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The Mighty Angels of Daniel 9: A Prophetic Problem

The Mighty Angels of Daniel 9: A Prophetic Problem
By Nathan Jones

A Prophetic Problem

Daniel 9 presents a prophetic problem. The final week of the Seventy Weeks of Daniel prophecy remains missing. A seven year time period still has yet to be fulfilled. You’ve got to wonder when that seven years fits exactly into the prophetic timeline.

Vic Batista: I believe that Daniel’s Seventieth Week remains to be fulfilled in the future. Just look at Daniel 9:26 and you’ll begin to see why.

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.”

Nathan Jones: Yes, I agree. The key is the fact that Messiah shall be cut off. Had Jesus not been cut off, meaning having been accepted by the First Century Jewish people as the Messiah instead of being killed, I think the full Seventy Weeks of Daniel would have been fulfilled. If Jesus was accepted as the Messiah, the final seven years would have gone ahead an happened in order after the 483 years.

Regardless, Jesus lamented as He rode through Jerusalem knowing that the city would eventually be destroyed in 70 AD because of the people’s rejection of Him. Knowing that the people would turn Jesus over to be crucified instead of accepting Him as their Messiah made Jesus incredibly sad, but that’s what He expected. The prophetic timeline would never have changed. The Messiah was destined to be cut off.

Was there a provision to Daniel’s prophecy if the Jews had accepted Jesus as Messiah during His First Coming? Probably not, because then Jesus would have never died for our sins. The people were never meant to accept Jesus as Savior. That reality pushes that one remaining week of Daniel’s Seventieth week, a seven year block of time, forward along the prophetic timeline so that it remains unfulfilled.

The world has been living in that great interlude called the Church Age for almost 2,000 years. Where then does Daniel’s final seven years fit into the prophetic timeline? Those years clearly still haven’t occurred. The rest of Daniel 9, in verse 27, will answer that prophetic problem.

“Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate.”

Vic Batista: This passage, along with verse 26, reveals that after the Messiah is cut off the people of the prince who will come shall destroy the city and sanctuary.

Nathan Jones: At Jesus Christ’s First Coming He experienced a horrific crucifixion so that He died on the Cross, He was then buried for three days, but finally three days later He arose. Yeshua Messiah achieved a victory that provided salvation for every person who accepts Him in faith.

Through that sacrificial act, Jesus instituted a spiritual kingdom through the hearts and minds of the people who put their faith in Him. For the last 2,000 years that the believing body of Christ, called the Church, has been on this earth, it has existed as Christ’s spiritual kingdom. We remain waiting for the time when Christ will return to set up His physical kingdom, as Revelation 20 describes. Six times Revelation 20 says for a thousand years Jesus will rule and reign over this earth. That Millennial Kingdom clearly hasn’t been instituted yet.

Bible prophecy foretells that just before Jesus institutes His Millennial Kingdom, Satan musters one big push in his attempt to try and take over the world. With Satan’s final muster is when the world gets the prince Daniel is being told about. Here and in other references, this prince is referring to the Antichrist. He will be the one-world ruler who one day will eventually conquer the entire world. He will arise from the people who destroyed the city and the sanctuary. In 70 AD, the Romans destroyed the city, Jerusalem, and the sanctuary, the Temple.

Vic Batista: After the destruction of the city and the sanctuary, Daniel records, “The end of it shall be with a flood, and till the end of the war desolations are determined.” So, after Jerusalem is destroyed, which happened in 70 AD due to the Roman siege, the world would face an ongoing deluge of wars and desolations. The world hasn’t been without war since.

An Unprecedented Covenant

Nathan Jones: When the Antichrist arrives on the scene, he achieves an unprecedented covenant. The Angel Gabriel reveals that this prince will make a covenant with “the many,” which most theologians interpret to mean the people of Israel. In our time, the world doesn’t know exactly what this covenant will provide. Some believe that it will finally be the covenant that brings peace at long last between Israel and the Palestinians. Others believe that it will be a covenant that brings peace for Israel from the Antisemitic scorn exhibited by rest of the world, especially from the UN constantly hounding Israel.

For myself, I believe that Israel will become a super power one day. I believe this because Ezekiel 38-39 describes a war that is coming when God will personally conquer much of the entire Middle East and end the Islamic threat. Russia will be destroyed in the process. Even today we are seeing Russia making vast inroads into the Middle East, as they now have a base in Syria. Russia has been using the ISIS threat to achieve their permanent foothold into Syria. We are also seeing that Russia has made connections with Iran, along with some of these other nations that Ezekiel 38-39 lists, such as Turkey and Libya.

The nation of Israel will become a world superpower one day. We can know this will happen because the Ezekiel prophecy foretells that God Himself will personally step in and supernaturally defeat the advancing hordes of the Russian Gog’s armies as they are threatening Israel. Without Russia and the Islamic Middle East broken and no longer threatening Israel, that will allow the tiny nation to expand its strength and borders into a brand new world superpower. This prophetic victory leads me to believe that the Antichrist’s treaty with Israel isn’t about protecting Israel, but it is confirmed in order to protect the world from the God of Israel. The Antichrist will then use that peace as a cover so that he can roar out unhindered by the God of Israel in conquering the whole world.

Daniel 9:27 reveals that halfway into the seven year treaty, the Antichrist will break it. We can read more details about the abomination the Antichrist performs in order to break that treaty, both in Daniel 9:27 and in 2 Thessalonians 2. The Antichrist is going to break that treaty for “he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate.”

Vic Batista: So, basically what we are looking at here with Daniel 9:26-27 is a peak into the future. Gabriel leaps across the ages from the time when Jesus was crucified and cut off from His Davidic throne and then catapults the reader into the future, even past our time today, to an event that still has yet to occur. This is the time of the Antichrist’s reign, known as the Tribulation. The Tribulation is Daniel’s missing Seventieth Week.

Nathan Jones: The book of Daniel will later jump over time again in Daniel 11. That chapter contains a very, very detailed prophecy that takes us through what’s called the Intertestamental Period, which is the time between Malachi and Matthew, also called the 400 Years of Silence. The chapter describes the battle between the Ptolemies of Egypt in the South against the Seleucids of Syria in the North. These powers duke it out back and forth with Israel being batted around in the middle. Daniel 11 contains dozens of prophecies that are absolutely mind-blowing in detailed that have now found historical fulfillment.

But then, Daniel 11 address a wicked man who history names Antiochus Epiphanes. He is a ruler who desecrates the Temple resulting in the Jewish priests rising up in rebellion in the Maccabean Revolt. Then, all of a sudden, Daniel 11 skips way into the future and describes the Antichrist as a man who will be just like Antiochus Epiphanes.

A jump over time is what we are seeing in Daniel 9. Gabriel is telling Daniel that Jerusalem and the Temple will be destroyed. History attests that happened in 70 AD. But, then Gabriel skips way into the future to describe the unfolding of Daniel’s Seventieth Week. From Daniel 9:26 we learn the Antichrist will descend from the Romans, and like Antiochus, he will do the same thing by desecrating the sanctuary, proving that one day the Temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt.

In the twenty-seventh segment of this series on the mighty angels of Daniel, we’ll address whether the Antichrist is alive today or not.

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