Some Eschatological Propositions

I understand Daniel's 70 weeks to mean seventy sevens - ten jubilees - for the Jewish people, beginning from the date of the decree to rebuild the Temple and city. Messiah the Prince was to come after 69 sevens - that is, at the start of the final seven. 

→ When Jesus began His ministry, He announced, "The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent, and believe the Gospel." 

Isaiah also prophesied about the acceptable year of the Lord. 

→ At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus quoted part of Isaiah, and said, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears". 

Isaiah described the acceptable time as a day of salvation. 

→ Paul quoted Isaiah and taught that the day of salvation had come - "now is the day", he said - and he taught that the salvation which God brought was also available for Gentiles. 

So Daniel's 70th week - the tenth Jubilee - Isaiah's acceptable year of the Lord - the day of salvation - likely began on the precise day when Jesus said, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears" - or thereabouts. 

In the midst of that final seven-year period - approximately three-and-half years into it - Messiah the Prince was "cut off, but not for himself" - it was for our sins that He died. That left three-and-half years of Daniel's final week remaining. What happened in the next three-and-a-half years? 

The covenant continued to be confirmed - the Gospel continued to be preached - in Jerusalem, by the Apostles, the Lord working with them and confirming the Word with signs following. The outcome of that was that a great persecution arose against the Church over the martyrdom of Stephen. The entire Church except the Apostles was scattered. The destruction which later happened in their generation, had become inevitable. From that time onwards we read in the Book of Acts that the Gospel began to be preached primarily in Gentile regions. Daniel's 70th week was complete - seventy consecutive "weeks", without a 2,000 year gap.

Daniel then asked, "And what shall be the end of these things?" In other words, and what happens after this? The answer given to him was that many would be converted, many would fall, and that he Daniel should await his resurrection, and that those who turn others to righteousness will shine like the sun - but unlike the events previously spoken of to Daniel, no time-frames were given for these events. In other words, what follows Daniel's 70th week, and the events which were set in motion by the end of those seventy weeks, is the preaching of the Gospel, for an unknown length of time - and then the end shall come. 

That's the time we are now in. We have only one task to do now: and that is to preach the Gospel. We have only one event to wait for now: and that's the second coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead. 

God's promises to the Jews were all fulfilled to the date, within the 70 sevens. It's just that it was only the believing remnant who fully experienced the promises. Paul taught that this did not mean the promises had failed or that the prophecies had been delayed: he taught that this was the exact scenario which the Law and the Prophets foresaw. The Gospel is the foreseen fulfilment of Prophecy - the Gospel is not merely an unexpected interlude while we wait for God to get back to fulfilling Prophecy in future. 

Even though the Prophecies were fulfilled, none of the promises have ever been repealed. Potentially therefore any Jew could still experience the promises, if they believed. Paul himself was an example of an unbelieving Jew being grafted back in through becoming a believer. It never ceased to be in God's goodwill for Jews to have their homeland. 

After the final Jubilee which Jesus announced, future celebrations of the Jubilee were stopped forever - along with the rest of the Old Covenant rituals - once the Romans destroyed the Temple and city - which occurred within the Apostles' own living generation, exactly when Jesus predicted it would. This was the "day of vengeance of our God" - "the time of Jacob's trouble" - "great tribulation" - "that all things that were written might be fulfilled" - "when ye see the abomination of [causing] desolation, spoken of by Daniel, standing where it ought not [in the holy place]". And Jesus wept at the thought of it. 

God brought the best to Israel, and He has never stopped wanting the best for them. He is even now doing the best for them that He ever can do. There is no more effective program than the Gospel. 

Jesus announced the fulfilment of Daniel's prophesied time-frame. He announced the fulfilment of Isaiah's acceptable year of the Lord - the Jubilee. Although from that moment in history onwards the literal observance of the Jubilee-cycle, on the old Jewish calendar-dates - along with the rest of Moses' customs - ceased forever, Paul asserted that the real provisions which the Lord Jesus brought on that day, in fulfilment of the Scriptures and of the symbols and shadow, were those that were available - even for Gentiles, through the Gospel. Now is the day of salvation. 

Beyond knowing that now is the day of salvation, Paul taught the believers that they need not feel obligated to observe any set days. Jesus was complete. And in Him they were complete. And free. That's the Gospel - the good news. 

Jesus' Jubilee provisions continue. We who believe do enter into God's rest and cease from our own works, just as God also ceased from His. After the final Jubilee year, there was no resumption of the shadow, no resumption of the forty-nine or fifty-year cycle - just as there has been no ongoing obligation to the rest of Moses' customs. The provisions, once brought by the Lord, were permanent. 

The set-dates of the old calendar no longer mattered - what avails now is the new creation. 

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away, behold all things are become new. 

In Whom there is neither Jew nor Gentile. Bond nor free. Male nor female. No special days. Just one new day. 

That's the good news. The freedom of the Gospel. For all people. 

While we wait for His second coming, we have something which the Lord instituted for us to do in remembrance of Him - the Lord's Table - which He said we can do not on set Old Covenant Feast Days like the now-superseded Feast of Passover - but as oft as ye drink it. Therefore it's not a new way of observing the Passover on its old set date - it's a whole new and different institution. Once He comes the second time, we will no longer need any remembrances, for we shall see Him as He is.