Notes on Important Eras of Fulfilling Prophecy
By W. A. S.
The Hand of God in History — No. 9
Notes on Important Eras of Fulfilling Prophecy
"Unto Messiah the Prince"
"SEVENTY weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city. . . . 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." Dan. 9:24, 25. The plain statement of the angel that the seventy weeks extend to the time of the Messiah, shows at once that a day in the prophecy must be used as a symbol for a year (as in Eze. 4:6; Num. 14:34). Seventy weeks were allotted to the Jewish people, and sixty-nine of these weeks — 483 years of the 490 — were to extend from the going forth of the commandment to restore Jerusalem "unto Messiah the prince." One more week, seven years, would yet remain of the seventy; and "in the midst" of that closing week of years, the Messiah was to cause the sacrifices to cease. There the great sacrifice was to be made. First, we consider the 483 years to the Messiah. The manifestation of the Messiah — which means the Anointed — was at Christ's baptism by John, when he was anointed of the Holy Ghost to his earthly ministry: — "And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: and lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Matt. 3:16, 17. "John . . . saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." John 1:29. This was the event to which the 483-year period had pointed for centuries. Now, 483 full years from 457 B. C. reaches to A. D. 27. What is the historical evidence as to the time of Christ's baptism? The key to the solution of this question is found in Luke's Gospel: — "Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, . . . the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he came unto all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins." Luke 3:1-3. It was (1) the fifteenth year of Tiberius, and (2) Pilate was governor. 1. The fifteenth year of Tiberius Cæsar. The death of Augustus was in A. D. 14. But Tiberius was associated with him as colleague shortly before Augustus's death. Some modern histories give the time of this appointment as probably A. D. 13; others say A. D. 12. Dion Cassius (Roman senator, born in the second century) wrote a great "History of Rome," most of which is lost. But in the history of the events of A. D. 12 he says: — "Augustus, because he was growing old, wrote a letter commending Germanicus to the senate, and the latter to Tiberius." — Book 56, chap. 26, translation by Herbert Baldwin Foster. The less is commended to the greater — Germanicus to the senate, but the senate to Tiberius, indicating that in A. D. 12 Tiberius was recognized as having the imperial dignity. It was doubtless toward the latter part of the year, as the events seem to some to crowd it even into A. D. 13. Again, in a foot-note in his "History of the Christian Church," Dr. Philip Schaff says: — There are coins from Antioch, in Syria, of the date A. U. 765 [A. D. 12], with the head of Tiberius, and the inscription, Kaisar. Sebastos (Augustus). — Vol. I, page 120. And as the first year of Tiberius would be from the latter part of A. D. 12 to A. D. 13, the fifteenth year would be from A. D. 26 to A. D. 27. 2. "Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea." Was Pilate governor in A. D. 27? Josephus says that Pilate so exasperated the Jews that at last Vitellius, president of Syria, took action: — "So Vitellius sent Marcellus, a friend of his, to take care of the affairs of Judea, and ordered Pilate to go to Rome, to answer before the emperor to the accusation of the Jews. So Pilate, when he had tarried ten years in Judea, made haste to Rome, and this in obedience to the orders of Vitellius, which he durst not contradict; but before he could get to Rome, Tiberius was dead." — "Antiquities," book 8, chap. 14. Tiberius died March 16, A. D. 37, while Pilate was "making haste" to Rome to save his position, and possibly his life. He must, then, have left Jerusalem early in A. D. 37, or in the end of A. D. 36. But he left after "ten years in Judea." Ten years reckoned back from the end of A. D. 36, would bring the first year of his governorship from the end of A. D. 26 to the end of A. D. 27. The time prophecy of Daniel 9 declared that 483 years from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem, the Messiah, the Anointed, would appear. That index-finger of divine prophecy pointed through all the centuries to the date A. D. 27. When that year of the prophecy came, "in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, . . . the word of God came unto John," who bore witness, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world." "Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel." Mark 1:14, 15. The word that came to John in the wilderness of Judea was the word of the same living God whose angel had uttered the prophecy over half a millennium before. "I have even from the beginning declared it to thee; before it came to pass I showed it thee: lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them. Thou hast heard, see all this; and will not ye declare it?" Isa. 48:5, 6.