p. 12 | The Fulness of the Time

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 28, 1907

“The Fulness of the Time”

The time of the Messiah’s appearance in the world, as predicted in the Old Testament, is defined by a number of concurring circumstances, that fix it to the very date of the advent of Christ. The last blessing of Jacob to his sons, when he commanded them to gather themselves together that he might tell them what should befall them in the last days, contains this prediction concerning Judah: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come.” The date fixed by this prophecy for the coming of Shiloh, or the Saviour, was not to exceed the time that the descendants of Judah were to continue a united people, that should be governed by their own laws, and that their judges were to be from among their brethren. . . . In regard to the advent of the Messiah, before the destruction of the second temple, the words of Haggai are remarkably explicit: “The desire of all nations shall come; and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. . . . The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former.” The contrast which the prophet had just drawn between the glory of Solomon’s temple and that which had been erected in its stead, to which he declares it was, in comparison, as nothing; the excellency of the latter house excelling that of gold and silver; the expression so characteristic of the Messiah, the “Desire of all nations;” all denote that He alone is spoken of, who was the hope of Israel, and of whom all the prophets did testify, and that his presence would give to that temple a greater glory than that of the former. The Saviour was thus to appear, according to the prophecies of Old Testament, during the time of the continuance of the kingdom of Judah, and previous to the demolition of the temple, and immediately subsequent to the next prophet. But the time is rendered yet more definite. In the prophecies of Daniel, the kingdom of the Messiah is not only foretold as commencing in the time of the fourth monarchy, or Roman empire; but the express number of years, that were to precede his coming, are plainly intimated: “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. 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.” Computation by weeks of years was common among the Jews, and every seventh was the sabbatical year; seventy weeks thus amounted to four hundred ninety years. In these words the prophet marks the very time, and uses the very name of Messiah the Prince; and so entirely is all ambiguity done away, that the destruction of the city and the sanctuary, the ceasing of the sacrifice and the oblation, and the commencement of the long-continued desolation that has ever since ensued, are all definitely marked as consequent on the cutting off of Messiah: “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. 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 oblations 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.”

The plainest inference may be drawn from these prophecies. All of them, while, in every respect, they presuppose the most perfect knowledge of futurity; while they were unquestionably delivered and publicly known for ages previous to the time to which they referred; while there is the testimony, from great authorities among the Jews, of their application to the time of the Messiah; and while they refer to different contingent and unconnected events, utterly undeterminable and inconceivable by all human sagacity, accord in perfect unison to a single precise period where all their different lines terminate at once—the very fulness of time when Jesus appeared. A king then reigned over the Jews in their own land; they were governed by their own laws; and the council of their nation exercised its authority and power. Before that period, the other tribes were led into captivity, from which they never returned; and the Israelites were outcasts for ages, before the Jews were dispersed among the nations. As an unbroken and unexpatriated tribe, Judah alone remained, and the last scepter in Israel had not then departed from it. Every stone of the temple was then unmoved: it was the admiration of the Romans, and might have stood for ages. The city was not then destroyed; but it was the flourishing and populous capital of their own land, which was then peopled by four million Jews. The sacrifice and oblation were then offered up in Jerusalem, the place appointed for them, and thither from all the land multitudes for that purpose still continued to resort year by year continually. But in a short space, all these concurring testimonies to the time of the advent of the Messiah passed away. About the very time when Christ, in the twelfth year of his age, first publicly appeared in the temple about his Father’s business, Archelaus the king was dethroned and banished. Coponius was appointed procurator, and the kingdom of Judea, the last remnant of the greatness of Israel, was debased into a part of the province of Syria. The scepter was smitten from the hands of the tribe of Judah; their crown fell from their heads; their glory departed; and, soon after the death of Christ, of their temple one stone was not left upon another; their commonwealth itself became as complete a ruin, and was broken in pieces; and they have ever since been scattered throughout the world, a name but not a nation. Every mark that denoted the time of the coming of the Messiah in the flesh, was erased soon after the crucifixion of Christ, and could never afterward be renewed.

That the time at which the promised Messiah was to appear is clearly defined in these prophecies; that the expectation of the coming of a great king or deliverer, was then prevalent, not only among the Jews, but among all the Eastern nations, in consequence of these prophecies; that it afterward excited that people to revolt, and proved the cause of their greater destruction, the impartial and unsuspected evidence of heathen authors is combined, with the reluctant and ample testimony of the Jews themselves, to attest.

Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus, and Philo agree in testifying the antiquity of the prophecies, and their acknowledged reference to that period. Even the Jews, to this day, own that the time when their Messiah ought to have appeared, according to their prophecies, is long since past, and they attribute the delay of his coming to the sinfulness of their nation. And thus, from the distinct prophecies themselves, from the testimony of profane historians, and from the concessions of the Jews, every requisite proof is afforded that Christ appeared when all the concurring circumstances of the time denoted the prophesied period of his advent.—“The Evidence of Prophecy,” by Alexander Keith, D. D., Edinburgh, William Whyte & Co., 1848, pages 19-25.