“And after 62 weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for Himself … And He [the Messiah] shall confirm the [New] covenant with many [elect Jews] for one week; and in the midst of the [seventieth] week He [the Messiah] shall cause the sacrifice and the sin offering to cease (at Calvary’s cross)” (Dan 9:27, Varner)
Jesus, the true Passover lamb (1 Cor 5:7) had in the first half of the last prophetic week replaced all the other sacrifices in the temple. Heb 9:26 (NIV) states it as follows – “But now He has appeared once for all at the end of ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” The temple no longer had any right of existence. In Dan 9:267 the following is said about Jesus – “Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week.” Varner’s paraphrasing quoted above is of great importance, and explains to us the Scriptures the teaching of Day 351 had discussed, which are hard to understand, as when Jesus said – “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” What does the phrase “He confirmed the New Covenant with many elect Jews” in effect then mean?
An explanation of sorts will also give us an indication of the last event which occurred three and a half years after Jesus was crucified, which would conclude the seventy prophetic weeks.
We know that Jesus was a Jew with a Jewish family tree (Matt 1 & Luke 1). In the three and a half years of his public ministry, since his baptism as the Anointed One, He chose his twelve disciples, all Jewish (Luke 10), part of the Jewish remnant about which Rom 9:21-29 and 11:1-5 extensively writes. THE NEW COVENANT IS FIRSTLY MADE WITH JEWS, AS PART OF GOD’S FULFILLMENT OF AN ETERNAL COVENANT HE HAD ORIGINALLY MADE WITH THEM.
A quick reference to the meaning of the “eternal covenant”. It is a covenant which God had made with Abraham (Gen 17:5-7), through circumcision, cut into the flesh (Gen 17:13). The eternal covenant is perpetuated through descendants (Gen 17:19). But in Isa 24:5 it is clearly spelled out – “The earth is also defiled under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.” The eternal (old) covenant was one-sidedly broken by man (Deut 31:16)! But God declares that there are certain Old Covenant individuals who already understood the heart of the New Covenant and lived within it, like David (Ps 89), and thus He promises in Isa 55:3 that He will no longer perpetuate THIS COVENANT THROUGH JEWS, BUT THROUGH ALL PEOPLE WHO WISH TO MAKE A NEW COVENANT WITH HIM.
Rom 2:28-29 makes it explicitly clear – “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.”
In Jer 32:40 and Ezek 16:60 the (lost) old covenant is remembered, but God promises that He will raise up a new eternal covenant in the future. In Ezek 37:26 it is made clear that through this new covenant his sanctuary (the Holy and Holy of Holies in the temple) will be established in their midst, forever. This replaces the temple made by the hands of men. BUT THE NEW COVENANT MUST FIRST BE OFFERED TO THE JEWS. In the next teaching we will discuss this in greater detail.
- Sela: In the light of this, does God require that the temple should be rebuilt? Consult Rev 11:19.
- Read: Num 25 (very important for this teaching); Hos 4; Ezek 17
- Memorize: Ezek 17:23
