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Prophecy is precise
December 21st, 2009
Everyone likes to talk about the book of “Revelations”, where you see details of the 7 year”tribulation” when “the antichrist” does his thing. The only problem is none of that terminology is right. Over the years prophecy has been talked about by many people who have not really studied it. By that mechanism a lot of imprecise terminology has crept in to the general discussion. In the Bible, God means what he says and says what he means, so it is a good idea to be precise when discussing his word seriously.
The title of the book was “the revelation of Jesus Christ to John.” Just one revelation. The book is about the vision John saw when he was exiled on the island of Patmos. The vision is in two main parts: here on earth as Jesus was talking directly to John and later in heaven as prophecies that were scattered throughout the bible were acted out in the order they would go down, for the most part. The second part breaks naturally into two main parts – before Jesus comes back to earth and after that.
The “later in heaven” part include a seven year period that most people call “the tribulation”. While it is true that Jesus said during the second half of this period “there would be great tribulation”, the whole period of seven years is more precisely known as the “seventieth week of Daniel”. The key to end times prophecy is 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.
These four verses give the framework in time that organizes prophecies about Jesus’ ministry. Whole books have been written about these four verses. One of the best was “The Coming Prince” by Sir Robert Anderson. Follow the link to the text of the book for an incredible journey through prophecy. Two important facts that come out in the book are that the Hebrews used the term “week” for more than just seven days. Seven days, weeks, months and years were commonly called a “week”. The other important fact is that God works with years that are 360 days long. You can do a study on weeks in the law when talking about the feasts of Israel, the sabbath year, the year of jubilee, etc. Some physicists, astronomers and computer modelers have shown why the year used to be 360 days and what happened to make it the current 365 1/4 days we have now. I will leave that to you.
In a nutshell, Dan 9:24-27 tells us that from the day the decree was made to rebuild Jerusalem till the death of the messiah would be exactly 69 weeks of 360 day years. After that the Romans would destry the temple and the city and disperse the Jews across the whole world. The dispersion would last for an indeterminate period, but at some point in the future the Jews would be back in the land and a great leader would make a covenant between the Jews and the rest of the world for the jews to live in peace in israel for one week of years. This period is known among scholars and serious bible students as the “seventieth week of Daniel.” In the middle of the week, the one who makes the covenant will break it and set himself up in the temple to be worshipped as god. Other prophecies in Daniel, the other prophets, Psalms, basically throughout the Bible give details that fit into the framework of the weeks of Daniel.
The person who sets up the covenant is known popularly as “the antichrist”, but this term is never used in the Revelation. There are actually two people in the Revelation that play the role of “antichrist”, the Beast and the False Prophet. John uses the term “antichrist” four times in two of his epistles, 1 John and 2 John, but nowhere does he use that term to refer to the beast or the false prophet.
An important thing to remember about the Bible is that it is one book that was written by many people over the course of thousands of years, but it was a skillfully designed document that had one true author, the Holy Spirit. One of the design features was that it was written ” … precept [must be] upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, [and] there a little” (Is 28:10, Is 28:13) What this means is that there is no one section on any one given subject. This means if any section is cut out, the rest of the bible still conveys the whole message.
The “precept upon precept” message is not even just in one verse. This should show you how much God wants his message to come through to us. That message is that God does not want religion, He wants to have a relationship with us, and he has gone to extraordinary lengths to insure that that relationship is restored.
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Text filed under BibleStudies, CloserToGod, prophecy | Tags: antichrist, daniel, prophecy, revelation | Comments (2)
2 Responses to “Prophecy is precise”
Damn you're a nut. That was the most pointless thing I think I've ever read.
no ad hominem attacks please. The main point was most people talk about prophecy in a very imprecise way that leads to more confusion than anything. The second point was that Daniel's seventy weeks is the framework for discussing prophecy agreed upon by most serious students of the bible.