The Seventy Weeks of Daniel

The Seventy Weeks of Daniel

Thomas Allen

In “Daniel’s 70 Weeks,” which is based on a lecture by Emma Moore Weston, Charles Gilbert Weston gives a different explanation of Daniel’s 70 weeks or 490 years than that given by dispensationalists. (https://www.gospeltruth.net/scofield.htm.)

Daniel 9:24-27 (World English Bible) reads:

24 “Seventy weeks are decreed on your people and on your holy city, to finish disobedience, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy.

25 “Know therefore and discern that from the going out of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem to the Anointed One, the prince, will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be built again, with street and moat, even in troubled times. 26 After the sixty-two weeks the Anointed One will be cut off, and will have nothing. The people of the prince who come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end will be with a flood, and war will be even to the end. Desolations are determined. 27 He will make a firm covenant with many for one week. In the middle of the week he will cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease. On the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate; and even to the full end, and that determined, wrath will be poured out on the desolate.”

In Daniel 9:24-27, each day equals a year. The 70 weeks or 490 years began with the Jews returning to Jerusalem from Babylon in 457 BC. Thus, rebuilding Jerusalem accounts for the first seven weeks or 49 years. From the return to Jerusalem until the baptism of Jesus accounts for 69 weeks or 483 years. So far, Weston and the dispensationalists agree. The last week or seven years is where they disagree.

Weston understands the second part of verse 26 (“The people of the prince . . .”) to be a parenthetical statement because it is outside the 70 weeks. Titus is the prince and the Roman soldiers are the people who destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD and turned the country into an uninhabitable desolation.

Verse 27 pertains to the final week or seven years of the 70 weeks or 490 years. This final week is where the principal disagreement between Weston and dispensationalists occurs. Whereas Weston has the final week or seven years immediately following the 69 weeks or 483 years, dispensationalists have a lengthy gap between the 69 weeks and the final week.

Many dispensationalists identify the covenant in verse 27 as a treaty between the Antichrist and the Israelis, who are, according to John, antichrist. After three and a half years, the Antichrist breaks the agreement, and the Great Tribulation begins. Other dispensationalists have the Great Tribulation beginning at the start of the seven years. Most have the Christians being raptured at the Great Tribulation’s beginning whenever it occurs. The Great Tribulation ends when Christ returns.

Weston objects to this explanation. This covenant is the New Covenant that the Messiah makes.

According to Weston, the final week or seven years is “the dawn of the Son of righteousness . . . and the focal point of the Covenants of promise, of typology and of prophecy. . . . This one week is the historical, chronological, moral and redemptive fulcrum of all the ages of the human race.” (P. 29.)

At the end of the 69 weeks or 483 years, God identified Jesus as His Messiah when John baptized him. The 69 weeks or 483 years began in 457 BC with Artaxerxes’ decree and ended in 27 AD when God identified Jesus as His Messiah. In 27 AD, the final week or seven years began. In 34 AD, three and a half years after Jesus was crucified, the final week ended with the death of Stephen and the scattering of Christians in Jerusalem.

Thus, Daniel’s prophecy of 70 weeks or 490 years has been fulfilled. It began in 457 BC and ended in 34 AD.

Copyright © 2024 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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King on Paul’s Letter to American Christians

King on Paul’s Letter to American Christians

Thomas Allen

In "Paul’s Letter to American Christians," Strength to Love (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1963, 2010), pages 145–153, Martin Luther King, Jr. presents an imaginary letter from the Apostle Paul. This letter expresses King’s views and objectives. The following is a critical review of King’s essay.

This imaginary letter begins with the imaginary Paul discussing scientific and technological advancements. Then, Paul observes “that your moral progress lags behind your scientific progress, your mentality outdistances your morality, and your civilization outshines your culture. . . . Through your scientific genius you have made of the world a neighborhood, but you have failed to employ your moral and spiritual genius to make of it a brotherhood.” (P. 146.) (Hereafter, I substitute King for Paul because King is the real author of the letter.)

Next, King expresses his concern about Christians giving “their ultimate allegiance to man-made systems and customs.” (P. 146.) They fear being different and want to be accepted socially. For many, “morality merely reflects group consensus. In your modern sociological lingo, the mores are accepted as the right ways. You have unconsciously come to believe that what is right is determined by Gallup polls.” (P. 147.) (King is chastising Christians for supporting segregation instead of integration. They supported segregation because they feared being different and wanted to be socially accepted. Today, many Christians support integration because they fear being different and want to be socially accepted. Would King condemn these Christians? Most likely, he would not. Nevertheless, the Christian segregationists follow the teaching of the Bible while the integrationist Christians do not. [See “The Bible, Segregation, and Miscegenation” and “Does God Abhor or Approve Miscegenation?” by Thomas Allen.])

Quoting Paul’s letter to the Romans, King urges Christians not to conform to this world. (Since integration dominates America today, conforming to this world requires one to be an integrationist. That King would condemn conformity today is highly unlikely. More likely, he would rebuke nonconformity because today nonconformity requires one to be a segregationist.)

Thus, King correctly states that a Christian’s “highest loyalty is to God, and not to the mores or the folkways, the state or the nation, or any man-made institution.” (P. 147.) (Since God created humans “and the bounds of their habitation” [Acts 17:26], God is a racial segregationist and not a racial integrationist. Therefore, Christians should support racial segregation and oppose racial integration. King urges Christians to do the opposite of what the Bible teaches.)

Continuing, King remarks that if “any earthly institution or custom conflicts with God’s will,” (p. 147) Christians have to oppose it. (Since segregation is God’s will, then Christians have to oppose racial integration.)

Next, King states, “You must be willing to challenge unjust mores, to champion unpopular causes, and to buck the status quo.” (P. 147.) (For those who lambaste me, I am merely following King’s advice. I am challenging unjust mores of diversity, inclusion, equity, discrimination against Whites, and the genocide of Southerners. I am championing unpopular causes of racial separation, anti-Zionism, and non-interventionism. I am bucking the status quo of integration, amalgamation, American imperialism, and Zionism. Today, King would condemn anyone following his advice because today’s mores, causes [except peace], and status quo are what he advocated.)

Then, King condemns what he considers the misuse of capitalism. He denounces having concentrated wealth in the hands of a few and having “taken necessities from the masses and given luxuries to the classes.” (Pp. 147-148.) However, Communism does not solve this problem because “Communism is based on an ethical relativism, a metaphysical materialism, a crippling totalitarianism, and a withdrawal of basic freedom.” (P. 148.) (At least, King recognizes the evils of Communism. Nevertheless, Communism is the ultimate merger of big business with big government as the two become one.)

King asserts that America’s “powerful economic resources to eliminate poverty from the earth,” must be used to eliminate domestic and global poverty. (Thus, he promotes the redistribution of wealth.)

Next, King discusses the church. He notes, “When the church is true to its nature, it knows neither division nor disunity.” (P. 148.) (When the church replaced the gospel of Jesus with the gospel of King, which grew into wokeism, the church became so divisive that many people left it.) He sees the multiplicity of denominations as a tragedy. (A nineteenth Methodist clergyman agreed with King. He believed that all the denominations should unite as one. According to him, when all these denominations agreed that the Methodist doctrines were the correct doctrines, then they could become one.) King is a proponent of ecumenicalism. (So are Communists and Communist sympathizers [ see “Ecumenism” by Thomas Allen].) He endorses the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches and notes that most major denominations are affiliated with one or both councils. (Members of these councils have abandoned the gospel of Jesus and preach the gospel of King, wokeism, amalgamation, and the LBGTQ+ agenda.)

Continuing, King complains about having a White church and a Negro church. (In the South, both Whites and Negroes went to the same church until Negroes wanted to segregate. They wanted to be independent. King wanted to strip them of this independence. Did he prefer Negroes being dependent on Whites?)

Then, King moans about Christians using the Bible to justify segregation and to assert that the Negro is innately inferior. (First, many stories in the Bible teach segregation. Few, if any, teach integration. Second, King does not define what he means by inferior. In surviving and reproducing in the higher latitudes, Whites are superior to Negroes. In surviving and reproducing in the lower latitudes, Negroes are superior to Whites. Turanians are superior to both because they can naturally survive and reproduce in both the higher and lower latitudes. Further, in boxing, Negroes have an advantage over Whites because they have thicker skull bones and a longer arm reach.)

To support his claim that the Bible supports integration, King cites Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” (I assume that King is emphasizing “neither Jew nor Greek.” Jews and Greeks are ethnicities of the same race, the White race. So it does not support racial integration. Moreover, if Paul is taken literally, he is endorsing transgenderism and bisexualism —”neither male nor female.” [If Christian integrationists can use this verse to support integration, then LGBTQ+ adherents can use it to support transgenderism and bisexualism. After all, it more clearly supports transgenderism and bisexualism than it does integration.])

Continuing, King cites Acts 17:26: “. . . hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.” (P. 149.) (First, whatever blood means in this verse, it is not what King implies. A person’s race can be identified with a high degree of accuracy from an analysis of his blood [for a detailed discussion, see “Of One Blood” by Thomas Allen]. Second, King fails to quote the end of this verse, which reads, “and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.” He does not cite it because it supports segregation. More than supporting segregation, it supports racial separation.)

After citing these verses, King urges Americans “to be rid of every aspect of segregation.” (P. 149.) (Americans did get rid of every aspect of segregation. It has granted Negroes benefits and privileges beyond King’s imagination. It has opened its borders to unlimited numbers of nonwhites. Integration has been so successful that some Negroes now seek segregation. White America is dying and traditional American culture is dead. The Constitution is meaningless trash. Queerdom, wokeism, and Zionism, which controls all, now dominate. Black power has replaced White power. Is the country now better off following King than it was before 1960?)

King claims that segregation “destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible.” (P. 149.) (Integration has been far more destructive. America was much more unified under segregation than under integration. Integration is tearing the country apart — that is the mentality behind integration is tearing the country apart.)

Further, King hopes that “the churches of America will play a significant role in conquering segregation.” (P. 150.) (They did, and the country is dying because of their victory.) The church must challenge the status quo. (Since integration is now the status quo, King would object to the church challenging today’s status quo.) “The church must move out into the arena of social action.” (P. 150.) (It did and now the church is dying. That is the price it paid for replacing the gospel of Jesus with the gospel of King, wokeism, and social justice.)

Then, King offers Negroes advice on overthrowing segregation. They should “[n]ever succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter.” (P. 150.) (Many did, and many still are although they have won nearly everything that King sought and are now the dominating race in America.) They should “move with dignity and discipline using love as your chief weapon.” (P. 150.) (Few Negroes followed this advice. Even King failed to follow it. He claims that love was his weapon, yet his chief weapons were violence and the threat of violence.) Further, they should never hate. (Again, King and many Negroes failed. He hated most Southerners and all segregationists.)

King writes, “If you sow the seeds of violence in yourself you sow the seeds of violence in your struggle, unborn generations will reap the whirlwind of social disintegration.” (P. 151.) (King and other civil rights leaders sowed the seeds of violence. Now, we are reaping the whirlwind of social disintegration.)

Continuing, King states, “In your struggle for justice, let your oppressor know that you have neither a desire to defeat him nor a desire to get even with him for injustices that he has heaped upon you.” (P. 151.) (King, most other civil rights leaders, and most Negroes wanted Whites to know that the Negro had defeated them. To let Whites know that the Negroes had soundly defeated them, Negroes demanded and Whites gave them benefits and privileges that Whites never enjoyed even at the pinnacle of White supremacy and Jim Crow. Thus, Negroes got their revenge.)

Copyright © 2024 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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