THE vainest of delusions is to talk of man's rights in the presence of Christ's cross, which proclaims nothing but his wrongs. There all mankind stands convicted; and the Jew cannot cast a stone at the Gentile, as he himself had the greater sin. For the Jew took the lead in cutting off the Messiah by the hand of lawless men, as Peter preached to them at Pentecost. The cross of Christ denies the rights, and demonstrates the wrongs, of man. But God thereby wrought atonement and set forth Jesus a mercy seat through faith in His blood, not only for vindication of His passing over of sins that are past in the forbearance of God, but for declaration of His righteousness at this gospel time, in His being just and justifying the believer.
This however is the apostolic doctrine in Rom. 3:25, 2625Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. (Romans 3:25‑26). The prophecy in Dan. 9:2626And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. (Daniel 9:26) does not go beyond the sin of Messiah cut off, and its consequence in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Romans, as well as in the disastrous history of the Jewish people to this day. The cross of Christ accordingly has two sides, the judgment of man, and the grace of God. Man displayed therein his wickedness, the Jew his hatred, to the uttermost; as God thereby is justifying freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Whom God raised from the dead and set at His own right hand in a glory incomparably higher than David's. Then is the church formed, from Jews and Gentiles, and by the Holy Spirit sent down united to the glorified Head on high as His one body. This was an entirely new thing, which the N. T. makes as plain as possible; but it is wholly distinct from what the prophecy discloses.
The Jew is blotted out meantime, but will as surely reappear as the object of divine dealing in the end of the age, as we see in ver. 27. Israel in the new age will have the first place on earth. She that was cast far off shall be made a strong nation, and the former or first dominion shall come to Zion.
But what was to happen as the judicial consequence of Messiah cut off? “The people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.” And so the Romans did, as the Lord warned in Matt. 22:77But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. (Matthew 22:7), and in Luke 19:42-4442Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. 43For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, 44And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. (Luke 19:42‑44). It is not said, that a Roman prince should come, but the people of the coming prince. This prince was not Titus. He no doubt came with his people, his army; but here it is the people of the prince that shall come, the future imperial enemy of God, the Beast or fourth empire of that time revived, not the foe but the avowed friend of the apostate Jew and of the Antichrist reigning over Jerusalem. The people came then, but under another prince, for the destruction of the city and sanctuary; the prince here predicted is not come yet. They came then to destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof was indeed with a flood or overthrow, and even to the end was desolation determined.
The Jews tried to rebuild Jerusalem later, and were almost exterminated by the Emperor Hadrian. Since then what slaughter and persecution in almost every country under the sun! Sad to say, our own forefathers were guilty of selfishly and savagely ill-treating the Jew. Things no doubt are changed now, not because the world compassionates the Jew as God's ancient people suffering for their sins, but rather through a godless respect for the fancied rights of man. But this will fail, when God begins to move on their behalf, as we read in Isa. 18:66They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them. (Isaiah 18:6) and elsewhere. “And he shall confirm covenant with the many for one week.” Attention is called to the correct rendering, which when pointed out no scholar can fairly question. Who is the “he"? Not a few imagine it is the Lord Jesus. But where is the sense (I do not even ask, the spirituality) of such a view? How could Christ be referred to in “He shall confirm covenant with the many for one week” or seven years? Christ make a covenant as here “with the many” or mass of faithless Jews! for seven years! Short-lived princes may make short covenants with their fellows; but the idea is preposterous of Christ (Who had been “cut off,” and is therefore risen again) making a covenant for seven years! and with had people, as “the many” invariably means in Daniel, is yet more so! Theologians who do not understand the prophets may believe it, as they seem never able to rise above the weakest tradition.
I looked purposely at dear old Trapp, and found him no better than the rest. For he endorses the same delusion. You may perceive how much depends on the right consideration of the article, which is here doubly misrepresented. “Covenant” has got the article without warrant, and “many” has been stripped of it. What corresponds with our “the” is as important a factor in Hebrew as in other languages. To be brief then, let me repeat the true force: “And he shall confirm covenant for one week with the many.” How very different a thing from Christ's confirming the covenant! Are the wicked mass of the Jews the persons with whom the Lord made covenant? The context makes it all plain and sure.
The last person named is the far different and coming prince of the Roman people. He is already familiar to us in chap. 7; the same “little horn” who is to aggrandize himself by the uprooting three of the first horns, and then by his blasphemies he leads the entire empire to its destruction by the Most High, when he shall be given to the burning of fire. He it is that makes a covenant with the wicked Jews at the close, when the last or seventieth week receives its fulfillment. Isaiah seems to refer to this as “a covenant with death,” and “an agreement with hell” or Sheol: totally different from the gospel or even the law. No thoughtful mind should overlook a covenant expressly limited to seven years, any more than that the coming prince of Rome is the last personage named, or than the “many” with whom it is to be made.
Besides, this brief agreement is soon broken. How could it be if grace made it? The Roman prince breaks it. He allows their worship for three and a half years, the first half of the seventieth week; “and in the midst of the week he shall cause sacrifice and oblation to cease.” That is, he puts an end to the Jewish ritual, in order, as we learn explicitly from elsewhere, to bring an image of himself into the holy place, the abomination of desolation, as it is called.
You all perhaps know that “abomination” is the regular term for an idol. And here we read, “And for the wing (or protection) of abominations [is] one that maketh desolate.” I understand the meaning to be, that because of the protection given to abominations, or idols, by the Roman emperor and his ally in Jerusalem (the Antichrist), there shall be a desolator, a power quite opposed to both. He is in fact no other than the one whose career is given in the close of Dan. 8, the “little horn” of the East. He may pretend zeal for God in opposing the Antichrist and the Western chief; but he is just as wicked as they, and will meet with a no less terrible end in due time. This we shall see clearly in the close of Dan. 11. The Antichrist is to reign in the land; and he, too, is to set himself up as God in His temple, as we know from 2 Thess. 2, where the Roman prince sets up his image. This the king of the north resents and opposes. How the Lord deals with each will be shown in the next lecture. Here we are only told that “[there is, or shall be] a desolator, even until the consumption, and what is determined shall be poured upon the desolate.”
The prophecy is by no means obscure. It is only when misapplied that men complain of difficulty. When we seize the Holy Spirit's aim in it, all flows with an easy and onward current. Without His guidance no scripture can be entered into or yield enjoyment and profit. May it be yours to search “the scriptures whether these things be so.”