Divine perfection in God’s end-time plan.

“Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). And so God has perfectly revealed his end-time plan, purpose, and timeframe through his prophets. We of biblical faith could solve many of our disagreements by reconsidering the time-integrity of the major end-time prophecies and by becoming better acquainted with the nature and historical accuracy of their fulfillment.

In the 6th century B.C., God supernaturally gave the Old Testament prophet, Daniel, the two most spectacular and explicit time prophecies ever given to humankind. They are “Daniel’s 70 weeks (of years)” and the “time of the end.” You’ll find them in Daniel 9:24-27 and 12:4-12, respectively. Like bookends, these two prophetic time periods bracketed the exact time in human history for this coming of the Messiah and Habakkuk’s “appointed time . . . of the end.” They foretold the climactic events that would signal the consummation—i.e., the end or goal (Greek word, telos) of God’s redemptive plan for humankind.

In retrospect, then, the prophecy of Daniel’s 70 weeks (490 years):

Commenced in 457 B.C. with the decree of Artaxerxes.
Was determined in A.D. 30 at the cross.
Was confirmed by the New Covenant for 3½ years before and 3½ years after the cross.
Concluded in A.D. 34 when the Gospel had been preached to the Jews and was now freed to go to the Gentiles.

The entire prophecy transpired in a mathematically precise, uninterrupted 490-year period. No valid rationale exists for interrupting the time segments, splitting apart the years, inserting gaps, elongating weeks, or postponing, delaying, minimizing or tampering with the fixed time period in any manner. Thus, the front bookend of the end-time, age-changing transition period —Daniel’s 70th week— certainly came and was perfectly fulfilled. Perfectly! It’s a mainstay of messianic authentication, a mathematical demonstration for the divine inspiration of the Bible, and an unanswerable argument for critics of the Christian faith. This is why the Apostle Paul could and did write that Jesus came and died “at just the right time” (Rom. 5:6).

Likewise, Daniel’s 1290-1335-days, time-of-the-end prophecy:

Commenced in July of A.D. 66 with the cessation of the twice-daily Temple sacrifices for Caesar and the Roman people.
1,290 days later, early in the year of A.D. 70, a major abomination took place in the Temple that all Jerusalem could see.
45 days later (1335 days following the previously cited Temple cessation of sacrifices), the abomination that causes desolation was set up-the Roman general, Titus, set up— three encampments within three miles of the walls on the hills surrounding and overlooking Jerusalem.
In April of A.D. 70, the Roman army began the fourth and final siege of the Jewish-Roman War of A.D. 66-70. In September, it was over. The city, the Temple, and the whole of biblical Judaism was utterly destroyed and left desolate.

Thus was also fulfilled Jesus’ most dramatic end-time prophecy: “Look, your house is left to you desolate” (Matt. 23:38). “I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation” (Matt. 23:36; 24:34). And it all did.

Seriously, doesn’t a straightforward approach to Daniel’s prophecies and the preciseness of their literal, exact, chronological, and sequential fulfillment make more sense than the popular view that interrupts the time context? By the straightforward method, Daniel’s prophecies were fulfilled long ago. Only by tampering with the text can we force a postponement and arrive at a yet-future fulfillment.

Most Christian endsayers, however, insist that the prophetic time clock stopped ticking when the Jews rejected the Messiah and crucified Him on the cross. So they interrupt Daniel’s 70 weeks and insert a time gap of indeterminable length between the 69th and the 70th week. Next, they lift the 70th week out of its 1st-century, time-period context, stretch it like a rubber band over 19 centuries and counting, and plop it down somewhere out in the future. This seven-year period, which was designated by the text as the time the Messiah would confirm a covenant with the Jews, is now recast into being a future 7-year period of tribulation upon the Jews, who are then ruled by the Antichrist. In this bizarre scheme, the Antichrist rises from one of the nations of a so-called revived Roman Empire and confirms a supposed covenant with the geopolitical and secular nation of Israel.

The biblical fact is, no scriptural warrant or valid precedent exists for such abusive treatment or manipulative handling of God’s Word. No imposition of gaps, interruptions, or delays can be scripturally or historically justified. This type of tampering with Scripture has crippled the Church and resulted in erroneous and disastrous date-setting. Ironically, the futurist-literalist endsayers profess a good and valid phrase: “when the normal sense makes sense, seek no other sense.” It’s unfortunate that those who subscribe to this bit of good sense are doctrinally and/or emotionally committed to violating it here. But times are changing. A new paradigm and reformation is underway. continue reading…

Sources:

1 The Perfect Ending for the World by John Noe

2 Biblical Hermeneutics by Milton S. Terry

3 The Days of Vengeance by David Chilton

4 The Parousia by J. Stuart Russell