Handout - Western Christadelphian Bible School

(c) It is certainly hard (though it’s not impossible!) for us to see how the first 69
weeks of the prophecy could be fulfilled other than in the death of Jesus (for
who, apart from the Lord, is an “anointed one” who might be “cut off, but not for
himself” and under what circumstances might we expect a commandment to go
forth to “restore and to build Jerusalem”?; is Jerusalem yet to be destroyed and
rebuilt before the final invasion that brings the Lord?). But our inability to see
how it might work out is no reason to impose a meaning upon the prophecy -
especially if our guesses clash with the facts. However we view these things it is
clear that the prophecy was not fulfilled in the events of AD 70.
(d) Even if the first 69 weeks of the prophecy had been fulfilled in the death of
Christ, invoking AD 70 as a fulfilment of the final week requires a gap of either
33 or 36 years between the end of the 69 th week and the beginning of the 70 th .
There is nothing in the prophecy to suggest that this is justifiable.
(e) Applying the first 69 weeks to the death of Christ and bringing the 70 th week to
the time of the end seems worse: it requires a gap of nearly 2000 years between
the end of the 69 th week and the beginning of the 70 th .
(f) If we suppose that the fall of the temple in AD 70 is a fulfilment of the 70 th
“week” of Daniel 9:27, then we must take account of, and explain, the fact that
there was no covenant between any of the parties to the siege of Jerusalem.
Israel’s leaders were at war with each other as well as with the Romans, but were
agreed that none should treat with the Romans - any attempt to do so was met
with summary execution. This important aspect of Daniel 9:27 - a covenant
between “the prince that shall come” and some of the people of Israel - was
entirely absent from the events of AD 70.
10 Jesus said of Herod’s temple that “there shall not be left one stone upon another, that
shall not be thrown down”. In fact, of course, the stones of the western wall, retaining
the site upon which the temple was built, are still standing today. This implies that the
Olivet prophecy is yet to be fulfilled. Some object that the Lord’s comments did not
include this wall. However, without this great wall, Herod’s temple would not have
been possible. In a sense it was an essential part of the structure, put in place to
support the temple.
There is a similar prophecy in Luke 19, this time directed against the whole city of
Jerusalem: “For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank
about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground,
you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in
you; because you did not know the time of your visitation” (Luke 19:43, 44, RSV).
This certainly includes the western wall of the temple site. So there is yet to be an
invasion of Jerusalem and it will finish what the Romans left undone. It is not
unreasonable to expect that since this is to be a more thorough sacking than that of the
Romans, then the Lord had this (greater) time of trouble in mind when he gave his
disciples the Olivet prophecy.
11 It is usually asserted that prophecy must relate to events that are close to the time of the
prophet, and be relevant to the problems of the prophet’s times. Therefore, it is
suggested, we should expect the Olivet prophecy to relate to the nearest “obvious”
historic incident: AD 70. But these assertions are by no means always justified:
(a) Some prophecies are specifically aimed at far-off times and do not relate to the
times of the prophet. For example, 1 Peter 1:10-12; Ezek 38:8, 16, Joel 1 etc.
Page 34