I am finding that the idea that the
70th week of Daniel not being seven years is being
promoted more and more on various websites. This appears to be a new
teaching that I had not really heard much of until late. If it
existed years ago, it apparently was not widely accepted, and with good reason.
For those who do not know this
teaching, it is being taught by some that the 70th week of
Daniel only consists of three and a half weeks. I will try to explain
as best as I can from what I have gleaned.
First we must look at the verse in
Daniel that refers to this time period.
Daniel 9:24-27 “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. Know
therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the
commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the
Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street
shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And
after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for
himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy
the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a
flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And
he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the
midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to
cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it
desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be
poured upon the desolate.”
For a fuller
explanation of what this passage is really about, please see these links to
articles I have written.
http://endtimesstudies.blogspot.com/2009/06/daniel-9.html
The teaching to
which I refer above states that the 70th week, the last
seven years that God promised Israel, has already been half
fulfilled. It is said that the first three and a half years refer to
Christ's ministry, and that His death on the cross was the
abomination that caused desolation.
There are some very
major problems with this teaching. First, notice how the verses are
laid out above. First it says that after the sixty-second week
(which comes after the first seven weeks) or more clearly the
sixty-ninth week, the Messiah will be cut off or killed. This clearly
and unmistakeably puts Christ's death at the end of the sixty-ninth
week, not halfway through the seventieth week. By saying that the
first half of the seventieth week is Christ's ministry, it creates
the situation where you have to overlay the last half of the
sixty-ninth week with the first half of the seventieth week, which
then short-changes Israel three and a half years of the 490 years or
seventy sevens that they have been promised. By what right can one
alter God's promise? It is nonsensical to say that the sixty-ninth
week and seventieth week overlap each other by three and a half
years. There is nothing in the verses that implies this in any way. It
is merely a contrivance created by someone to back up a theory which
they have imagined to be, rather than taking the Scriptures at their
face value and interpreting them as God has spoken them.
Not only do we see
that Christ's death comes at the end of the sixty-ninth week, we see
that this is followed by the information that after His death, the
city and sanctuary will be destroyed and that there will be more
desolations to follow that. As this happened a good forty years
after Christ died, we see that the clock stopped ticking after the
sixty-ninth week and that there is a gap between that and the
seventieth week, which is still to be mentioned in the passage. There is, however, no gap implied during the course of the 70th week, as is being taught. Only an event in the middle of it.
Now that this gap
is established in the correct place, after the sixty-ninth week, it is mentioned that the next thing will be the
confirmation of a covenant for another seven years – the 70th
week of Daniel, as it is known. This confirmation is not made at the
beginning of Christ's ministry, which it would have to be if the idea
that the first three years of this week are Christ's ministry. This
confirmation is clearly made after Christ's death and the
destruction of the temple. To read anything else into this passage is
to twist what is clearly stated. We are then told that in the middle
of this seven year period the sacrifices and oblations will cease
and that there will be an abomination that causes desolation.
Now I don't know
about you, the reader, but I have a serious problem calling the
sacrifice of our Lord and Savior an abomination. It was a horrific
death, yes, and a blasphemy against God to hang Him on a tree, but it
was not an abomination. The Hebrew word for abominations in this text
is “shiqquwts”. This word means “idolatrous detestable filth”.
The dictionary defines it as a person or thing that is disgusting.
Do these people who promote this teaching really want to say that
their Lord and His death were an idolatrous, detestable, filthy,
disgusting person and thing? Do they understand what they are
saying? Have they studied the passage to really understand what is
being said, or are they, like many, trying to force the Scriptures to
fit their teaching?
What the passage
says is that the sacrifices and oblations will be caused to
cease. Sacrifices by definition are animal sacrifices. Oblations are
offerings that are not animal. First of all, technically the sacrifices and oblations did not cease upon the death of Christ. They continued for another 40 years, so the theory proposed does not fit the events. There is no implication in the verse that it is the effectiveness of the sacrifices that is being discussed or referred to, which is how this theory explains it. It is the sacrifices themselves which are actually physically stopped. This did not happen upon Christ's death.
As for the sacrifices mentioned (that are stopped), this entire 70th week falls after the destruction of the temple. This leads to only on conclusion. The fact that these sacrifices and oblations are going on indicates that there must be a temple or altar of some sort on the temple mount, which is the only place acceptable to God for these things to occur. This indicates that if they are stopped at the middle of the 70th week, they must be going on before the middle of the 70th week. Hence, if there is no temple or at least an altar on the temple mount or one in the process of being built by agreement of all parties, we are not in the 70th week of Daniel. Nor can there be an abomination of desolation out of the blue without any forewarning, as this theory teaches, as the ongoing sacrifices would precede the abomination and warn us of what is coming.
As for the sacrifices mentioned (that are stopped), this entire 70th week falls after the destruction of the temple. This leads to only on conclusion. The fact that these sacrifices and oblations are going on indicates that there must be a temple or altar of some sort on the temple mount, which is the only place acceptable to God for these things to occur. This indicates that if they are stopped at the middle of the 70th week, they must be going on before the middle of the 70th week. Hence, if there is no temple or at least an altar on the temple mount or one in the process of being built by agreement of all parties, we are not in the 70th week of Daniel. Nor can there be an abomination of desolation out of the blue without any forewarning, as this theory teaches, as the ongoing sacrifices would precede the abomination and warn us of what is coming.
To add
to the stopping of these sacrifices, there is an abomination that
causes desolation that is set up. Christ refers to this in Matthew 24
when He tells us that we are to refer back to Daniel when we see
(visibly see) the abomination of
desolation. We find more information on this abomination in Daniel
11:30-31 “For the ships of Chittim shall come against
him: therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation
against the holy covenant: so shall he do; he shall even return, and
have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant. And arms
shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of
strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall
place the abomination that maketh desolate.”
We are
told that something will be placed
in the sanctuary that will be an abomination. When this was
originally fulfilled by Antiochus Ephiphanes, it was a statue of
Zeus. We have two clues as to what it may be when the beast does it.
The first is found in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 “Let no man
deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there
come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son
of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is
called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the
temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.”
(Notice we are told there will be a temple, which supports the correct interpretation of Daniel 9:27.) The second clue is found in Revelation 13:14-15 “And
deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles
which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them
that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast,
which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to
give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast
should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the
image of the beast should be killed.”
We cannot know exactly what this abomination will be, but our main
clue is that it is something that will mimic, only on a much greater
scale, what Antiochus Epiphanes did. It is something we will see.
That along with the armies surrounding Jerusalem and the stopping of
the sacrifices will be a neon sign to us saying that the mid-point of
the 70th week has come and that the tribulation is about
to begin.
For those who teach that there will be no temple, no sacrifices, and
no first half of the 70th week, they do those who believe
them no service, for any straying from the truth of Scripture leads
people to error in understanding and possible deception of what will
be going on. These people need to start taking Scripture at face
value and understand that things are meant literally. They should not
alter the meaning or chronology of these verses to fit their scenario. This is as
much deception as any other false teaching out there.
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