AD.
A decade ago when I was a Futurist I justified the gap concept not with the usual Pre-Tirb/Dispensationalist the Gap is the Church Age logic. But by arguing that since it revolved around The Temple, the Gap was from when the Second Temple lost it's Holy Anointing when the Veil was Torn till when the future Temple will be consecrated. I feel ashamed of that argument now, because it implies what the Veil being Torn achieved is gonna be undone.
I've been putting a lot of thought into specifically Daniel 9:27 and am starting to think it's about The Passion in even more ways.
First of all what is the Abomination?
This ties in with how I have come to view John 5:43 as fulfilled by John 19:15 when the Chief Priest says "We have no King but Caesar". I've already talked about how Israel demanding a Human King was them rejecting YHWH as their King, and Caesar was being worshiped as a living God in the Eastern Provinces. The High Priest committed this idolatrous Abomination the same day he later had to offer the Passover Sacrifice in The Temple.
And as I've pointed out before the "he" associated with the Abomination isn't in the Hebrew, it's not identifying any person as setting it up.
The Hebrew word for "Desolation" or "Desolate" is a word that can also be translated "Abandoned" Jeremiah's Desolation of Jerusalem is about Jerusalem being depopulated after it was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, but it can also be connected to YHWH's Divine presence leaving The Temple at that same time. Whatever Divine presence the Second Temple had (in John 4) left it at or before Pentecost to indwell in The Church which is why it's gone in Acts 7.
This word is used twice in Daniel 9:27 however. In the KJV the verse ends with "upon the desolate" in some translations the last word is "desolator" but in the Young's Literal Translation it's "Desolate one". On the Cross I think the "abandoned one" is Jesus "my God, my God, why has thou Forsaken me".
The Consummation and that which was determined or "the decreed end" was poured out onto Jesus on The Cross and then He said "it is finished".
As for how 37 AD works as the end of the Week specifically. March 16th of that year was the day Tiberius Caesar died. All the people in positions of power referred to in Luke 3:1 seem to have died or been removed form power in 36 or 37 AD. Pilate was removed while Tiberius was still Emperor but Tiberius was dead by the time he arrived in Rome.
Many have argued the weak temporary Governorship of Marcellus makes most sense for the context of the Martyrdom of Stephen in Acts 6-7. I think Simon The Magician of Acts 8:9 is the same Samaritan False Prophet who Josephus says in Antiquities Book 18 Chapter 4 started the issues in Samaria that lead to Pilate's removal.
Maybe even Acts 9-11 are still in March-April of 37 AD given how the end of Acts 11 and beginning of Acts 12 feels like it's being presented as a significant time Jump from well before Claudius was Emperor till when he had been Emperor for some time already.
So if all of Acts 6-11 is the end of the 70th Week that's some pretty Biblically significant events.
Also an Earthquake hit Antioch on April 9th of 37.
No comments:
Post a Comment