Fall into the 'Gap' ... Dispensational style

[Iggles Phan]

Last week we explored Dispensationalism's reversal of Daniel's 70th Week from Jesus Christ to the Devil. I think many on this chat page were astonished by this exposition.

Today, we will explore how Dispensationalism took this lie and formed another: the Parenthesis Gap Theory.

This 'gap' was 'unknown and unforeseen' to Christianity until Darby and Scofield 'uncovered' it in the 19th century. But is it really there? Let's read carefully:

24: Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. 25: Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. 26: And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. 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,and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

Historic Timeline

| ..... 69 Weeks (Messiah) ..... | 70th Week (Messiah) |

Modernist Dispensational Timeline

| ..... 69 Weeks (Messiah) ..... | /\/\/\ parenthetical 'running gap' /\/\/\ | 70th Week (Antichrist) |

Christian ... Which timeline looks literal, and which timeline looks contrived?

Both views agree that the Seventy Weeks refers to 70 weeks-of-years or 490 years (70 weeks x 7 years-of-weeks = 490 years). However, those who say that the Bible should be taken in its 'literal' meaning (i.e. dispensationalists) are the very ones who insist that there are now already nearly 2,000 years between the 69th and 70th weeks.

If the grammar of Daniel 9: 24 means what it says, and says what it means, then the 70th Week must immediately follow the 69th. While the subject of this verse (seventy weeks) is plural, the verb translated as ‘determined’ is SINGULAR. This means that the 70 Weeks must be considered COLLECTIVELY as in an uninterrupted period of time. Daniel 9: 24 literally says that Seventy Weeks are determined. It does not say, 70 + 'gap' + 1 are determined. Therefore, the correct literal timeline for this passage is the Historic view which is continuous. The Modernist (dispensational) timeline is fragmented and not literal.

It is also interesting to take notice of Darby’s personal reinterpretation of this verse. In the Darby Bible (1890) he rewrote this Scripture, “Seventy weeks are apportioned out upon thy people…”. Here he took the literal meaning of ‘determined’ in its natural singular form, and imposed his non-literal ‘apportioned out’ to denote plural separation. ... What kind of conceit is this?

Christian … Of what use would Daniel’s prophecy of 490 years be to the faithful waiting in expectation, if it were later construed to mean a delay of 2,400+ years and running elastically ad infinitum? It would be of no useful prophetic value whatsoever! Worse yet, it would be a false prophecy because it says that God really can’t tell time correctly.

I often find it ironic that Dispensational adherents, who criticize their secular humanist counterparts for being ‘relativists’, are they themselves the ones who practice the ultimate form of relativism by employing this type of ‘sliding time scale’. This is a cunning Scriptural manipulation.

Falling into the 'Gap'

So, no such ‘gap’ is mentioned anywhere in Daniel 9, or anywhere else in the Bible for that matter. Therefore, when Scofield imposes the ‘parenthesis gap’ between the 69th and 70th week and says that it is a period 'not fixed nor foreseen or foretold by the prophets', he does great violence to the word of God. This unscriptural ‘gap’ doctrine imputes ‘Antichrist’, instead of Jesus Christ, into the center of the 70h Week. This is not merely a difference in doctrine or interpretation, as some would argue, because THE CROSS OF CHRIST IS INVOLVED! Dispensational doctrine excludes the Cross of Christ from Daniel's 70 Weeks by 'stopping the prophecy clock' at the foot of the Cross, and inserting this parenthesis 'gap'.

Christian … Is this skipping-over-Calvary trick not a subtle denial, in essence and in fact, that Jesus is the Messiah and the living God by saying that the 70th Week (which was the time of Christ's ministry, death and resurrection) is still yet future?

Christian ... Why is Christ not the fulfillment of this 70th Week, when He is the entire focus of the previous 69 Weeks? Why the sudden reversal? This is to say that Christ never came in fulfillment of prophecy, and shed His atoning Blood for the sins of the world!

Do not take this point lightly.

[RegulatorCountry]

Observation: cheeky noob thinks you’re a dispensationalist, lol.

[fortheDeclaration]

No, the note EXPLAINS the various scriptures.

Check the scriptures and you will see that is so.

[fortheDeclaration]

Eph 3:21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

I read the wrong scripture, Eph.2:21 states the church is a temple.

Eph.3:21 simply says that the church will have glory throughout the ages.

So save your phony pious yapping.