Page images
PDF
EPUB

66

the holy city, the picture of the true Church, is to be trodden under foot forty and two months. If we multiply 42 by 30, we produce 1260 days. Again, "I will give power to the two witnesses; they shall prophesy in sackcloth," that is, the true Church shall be depressed and crushed by this dominant power, one thousand two hundred and threescore days;" that is, 1260 days. We read in Revelation, 12th chapter, that the woman flees into the wilderness; that is, the Church of Christ escapes into obscurity, where she shall be nourished a thousand two hundred and threescore days. If we take these periods, "time, times, and half a time," or 1260 days, or 42 months-we shall find they all denote one period; a time, 360 prophetic days, or full literal years; times, double that number, twice 360; and half a time, the half of 360; making exactly 1260 prophetic days, or 1260 literal and full chronological years. Thus all these dates, namely, "the time, times, half a time," the 42 months, the 1260 days, denote the same period. In Daniel, the 12th chapter, we read of 30 days added to the 1260, making 1290 days. He also adds a yet further period of 45 days to the 1290; and he says that that man will be blessed, or specially happy, or the possessor of great joy, who lives to the close of the united periods, forming one thousand three hundred and thirty-five years. These dates, or calculations, the Spirit has inspired: we do not invent them. If we cannot remove every difficulty, it is our duty to do the best we can. There

are some topics on which one can speak with absolute conviction that one speaks the very mind and words and truths of God; there are other topics more delicate, more intricate, on which one must speak with reserve; in investigating which it is possible we may be wrong, and in some instances it may be probable we have not arrived at the true solution.

Let us now see how justified we are in interpreting a day in prophecy as a year. When one draws a plan of a farm, or an estate, he writes below, on the scale of an inch for a mile; so that every inch on the plan represents a mile upon the literal estate. In the same way every day in these dates in the prophetic page represents a year in the currency of time. The proof of this interpretation lies in such expressions as these. Moses says: "All the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; here days and years are used convertibly. Laban says to Jacob: "Fulfil her week; the service thou shalt serve will be yet seven years." Here seven years are called seven days; and therefore seven days represent seven years. In Leviticus we read: “Thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years." He is speaking of the jubilee; seven times seven days make 49 days; but he calls them sabbaths, or weeks, of years. The jubilee occurred every fiftieth year. In these passages a day is taken strictly for a year. In Numbers xiv. 34: "After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year," &c. The prophecy of Ezekiel is

still more remarkable. Ezekiel is told by God, “Lie upon thy left side, for I have laid on thee the iniquity of the house of Israel, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days; and when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquities of the house of Jacob forty days. I have appointed thee each day for a year." Nothing can be more conclusive; the prophet symbolically is made to lie on his side, to represent a national estate or condition; and God tells him expressly that each day of his personal reclining represents a year. Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Newton, Shimeall, Elliot, Bickersteth, and Villiers, are all justified in understanding, by a prophetic day, a literal year; and in interpreting these great dates after the law which we have now endeavoured to lay down. But it has been objected, at the very outset of such investigations, that God has expressly said to Daniel, "Shut up the words, and seal the book;" which means, it is not to be understood "even to the time of the end." This is perfectly true. The question remains, Has the seal been broken? or are we trying, when we venture to explain these things, to break seals which God has not broken, to penetrate into mysteries which He has not explained, and to cast our inquiring glance into a future which God has sealed and shut up from the inspection and the penetration of the most gifted of mankind? If so, we are doing what is wrong. But let us inquire, in the words of Scripture, "What or

what manner of times the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify when He testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ, and of the glory that should follow." Daniel's inhibition was clearly operative, when the apostles asked our Saviour, "Wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom?" for his answer was, "It is not for you to know the times and the seasons.” Notice the word times; evidently referring to the times of the Gentiles in Leviticus, and the times of Daniel, "which the Father has put in his own power; but power shall be given you from on high." He sends them, in other words, on their immediate mission. He does not rebuke them for their inquiry, as if it were an idle one; but he informs them that the seal was not yet broken, that they had first a great and pressing work it was their duty to accept. One apostle outlived the rest. John was banished a prisoner by Domitian to the isle of Patmos. What the other apostles did not know, and what it was not for them to receive, was revealed expressly to John in Patmos. Referring to the very words of Daniel, "Seal the book, even to the time of the end;" the voice from heaven sounded in the ear of John, "Seal not the book; for the Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof." Surely this means that the sealing, which was commanded in Daniel's days, was undone in John's day; and that we are warranted-not in prophesying, which belongs to him that wears a prophet's mantle and has a prophet's mission-but in

explaining the prophecy of a once sealed but now unsealed book. "Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy."

Let us now turn to the earliest dates recorded in the 26th chapter of Leviticus, at the 18th verse. God, speaking to the Jews, and He is speaking to them only, declares, "If ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins." In the 19th verse he fixes the date when the seven times of punishment should begin. "I will break the pride of your power;" that is, you shall cease to be a nation. He repeats this phrase in the 24th verse : “Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins." And in the 28th verse he repeats the same: “And I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins." When and at what year did the seven times begin, and when and in what year do the seven times terminate? that is, When did the affliction on the Jews as a nation begin? and when, therefore, may we expect that infliction upon the Jews as a nation will cease? The announcement was made on the completion of the tabernacle, a year after the exodus ; in anno mundi, or year of the world, 2514. Multiply 360 years, that is, "a time," by seven, and we get the duration of God's affliction of the Jews by the Gentiles, or the seven times suffering of the Jewish people, and thus we have exactly 2520 years. But when did these 2520 years begin? God says at the time when He would "break the pride of their power."

« PreviousContinue »