The Hand of God in History —
By W. A. Smith
Notes on Important Eras of Fulfilling Prophecy
He Shall Confirm the Covenant With Many for One Week
THE death of Christ for us, when the fulness of time had come, is too great a theme even to approach in this outline study of great eras in the fulfilment of time prophecies. The theme of that infinite sacrifice will be the study through the ages of eternity. Human philosophies of the atoning work and ministry seem only to obscure the sacred truth. "He died for me," is the sum of it all. And all the height and depth and length and breadth of "the unsearchable riches of Christ" are in the laying hold by faith of that glorious truth, "He died for me." The plain texts of Scripture that tell of his love and life and death for helpless sinners, press the truths home to the heart in the simple way that heals the hurt of sin and brings the comfort of eternal hope. "Since I, who was undone and lost,
Have pardon through His name and word;
Forbid it, then, that I should boast,
Save in the cross of Christ, my Lord." There, in the "midst of the week," at the middle point of the last seven-year period of the prophecy, was set up the cross, "towering o'er the wrecks of time." "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth," said Christ, "will draw all men unto me." John 12:32. This is why there is a divine power pleading with every heart to yield to God. That witness of conscience which ("in the day9when God shall judge the secrets of men") will accuse or else excuse those who have not had the light of written revelation (Rom. 2:15, 16), is planted in the heart because Jesus, the divine Son of God, died for all, that all might believe and be saved. "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." John 1:9. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16. It was to tell this "good news" to all men that Christ commissioned his disciples to go forth. The full period of seventy weeks—490 years from the commission to Ezra—had been allotted to the Jewish people. They had been given a special place in the working out of God's plan. It was not because God had not all along loved all men, but because as children of Abraham of old that people were called to be a blessing to all nations with their witness to the living God. But they had been unfaithful to their trust. The mercy of God waited. The prophecy of the seventy weeks, however, set the bounds beyond which the Lord could not wait. If that people would not bear the witness of the living God to all the world, the work would have to be put into other hands. The first half of the last week of years had passed, and now Jerusalem had crucified the Lord of glory. He had come to his own, and his own received him not. Yet those who cried, "Crucify him!" were ignorant and blind. In the agony of the cross, Christ prayed for them, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Three years and a half of his ministry had been given among them. Three and a half years yet remained of that last prophetic week. The Messiah was to "confirm the covenant with many for one week." In the person of his apostles and witnesses the gospel was still pressed especially upon that people of Jerusalem, "to the Jew first," "beginning at Jerusalem." The covenant was confirmed with "many," "and believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women." Acts 5:14. The three and a half years of special ministry to that people would end in A. D. 34. And that was about the year of Stephen's martyrdom, when the whole Jewish council had again rejected the appeal of the Holy Ghost. The great body of Christian believers in Jerusalem were driven out by persecution, and "they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word." The Gentiles responded in Samaria; the Ethiopian treasurer received the gospel on the road to Gaza. The gospel message had fairly passed the boundaries of Jerusalem, and was on its course toward all nations—"unto the uttermost part of the earth." Though every Jew, as every other man, still had the gospel invitation pressed upon him, the time of that people as God's special witnesses had passed. They had failed to keep the trust, and Christ's word to the Jews was fulfilled: "The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." Matt. 21:43. That nation is the nation "of them which are saved," the children of Abraham by faith, "where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all." Col. 3:11. "Just as I am, Thy love I own
Has broken every barrier down;
Now to be thine, and thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come." The "sure word of prophecy" in all the events of the "seventy weeks" had been fulfilled. Each time the hour struck for the work to be done, the fulfilment came. And the Lord Jesus, who is the Word, gave himself in fulfilling his own words by the prophets. Thus with his own life he set his seal to "the vision and prophecy." In closing, let it be recalled again that this first 490 years of the vision and prophecy are "determined," or cut off from the yet longer period of 2,300 years, reaching from 457 B. C. to A. D. 1844, when the cleansing of the sanctuary, the final ministry of our High Priest in the heavenly temple, was to begin. The exact fulfilment in the days of his first advent seals up the vision and prophecy (Dan. 9:24), and we know of a surety that when the year 1844 brought the ending of the great prophetic measuring line, the final phase of Christ's work was entered upon in the true sanctuary above. The events on earth connected with the ending of the 2,300 years, in A. D. 1844, will repay study at a later time in this series of outline notes.