2025-09-10 - Jesus Christ is the Promised Messiah Part VIII: Eschatological Implications of the Seventy Weeks Prophecy

Extracting meaning from Daniel 9:26-27 requires that we employ a poetic frame of reference rather than one using rational prose, since God’s existence in eternity is not directly apparent to our senses, which are the usual substrate for our rational faculty.  We are not equipped to use reason to fathom the interplay of God’s eternal intentions with our temporal world.  In fact, the action of Christ’s salvation in our lives belies any rational resolution; it must be accepted by faith.  Rationally irresolvable dichotomies abound. We have free will - but all of our movements are already known to God.  Christ’s sacrifice has accomplished the salvation of the world - and there is still an indefinite period to go through before the Second Coming and Judgement.  The realized eschatology has already occurred during Christ’s sacrifice - and the future eschatology is yet to come.  Our reason remains mute in front of these unresolved dichotomies, while our faith accepts them and enables God’s grace to slowly enact our sanctification. 

After the Messiah has been introduced to Jerusalem, Daniel prophesizes that He will die and be cast into desolation, not because of any sinfulness on His part, but because He has accepted and executed a substitutionary sacrifice of Himself, for the sins of the whole world.  He really dies and descends into Hell with the accumulated guilt of the world to bear and to suffer for, to the satisfaction of divine justice.  But He is then removed from Hell on the morning of the third day and is acquitted, justified and declared righteous.  This dramatic episode is composed of and motivated by tense opposing forces.  Very much like the interplay of God’s eternal grace with our fallen temporal world. 

Following Christ’s death and resurrection, the “End Times” are initiated.  Daniel predicts Rome’s destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, an end to the “atonement by animal sacrifice” system, and the scattering of the Jews in diaspora.  The Judean period of history which led to the appearance of the Messiah, has been fulfilled and is now ended and subsumed into the Messiah’s life.  Adverse judgement will be rendered against those choosing commitment to Caesar over commitment to the Messiah.  Using the Messiah as a focal point to unite the realized eschatology of the end of Judea, with the future eschatology for divine judgement and the establishment of the New Jerusalem, is a singular event in history in which the awesome forces of Creation, Salvation and Revelation are enacted simultaneously.  Our Bible ends at this time, our Church is established at this time and there will be no additional Messiahs to follow.