Having established that April 7th, 30 AD, approximately 3.5 years, in the “midst” of the week, is the day the Messiah is cut off, killed, and causes the sacrifice to cease–That is to say, Jesus fulfills the Jewish law of sacrifices for the atonement of the peoples’ sin–we can look immediately to the remaining “half” of the last week.
In the Book of Acts, we are given a picture of the very early church and how Christ has passed his essence, through the Holy Spirit, to his Apostles. The growth of the Church of Christ is remarkable in Jerusalem, adding thousands of Jewish followers in a short time frame, in large part by the witness and testimony of the miracles of the Apostles and other key believers–one of which is a man named Stephen, who is introduced here:
Acts 6:8 “And Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people. 9 But some men from what was called the Synagogue of the Freedmen, including both Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and some from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and argued with Stephen.”
The scholarly consensus is that the events in Acts, up to the introduction of Stephen, took place over the course of between three to four years. Up to this point, the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is focused on the Jewish people of Israel–especailly around the capital city of Israel, Jerusalem.
After having spent the first several years after Christ’s death and resurrection giving the chosen nation of God, Israel, every opportunity to accept the Savior that was promised to them, and born of their people, we see a sudden and dramatic shift away from a message delivered to God’s chosen people toward a message of deliverance from the sin nature to the world at large. Continued in Acts 6 and 7 regarding Stephen and the Jewish leadership:
“10 But they were unable to cope with his wisdom and the Spirit by whom he was speaking. 11 Then they secretly induced men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” 12 And they stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes, and they came up to him and dragged him away, and brought him before the Council. 13 They put forward false witnesses who said, “This man does not stop speaking against this holy place and the Law; 14 for we have heard him say that this Nazarene, Jesus, will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses handed down to us.” 15 And all who were sitting in the Council stared at him, and they saw his face, which was like the face of an angel.
7 Now the high priest said, “Are these things so?”
2 And Stephen said, “Listen to me, brothers and fathers! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, 3 and He said to him, ‘Go from your country and your relatives, and come to the land which I will show you.’ 4 Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. And from there, after his father died, God had him move to this country in which you are now living. 5 But He gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot of ground, and yet, He promised that He would give it to him as a possession, and to his descendants after him, even though he had no child. 6 But God spoke to this effect, that his descendants would be strangers in a land that was not theirs, and they would enslave and mistreat them for four hundred years. 7 ‘And whatever nation to which they are enslaved I Myself will judge,’ said God, ‘and after that they will come out and serve Me in this place.’ 8 And He gave him the covenant of circumcision; and so Abraham fathered Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac fathered Jacob, and Jacob, the twelve patriarchs.
9 “The patriarchs became jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt. Yet God was with him, 10 and rescued him from all his afflictions, and granted him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he made him governor over Egypt and his entire household.
11 “Now a famine came over all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction with it, and our fathers could find no food. 12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers there the first time. 13 And on the second visit, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family was revealed to Pharaoh. 14 Then Joseph sent word and invited his father Jacob and all his relatives to come to him, seventy-five people in all. 15 And Jacob went down to Egypt, and he and our fathers died there. 16 And they were brought back from there to Shechem and laid in the tomb which Abraham had purchased for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.
17 “But as the time of the promise which God had assured to Abraham was approaching, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt, 18 until another king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. 19 It was he who shrewdly took advantage of our nation and mistreated our fathers in order that they would abandon their infants in the Nile, so that they would not survive. 20 At this time Moses was born; and he was beautiful to God. He was nurtured for three months in his father’s home. 21 And after he had been put outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him away and nurtured him as her own son. 22 Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was proficient in speaking and action. 23 But when he was approaching the age of forty, it entered his mind to visit his countrymen, the sons of Israel. 24 And when he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he defended and took vengeance for the oppressed man by fatally striking the Egyptian. 25 And he thought that his brothers understood that God was granting them deliverance through him; but they did not understand. 26 And on the following day he appeared to them as they were fighting each other, and he tried to reconcile them to peace, by saying, ‘Men, you are brothers, why are you injuring each other?’ 27 But the one who was injuring his neighbor pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us? 28 You do not intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you?’ 29 At this remark, Moses fled and became a stranger in the land of Midian, where he fathered two sons.
30 “After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning thorn bush. 31 When Moses saw it, he was astonished at the sight; and as he approached to look more closely, the voice of the Lord came: 32 ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob.’ Moses shook with fear and did not dare to look closely. 33 But the Lord said to him, ‘Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. 34 I have certainly seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to rescue them; and now come, I will send you to Egypt.’
35 “This Moses whom they disowned, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one whom God sent to be both a ruler and a deliverer with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the thorn bush. 36 This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years. 37 This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your countrymen.’ 38 This is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness together with the angel who spoke to him at length on Mount Sinai, and who was with our fathers; and he received living words to pass on to you. 39 Our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to him; on the contrary they rejected him and turned back to Egypt in their hearts, 40 saying to Aaron, ‘Make us a god who will go before us; for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt—we do not know what happened to him.’ 41 At that time they made a calf and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. 42 But God turned away and gave them over to serve the heavenly lights; as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘You did not offer Me victims and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness, did you, house of Israel? 43 You also took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god Rompha, the images which you made to worship. I also will deport you beyond Babylon.’
44 “Our fathers had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as He who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern which he had seen. 45 Our fathers in turn received it, and they also brought it in with Joshua upon dispossessing the nations that God drove out from our fathers, until the time of David. 46 David found favor in God’s sight, and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob. 47 But it was Solomon who built a house for Him. 48 However, the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands; as the prophet says:
49 ‘Heaven is My throne,
And the earth is the footstool of My feet;
What kind of house will you build for Me?’ says the Lord,
‘Or what place is there for My rest?
50 Was it not My hand that made all these things?’
51 “You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. 52 Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, and you have now become betrayers and murderers of Him; 53 you who received the Law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it.”
Stephen Put to Death
54 Now when they heard this, they were infuriated, and they began gnashing their teeth at him. 55 But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; 56 and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” 57 But they shouted with loud voices, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one mind. 58 When they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him; and the witnesses laid aside their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” 60 Then he fell on his knees and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” Having said this, he fell asleep.”
After this event, Acts presents the Gospel spreading outside of Jerusalem–not spreading by happenstance, but as a direct result. This singular event began a persecution of the believers in Christ that scattered them from Jerusalem, turning the message of the Gospel away from the nation of Israel and toward all other nations and people.
It is generally accepted by scholarship that Stephen was martyred between 33 and 36 AD. That time frame is not without context. It allows plausible time for the population growth of the new church after the resurrection of Christ in 30 AD, and for the formation of an organized body with Apostles needing to delegate tasks that had grown beyond their ability to manage–Stephen having been one of those delegates himself. It can also be no later than Saul’s conversion to Paul, which is thought by deduction in Paul’s letters to have occurred between 34 and 36 AD. The account in Acts indicates the vision Paul received from Christ was in close relation to the events of Stephen’s martyrdom–as Paul himself was present at that event as noted above in verse fifty eight.
While we do not have specific dates for Stephen’s death, we do have a clear account in Acts that Stephen all but announced God’s judgement against His chosen nation, Israel, for killing the Messiah that had been promised to them. His speech was in effect a covenantal indictment against the Jewish leadership for rejecting and killing the messengers God had repeatedly sent imploring the nation to turn away from wickedness and warning of the calamity to come if they do not. It is recorded that Stephen gave witness to the fact that he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God while giving his speech to the Jewish leadership. What else could this mean but, at minimum, an endorsement of Stephen’s message by Christ Himself?
We have a year that this event could not have happened before in the Cross at 30 AD and a year it could not have happened afterward at 34 AD, Paul’s conversion. Even if we take the later date of 33 AD of the Crucifixion that many scholars subscribe to and the view of the later date of Paul’s conversion of 36 AD, we still have room for a three and a half year time frame to conclude the final week in Daniel’s Chapter 9 Prophecy.
It is true that the Bible does not give us specific dates for each event in Gabriel’s Prophecy of Daniel Chapter 9. But it gives us enough that we can surmise a time frame of 490 continuous years for God’s people 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,” using dates in history, deduction, and inference.
I believe this to be the most comprehensive and logical rendering and understanding of the message delivered to Daniel by the Angel Gabriel–likely the greatest prophecy man has ever received–both in awesomeness and significance. It is a clear and logical interpretation that does not rely on any kind of future speculation of events or people that are not grounded in any sort of relatable frame of reference to Daniel. In this view, the interpretation is rooted within the context of Daniel’s people, the nation of Israel, and its promised Messiah, who we understand to be Jesus Christ. It is a riddle that is foretold as one continuous event, but a riddle that can be understood and applied for the strengthening of the faith of the disciple of Christ.
While I believe the narrative is one continuous event, that does not preclude the possibility that the culmination of judgement it speaks of are outside of the immediate timeframe of the prophecy; as we still have to address the “overspreading of abominations he shall make (it) desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate” portion of the prophecy that caps it off. The cause and the effect are tied together by context, not necessarily by time frame.
Over time, with exposure to more viewpoints, information, and context, I have come to believe Jesus Himself alludes to this very line in three of the Gospels–an event that would happen in the lifetime of the people within Jesus’ own generation, just as He tells His disciples when they marvel at the splendor of their Temple, the very object that the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem alludes to in Gabriel’s message to Daniel.
That event Jesus speaks of, though, is part of another study. Here is concluded the Seventy Sevens time frame examination.