February 22, 2008

  • Biblical Eschatology Revisited



    Precursors to His Coming: Part 2

    This is the second in a series of posts where we are looking at Matthew
    24 and how Christ answered His disciples’ three questions.

       1.    When will these things happen?
       2.    What will be the sign of Your coming?
       3.    What will be the sign of the end of the age?

    In the first post, we found that He answered the third question first
    and that there would be distinct things, signs, if you will, that would
    happen before Christ’s Second Coming but these would not signify “the
    end”. Then after that He clearly told them…


    This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a
    testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.      Matthew
    24:14 (NASB)


    Now as we move forward, we find ourselves looking at the first
    question. Now when Christ answers the first question… “when will these
    things happen”, he answers them in reference to a comment He had made
    to them earlier about the destruction of the temple. In essence, He
    tells them what the starting milestone for the entire time period would
    be… the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in 70 AD. However, by
    studying various scriptures, Daniel chapter 9 especially, since Christ
    makes a direct reference to it, it becomes obvious that there is more
    in this passage about this in Matthew 24 than first meets the eye.


    The Sign of When “These Things” Will Happen (Matthew 24:15-22)     (to keep the post shorter, please read from your Bible, thanks!)

    Before we go too far, we should take a clue from the 15th verse where
    the first word in the NASB is “therefore” which essentially means
    “because of what was said before”. Now if we pay attention to the time
    when Jesus and His disciples are discussing this, it is in reference to
    the temple being torn down so completely that one stone would not be
    left upon another. Obviously, since this did not happen on that day,
    the Lord was speaking of what would happen in the future. However, we
    can also discern that the Lord is beginning to reveal to us that other
    things would follow this as well and even have a double fulfillment as
    well. Surprised? Let’s determine how this might be possible.

    Indeed, the Lord was correct. During the destruction of Jerusalem in
    70AD, this very thing did occur and it is indeed found in Daniel in the
    very place that Jesus told us that we would find the prophecy
    concerning this… Daniel 9:24-27. The curious thing here is that there
    are two particular prophetical outcomes predicted in that passage
    instead of one. Let’s take a look at the passage, one of the most
    amazing prophecies of the entire Bible in that it is so definitive that
    if it were wrong it could be easily discounted, yet it was absolutely
    correct according to history all the way up to and through the
    destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD:


    "Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to
    finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for
    iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and
    prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. So you are to know and
    discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild
    Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and
    sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in
    times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be
    cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come
    will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a
    flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.
    And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the
    middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering;
    and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even
    until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the
    one who makes desolate."      Daniel 9:24-27 (NASB)

    Most of us already know the thing about the “weeks” or “heptads”
    meaning sevens or a series of sevens (as in the number “seven”) however
    for those who don’t, it is clear from the text that Daniel is being
    told about a length of time. Through understanding that a temple
    couldn’t be built in seven days or seven months using their methods of
    construction at the time, we understand that the time units for these
    weeks had to be longer than that. It turns out that in the testimony of
    history and through much study by others that “years” is the proper
    time unit to consider here so one “week” is 7 years and 70 “weeks” are
    490 years and so forth. Did you ever wonder how the wise men knew when
    to look for the sign for the Messiah? You might remember in Matthew 2 when the magi came and Herod inquired of them about the time of His star appeared. This is how they knew. How so? Remember Daniel had been in authority over all the wise men of Babylon. They would have known about this hundreds of years before He was born. So from their own ability to
    know this from the scriptures, we can have confidence that these
    particular “weeks” are meant to be periods of 7 years. Its even rather
    interesting that we are alerted to when the Lord changes the time units
    back for us in Daniel 10:2-3 and we learn that Daniel had been mourning
    for three entire weeks and hadn’t eaten. So we are notified that from
    then on we are speaking of normal “weeks” of seven days. Its amazing
    how detailed the Lord is in handling His Word.

    Let’s make sure we understand the purpose for the prophecy. So whatever
    we get from this prophecy must come in line with the following purposes:

       1.    It dealt with Daniel’s people, Israel and Jerusalem (the focal point of the prophecy)
       2.    The end of transgression and sin
       3.    Atonement made for iniquity
       4.    Everlasting righteousness is to be brought in
       5.    Sealing up vision and prophecy
       6.    Anoint the most holy place

    So all that this prophecy refers to has to do with these six purposes.

    So now let’s see what is to happen… in order… right from the text.

       1.    A decree would be issued to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. This
    occurred historically under Cyrus the   
              Persian after the Babylonian
    Captivity.
       2.    This restoration would last until Messiah the Prince would come.
       3.    This restoration would entail even the fine detail that the disciples marveled at even during times of distress.
      
    4.    The period of time from that decree to Messiah being “cut off and
    have nothing” (historically, crucified)
              would be the sum of two time
    periods, 7 weeks (49 years) and 62 weeks (434 years) for a total of 483

              years.
       5.    At some point after this, a group of people (the people of the
    prince who is to come) would destroy the city
              and sanctuary. This
    historically happened in 70 AD.
      
    6.    This destruction would come with a “flood” which in this case
    came historically as an overwhelming force
              (the Roman army) to
    completely wipe out Jerusalem and the temple.
      
    7.    We have a reference to “the end”… that there would be war and
    other desolations that were already 
              determined. Jesus said that there would
    be “wars and rumors of war” earlier in Matthew 24, precisely in
               line
    with the prophecy here.

    Now we begin to consider things beyond the destruction of Jerusalem…

      
    8.    Someone referred to as “he” will make a covenant with the many
    for one “week” but in the middle of the
              “week” he will put a stop to
    sacrifice and grain offering. Two possibilities exist here and each
    have their
              strengths.
             
    a.    One of these possibilities uses the closest antecedent for the
    word “he” as the “prince” of the people
                     who is to come “referred to
    elsewhere as the Beast, man of lawlessness, and the man of sin”.
                     i.    This outcome has the man of lawlessness, the Beast making a
    covenant with Israel and apparently 
                           there will be a temple in this
    scenario and three and a half years after this covenant it will be 

                           broken and this person will stand up in the rebuilt temple and declare
    himself to be god. Then what
                           is recorded in Revelation 13-19 occurs and
    this fellow and his cohort are destroyed at Christ’s
                           return.
              b.    The other possibility here is that “he” refers back to the
    Messiah who stops sacrifices and grain 
                     offerings since He took care of
    that on the cross. And after the cross, abominations will come that

                     make desolate (acts of abomination of desolation) that will lead to a complete
    destruction of the one
                     who makes desolate (The actual person known as
    The Abomination of Desolation). In other words,
                     Christ returns and
    destroys the Beast and False Prophet in Revelation Chapter 19

    Both scenarios seem to ultimately end up in the same place with some
    differing details in between. I tend to favor the first because what we
    find in Matthew 24:15 i.e. that he stands in the holy place. Also, in II
    Thessalonians 2 we find corroborating evidence…


    Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the
    apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son
    of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called
    god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of
    God, displaying himself as being     God.  II Thessalonians 2:3-4 (NASB)

    Since this man of lawlessness is said to take his seat in the temple of
    God displaying himself as being God, I tend to figure that there has to
    be a temple that arises from some sort of covenant since a temple for
    the God of Israel is not standing today (unless we consider the current
    structure on the same place to serve as replacement.). Also this is the
    same fellow that is described as the one who the Lord will slay at His
    coming. So this could not be referring to the Roman army in 70 AD. 
    Here’s what it says further in II Thessalonians 2…


    Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the
    breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His
    coming; that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of
    Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the
    deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not
    receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.     II Thessalonians
    2:8-10 (NASB)

    Now that we’ve established the history leading up to Jesus’ time and that
    this character called the “Abomination of Desolation” which will appear
    just before Christ’s return, we might find ourselves with a huge time
    disparity in Matthew 24:15-22. Given what we know about history and
    what we know is to come, we see that the Roman armies (the people of the prince to come) did indeed come
    after Christ’s crucifixion, (70 AD, nearly 40 years later) and leveled Jerusalem. If I’m not
    mistaken Josephus, the Jewish historian for the Romans, records for us
    that indeed those in Judea had to flee and not come back just as Jesus
    prophesied and the Christians had left the city because of Christ’s
    warning here in Matthew 24. The rest of the people of the city were decimated.

    So there is a historical
    element in 70AD (and also a prince to come later) and we can see a future element in the arrival of the
    Abomination of Desolation. I might be guessing here but I wonder if the
    destruction of Jerusalem was simply a foreshadowing of what is to come…
    only on a larger scale. It would seem so.

    Now its also interesting to note that the tribulation that Christ spoke
    of earlier in verses 4-14 was indeed that, tribulation. That
    tribulation is even with us now. However, those who have read
    Revelation and have some acquaintance with these matters, even this is
    going to get worse. In fact, this final portion of the entire time of
    tribulation will be so bad that the magnitude of difficulty will be so
    high that no life would be saved unless the days were shortened … Jesus
    described its magnitude as “such as has not occurred since the
    beginning of the world until now, nor ever will.” Matthew 24: 21(b)
    (NASB)  So much for being optimistic about the world getting better and
    better… Make no mistake, we are living in a tribulational time and for some, it is very severe for them. Yet the entire world will know this tribulation in greater measure as it grows to horrendous proportions that will just about decimate the planet.

    This continues this “dual time track” sort of idea unless, of course,
    one chooses to consider that everything was fulfilled in 70 AD. I don’t
    hold to that since verse 14 could not have been fulfilled at that point
    and is one of the reasons that we need to pay attention to what Jesus
    said there in order to keep things straight. And if Christ isn’t here
    at this point, it strongly argues for not adopting the idea that everything was
    fulfilled in 70AD. While we can't explore it now simply due to keeping this post as short as possible, so much of what God had said concerning prophetic events would have to be ignored, minimized, or deleted from the scriptural record to square it with reality.

    While this portion has been long, it was necessary as we had to refer
    back to Daniel in order to get our bearings on this portion of
    scripture because Christ referred to it Himself. A lot of interesting stuff here and we've now explored the first question's answer.

    Our next stop… What will be the sign of His coming?  Blessings, Mr.Vee