In reading my last piece, there is a high possibility you disagreed. I understand. British and American scholarship from well over a century ago had a different interpretation of Daniel 9:24-27 and thus Matthew 24. That interpretation had a huge influence on much Christian literature of the past three decades. Having read scholarly commentaries from as early as the year 1900, I got the scoop!
Daniel 9:26 states: “After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary….” (NIV).
A number of those sincere scholars advocated a gigantic gap of what would turn out to be over two thousand years between the events of these two sentences. They acknowledged Christ’s crucifixion ended the sixty-nine “weeks,” (the seven “weeks” and the sixty-two “weeks,”) which was 483 years. I agree. But then they claimed that from that point on this prophecy was put on an indefinite hold. They advocated the final seven years will not take place until the tribulation of the end times. I disagree. Jumping ahead more than two thousand years from the time of Christ to the end times is an erroneous departure from this text of Daniel in my opinion.
Jesus taught the “abomination that causes desolation” marks the time of His prophecy of the destruction of the temple. Thus an incorrect interpretation of Daniel 9:24-27 leads to terrible confusion on the teaching in Matthew 24:15. Worse of all, it interferes with the correct interpretation of the rapture. Let us instead strive for clarity.
Dr. Charles R. Erdman was a special scholar and minister who taught at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1906 to 1936. (He is not to be mistaken with the gentleman who founded Eerdmans Publishing Company in the early 1900s.)
I appreciate that Dr. Erdman addressed this subject in a commentary published in 1920, and I note he made some good points. But on this subject, his misinterpretation caused a mess. Dr. Erdman claimed the teaching of Christ involves a double entendre. Dr. Erdman stated: “…it is evident that our Lord is describing not one event, but two….” (1)
A double entendre is asking for trouble from the start.
Later on, he states: “This event is painted so vividly in colors borrowed from the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, that it is difficult to distinguish between the references to the two events.” (2)
Jesus was not describing two events.
Being on the wrong track, advancing into his commentary he furthers the confusion: “Even the generation then living was to witness the destruction of Jerusalem which was in itself to be a type and a sign of the greater event which lay in the more distant future.” (3)
Yes, a “type” in biblical studies is an event which foreshadows a greater future event. A delicate topic of study, these “types” were under the “Old Covenant” and they were leading to specific events within the “New Covenant.” No, the mass murder of the Jewish people by the Roman Empire was not a “type.” It was a tragic historic world event which Jesus foretold about and warned about.
Jesus was answering the first question by the disciples! The answer was a prophecy foretelling that Jerusalem would be ransacked by the Romans, a tragedy marked by a fulfilling of a prophecy of Daniel. Jesus even stated, “For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now – and never to be equaled again” (Matthew 24:21). Christ taught the fall of Jerusalem, and the resulting disastrous consequence of the Israelites losing their homeland, which I will address in my next piece, were more terrible than the disaster which will take place during the end times tribulation.
Now there could be some parallelism between the tribulation which took place between 66/67 A.D. and 73/74 A.D., and the end times tribulation. Yet if we want details about the end times tribulation which will follow the first stage of the glorious Second Coming of Christ, we need to look elsewhere in the Bible, such as the fourteenth chapter of Zechariah, or the book of Revelation after the start of the fourth chapter. Though a delicate interpretation, since Revelation involves a vision, plus it is full of metaphors, Revelation does contain an end times prophecy.
Even during the horrible event of Roman soldiers murdering over 1,100,00 Israelites around 70 A.D., God prevented the Roman Empire from extinguishing His covenant people. God continued, as He still does, to give the Jewish people, whom He loves, opportunities to turn to Him. God is the One who wants eternal life for us all.
Hunter Irvine
(1) Charles R. Erdman, The Gospel of Matthew:
An Exposition (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press,
1920), 190.
(2) Ibid., 192.
(3) Ibid., 195.
