Quote:
Originally Posted by Esaias
Interesting point:
Jesus told Peter to forgive 490 times. Then gave a parable to illustrate what He meant. The forgiveness of debt in the parable was an EXTENSION OF TIME until reckoning could be done. At the reckoning, debt would either be paid or canceled, depending on whether the debtor also forgave debts.
This implies the 490 years of the Seventy Sevens was an extension of time until the debt of sin could be dealt with, paid off by Messiah, and forgiven to those willing to participate in God's debt cancelation program. Which in turn is another indicator the Seventy Weeks ENDED with Christ's death (and resurrection). Once Christ died, the debt was paid and pardoned. Those who rejected it were then destined for destruction (culminating in AD 70, delivered to the "tormentors" to exact what they owed).
God divorced the House of Israel, but not Judah. Instead, God made provision to pardon their (Judah's) sins, but Judah waxed evil and was unrighteous and unmerciful, so the reckoning came and Judah and Jerusalem was turned over to the collection agency of Rome.
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And this shed's light on what the actual purpose of the 70 Weeks was. It wasn't a determined time period meant to exclude gentiles from salvation. (Again, IF gentiles were barred from salvation, such a barring didn't really have to with the Seventy Weeks, but rather had to do with the nature and rules of Covenanting with God.) Dispensationalism proposes that the Seventy Weeks are a divine time period where God is dealing exclusively with Jews. They say the last Week (or the last half of it) has been separated from the others, put on hold. This, they say, allows for God to deal with gentiles, thus the "dispensation of grace for gentiles". They say the last Week (or last half) will resume, God will once again be concerned with Jews, the gentile grace period will be ended, etc. All of this bad eschatology and bad theology is due to a fundamental lack of understanding the
purpose of the 70 Weeks.
If Jesus' use of "seventy times seven" in His discourse on forgiveness is no accident or mere coincidence, then there is a connection to the "seventy sevens" of Daniel's prophecy. Since He then immediately said "THEREFORE, the Kingdom is like..." and proceeded to give the parable of the bad debtor (Matt 18:23-35), it follows that the parable is an explanation not merely of the condition of pardon, but contains an explanation of the 70 Weeks "seventy sevens" of Daniel.
It was a probationary period determined upon Judah and Jerusalem, during which God would "forgive" their sins. That is, He would not utterly divorce them and scatter them as He had previously done to the other tribes of the House of Israel by the hand of the Assyrians. However, they did not use the grace given them to extend grace to others, but descended into violence and extortion under the scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, etc. Eventually they killed Messiah, grace and pardon incarnate. So the probation was revoked at the crucifixion of Christ, and they were delivered to the tormentors (Rome) which was finished in AD 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem and end of Judea as a national Israelitish entity.