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Antichrist and Daniel 9:27 "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" (Dan.9.27) Daniel 9:24‑26 (NKJV) says "Seventy weeks are determined 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. 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." Using the day for a year principle, the first 69 weeks (or 483 years) reached to the first coming of Jesus Christ who died in the middle of the "one week" remaining. Naming of Papacy as Antichrist. During the Protestant reformation those who studied such Bible prophecies came to the conclusion that there was one entity that fits all the characteristics: the Papal dynasty of the Roman Catholic Church. They saw the antichrist was not merely a single individual, but was a system of apostasy and persecution that would rule for more than twelve centuries. The Roman Church was violently opposed to the scriptures being available for everyone to read for themselves. There was such a stir created during the Reformation that the Fifth Lateran Council (1512‑17 A.D.) resorted to strictly forbidding anyone to publish a book without prior censorship, and also prohibited anyone from preaching on the subject of antichrist. Therefore as part of the Counter Reformation Roman theologians sought to place antichrist in the future or the past. Preterist thought. Preterism sought to place the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation in the past. Luis del Alcazar (1554‑1613), a Spanish Jesuit theologian identified the antichrist as Nero. Nero was the Roman Emperor from 54 to 68 A.D. His persecution of the church is believed to account for the deaths of Peter, Paul, Erastus, Aristarchus of Macedonia, Trophimus and Ananias of Damascus amongst others. This fits well with the destruction of Jerusalem and the second Temple by the Romans in A.D.70. Ribera and the futurist view. For his part of Papacy's counter‑attack to Protestantism, another Spanish Jesuit Francisco Ribera (1537‑1591) wrote a prophecy also with the purpose of diverting the attention off the Roman Catholic Church after they had been identified as Antichrist during the Reformation. Ribera therefore chose to look at the 70 weeks of the Daniel prophecy to find another way of looking at those scriptures. The following is how he interpreted the 70th week of Daniel. Ribera's futurism puts the Antichrist into a future three and a half literal years. So in Daniel's 70 week prophecy, there is the 7 weeks plus 62 weeks which leaves "one week" left, otherwise known as the famous "70th week of Daniel." Again, that somewhat controversial text literally reads: Daniel 9.27 "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". The Futurist theory states that the Antichrist is yet to appear and will be unveiled in the last 3.5 years of Daniel's 70th week when he declares himself to be God in a rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. The Pro‑rapture view looks at this as a seven year period of tribulation. The idea is that while the first 70 weeks (or 483 years) did reach to the first coming of Jesus Christ, the prophetic clock had stopped because the Jewish people largely rejected Him. Then they slide the 70th week of Daniel (the last seven years) all the way down to the end times, call it the tribulation and say it applies to the Jewish people after the overcoming class are gone. Rapture teachers interpret Daniel 9:27 as follows: "He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week." "He" is the antichrist who will make a covenant (or peace treaty) with the Jews during the seven years of tribulation. "In the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease." In the middle of the seven year tribulation, the antichrist will break his covenant, turn against Israel, and stop the animal sacrifices. The phrase, "he shall cause the sacrifice...to cease" is viewed as irrefutable proof that a Jewish Temple will be rebuilt on the Temple Mount inside Jerusalem. One Protestant writer stated: "It is a matter for deep regret that those who hold and advocate the Futurist system at the present day, Protestants as they are for the most part, are this really playing into the hands of Rome, and helping to screen the Papacy from detection as the Antichrist. It has been well said that 'Futurism tends to obliterate the brand put by the Holy Spirit upon Popery.' More especially is this to be deplored at a time when the Papal Antichrist seems to be making an expiring effort to regain his former hold on men's minds." (Joseph Tanner) Both interpretations put antichrist outside the Middle Ages and the reformation period identified by Protestant historicists as the 1,260 prophetic year reign of antichrist. Modern view. Author Hal Lindsey in his "The Late Great Planet Earth" (1970) book reflects this current view when he writes about "God's last seven years of dealing with the Jewish people before the long awaited setting up of the kingdom of God (Daniel 9.27)." (The Late Great Planet Earth, p.46) According to H.A. Lindsay, during those seven years "the Antichrist, breaks his covenant with the Jewish people and causes the Jewish temple worship, according to the Law of Moses, to cease (Daniel 9:27). We must conclude that a third Temple will be rebuilt upon its ancient site in old Jerusalem." (Ibid) The majority of Bible scholars have not applied Daniel 9:27 to a seven year tribulation period at all. Neither have they interpreted the "he" as referring to a future antichrist as many do today. Instead, they applied it to Jesus Christ. From Genesis to Revelation there is not one passage that specifically mentions a seven year period of tribulation at all neither will you find it any concordance. The entire theory is based on a speculative interpretation of two little words in one single verse. That text is Daniel 9:27 and the two little words are, "one week." Prophecy minded Christians all over the world often engage in a fierce debate about whether Jesus Christ will return for His Church before the seven years of tribulation (the "pre‑tribulation" view), in the midst of the seven years (the "mid‑tribulation" view), or at the end of the seven years (the "post‑tribulation" view). Yet is an end time "seven‑year period of tribulation" even taught in the Bible at all? The following points suggest that Daniel's famous 70th week prophecy has no application to a future seven year tribulation at all. Rather, this great prophetic period of Daniel's 70 weeks is a Messianic prophecy that was fulfilled nearly two thousand years ago.
A look at history from the days of the Protestant Reformation shows that once the established Roman Church realized that they were being pointed at as the Antichrist they then set about proffering an alternative view of the scriptures. Luis Del Alcazar's preterist view placed them in the first two centuries. Francisco Ribera, also a Spanish Jesuit, placed it away from the Middle Ages to a time future from when he was writing. Nevertheless the futurist view is still discussed by students of the Bible in the 20th and 21st Centuries, such as writer like Hal Lindsay. However there are reasons why there are other interpretations of that passage are still as valid as they were in the Protestant Reformation. Selected |
