Daniel’s 70 Weeks
I was recently asked the following:
If Saudi Arabia is added to the Waqf would that be slightly fulfilling Daniel 9:27? Would this allow for the Dome of the rock to be replaced with a third temple? If the Temple Mount is discussed would that also be partially fulfilling Daniel 9:27?
My reply was the following:
No. The misapplication of Daniel 9:27 to a future temple is a new invention in the last 200 years because of the false “Rapture” teaching by John Darby and Hal Lindsey in his Late Great Planet Earth book (1970) that popularized that false theology.
One of the things that should be of note is that Daniel’s prophecy does not require a “gap” to be understood. If taken literally, the entirety of Daniel 9:24–27 is a beautiful description of our salvation being fulfilled in the first century A.D.
Daniel predicted 70 weeks (of years) or 490 years, for the accomplishing of the redemptive work (Daniel 9:24-Then transgression will stop and sin will end, guilt will be expiated, everlasting justice will be introduced, vision and prophecy ratified, and holy of holies will be anointed.). All of this Daniel 9:24 is talking about is the establishment of the gospel with Jesus’s death burial and resurrection and nothing more.
The beginning point of this timeframe is indicated by the commandment to restore Jerusalem as is clearly taught in verse 25.
“Know and understand: From the utterance of the word that Jerusalem was to be rebuilt until there is an anointed ruler (Christ Jesus, the only true anointed Messiah), there shall be seven weeks. In the course of 62 weeks, it shall be rebuilt,” Daniel 9:25–26.
The “seven weeks” with the “62 weeks” relate to the 483 years that span from 458 BC to 26 A.D. when Ezra made an attempt to restore the city walls of Jerusalem as recorded in Ezra 9:9 “he has turned the goodwill of the kings of Persia towards us. Thus, he has given us new life to raise again the house of our God and restore its ruins and has granted us a protective wall in Judah and Jerusalem.”
Between 26 A.D. and 33 A.D., we have the common timeframe given by scholars, archaeologists, and theologians as to the timeframe when Jesus Christ (the anointed ruler of Daniel 9:25) walked on earth doing his ministry and suffered, died, and was resurrected for our salvation.
When you read in 9:27 “he shall make a firm covenant with many (it is talking about the establishment of the New Testament in his blood because Jesus died on a cross.) …
Or: He shall abolish sacrifice and offering (is the fulfillment spoken of in Hebrews 10:18–20 “Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer offering for sin. Therefore, brothers, since through the blood of Jesus we have the confidence of entrance into the sanctuary by the new and living way he opened for us through the veil, that is, his flesh,”) …
Or: In their place shall be the desolation of abomination (the continued sacrifices in the temple- “would not the sacrifices have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, once cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? Hebrews 10:2) …
And: Until the ruin that is decreed is poured out upon the desolator (that is until the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D.).
It becomes clear that the 70th week of Daniel does not have to happen in the future because it is already been completely fulfilled when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman army in 70 A.D. the notion that you have to have a “gap” is something that is only 200 years old.
Look at John Calvin’s, Commentary on a Harmony, chapter 3, pages 131 to 132, to read the following:
the disciples could not be saved without being torn from that nation, to which had been committed the adoption and the covenant (Romans 9:4) of eternal salvation, Christ confirms by the testimony of Daniel. As if he had said that you may not be too strongly attached to the temple and to the ceremonies of the Law, God has limited them to a fixed time, and has long ago declared, that when the Redeemer should come, sacrifices would cease; and that it may not give you uneasiness to be cut off from your own nation. God has also forewarned these people, that in due time it would be rejected.”
You see the idea of him being cut off, is a combination of his death on the cross for our salvation and the fact that he is the stone which the builders, a.k.a. the Jewish nation, rejected. He was cut off from his people because as John 1:11, tells us: He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. In this Scripture speaks of him being cut off from his people during the 70th week. If we do not understand the Scriptures in this way, we change their meaning from something literal to something that merely fits a theology that needs to have a “gap” like John Darby’s rapture theology that is found in Hal Lindsey’s book Late Great Planet Earth, and we end up reading newspapers to understand what God is telling us instead of the word of God itself.