Vol.10 No.3

Q. Does the state of Israel play a primary role in the fulfillment of end-time Bible prophecies?

A. Many sincere people believe that near the end of time, the Antichrist, under the disguise of a charismatic religious leader, will make an alliance with Israel. With the help of the Antichrist, the faithful will rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. After three and a half years, however, the Antichrist will show his true colors, order the sacrificial services to cease in the temple and persecute recent converts to Christianity. This will trigger a series of armed confrontations between alliances of nations, culminating with the coming of Jesus, and the annihilation of the Antichrist and the wicked. Jesus will then establish on earth His kingdom of peace.

The whole theory centering on Israel’s role is supported by two keynotes:

1. The identity of the Antichrist. The Bible exposes the Antichrist as a religious system that adulterated Bible truth and persecuted God’s true children for three and a half prophetic years or 1260 literal years (Daniel 7). (In Bible prophecy, one day equals a year; see Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6.) The Reformers identified this power as the papacy, which relentlessly persecuted true believers during the Dark Ages. The papists however devised a futuristic method of interpretation, by which the Antichrist was a person and was to come in the distant future, persecuting the saints for three and a half literal years.
2. The interpretation of Daniel 9:24–27. This prophecy centers on the coming of the Messiah. It began in 457 B.C. at the command to rebuild Jerusalem and was fulfilled 69 weeks (483 years) later when Jesus began His earthly ministry in A.D. 27.

The next prophetic week, or seven years out of the 70 year period, is the disputed one. The closest and most natural interpretation is to apply the events of this last week to the Messiah as well: “In the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease.” When Jesus died on the cross in A.D. 31, three and a half years from the end of the 69th week, “the vail of the temple was rent in twain” (Matthew 27:51), marking the end of the significance of animal sacrifices. The type had met its Antitype. Because Christ, the heavenly Lamb had died for humankind, lamb sacrifices were no longer needed. The temple from then on symbolized Jesus’ presence in the lives of believers (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). There was no more need of a physical temple.

To shift this last week of the prophecy to some future time and to apply it to the Antichrist is an obvious misinterpretation of the plain Scripture. To assign any significance to the rebuilding of an earthly temple would deny the faith in the sufficiency of Christ’s death on Calvary for the remission of our sins.

Lastly, why apply literally the 1260 days referring to the Antichrist and prophetically the 7 days of Daniel’s 70 weeks? The answer is that no man could live 1260 years, not even the Antichrist devised by the papists.