INTRODUCTION
In my two experiences of ordination, in both cases I was challenged on eschatology, the study of end times issues. First in 1990 from a dispensational perspective - I was not committed to the pretribulation rapture, because I could not see it in Scripture. In about 1992 I became postmillennial and when I wen into the PCA in 1999, all of the “flatline Amill” types were worried about postmillennial optimism - of course that had to let me in, since I quoted back to them Q. 191 of the Larger Catechism which is pretty optimistic about the kingdom of God.
Looking at Daniel, we see that the kingdom’s coming and advance are not like getting, "all my meals for free..." But He does promise advance, often through the persecution of an Antiochus Epiphanes or the murderous onslaughts of a Herod or the barbarism of a Nero. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot — in His own timing, Christ is reigning and will overcome His enemies. Certainly all of these are judged in hell. Therefore, we are to "be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Cor. 15:58).
As we get into this, just note that this is before us in the text. I don’t want to demonize dispensationalists, but on the other hand, we must teach what the text says and address the serious faults of views that grab the popular mind.
1) THE SENSATIONALIST VIEW
2) THE SOUND VIEW
1) THE SENSATIONALIST VIEW
THE [DISP]-SENSATIONAL VIEW - HOME ALONE
While I have preached and it is clear in Daniel 2, 7, and 8 at least that Jesus is currently Ascended and reigns as meditorial king over all the world — still this message, which is perfectly clear everywhere in Scripture — is short-circuited by a popular interpretation of Daniel, chapter 9. And now we come again to End Times Twilight Zone. This chapter is truly the basis for an End Times Circus. The most critical passage in the whole futurist view of Left Behindism is Daniel 9:24-27. It addresses the "seventy weeks" of years which are set "for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy" (Dan. 7:24). On the face of it, this looks like what Jesus did in His life, death, and resurrection.
Not so say the prophecy ringmasters. These things allegedly deal with ten nations arising from the European federation, the Antichrist, a revived Roman Empire, a seven-year peace treaty with national Israel, and the Great 666 Tribulation. It is precisely because of this passage that there is a basis for a secret "Rapture" of the Church in which unbelievers are "left behind." According to our dispensational brethren, the last seven years of the "seventy weeks" is yet future, even though the other sixty-nine weeks led up to Christ in the first advent. Christian believers must be Raptured out of the world. After this God will once again deal with ethnic Israel in the final "seventieth week of Daniel." So in the words of Thomas Ice, "What about Israel?"
The whole mess is because of a misinterpretation of Daniel 9:24-27, which requires a strict separation of God’s dealing with the Church vs. Israel in this allegedly future "seventieth week." The secret "Rapture" of the church, when unbelievers are "left behind" "Home Alone," is to get the Church out of the way so God can once again deal exclusively with Israel.
As strange as this nightmare may seem, this whole view pivots upon the word, “prince” in Daniel 9:26.
Daniel 9:25-26: Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times. And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined.
You can see from dispensational books, the undue emphasis:
Daniel: The Key to Prophetic Revelation, by John F. Walvoord
Sir Robert Anderson, "The Coming Prince" (1895)
Desecration: Antichrist Takes the Throne (Left Behind No. 9) Tim LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins
Though many wise and serious scholars say this is one of the most difficult passages to pin down in all of Scripture, listen to what our friends make of this:
Walvoord comments that the “interpretation of Daniel 9:24-27 is of major importance to premillennialism as well as pretribulationism.”[2] Being such, it is the “key” to prophecy and, consequently, “one of the most important prophecies of the Bible.”[3]
McClain suggests “no single prophetic utterance is more crucial.”[4]
Pentecost agrees with McClain that Daniel 9 gives us “the indispensable chronological key to all New Testament prophecy.”[5] (see Gentry’s article of Dispensational Distortions)
At least four RESPONSES should be offered as a preliminary demolition - This view of Dan. 9 is UNTIMELY, UNHISTORICAL, UNCHRISTIAN, UNBIBLICAL.
1) REFUTATIO - UNTIMELY
Over and over, this view leads to date-setting and false predictions. Looking back to popular mythologist, Hal Lindsey (“with C.C. Carlson”) (1970): he-she writes, “We should be living like persons who don’t expect to be around much longer” (p. 145).
He builds a case that signs of the end are in the headlines (then) and that “within forty years or so of 1948, all these things could take place. Many scholars who have studied Bible prophecy all their lives believe that this is so” (p. 54). Well, does anybody really know what time it is? “The time is short” (p. 188).
I may be wrong here but, well . . . the world didn’t end in 1988 or 1989. Despite what Edgar Whisenant, NASA rocket scientist-turned prophecy teacher predicted, the rapture didn’t happen. The World Bible Society printed 3.2 million copies of Whisenant’s 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988/On Borrowed Time (1988). Later they justified it because, “people heard the gospel.” I need not belabor the fact that these last days rocket scientists continue to be refuted by reality.
Most scholarly dispensationalists hate this criticism. But even so, the system has continually produced false predictions. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins “give 20 scriptural reasons why they believe we’re now living in the last days” in their 1999 book (note the date), Are We Living in the End Times? Among the reasons are the tired propheteer’s list, “reorganization of the state of Israel, technology for the mark of the beast, a trend toward a one-world government, and satellite links that could broadcast to the entire world the two witnesses of Revelation 11.”
2) REFUTATIO (1) - UNHISTORICAL
If I told you I have a totally new view of Scripture which produces a radical change in the Agenda for the Church and the world you would say, it’s probably wrong.
But what if I said, “Oh no, it’s historical - it was invented in 1850.” That is the situation with this view. And it leads to bad fruit.
Doctrine is to come from the Church collective over time. Our faith is rooted and grounded in History and in the Teachers God has given to the whole Church. It would be a fallacy to assert that the age of a claim determines its truth. But it would also be a fallacy to deny the credibility which is given by orthodox, historic Church teaching. We rightly suspect Novel views.
And dispSensationalism is novel. The secret "Rapture" of the Church was never known before the early 19th century. This view fermented in the days of a British Bible teacher, John Nelson Darby (1800-1882). There were a few omens of it in the fifteen year-old Margaret Macdonald whose prophecies influenced Darby. But it was the American lawyer, C. I. Scofield (1843-1921), who popularized it in the Scofield Reference Bible (1909). It was also preached in the evangelistic rallies of D. L. Moody (Moody Bible Institute), Lewis S. Chafer (founder of Philadelphia School of the Bible and Dallas Theological Seminary), and even by evangelist, Billy Graham. The whole scheme is dependent on a strict separation of the Church from ethnic Israel in the prophetic plan of God. So with the organization of the state of Israel in 1948, the whole scheme became a best-seller in Hal Lindsey ‘s Late Great Planet Earth (1970) (selling over 50 million copies). The schematic is well known in many "charts," such as those in Clarence Larkin’s, Dispensational Truth. Now the torch has been handed to Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, of Left Behind fame. Or you can hear it preached by most TV evangelists, like Jack Van Impe and of course, Rexella Van Impe, Perry Stone, and John Hagee to name a few.
Even advocate, Thomas Ice says, “Chiliasm [premillennialism, as opposed to pretrib/premill=dispensationalism], though suppressed by the dominate Catholic Church, nevertheless survived through "underground" and "fringe" groups of Christians during the 1,000 year mediaeval period.” Indeed even premillennialism, though it has a shot at a historic view (unlike the more radical view of dispensation premillennialism) it is also a fringe view.
3) REFUTATIO - UNCHRISTIAN (LEADS TO ANTICHRISTIAN VIEWS)
It get’s so crazy that prophecy pundits like John Hagee actually believe that ethnic Jews are saved regardless of faith in Jesus. Houston Chronicle quotes him,
“I’m not trying to convert the Jewish people to the Christian faith.” . . . “In fact, trying to convert Jews is a ‘waste of time,’ he said. ‘The Jewish person who has his roots in Judaism is not going to convert to Christianity. There is no form of Christian evangelism that has failed so miserably as evangelizing the Jewish people. They (already) have a faith structure.’” Everyone else, whether Buddhist or Baha’i, needs to believe in Jesus, he says. But not Jews. Jews already have a covenant with God that has never been replaced by Christianity, he says.
Do I have to cite any verses here to prove this is wrong? Is Matthew 23-24 in John Hagee’s Prophecy Study Bible? Did not Jesus speak most harshly against the unbelieving Jews?
4) REFUTATIO - UNBIBLICAL
We will see more exegetical demonstration against the dispensational readin gof Daniel 9, but on the critical “prince who is to come” - consider:
Daniel 9:25 speaks of “Messiah the Prince.” Then the next verse speaks of “Messiah.” Then in the same verse “the prince who is to come.” It is claimed that this “prince” at the end of verse 26 is not the “prince” of verse 25, even though it is exactly the same Hebrew term (nagid, prince, ruler, leader) in the same passage. There is not exegetical reason to suppose that “prince” in verse 26 is not the very same “Messiah the Prince.”
II. SOUND VIEW
On a deeper exegetical level, please note the true emphasis of the text. The key themes of the first part of the passage, seem to be chiastic. Verse 9:24
To finish the transgression,
to make an end of sins,
to make reconciliation for iniquity,
to bring in everlasting righteousness,
to seal up vision and prophecy,
to anoint the Most Holy.
If this is so, then the emphasis of all of this is on the parallel actions of reconciliation and bringing in everlasting righteousness. All Christian interpreters acknowledge that the great reconciliation for sins happens when Messiah was "cut off" at the cross (Rom. 5:10, 11:15, 2 Cor. 5:18).
Why does all this matter? What we expect will happen in history affects greatly our agenda of what we should be doing. Extreme views on the rapture and antichrist make for some really bad fiction, but even worse theology. The reason is quite simply that Jesus is reigning now.
He “rules the world” and His kingdom is present. If one really has rapture fever, then why keep working hard in school, or plan for college, or learn to play cello? If the rapture is imminent (“about to happen”), then no life-long vision makes sense. But it is just because Jesus reigns and the world is in His hands — not under the so-called Antichrist’s control — then we can be assured of fruitfulness and victory as we serve in His kingdom. Even if we knew the end of the world would be tomorrow we should still live as though His promises extend to a thousand generations. And in the final day He will consummate His kingdom when He puts the last enemy, death, under His feet by actually resurrecting the dead in Christ, when He comes to judge the living and the dead (1 Cor. 15:22-26).
But our brethren are misled on this piont. Wayne House and Thomas Ice write that: "Whatever dynamic God has given believers today does not mean that the Messianic kingdom is here. We see it as totally future." (H. Wayne House and Thomas D. Ice, Dominion Theology: Blessing or Curse? [Portland, Ore.: Multnomah, 1988], 220.)
The present reality of Christ’s victorious kingdom is certainly the prophetic picture of Daniel, especially chapters two and seven. It is confirmed for us by the apostles dozens of times. Paul writes, “For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet” (1 Cor. 15:25; cf. Ps. 110:1). Emphatically and repeatedly we are taught that Christ is at the right hand of God the Father reigning (Mark 16:19, Act 2:33, 34, 5:31, 7:55-56, Rom. 8:34, Eph. 1:20, Col. 3:1, Heb. 1:3, 13, 8:1, 10:12, 12:2, 1 Pet. 3:22). He is now on a throne (Acts 2:30), reigning over His kingdom (Col. 1:13), having dominion (1 Tim. 6:16, 1 Pet. 4:11, 5:11, Rev. 1:6), and even ruling “the kings of the earth” (Rev 1:5). This is exactly what Daniel predicts. The events of Daniel nine took place in the events of Christ’s death and resurrection-Ascension which finally brought destruction to unbelieving Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 A.D.
Daniel 9 is a powerful Messianic prediction of Christ’s first coming and is confirmed by undebatable history. Jerusalem was destroyed just as the text predicts and as Jesus confirmed would happen. Are we awaiting a “replay” of all of this? NO.
In a word what is really happening in Daniel 9 is the coming of Christ and the first century destruction of Jerusalem.
For the Jews living in Daniel’s time, their hope was centered on restoration into their land and to rebuild their temple for proper worship. This too is revealed in Daniel, but as a temporary measure. In chapter nine Daniel is praying about the desolation that has come to Jerusalem because of their sins. Daniel confesses corporately the sins of God’s people that brought about judgment (Dan. 9:4-19).
The angel Gabriel comes to him and explains that their will be a rebuilding and more importantly, there will be a "reconciliation for iniquity" in which "everlasting righteousness" will be accomplished (Dan. 9:24). But this will conclude with the destruction of the city and sanctuary.
Nevertheless this passage promises the coming of Messiah who will bring about redemption through His blood of the new covenant (Matt. 26:28).
The result of all of this brings an end to the sacrificial system. By Jesus being "cut off" for our sins, He will "bring an end to sacrifice and offering" (Dan. 9:26-27).
Jesus even says, implicitly referring to Daniel 9, “For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled” (Luke 21:22). Explicitly, Jesus refers to this prophecy as well, “When you see the ’abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place" (whoever reads, let him understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains” (Matthew 24:15-16) . Notice that this is “when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near” (Luke 21:22).
All of this means when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D., the final words of Daniel 9:27 were enacted in the desolation of Jerusalem. Only if one has a replay of all this again in the future can these words not be complete. But this is what the Home Alone version of Bible prophecy demands.
Should we agree with Hal Lindsey, “We should be living like persons who don’t expect to be around much longer” (p. 145). Wouldn’t that mean we shouldn’t invest in the future, in our children, in long-term culture transformation? Would this mean in the words of another, “We shouldn’t polish brass on a sinking ship?”
No. We should plan for God’s promises to a thousand generations to manifest in the lives of those who see Jesus as king.
