Justification by Faithfulness – Paul the Interpreter of Jesus (Part 1)

There are many questions that inevitably confront the person who reads Paul’s letters and attempts to keep up with his dizzying trains of thought. Three of those questions concern us here. The first, which provokes the second and third, asks what the word “justification” means to the Apostle. Is it, for instance, mostly a present or mostly a future reality? And what, according to Paul, is the requirement for one to be justified? Seeking an answer to this question, the word “faith” then emerges and demands a definition of its own. Should we see the Greek word pistis through the multiple lenses of post-Reformation, Enlightenment and Existentialist thought, or was Paul’s meaning something other than the most fashionable understandings today? But to answer both of these questions one must ask what Paul thought of the law; whether he, like Jesus, approved of it and believed it was God’s eternal standard, or whether he saw it as basically outdated and overruled by the New Covenant. Addressing these three questions makes up the focus of the next few posts.

It is often thought that Paul has an overall negative view of the law. When he speaks of a person outside of Christ as being “under the law,” he means that that person is under the demands of the law and that coming to Christ delivers him from those demands. So we see the contrast he creates between law and grace like so: law = taskmaster / grace = freedom from law. Support for this is seen in verses such as Romans 6:15, where Paul has to guard against the notion that it is now okay to sin because of the truth that “we are no longer under law but under grace”. Why would such a question even come up, it is asked, if it were not the most natural reaction to what Paul has said of the grace of God thus far? There must be some truth in it, for if the law is a condemning taskmaster and grace means forgiveness and freedom from that taskmaster then it must be true that sin is in fact permissible for the one under grace. At most (or perhaps I should say at worst), then, Paul’s lengthy response is seen as a big frown upon sin, but still not as an exhortation of any real eternal consequence.

The student of the Word must always guard against the tendency to “miss the wood because of the trees” when interpreting specific texts within larger contexts of thought. This is especially important when it comes to Paul, for he is always on his way to somewhere and we must make sure we are going the same direction. If our interpretation of any given point in his argument does not reach the same conclusions as his, or if it does not provoke the same questions as the ones he asks, then we know we have got off track somewhere and should abandon that path altogether. The problem with the law/grace contrast described above is that it completely misses the flow of Paul’s argument in Romans, choosing to focus on one verse at the expense of the whole letter. When we compare what Paul says of the law in 6:15 with where he has been and where he goes next, the notion that he could be anything but wholly approving the law’s standard is seen to be ridiculous.

In as early as his introduction Paul establishes that the whole purpose of his Gospel is to produce “obedience” (1:5). Obedience is not a nebulous concept to this Jewish theologian, it’s not a relative standard; there is only one type of obedience and that is Torah-obedience. This is confirmed right away by his indictment both to the pagan world on the one hand (1:18-32) and to unsaved Israel on the other (2:1-29), as he charges the former with “ungodliness” and “unrighteousness” and the latter with “breaking the law,” something which he interprets as failing to give God the honor that is His due (2:23). His description of Torah as the “embodiment of knowledge and truth” verges on the mystical in 2:20; and yet in case we are still in doubt he then goes on to explicitly approve of it’s standard in 3:31. Whereas the correlation between faith and obedience to the law is easily subject to misinterpretation in 1:5, this is unmistakable: “Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.” Many in the Reformed tradition simply cannot handle this explicit approval of Torah’s standard, however, and so they must interpret the appearance of “law” (nomos) here as something other than what he has been speaking of all along. But we know “the law” must be the same law here as elsewhere, i.e., the Torah, because he qualifies it with the definite article, “the law,” not just “a law”.

Yet still, all this talk in chapters 6 and 7 about being delivered out from under the law could definitely be taken as antinomian, or anti-law, so it is no wonder that many accused Paul of that very thing (3:2; 6:1; 6:15). But again, if we follow the Apostle through to his own conclusions, instead of making our own prematurely, it becomes clear again that he is not at all blaming the law, still much less shirking off its demands. Quite the opposite, he heaps up praise upon praise for Torah throughout 7:7-25, thus freeing it from any charge which might be brought against it: “Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law… Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good… For we know that the law is spiritual… I agree with the law that it is good… For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man…” Torah, according to Paul, is holy, just, good, spiritual, to be delighted in, and, above all, it is God’s. Far from an abstract list of do’s and don’ts, it is the transcript of God’s holiness – revealing, in a burning light of truth and purity, His nature and character and how we need to live in order to participate with Him. And being reflective of God’s character, these standards do not change; therefore it’s absurd to suggest that God would rescind it.

So then, the question comes again, if Paul really approved of Torah’s standard, what then does it mean for one to be “under the law,” why is it a negative thing, and why does he contrast law with grace? Ironically, Paul gives us the answer during his defense of the law in 7:7-25: “But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead… And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me… Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.” In other words, the law is not the problem, sin is, and sin exploits the law to its own gain by arousing desire in the human heart to overstep the natural boundaries made clear by the law.

Being wholly good, Paul presents the law like a great flashlight that shines on every area of human depravity which may otherwise have remained hidden, showing it for what it truly is. The problem, however, is that though the law does its job perfectly, uncovering sin and pointing toward a higher life, it can do no more. It remains completely impotent to overcome our depravity and help toward the renewal of creation. This is the point Paul is making in chapter 7 through the emotional scene he creates of a man in captivity to sin yet striving to live according to God’s law. The subject therein wills to do good, but being in bondage to sin he is unable to do what he wills. He is powerless to overcome his fallen state, and the law, being, as Paul says later, “weak through the flesh,” is equally as powerless. The one who possesses the law then finds himself, in one sense, in a worse position than those who don’t, for he is held accountable by it but cannot perform it, so the only real purpose it serves is to irritate the situation by pointing the finger.

Now, if the law is a wholly good and righteous reflection of God’s character, yet is simply powerless to affect the change it demands, then the law/grace contrast in 6:15 must now be reexamined. If law, when set by Paul in a negative light, equals impotency more than taskmaster, then grace must mean empowerment more than freedom from law (that is, if by “freedom from law” one means liberation from its righteousness standard). Throughout Romans 5-8, “grace” is synonymous with the resurrection power of the Spirit, as the result of the faith that Paul expounded upon in chapters 3 and 4. Through identification with Christ in baptism into death, the Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead now dwells in us, uniting us to Him and empowering us to be like Him. Where the law was weak, unable to free us from sin and death, the Spirit is strong, able to do what the law could not. This is the point Paul has been working towards since chapter 5, now climaxing in 8:3-4: “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh [of His Son], that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

Paul then goes on quite appropriately to talk about the long-anticipated renewal of creation, for that is the ultimate end of God’s whole redemptive plan; an end to which the law by itself could not come, but which the Spirit – through the power which raised Christ from the dead and now brings to life all who come to him – is well able to bring about. God’s Spirit is the Spirit of holiness, the power of the resurrection, and in us the firstfruits of a whole new created order (1:4; 8:11, 23). So we can see that grace does not usurp the law in Paul’s mind (just as faith does not usurp the law – 3:31), but instead it establishes the law so that what was previously impossible is now possible; what was before a heavy burden and a futile grasping at the wind is now a short reach and a light load. The self-proclaimed purpose of Paul’s Gospel was to produce, by grace through faith, that which the ambitious observance of Torah could never by itself produce, namely obedience.

So again, we conclude that Paul, like Jesus, approved of the law and its standard; he did not see that standard revoked by the cross, but rather met by Christ, and, because of Christ’s death and resurrection, able to be met in us “who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit”.

Justification by Faithfulness – Jesus the Jewish Interpreter (Part 2)

Luke’s account illuminates some of what was happening between Jesus and the religious leadership of the day around the time he gave the Sermon on the Mount, highlighting several encounters that clearly contrast the two drastically different approaches to Moses. Here we will look at only one, but know that the others make a similar point.

One Sabbath Jesus and his disciples were walking through a grain field when his disciples, being hungry, started plucking the heads of grain and eating. The Pharisees saw this and accused Jesus of allowing his followers to do “what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath,” which shows us just how stringent their application of the Sabbath law was (Ex 23:12). Jesus’ response, according to Matthew, was two-fold. First, he offered the actions of David – God’s anointed and the “man after his own heart” – as an illustration: David ate the showbread of the temple and yet even the priest present did not count it against him, but considered it an exception. And yet according to the Pharisee’s hermeneutic David’s conduct would have to be considered unlawful. This alone would have been enough to uncover their faulty foundation, but Jesus’ second argument is even more powerful: The Lord himself commanded the priests in the temple to offer up offerings on the Sabbath (Num 28:9). Does God break his own command and invoke guilt on the priests by causing them to “profane” the Sabbath, or has the rabbinic tradition misapplied the Sabbath law?

What Matthew reports Jesus as saying next in the narrative is of utmost importance to understanding the way he treated Scripture across the board. “But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.” By quoting from Hosea 6:6 Jesus is getting at the heart of issue. When we go back and look at the context in which that phrase appears, we see the Lord pleading with a compromising and impenitent people to come back to Him. “For your faithfulness is like a morning cloud,” He cries, “and like the early dew it goes away… like men they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt treacherously with Me… There is the harlotry or Ephraim; Israel is defiled.” The words “faithfulness,” “covenant,” “treacherously,” “harlotry” and “defiled” are revealing to how the Lord perceived Israel’s sin and how greatly it wounded Him. He was Israel’s husband and she was His bride, and yet she abandoned Him for a life of harlotry instead.

Right in the middle of mourning over Israel’s sin, the Lord responds by declaring His will, His innermost desire in making covenant with them. He interprets the law and reveals His ultimate purpose in giving it: “For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.” The word translated “mercy” in the NKJV denotes faithful devotion, or tender fidelity. The NASB translates it as “loyalty,” and the ESV as “steadfast love”. Here the Lord contrasts His desire for faithfulness within Israel with the “sacrifice” and “burnt offerings” they were giving Him in their impenitent state. Matthew reports Jesus as referencing this passage twice in his Scriptural debates with the Pharisees, in both 9:13 and 12:7, emphasizing just how central it was to his overall view of Torah.

Interestingly, at the climax of Jesus’ treatment of the law in the Sermon on the Mount, where Matthew reports him as saying “therefore you shall be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect,” Luke’s version says “therefore be merciful as your Father also is merciful.” The Greek word Luke uses is the same used by the LXX in Hosea 6:6, and is also the same used by Jesus in his repeated quotation of the verse. This means that “perfect” obedience and “steadfast love” were synonymous terms for him, a fact confirmed by the context in which he gave that command in both Luke and Matthew’s version of the sermon. When Jesus called his disciples to be perfect in their devotion to Torah, he did not tell them to memorize six hundred and thirteen precepts and regulations (many of which were time-sensitive case studies or applications of the law and therefore no longer applicable); rather he called them, quite simply, to wholehearted love. This is why his “yoke” was easy and his “burden” light, in contrast to the “heavy burden” of the Scribes and the Pharisees (Matt 11:28-30; c.f., 23:4).

Since within the scheme of Covenantal Nomism the law was seen mostly as the thing that distinguished Israel from the pagan world around them, the “works” therein were mostly reduced to external activities meant only to maintain ethnic distinction. Things like circumcision, the Sabbath and food laws were of utmost importance because they were one’s “badge of membership” into the covenant people, identifying a Jew as a Jew. Things like giving, fasting and prayer were important because they showed that one was a good Jew. Taking this to the extreme, the Pharisees handled the law in such a way so that the minor matters were exaggerated in their importance and tightened in their demand until only they could perform them and appear righteous before men, and yet the great matters were “loosened” (the word Jesus uses in Matt 5:19) through exegetical gymnastics so that they could remain in their sin. In other words, they would “strain out a gnat and swallow a camel” (Matt 23:24).

Jesus, on the other hand, set Torah in its appropriate covenantal context, seeing it as the necessary provision for genuine relationship between God and man, rather than an abstract list of “do’s and don’ts”. He obviously qualified and elaborated on the nature of this love, showing that God’s definition is often much different than man’s, but by setting Torah in the context of a relationship which God Himself initiated and is committed to maintaining, and thus interpreting our “works” as an issue of responsive faithfulness to this God-initiated relationship, he uncovered just how far off the mark the rabbinic application of Torah had become. Righteousness, according to Jesus, is mostly an issue of the heart, not mostly an issue of external activity (and it most definitely is not an issue of “merit,” as Pelagianism would claim). External activity is really only important inasmuch as it helps transform the heart and the community around. From beginning to end, the Sermon on the Mount reflects this approach to the law.

But again, summing up our brief study of Jesus, what the Gospel writers present is that our Lord both approved of the law and insisted that entrance into the kingdom is decided in part by ones faithfulness to it. Or to put it another way, he taught a doctrine of justification by works. Salvation, according to Jesus, is not merely a forensic transaction, but is first and foremost a relationship, and relationships are held together by the ongoing faithfulness of two individuals, not the verdict of one.

The well-known story of the scribe who questioned Jesus about the greatest commandment (Mark 12:28-34) stands as a perfect example of three points concerning his message. We can see that (a) Jesus approved of the law by the very nature of the exchange taking place over his interpretation of it; we can see that (b) he interpreted it through a relational hermeneutic by his answer to the scribe’s question, summing up all the law and the prophets in the single command to love; and we can see that (c) he believed that man is judged by his responsiveness to that command by his telling the scribe he was “not far from the kingdom” after hearing the good response that “to love [God] with all the heart, with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

In the next few posts we’ll look at what Paul has to say about faith, works and justification. Looking forward from here, though, its important to maintain the ground we’ve covered. If what we’ve said of Jesus’ message is true, that what he offered as the Messiah – the one through whom Israel’s redemption would come – was a critique of Judaism rather than a new religion entirely, then the question we must ask as we read Paul is (a) was he the real founder of Christianity as it’s presented by the majority within post-Reformation theology, or (b) was he the faithful interpreter of Jesus’ message, and thus himself thoroughly Jewish as well?

Justification by Faithfulness – Jesus the Jewish Interpreter (Part 1)

It would take far too much time to attempt a full, or even a completely balanced, picture of Jesus’ whole message and its significance in light of his role here. My purpose, however, is simply to highlight some specific areas of that message often overlooked or subverted and hopefully correct some common misunderstandings of others. So please forgive the incomplete nature of this analysis.

Jesus’ message was simple. “The kingdom of God is at hand,” he said; and on that basis he challenged everyone to “repent and believe in the gospel.” Although simple, however, this phrase – used by the Gospel writers to sum up the content of Jesus’ preaching – is a perfect example of what I was talking about earlier. The two words, “repent” and “believe,” have often been filtered through the wrong set of glasses to mean that persons should merely apologize to God for their wrong behavior and then trust that Jesus died on the cross to take care of it all. But what Jesus meant was far different – far more urgent, far more demanding, and, dare I say, far more political than today’s typical Western altar call. It was urgent because it was motivated by the eschatological invasion of God’s kingdom; it was demanding because the standards of God’s kingdom are higher than the world’s; and it was political because God’s kingdom is real, it’s really coming and He will really call the whole world to account when it comes.

This reality – the coming of God’s kingdom putting an end to the monstrous kingdoms of the world – was always at the forefront of the first-century Jewish mind, especially as their spiritual exile continued under Roman rule. They were looking to passages like Daniel 2, 7 and 9, awaiting the coming of the “Son of Man” who would destroy the Roman Empire and usher in the reign of “the saints of the Most High”. When a Jew conceptualized the kingdom he didn’t think of the intangible bliss of heaven after death, he thought of the resurrection of the dead, of heaven’s coming to earth and of Israel’s national restoration.

This is why Jesus’ message was so significant; because he identified himself as Daniel’s “Son of Man” and said the long-awaited kingdom was near at hand. But his message was also significant because he called Jews to repentance, to a conversion into their own religion. He insisted, like John the Baptist had done before him, that being a Jew outwardly was not enough to inherit the kingdom; that one could not rely upon an ethnic relationship to Abraham, or upon God’s past deliverance from Egypt at the Red Sea, for future justification; but instead one must pass through the waters oneself (baptism) and be faithful to the covenant like Abraham to truly be included within the “Israel” that will be delivered on the last day (Matt 3:1-12; John 8:39).

In this context, to “believe in the gospel” meant giving up ones own values and agenda and investing in God’s. It was most definitely not a cryptic allusion to the Reformed understanding of justification by faith. The Jewish historian Josephus used a similar phrase a few years after Jesus, shedding some light for us on how it was heard through first-century Galilean ears. In his autobiography Josephus tells us how he, as a young aristocratic army commander, was sent to Galilee with the orders to sort out a rebellion in A.D. 66. He was supposed to convince the leader of this movement to stop revolting against Rome and trust that he and the other aristocrats from Jerusalem would resolve everything through diplomacy. When he confronted the leader, “Repent and believe in me” was his choice of words. Now he obviously didn’t mean by this that the leader should merely apologize for his actions and then join the Josephus cult religion. No, he meant that he should stop the violence, lay down his own plan and trust that Josephus’ way of doing things would solve the situation justly.

Now there’s no reason to assume that Jesus’ use of the phrase didn’t carry the same connotations at its base, especially since it was motivated by the arrival of God’s kingdom. It was all about allegiance, agenda and ambition. Now Jesus obviously put himself in a greater position than Josephus – claiming to be God’s Son, the Messiah, the “Son of Man” of Daniel 7 who will judge the world when the kingdom comes (Matt 16:27; 25:31-46). But what that means is that Jesus’ demands meant more than Josephus’, not less.

The Constitution of the Kingdom

So what demands did Jesus make? If he was indeed the Messiah who would usher in God’s kingdom, what claims did he make of those who would follow him? According to Luke’s narrative, immediately after Jesus chose the twelve to be his apostles (that is, his “sent ones,” the ambassadors of the kingdom), he “came down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people…” He “lifted up his eyes toward his disciples,” and Matthew adds, “then he opened up his mouth and taught them”. In this composition of teachings, commonly referred to as the Sermon on the Mount, we have the very center of Jesus’ message. This is his own interpretation of what he meant when he said, “repent and believe”. This is the constitution of the kingdom, engendering God’s dream of a renewed earth and a renewed people.

There have been many different interpretations to the Sermon on the Mount throughout Church history. One scholar I read counted more than thirty-six distinct views of what Jesus’ point is and whom exactly it is he’s exhorting. It’s commonly recognized that the sermon is central, as it obviously presents Jesus’ ethics. But as it is with anything important, and especially with anything demanding, myriads of interpretations are offered which try to escape the clear call to wholeheartedness. Luther believed Jesus was simply presenting an unattainable ideal, and most post-Reformation theology has followed suit with this, saying that the real purpose of the sermon is to confront us with the impossibility of performing its commandments so as to push us to the mercy of God. Many in this stream go as far as interpreting Jesus’ affirmation of the Law in 5:17 as saying that He fulfilled it so that we don’t have to. These would teach that the OT law and its demands are made obsolete through the cross. Commentator Craig Keener comments on this approach:

Some modern Protestant interpreters, conditioned by their heritage to contrast naked ethical demands with grace, have stressed aspects of the sermon’s theology that are peripheral to its thrust. Thus some emphasize that all fall short of it’s demands and require God’s mercy… Those who take this approach to the extreme (reading Paul into Jesus instead of the reverse) characterize Jesus’ sermon as an impossible ideal meant only to drive disciples to grace, not to instruct their behavior… (Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, p. 161)

Notice the line, “reading Paul into Jesus instead of the reverse”. That’s key, for it uncovers a faulty foundation; one that stems from a fundamental failure to see Jesus in his own environment and on his own terms. The Jesus of the Gospels quite frankly does not fit with the caricature often presented in Reformed circles. He is far too Jewish; so much so that many in the last century have insisted that Paul was the real founder of Christianity instead, and that he “Hellenized” Jesus’ gospel by inserting his own doctrine into it. But as we shall see shortly, the Apostle was just as Jewish as his Master. What Jesus offered through his message, however, was a typical rabbinic critique from within; it was not a rejection of Judaism, but a radical reinterpretation, or rather a clarification, of the foundations of Judaism.

This, in large part, is what his Sermon on the Mount was all about – drawing out the true demands of Torah in contrast to those of the scribes and Pharisees. Throughout Matthew 5:17-48 we repeatedly see the formula “You have heard that it was said… but I say to you,” or “it has been said… but I say to you”. What the Jews of that day had “heard” was the Pharisees teaching on the books of Moses in the synagogues. Jesus was not referencing Moses and then contradicting him with his own, new standard. Throughout the Gospels when he quotes Scripture he says “it is written,” and he always holds it with the highest regard (e.g., Matt 4:1-11). No, what he was contradicting was the subsequent rabbinic interpretation of Scripture, not Scripture itself.

We’ll compare Jesus’ approach to Torah with that of the scribes and Pharisees in the next post, but the primary point I want to make here is that Jesus approved of it; he did not forsake it. And not only did he approve of it in theory, but he insisted that it will be the standard for entrance into the kingdom; that it will be the bar raised on the last day and that everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, will be evaluated by that bar (Matt 5:17, 20; 7:21-23; 12:37; 16:27; 19:17; 25:31-46; Mark 12:28-34; Luke 10; 25-28; 18:14; John 8:39; etc).

Justification by Faithfulness – Back to the Beginning

A little more foundation laying is in order if we’re to rightly understand what the New Testament has to say about justification.

Shock waves have been resounding through the corridors of NT scholarship since the late 1970s when E.P. Sanders released his first major work, Paul and Palestinian Judaism. Through an in-depth study of relevant rabbinic literature – like the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, the wisdom literature and the newly discovered Dead Sea Scrolls – Sanders argues forcefully that the Judaism of NT times was not the religion of legalistic works-righteousness that Christian theology has so often framed it as. According to Sanders, to see the “existence of a treasury of merits established by works of supererogation” within Judaism constitutes a “retrojection of the Protestant-Catholic debate into ancient history, with Judaism taking the role of Catholicism and Christianity the role of Lutheranism. (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 57)” In other words, we have been reading the NT with the wrong filter, seeing the debates between Jesus and the Pharisees, and Paul and the Judaizers, as essentially the same as those between Augustine and Palegius or Martin Luther and medieval Catholicism, when in fact they were of a different sort entirely.

By contrast, Sanders – who, by the way, spent a great deal of time studying Palestinian Judaism in Jerusalem itself – describes their overall attitude toward the law with the term “Covenantal Nomism,” which he defines as follows:

The ‘pattern’ or ‘structure’ of Covenantal Nomism is this: (1) God has chosen Israel and (2) given the law. The law implies both (3) God’s promise to maintain the election and (4) the requirement to obey. (5) God rewards obedience and punishes transgression. (6) The law provides for means of atonement, and atonement results in (7) maintenance or re-establishment of the covenantal relationship. (8 ) All those who are maintained in the covenant by obedience, atonement and God’s mercy belong to the group which will be saved. An important interpretation of the first and last points is that election and ultimately salvation are considered to be by God’s mercy rather than human achievement. (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 422)

Put simply, the Jew of Jesus and Paul’s time believed that he was justified – that is, counted as a member of God’s family – more by his ethnicity than by his works per se (if by “works” one means moral achievements). Obedience to the law was seen as necessary, but the fact that God made covenant with Abraham, declaring that the whole world would be blessed through his descendants, meant that those descendants, by virtue of their relation to Abraham, must be in the covenant. This, then, was why things like circumcision and dietary laws were so important; because they defined a Jew as a Jew, separate from the pagan world and inalienably a part of “Israel,” God’s chosen people.

N.T. Wright, the Bishop of Durham for the Church of England and an increasingly influential theologian in his own right, said the following concerning Sander’s work:

It is a measure of Sander’s achievement that Pauline scholars around the world now refer casually to ‘the Sanders revolution’. Even those who are hostile to his theories cannot deny that there has indeed been a great turnaround in scholarship, so much so that many books written before Sanders, or from a pre-Sanders standpoint, now look extremely dated and actually feel very boring… there is no denying that he has towered over the last quarter of the century much as Schweitzer and Bultmann did over the first half. (What St. Paul Really Said, p. 18 )

I was introduced to the view of Palestinian Judaism advanced by Sanders a little over two years ago, and though at first I completely rejected it – because it didn’t add up with my understanding of Paul in places like Galatians, Romans 1-4 and Ephesians 2:8-10 – as I’ve read the NT over again, holding both the traditional view and “Covenantal Nomism” at arms length, I’ve come out on the other side firmly believing that the latter represents the scene in which the Church emerged much better than the former.

Of course there was a diversity of convictions within first-century Judaism itself regarding the level (not to mention the type) of devotion required by YHWH, ranging from the extremely loose to the extremely strict. We can see both extremes represented clearly even within Pharisaism in the schools of thought started by the two great teachers of the Herodian period, Hillel and Shammai (Hillel being the lenient one and Shammai being the strict one). And then there were the Essenes, a group so radical about their devotion to Torah that they withdrew to the wilderness in order that they might keep it more diligently. This group regarded the rest of Israel as basically backslidden. Yet even amongst the most extreme groups, like the Shammaites and the Essenes, keeping the law – and thereby being justified on the last day – was understood as responsive and confirming to God’s merciful covenant; it was not a matter of earning ones own righteousness by climbing a ladder of merit.

When I look at the way Christ relates to the scribes and Pharisees throughout his ministry, I don’t see him setting forth a polemic against a merit-based system and nailing an opposing thesis to the door of the temple. The Jesus I see in the Gospels is, as a matter of fact, more into works than most of his contemporaries (Matt 5:20; John 8:39). Likewise, when I read Paul I actually see him going to great lengths to affirm both the goodness and the ongoing authority of the law in all of his talk about faith and works (Rom 3:31; Rom 7:7-8:4), and I never see him rebuking self-help moralists with a chorus of “nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling”.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ll look at both what Jesus and Paul have to say about faith, works and justification in the days to come, and much of the proof that their context was what I propose here will be borne out by the NT itself as we go along. The basic point here, however, is simply to say that there is a great paradigm shift needed to understand what all these words mean. We’ve been filtering them through the wrong set of glasses for too long. A sixteenth century definition simply will not do. We must have a first century definition. The Reformation was essentially a protest against a timeless system that carried centuries of misguided baggage into Scripture. A historical reading was the Reformer’s weapon. Today we have much more understanding of history than they did with which to sketch an accurate backdrop for Scripture, so let’s go back to the beginning.

Semper Reformanda!

Justification by Faithfulness – Introduction

We’ve talked a little before on what exactly Jesus and Paul’s relationship to the law was; and we established that they both held it with extremely high regard. We also saw that their definition of the law – and what exactly it means for one to “fulfill” it – was radically different than that of their contemporaries. Answers to the questions of what the essence of the law is and in turn how it can be walked out was what separated much of Jesus’ teaching from that of the Scribes and Pharisees, and was a theme regularly at the forefront of Paul’s mind as he wrote his epistles. To briefly reiterate, both our Lord and the Apostle viewed Torah through a relational lens, declaring that the whole of the law was summed up in the two-sided command to love God and others (Matt 7:12; 12:7; 22:37-40; Luke 6:36; Rom 13:8-10; Gal 5:14). This was their answer to the “what” question. Their answer to the “how” question was, most emphatically, by the power of the Spirit and through faith (Matt 19:21-26; John 7:38; John 15:4; Rom 2:14-15; 3:21-31; 7:6; 8:3-4; Eph 2:8-10).

In another post we talked about how important “covenant” was to Paul. We observed that the “courtroom” language used in all of his talk about salvation is merely a subset of the covenantal framework in which all his theology finds its proper place. In the OT, the court is called to session when the covenant has been broken, and then someone comes out justified and/or someone comes out condemned. The “justified” one is the one found in the covenant family. Paul stands in line with this use of courtroom language (e.g., Rom 4:11; cf., Gen 17:11). As a subset of covenant – being, as it is, relational by definition – justification is not, in Paul’s mind, a rigid transaction, but rather it is a necessary provision for genuine relationship to take place. This is why, after having established salvation in forensic terms, in Romans 5 he leaves the courtroom in favor of the much more intimate familial imagery. He speaks now, from inside the covenant, of peace with God through “reconciliation”. We can see that Jesus had the same paradigm through his common use of familial and nuptial metaphors in the Gospels, speaking of God as our “Father,” other believers as our “brothers,” and often identifying himself as our “bridegroom”.

Now what does this all mean? Well, for one, it means that the Bridal Paradigm is absolutely central to NT theology. We don’t have to put all of our chips in the bet that Solomon’s Song should be taken allegorically as speaking of Christ and the Church, as if our theological security depended on it. We can gain the same level of confidence in God’s unfailing love directly through the mouth of his Son and his faithful servant Paul. If Jesus and Paul were all about relationship, love and covenant in their treatment of the law, then they believed in a relational, loving and committed God – a God who’s arms are always outstretched to any and all who would come to Him in faith and repentance (more on the meaning of those words to come). This God is not an angry, stoic deity forced to stay His judgmental hand because His sentimental Son stood between the lightening bolts and their intended target. It’s because of love that God willingly created us, and though our original goodness has been deeply marred by sin, still He willingly loves us, and so His Son willingly went to the cross that we might be free from sin and live with Him. God’s love is unfailing. This is our great security through the pressures, temptations and shortcomings of life.

I know I’ve said all this before, but it needs to be said again, because it’s the necessary foundation for where I’m about to go. Over and over again, as I read the NT, the Word continually judges the Protestant traditions I hold so tightly. Some stand the test. Many do not. I don’t claim to have it all figured out, so don’t take what I’m about to say as if it’s set in stone. But I hope at least, given this introduction, I will be free from worn out labels like “Pelagianism,” and that the content of this study will be judged by what the Word says, not by the tinted glasses of tradition.

More to come shortly…

Daniel’s 70 Weeks: An Alernative Premillennial Understanding – Conclusion

*This is the fifth part of a series, so be sure to check out parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 before reading this.

As we can see, this alternative view meets all of the textual, contextual and historical criteria for Daniel’s 70 weeks prophecy, and accords best with the NT eschatology of Jesus, Paul and John. In every way it is therefore preferable to the DP view, which makes an eisegetical diversion from the thematic flow of Daniel 9 and has absolutely no support from the rest of Scripture. When we let the text speak for itself, and build a unified eschatology from the witness of each Biblical writer instead of plugging their witness into our own preconceived system, I think we will find that there is no room in that eschatology for a future 7-year peace treaty in the Middle East.

None of this means that the Antichrist won’t “come in peaceably” and “by intrigue” prior to his revealing, for he surely will. And nor does it mean that he won’t make a “peace treaty” of sorts among the Middle East nations, for he will make many. We are confident that he will do all of all of this and more before the abomination of desolation because Scripture unambiguously says so; but the point is that we are given no definite time frame in which he will do them. They will most likely be much more subtle and drawn out than we have assumed, since, as Paul says, the Antichrist will not be notably “revealed” until he “sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (2 Thess 2:3-4).

The first half of Daniel’s 70th week is already past. Jesus’ ministry on earth was about announcing the Kingdom of God, plundering Satan’s house, and formally inaugurating the new covenant – a “prevailing”, everlasting covenant with “many”, not just with Israel. That purpose was accomplished in part at the end of his 3 1/2-year ministry, when he brought an “end to all sacrifice and offering” through his death and resurrection.

But we must remember that the promise of the new covenant was made first of all to Israel, and because of their rejection of Christ it has not been realized for them. And because it has not been realized for them, it has not been fully realized for the earth, for it is in their acceptance of Christ that, as Paul says, “life from the dead” and “riches for the whole world” comes (Rom 11:12, 15).

This is why there has been 2,000-year gap in between the first and second halves of the 70th week. Right now we are living in the “already but not yet” of God’s kingdom; the new covenant has been inaugurated, but it has not yet been consummated. According to Ezekiel, that consummation coincides with the resurrection from the dead (Ez 36-37); which, coincidently, is exactly what Daniel says also (Dan 12).

God has “pressed pause”, so to speak, on His “prophetic time clock” because of Israel’s rejection of Christ, so that “many” besides Israel might come into the covenant. As Paul says, Israel’s fall has resulted in riches for the rest of the world (Rom 11:12). But once “transgressors have reached their fullness”, that is, “at the climax of abominations”, Jesus, by the authority earned at the cross, will take the scroll and open its seals (Rev 5:9).

At that time “one who makes desolate” will come; one who according to both Daniel and Revelation will only have authority for 3 1/2 years, not 7 (Dan 7:25; Rev 13:5). Those 3 1/2 years are the last of the 490 decreed by the angel Gabriel; they are the second half of Daniel’s 70th week. Finally, at the end of those final 3 1/2 years, the Antichrist will be judged, Israel will be fully restored, the righteous dead will rise again, and God’s covenant will be made to prevail throughout the earth!

Daniel’s 70 Weeks: An Alernative Premillennial Understanding – Timing Issues and the Prophecies Fulfillment

*This is the fourth part of a series, so be sure to check out parts 1, 2 and 3 before reading this.

The principle difficulty in interpreting this prophecy and thus the focal point of most disagreement arises in the attempts to find these 70 weeks in history, i.e., in identifying the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem (the beginning and the end) of the specific years in question. This isn’t as easy as any one commentator might suggest; hence all the disagreement. For the purpose of this study our considerations will here be limited to a PM take on the prophecy.

PM most generally identifies 445-44 b.c. as the terminus a quo, since in that year a decree was issued from Artaxerxes for the rebuilding of Jerusalem (Neh. 2-1-8). Though there are other possible decrees, this theory accords best with what is stated in Dan. 9:25. PM takes the “weeks” as weeks of years (making 70 weeks = 490 years), since this is both tenable for the Hebrew meaning of the word and comports well with Jeremiah’s prophecy of exile, which also was given in years. The alternative option, weeks of days, isn’t considered by any serious interpreter, for many reasons.

The most popular theory within PM concerning the fulfillment of the first 69 weeks comes from the calculations of Dispensationalist Sir Robert Anderson in his book “The Coming Prince” (1895). Anderson argues at length that 483 years (or more precisely, 173,880 days, according to the tenable theory that a year = 360 days) transpired exactly from Artaxerxes decree in 445-44 b.c. till the occasion of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem a few days before his crucifixion.

Although still regarded by many as possible, Anderson’s theory is unsustainable. There are simply too many assumptions – like the decree going forth in 445 b.c. and not in 44, the exact day of the month the decree was sent, taking into account years that have an extra day due to leap year, and, most crucially, the exact day and year in which Christ was crucified.

Anderson believed the crucifixion took place in a.d. 32; but most NT chronologers nowadays believe it took place in a.d. 30. Ultimately, however, we cannot be certain of any date between a.d. 30 and a.d. 33.

Another crucial place where Anderson’s theory breaks down is in his need to place the end of the 69 weeks at Christ’s triumphal entry. God anointed Jesus for his Messianic ministry when he was baptized in the river Jordan, not when he was received into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

All of this considered, the best suggestion for the fulfillment of the first 69 weeks is to see the “going forth of the decree” as Artaxerxes decree in 445-44 b.c., and the anointing of “Messiah the Prince” as Jesus’ baptism. Regardless of our inability to perfectly chart these 483 years to the day, this is the most tenable theory.

Now what do we do with the last week? DP places a gap in between the 69th and the 70th week, suggesting that such a gap is implied in vv. 26-27a. While the necessity of a gap is admitted, being the only way to explain the prophecy with faithfulness to its contextual fulfillment to Israel, the theory that this gap would occur in between the 69th and the 70th weeks is doubtful, for a few reasons.

1. First of all, it’s unlikely that Daniel would have understood Gabriel’s saying “after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off” to imply that events would transpire in between the 69th and 70th weeks. Most naturally, he would have understood “after the sixty-two weeks” to mean “in the midst of the [last] week,” as indeed v. 27 goes on to say.

2. It is agreed that Israel’s rejection of Jesus as their Messiah was the event that caused the gap in the first place, so that God would have time to welcome the Gentiles into the covenant. Yet about 3 1/2 years passed from Jesus’ baptism till his crucifixion, so how could the gap begin at his baptism if the historical reason for the gap did not occur for another 3 1/2 years? If we posit a gap in between the 69th and the 70th week, we have a significant amount of time logically unaccounted for.

3. Of all of the teaching and prophecy in the NT on events yet to occur in the end times, nowhere is there a future 7 years mentioned. Over and over again, the only time frame given for the fulfillment of apocalyptic events prior to Christ’s parousia is 3 1/2 years. If we insist that the whole of the 70th week is yet future, and deductively insert events into the first half of that week, we directly bypass the signs that Jesus, Paul and John gave and a priori establish a major sign of our own – a singular peace treaty in the Middle East – concerning which they are all astonishingly silent. This reasoning is unsupportable and quite frankly absurd.

Therefore it would be much more understandable for the gap to take place in between the first and second halves of the last week, seeing the first 3 1/2 years already fulfilled in Christ’s ministry on earth, climaxing at the cross, and the second 3 1/2 yet to be fulfilled in the future, from the moment Christ takes the scroll from the hand of the Father and looses its first seal until he descends from heaven at the last trumpet.

Of course DP would take issue with this interpretation. They would argue that the “he” in v. 27 cannot be referring to the Messiah and “bring an end to sacrifice and offering” cannot be referring to the accomplishment of the cross because that would violate the chronology of the passage. The cross, they would say, has already been touched on in v. 26a, and Gabriel has gone on to describe the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70 by 26b, so it would be out of order for v. 27a to return to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

The problem with this argument, however, is that it assumes verses 26 and 27 are phrased in a modern style of prose where events are described in a strictly chronological order. Given the actual poetic style of the prophecy, it would not in fact be unusual for 27a to jump back and explain what was left untouched in 26a. Indeed, that has occurred already in v. 25, where Gabriel goes from describing the decree in 445 BC, to the anointing of the Messiah, and then jumps back to explain the results of the decree, i.e., the rebuilding of Jerusalem.

Much more could be said here, but I believe this is enough to demonstrate that a rigidly sequential flow of thought is by no means demanded from the 70 week prophecy, and it is a poor foundation indeed if a supposed demand for chronology is the only reason one has for seeing the whole 70th week as yet future.

Daniel’s 70 Weeks: An Alernative Premillennial Understanding – Investigation of the Prophecy

*This is the third part of a series, so be sure to check out parts 1 and 2 before reading this.

The overall context of this chapter is about how God will fulfill His covenant with Israel. While living in Babylon, Daniel reads Jeremiah 25 and sees that the 70 prophesied years of Israel’s exile are near completion, and so he cries out to God for the fulfillment of that promise. He appeals to the Lord’s covenant faithfulness and asks that He would restore His people for the sake of His “name” and “righteousness” (vv. 4, 16-17). Undoubtedly, as indeed we can gather from Gabriel’s response, Daniel is thinking that at the completion of these 70 years Israel will be fully restored and the “new covenant” promises of Jeremiah 31 will be inaugurated, where God will finally deal properly with their sin, write His law on their hearts, and ultimately dwell in their midst forever (Jer 31:31-34).

The Lord responds to Daniel’s petitions by sending the angel Gabriel to him, in order to clarify His plan concerning Israel’s restoration. The point of all the information, as it pertains to Daniel, is to say this: Though Israel will be delivered from Babylon at the end of the 70 years, just as Jeremiah 25 says, because of their ongoing sinfulness they will remain in exile and the “new covenant” of Jeremiah 31 will not come for another 7 times 70 years. At the end of those years, when they are fully broken of their stubbornness, then they will finally be restored, spiritually and nationally, and God will fulfill His promises to them (v. 24).

Seeing this, God’s covenant with Israel, as the overarching horizon of the chapter is crucial. The six goals which Gabriel states at the start of the prophecy must be read in terms of their covenantal significance. When this is understood it only makes sense for the climax of the prophecy to conclude, at least in some fashion, on a note about the fulfillment of the covenant, in order to round off (a) the stated purpose of the 70 weeks, and (b) the answer to Daniel’s prayer.

This being the case, it would be most fitting to read the “covenant” in v.27 as referring to God’s covenant with Israel which has been the subject of the chapter all along, and the “he” as referring to the “Messiah” last mentioned at the start of v. 26, for he is the one through whom the covenant is made to prevail. Indeed, besides the advantage both contextually and theologically to seeing “Messiah” as the antecedent, we have already established that this view is grammatically preferable to the alternative.

In order to legitimatize their view that the “covenant” here refers to the Antichrist’s flimsy peace treaty broken soon after it is made, DP has downplayed the literal translation of the phrase, which actually reads, “And he will cause the covenant to prevail with many for one week.” The covenant here is a prevailing covenant, made to endure, not an instable peace treaty that lasts only 3 1/2 years.

That the covenant is made “for one week” does not suggest that the covenant only lasts seven years. This is understood even in the DP scheme, since in their view the peace treaty is cut short after 3 1/2 years. What the text actually means is that the covenant takes seven years to establish. In other words, the process of inaugurating and bringing God’s prevailing covenant to consummation is what characterizes those last seven years.

It is significant that the covenant is made to prevail “with many” during this last week. This “many” is supposed to be understood in contrast to the specific recipients of the covenant, i.e., ethnic Israel. The point is to say that in this last week God will cause the doors of the covenant to swing open to include the Gentiles, as His declared purpose has been all along (Gen 22:18; Isa 42; 49).

It’s especially significant, however, that this happens through the Messiah specifically, and not through Israel corporately acting as a “light to the Gentiles” like God intended they would. Implicit though it is, this is highlighting the representative nature of the Messiah’s role, and is perhaps even hinting at the substitutionary and participatory significance of his untimely death mentioned in v. 26a (which would make this Messianic prophecy closely akin to that of Isaiah 53). That these are all implicitly present here is substantiated in the next clause, where in the middle of the week the Messiah is said to somehow “bring an end to sacrifice and offering.” The two clauses, mutually informed by v. 26a, are complimentary to one another.

Aside from all of the NT parallels that could be called upon here (like Heb 7:11, 12, 27; 9:26-28; 10:9; Mt 27:51 and Mark 15:38), a simple reading of the passage at hand lends toward the view that “bring an end of sacrifice and offering” is a positive thing done at the hand of the Messiah and not a negative thing done at the hand of the Antichrist. Note that of the six goals to be fulfilled by the end of the 70 weeks, three are statements of how God will deal properly with sin: 1) “to finish transgression”, 2) “to make an end of sins”, and 3) “to make reconciliation for iniquity.” It’s doubtful, given the stated purpose of the 70 weeks, that Daniel would have understood “bring an end to sacrifice and offering” as anything different than the fulfillment of God’s promise to finally deal properly with sin so that the impotency of the sacrificial system could finally cease.

DP would contest this, claiming that Christ’s “once for all” sacrifice does not satisfy the language of the clause “bring an end to sacrifice and offering,” because the sacrificial system did not literally cease when Christ died, and indeed according to Ezekiel 43 sacrifices will continue as a memorial into the millennium. But, quite frankly, this argument is grossly inconsistent. Ezekiel 43 does not say that millennial sacrifices will be made merely as a memorial to look back in thankfulness upon the cross, but rather it says they will be made for “atonement” as “sin offerings”. For one to interpret the prophetic language of Ezekiel 43 so liberally and yet hold so tightly to the prophetic language of Daniel 9 amounts to nothing less than hermeneutical hypocrisy. If we maintain that Ezekiel’s prophecy of sacrifices continuing into the millennium should be interpreted merely as thank offerings then there is no ground to deny that Daniel’s prophecy of sacrifices ceasing was fulfilled in the cross.

After the Messiah makes an end of sin once and for all (v. 24) through his superior sacrifice (v. 26a) and thus brings an end to the inadequate sacrifices for sins (v. 27a), Gabriel says that sinfulness reaches its climax in the earth. This is quite paradoxical, but it conveys perfectly the “already but not yet” nature of the time in which the covenant is made to prevail with many. While sin has been dealt with in the Messiah, the earth remains largely estranged from the Messianic blessings and so continues to deteriorate in its ever-increasing abominations. At the climax, or pinnacle, of these abominations “shall come one who makes desolate.” This is not specifically referring to the “abomination of desolation” spoken of later in Daniel (11:31; 12:11) and quoted by Jesus (Mt 24:15), but rather is a statement like unto that in 8:23: “And in the latter time… when transgressors have reached their fullness, a king shall arise… who understands sinister schemes.”

The “one who makes desolate” continues in his desolations until the “consummation which is determined” by the Lord is “poured out” upon him. Since, as the text indicates, the cumulative abominations of history find their apex in the wickedness of this one figure, his destruction marks the end of the 70 weeks determined for Israel. God uses him as a social irritant to force the dormant wickedness of humanity to the surface, so that secret rebellion might be discovered and rightly judged in one great act.

In this consummate stroke of justice, therefore, the covenant is finally to made to prevail – not only in the Messiah, but also in Israel, whom the Messiah represents and to whom the covenant promises were given. In this the history of vision and prophecy concerning their restoration is finally sealed, their sin is dealt with in their being reconciled to God, and everlasting righteousness is ushered in through their acceptance of the Lord’s anointed – the Holy One, their Messiah and the savior of the world.

Daniel’s 70 Weeks: An Alernative Premillennial Understanding – Exegetical Problems with the Dispensational Understanding of v. 27

*If you haven’t read the introduction, be sure to do so.

While no interpretation can be objectively arrived at by arguing over one pronoun alone, we are forced to take a hard look at the “he” which appears in v. 27, because the DP understanding of the whole prophecy is built largely on seeing the Antichrist there. They would argue that the “prince who is to come” of v. 26 must be the “he” referred to at the start of v. 27, because that is the nearest possible antecedent to the pronoun and therefore the most grammatically tenable option. But this fails to take a few things into account. Let’s consider the following:

1. The “prince who is to come” isn’t the subject of that clause in v. 26, his people are. It would be quite odd, grammatically speaking, for the pronoun of v. 27 to be referring to someone who isn’t even a subject of the preceding text, but is only mentioned for the sake of specifying who the actual subject(s) is.

2. As far as I know every camp agrees on the fact that, at least initially, the “prince who is to come” refers to the Roman General/Emperor Titus. But, quite characteristically, DP has read an idea into the text not supportable there, saying that the “prince” refers dually to Titus and the Antichrist. To make this view believable they suggest – out of this very text mind you – that the Antichrist will be of Roman decent. Yet, obviously, since they gather this notion from the very text held in question their whole argument falls apart as circular logic.

3. Later on in verse 27 “one who makes desolate” is introduced into the company of characters already present. For the most part PM as a whole views this new character as the Antichrist. But why would the Antichrist be introduced again in v 27b if he were already the subject of the verse? And what’s more, why would he be reintroduced with a different title altogether than the one he supposedly holds already from v. 26, i.e., the “prince who is to come”?

All of these problems taken into account, the assertion that the pronoun of v. 27 refers to the “prince” of v. 26 is highly suspect. There is simply too much far-fetched reasoning required and too many interpretive hurdles to jump in order to see the Antichrist as the one who confirms a covenant. And quite astonishingly, without this one vital piece the whole DP puzzle falls apart, so that we are now left wondering: what is Daniel’s 70th week all about? Answering this question requires a reexamination of each piece of the puzzle in its own right.

Daniel’s 70 Weeks: An Alernative Premillennial Understanding – Introduction

*Disclaimer: This series is aimed specifically towards proponents of Premillennialism who are already familiar with Daniel 9; it is not intended to teach Daniel’s 70 week prophecy to the uninitiated. However, if anything needs clarification feel free to comment.

Of all of the signs Jesus gives in His Olivet Discourse as warnings leading up to his return, nowhere does he mention a 7-year peace treaty in the Middle East. Likewise, when Paul has to correct the church of Thessalonica’s misguided belief that the day of the Lord is immanently arriving, he highlights the same two major signs as Jesus: the falling away (2 Thess 2:3, 10-11; cf., Mt 24:9-12) and the Antichrist’s unveiling (2 Thess 2:3-4; cf., Mt 24:15, 24); but, like Jesus, no peace treaty is mentioned by Paul. In John’s Revelation, the only time frame given in which to set the pre-parousia eschatological portion of the book – consisting of (a) Christ’s end-time Judgments and (b) the Antichrist’s reign on the earth – is 3 1/2 years (Rev 11:2; 12:6; 13:5; etc). Nowhere in the Revelation is a complete 7 years mentioned. Actually, besides the one arguable reference in 9:27, even throughout the book of Daniel the Antichrist’s season of authority is specified as consisting wholly in 3 1/2 years, not 7 (Dan 7:25; 11:7).

I am firmly Premillennial, but I must admit that I’m having trouble seeing the subject of Daniel 9:27a (the one who “confirms a covenant with many”) as the Antichrist that the majority of PM sees there. The more I read the prophecy itself and its context the more I am convinced that the current calculation which pervades PM readings is not altogether like the understanding which Daniel would have taken away from the encounter – especially when it comes to the climax in v. 27.

The fact alone that there is no mention of a future 7-year peace treaty anywhere else in Scripture should cause us to question our understanding of this verse, for compared with the teachings of Jesus and Paul, the Revelation of John, and the rest of Daniel’s visions, this theory already stands on very thin ice. I suggest that there is a reading much more faithful to the text, its context, and the literal fulfillment of this prophecy within history – a thoroughly PM reading which accords with the rest of Scripture and thus takes the pressure off of Daniel 9:27 to deliver alone.

From what I gather, the notion that the “covenant with many” would be an evil peace treaty at the hands of the Antichrist didn’t even exist until Dispensationalism emerged in the 19th century. It was through the cut-and-paste theology of John Nelson Darby, propagated through his friend C. I. Scofield’s popular study bible, that the Evangelical west began to see that evil figure behind this covenant. Similar to the DP scheme behind the belief in a pre-tribulational rapture, the logic by which this view is established is not as much exegetically based as it is simply bound up in the reasoning of its surrounding system, i.e., it’s not arrived at through an inductive process, but rather through deductive theorizing and proof-texting.

The “he” of Daniel 9:27 is the “prince that shall come” of Daniel 9:26, whose people (Rome) destroyed the temple, A.D. 70. He is the same with the “little horn” of chapter 7. He will covenant with the Jews to restore their temple sacrifices for one week (seven years), but in the middle of that time he will break the covenant and fulfill; Daniel 12:11; 2 Thessalonians 2:3,4. (Scofield Reference Notes on Daniel 9:27, 1917 edition)