Gabriel and the Seventy Weeks (Part 2 of 2)

Bob Lepine: Welcome to Truth For Life, where today we're investigating the prophetic visions in the book of Daniel. Alistair Begg is teaching from Daniel chapter 9, looking at how one extraordinary vision points forward to future events in history and ultimately to Christ's return. Here's Alistair.
Alistair Begg: In what follows, I reserve the right to change my mind later this evening and as often as necessary for the rest of my life until I finally settle the matter. What I'm about to now unfold for you will annoy some, disappoint others, confuse many, and perhaps encourage a few. Remember, it is the word of God which is absolutely true and absolutely sufficient and absolutely right, and not the preacher's interpretation of it. It is the word of God which is authoritative, and parts of the word of God leave us with our hands over our mouths. And our unwillingness to end up in that position perhaps says more about our pride than it does about our desire to fully comprehend its truth. Daniel then is informed that the period that is in view, 70 weeks or literally 70 sevens—if you want to go to the background of that, go to Leviticus chapter 25 and you can follow up on that. Even though the 70 years of the exile are coming to an end, there is, he discovers, a period of 70 sevens before the end of the end. And within this time frame that we're being told about here, the final triumph of God's kingdom will eventually emerge. Now if you look at verse 24, which is obviously key to this—it sets up everything that follows not only chronologically or in terms of the verse format, but also in terms of an understanding. Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city to—and then we're told six things. All right. Number one, transgression will be finished. Sins will be brought to an end. Reconciliation will be made for iniquity, or atonement will be made for iniquity. It's all in the text; just let your eye look on it. Vision and prophecy will be sealed, and the most holy will be anointed. There's some question whether that is a holy place or a holy person, but nevertheless, it is as it is. Now anybody reading that verse with even a modicum of understanding of the New Testament is going to say what? Even your 10-year-old son or daughter, if they know anything about the Bible and you read that 24th verse to them, they're going to say to you, "That must be about what Jesus does." That must be about what Jesus does. And of course it is about what Jesus does. The question that it begs is when has He done it and what if it still has to be done, if any? But nevertheless, we can be absolutely certain that it is pointing forward to the person and to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now when it comes to this matter of the fulfillment of all of this, one of my good friends sees all of this verse 24 completed in the coming of Christ, in His death and in His resurrection, in His ascension, and then subsequently in the events of AD 70 with the destruction of the temple. All right. So it is all wrapped up there. Yet another friend views all of verse 24 not as a summary of what has already transpired, but as a prophecy directly related to what is going to transpire which, if you still have patience and time, we may come back to in the end, which is directly related in the mind of that friend to the place of Israel as a nation, to the reconstruction of the temple, and to all that goes along with that. Well, you say, "Well, we don't care about your friends. You're here. Never mind your friends; you should have brought your friends and let them speak." Well, let me give you my best shot. I take it that what we have here is actually a summary of what Christ accomplished in His coming. And yet because of the way you look at this description and all that follows, as we'll see in just a moment, it's hard for me to say that that is all that it is. And therefore, I personally think that it still foreshadows events yet to unfold. That there are elements that are still represented in this accomplishment here in verse 24 that are related then in 25, 26, and 27. Because while I recognize and we recognize together the triumph of all that Christ has accomplished, I still read, for example, Ephesians 1:10, that God's will has been set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth. Well, you say, "But in Him He has done that, hasn't He?" Well, He has, yes, but not quite. And you have that sense, at least I have that sense, that we recognize in looking back that it forces us then to look forward. And as we saw in our studies in Mark chapter 13, this telescoping effect that exists in prophetic passages, we're not surprised to discover here. Well, if you're still with me, I will continue. Therefore, I go on to assume that the opening part of verse 25 and following, which is the understanding that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem—you remember when Cyrus allows the people to be repatriated? They've been held in exile. Jeremiah says the time will come to an end. It comes to an end, and I believe that's what's represented here. I don't think anybody disagrees with that actually, that there is going to come a time for Daniel and for his encouragement when this person will make it possible to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem. I take it that this anointed one, this prince, is of course Cyrus himself. He's referred to as the anointed one in the prophetic writings. Now that in itself would be an encouragement to Daniel. But you then have to say that we go on to the 62 weeks, and then for 62 weeks it shall be built again with squares and a moat, but in a troubled time. And after the 62 weeks an anointed one shall be cut off. So the second period takes us from the time of Nehemiah all the way to the coming of Jesus, all the way to the coming of Jesus. And the people who do all the mathematical formulations of it are at pains to make sure that the math actually works out, hence the preoccupation with AD 33 and everything else. They're saying look, and some of them have managed to get it down to the exact day of the crucifixion of Jesus or of the incarnation itself. That seems to me to be a lot of special pleading, but nevertheless, they're making the point. Whether you regard it in these very literal terms or whether you regard this as a period of time, as a symbolic reference of time, at the end of it what we have is the appearing of Christ himself. So that it takes us to He who is the anointed one. And when we look at this, we realize just how challenging it is. And this anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. Now here's where a King James Version Bible helped me out, because I always like to look at different translations, and the translation in the King James Version says the Messiah shall be cut off and not for Himself. Here the ESV, "And this anointed one shall be cut off." Well, it's very helpful that the King James boys said this is the Messiah. And of course we understand that it is the Messiah. Remember Isaiah 53 in prophesying the death of the Lord Jesus, it says of Him that He would be cut off from the land of the living. And so Daniel is being told that somehow or another, in a way that would be inevitably cloudy for him but in a way that is clear in the light of the New Testament, there is going to come this one who will be the Messiah himself and He will be cut off. Well, what are we to do then with the people of the prince who is to come and shall destroy the city and the sanctuary? Who is this? Well, it depends on your view. Here's where Titus comes in and AD 70 comes in. Because when you read the history, you realize that that is exactly what happened in AD 70, when Titus, the leader of the Roman authorities, ransacked, destroyed Jerusalem and its inhabitants and the temple itself. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. You see that little phrase there is why I can't go with it all finishing up in AD 70. Because it doesn't sound like it finishes in AD 70 to me. And it's very—it's interesting I'm prepared to say this because if I told you who my friends are, I love them very much and they're far—they're far brighter than me. But I don't know whether they want it to end in AD 70 or whatever else it is. But the idea of it coming with a flood and the great destruction. But it then says, "And to the end there shall be war." The ongoing notion. "And desolations are decreed." Well, what are these? Well, the way people deal with this is they say that 27 and 26, the two verses should be read parallel to one another. Parallel to one another. So that 27 should not actually be explaining what is coming after, but it is a recapitulation of what is said in verse 26. And this is where it gets really—really difficult. You say it's been difficult for a while. But no. The reference to the Lord Jesus in verse 26—when you go to verse 27, is then it Jesus in verse 27 who is making a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week He will put an end to sacrifice and offering? Is this the same person? Now my one good friend says, "Yes, of course it is. Because Jesus by His death put an end to sacrifice." It's the whole emphasis of the book of Hebrews. So verse 27, He will make a strong covenant with many for one week and will put an end to sacrifice and to offering. So from that perspective, the stopping of the sacrifices is viewed as a plus. But what if verse 27a does not refer to Jesus but actually refers to the enemy of God's people? Then it changes everything. Because then what you have is someone putting an end to the sacrifices, not in a way that confirms their validity but opposes them entirely. So then verse 27a becomes the stopping of the sacrifice not as a positive act, but as a hostile act. And He shall put an end to sacrifice and to offerings. So the tidier view which contains it in AD 70 somehow has to reckon with the way in which successive desolations point forward and foreshadow the end of the end. And this wing of abominations as a phrase, and on this wing shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator. I mean we've got to do something with the man of lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians. We have to do something with the Antichrist. We have to do something with the fact that this whole tale is not finished yet. And we have to recognize—this is why I said to you before that when you deal with biblical prophecy, it's a bit like hill climbing. When you climb in the hills of Scotland, if you look up you say, "If we get there we'll be on the top," until you get there and you realize we're not on the top. And it may happen to you three or four more times. But from where you stand you think you see the end until you move up and you see there is an end that is yet to be. And I think that in this passage there is more of that than perhaps some are prepared to recognize. Well, the—the challenge in this is that your view of these verses impact a whole lot of stuff, not least of all your view of Jerusalem, the temple, and ethnic Israel. From a certain perspective, those who see most of this yet to be, they view 1948 as absolutely key and represented in this passage, the return of the Jewish people to their own land. And therefore, this means that we're now in part one of the week and then and so on. I respect that. I understand that. That is their view. And it is held very firmly. In that view, they anticipate the rebuilding of the temple, the restoration of Jewish worship for a significant period of time and so on. The challenge for that as I read my Bible is this, that Jesus actually viewed Himself as the replacement for the temple. That the ultimate anointing of the holy place is an anointing which rested on the holy one himself. And the real temple is where Jesus is. The real temple is in the place of reconciliation. The real temple is the place of His kingly rule. But where is Jesus? Jesus has gone to heaven. Jesus is then himself present by the Holy Spirit. That's what we say, isn't it? That we gather in the presence of Jesus. That Jesus is present in Korea tonight. He's present in the northern parts of Africa. He's present in sub-Saharan Africa. He is present. How is He present? He's present by the Holy Spirit. "It's better for you that I go away." "Are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" "No, fellas, that's not what I'm going to do. I'm going to go away. It's better. You must preach the gospel to the ends of the earth. Tell the people; tell the people this amazing good news." And the Spirit of God is not confined then to one physical and one geographical location. That is why, you see, the idea of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land is actually a misnomer. There is no Holy Land. Now that's not to say that it isn't good for us to go out there and see the actual historical sites where the events of the Bible unfolded. But do you really believe that that is the real holy place? Well, you see, this passage of the Bible actually impacts. The only truly biblical pilgrimage to the Holy Land is to go to Jesus, to go to Jesus. The nations are coming to the temple when they come to Jesus, when the gospel is preached and when it is applied by the Holy Spirit to people's hearts. And when, remember, you read in the book of Revelation at the end of it all, there was no temple. So you see these things unsettle us if we have come from a background that believes very firmly about this, and I'm not here to oppose the view. I'm here simply to observe. But I firmly concur with my good friend Alec Motyer when he writes as follows: "Old Testament national and territorial pictures prepare us for a kingdom that is not of this world." That's what Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world, otherwise my followers would fight." It prepares us—a redeemed and believing people who already live in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 4) and who here and now have come to the heavenly Zion. Daniel and his friends were asking, "How long is this going to go on?" We ask the same question. Tonight we are closer to these things than we were last Sunday night. Tonight we're traveling along the edge of human history. So the pessimist can look down and the fearful can look around, but the believer ought to lift his or her eyes and look up, for our redemption draws nigh. And the hymn writer captures it wonderfully: "Mid toil and tribulation and tumult of her war"—she, that is the church—"waits the consummation of peace forevermore, till with the vision glorious her longing eyes are blest, and the great church victorious shall be the church at rest." I don't know what Daniel made of all of this. I'm not sure what you make of all of this. I think I could study this for another three weeks and not be any better than I am right now. But I'm confident of two things. One, that God's word does not err. That ultimately that which He has purposed He will accomplish. And that you are sensible people, and that you can go and figure this out for yourselves.
Bob Lepine: If you’ve never read through the entire Bible, or if you’re unclear about who lived when or how the Old Testament events tell the overarching story of God’s plan of salvation, don’t miss the book we’re recommending today. It’s a book called *The Story of God and Us*, and it’s a unique book. It takes you through the complete storyline of the Bible, retelling the stories and taking you on a sweeping journey through all of Scripture. You begin with creation, you read about the fall, about the patriarchs, the judges, the kings, the prophets, you explore the Gospels, the themes found in the Epistles, and finally God’s plan for His renewed creation. If you’ve never fully understood how these Bible stories are connected, this book will help you gain a much clearer understanding of God’s unending faithfulness throughout history, even as His people repeatedly faltered. Ask for your copy of *The Story of God and Us* when you donate to Truth For Life today. You can give online at truthforlife.org/donate or call us at 888-588-7884. Now, here's Alistair with a closing prayer.
Alistair Begg: Father, thank You. I think, Lord, the big lesson tonight is this—well, two. One would be we look to the Holy Spirit to be the unfolder of Scripture for us. That our best attempts reveal the fact that we see through a glass darkly. That when we come across 400 different interpretations of something from good men that we respect, we are justified in concluding that this just can't be as clear as some people suggest it is. So we pray for humility of heart and mind. We pray that we won't become unbelieving. We don't want to be like the scoffers in 2 Peter who said, "Where is the promise of His coming? All things continue as they once did." We don't even want to go anywhere close to that. We affirm the fact, Lord Jesus Christ, that You are an ascended King, that You're a reigning Lord, that You will come in power and great glory, and we await that day. In the meantime, Lord, help us through all our part in these sevens to have this hope within us which creates zeal for evangelism and purity of life. And we thank You that we can look all the way back now through these 2,600 years and recognize that You have been faithful to Your people, even as You're faithful to us tonight. And we look away from ourselves to You. In Jesus' name, amen.
Bob Lepine: I'm Bob Lepine, glad you've joined us today. Tomorrow we'll consider what's wrong with our world and why it's so broken. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth For Life, where the learning is for living.