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Today, we’re going to answer a question that has been posed by a couple of our viewers. I want to read their e-mails first. David writes, “I feel I have committed the unpardonable sin by willfully sinning, and I feel hopeless, depressed, and numb. Is there any hope for me?” And then, Brandon writes that he was, “saved in 2017 but then fell away from the faith for a year and a half. I now want to come back and return…In light of passages such as Hebrews 6:4-6, is it that I can no longer be saved and have nothing to look forward to but a fearful expectation of judgment? I am very distressed and scared over this. Please help.”

I think there are many people who share the fears of these two viewers. In fact, it’s one of the most common questions that preachers are asked: What is the sin that God will not forgive? Can men commit that sin today? Have I committed the ‘unpardonable sin?’ Most students of the Bible have surely wondered about the words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 12.

Matthew 12:31-32 “Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.”

These are sobering, in fact, frightening words, and whatever this seemingly mysterious sin against the Holy Spirit is, we dare not be found guilty of it. In today’s study though, we’re going to look at this chilling passage and learn about ‘the unpardonable sin’ and see whether it’s possible to commit it today.

Any sin is serious in the sight of God. By definition, sin is the transgression or breaking of the law of God (1 John 3:4). All sin is devastating to our relationship with a Holy God.

Ezekiel 18:20 “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.”

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death…”

But the Bible also tells us that God is rich in mercy and eager to forgive our sins when we approach Him through Christ in obedient faith.

Mark 16:15-16 “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved…”

Those who are Christians are told by John:

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

But we also read in Hebrews 6 that it is impossible for those who “have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame” (Hebrews 6:5-6).

We come to the text of our study today in Matthew 12, where the scripture seems to strike such a different tone when Jesus said that all manner of sin would be forgiven—even one who speaks against the Son of God, Jesus Christ—but one sin is beyond the reach of God’s forgiveness, and that is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Jesus says that one who blasphemes or speaks against the Spirit of God would not be forgiven then, nor in the world that was to come.

Those passages ring with cold and heartless finality. They seem to suggest that some sins are of such a nature that they are beyond the reach of God’s mercy. So, which is it: Can one be cleansed of all unrighteousness as John says? Isn’t the gospel to be preached to every creature and of those to whom the gospel is preached, those who believe and are baptized will be saved? Or are there sins that are beyond the pale and cannot be forgiven?

The true interpretation of any passage will harmonize with all other passages, or else one or more of those interpretations is false. So, what is Jesus saying when He speaks of the sin that God will not forgive, in light of the fact that the Bible teaches that God is willing to forgive all unrighteousness? And can I commit this unpardonable sin today? Is it possible that you or I are guilty of it? The viewers who have written in to this broadcast are fearful and worried that they have committed the unpardonable sin. Could it be that that is the case and that their state is therefore hopeless? Let’s see what the Bible says about all of that.

First, we can rule out some misconceptions that people have about this sin. Some worry that they can commit this sin without even knowing it. In other words, that a person can be ignorant and accidentally and unknowingly commit such an offense. But as we will see, the ones Jesus warned in our text were not doing anything in ignorance, but rather they were acting in stubborn rebellion and willful rejection. We’ll talk more about that in a moment.

Some have speculated that this could be any number of sins that one does not have the opportunity to repent of. For example, a sin that one commits immediately before death; perhaps even the act of suicide, because one has no chance to turn back and repent of such a deed. But the taking of one’s own life is nowhere under consideration in this passage, and as sensitive and tragic a subject as suicide is, though the Bible addresses it in other ways, it has absolutely no connection whatsoever to the sin mentioned in these verses. So, you can put that out of your mind.

Some would warn us that refusing to accept the modern and speculative theories that people advance about the Holy Spirit and His supposed manner of working in the world today is perhaps the sin that Jesus was speaking of. Well, for one thing, rejecting the false doctrines of men about the Holy Spirit is NOT speaking against the Holy Spirit. Rather, it is speaking against the false doctrines that people spread about the Holy Spirit and is, therefore, speaking in defense of the Holy Spirit.

Some are under the impression that the sin against the Holy Spirit is decreed unpardonable because of the very special nature of the Holy Spirit and His work. In other words, that Christ was exalting the third person of the Godhead as perhaps being so holy, unique, and special that it is simply unforgivable to speak a word against Him. Really, that doesn’t have anything to do with it either. Yes, the Holy Spirit is divine, and He is Holy and is to be reverenced, but no more so than Christ. No more so than God the Father. Jesus said that the Spirit’s purpose was to bring glory to Jesus and not the other way around (John 16:14). Christ didn’t pave the way for the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit came to confirm that Jesus is the Christ. It’s not that the Holy Spirit is holier than the other two of the Godhead. That’s not what this sin has to do with. It DOES have to do with the work of the Holy Spirit in this particular context.

Some believe that this sin could only be committed while Jesus was on earth performing miracles, and since the miraculous age has passed, it has no relevance to modern people. As we will see, this sin DID have an immediate connection to people who witnessed the miracles of Jesus, but that doesn’t mean that the passage has no relevance whatsoever or no bearing on us today. Now, the actual circumstance that Jesus describes cannot be repeated, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot place ourselves spiritually in the same position that these people were placing themselves in. I’ll explain what I mean by that in just a little while.

So, what is Jesus warning them about? What is this awful sin for which there is no redemption? Let’s read through the context of our text passage.

Matthew 12:22-23 “Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David?”

Here is a clear miracle that took place and there was no denying it. One would’ve been a fool to say that this was not a miracle. Consequently, when miracles took place in ages past, there was no doubt that they were miracles. A miracle is something that suspends or sets aside the laws of nature, as the miracle supersedes natural law. If men were able to perform miracles in the world today, as many claim to do, there would not be question among people whether they possessed that power or ability; there would be no doubt. People were not questioning here whether or not Jesus had worked miracles; that was evident for all to see. The people were amazed. What was happening was a question of the source of the miracle.

Matthew 12:24 “But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.”

In essence, they’re saying, He’s not doing this by the power of God, but by the power of Satan.

Matthew 12:25-27 “And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges.”

Jesus tells them that it doesn’t make any sense for Him to be casting out devils by the power of Satan because that would have Satan dividing his own kingdom. Their statement was not even logical. The Pharisees had such prejudice and such bias that they were not being logical.

Matthew 12:28 “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.”

That’s a key here. It would’ve defeated the devil’s purpose to cast out devils by the power of Satan, but to cast them out by the Spirit of God proved something. If this power came from God and the Holy Spirit, then it proved that the kingdom of God had come unto them. Of course, the kingdom had first come to the Jews before it was given to the Gentiles. Jesus is saying, If I am performing these miracles by the power of the Spirit of God, that is proving that God’s kingdom is come; that I am the Christ and what I am preaching is truth. So, miracles proved that Jesus was the Christ and that the kingdom of God had come to the Jews.

But as we’ve recently studied, what did they do with that kingdom offer? As an institution, they rejected it. As a nation, they rejected it.

Matthew 12:31-32 “Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against (or speaking against) the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.”

The translation world is a little misleading to some. He is not saying in this life nor in the life beyond. That is not what He means by world. That can’t even be the case because the fact is that no sin will be forgiven in the life that is to come. You see, now is the time of salvation and there will be no forgiveness extended after the probation period of this earthly life is over. The judgment bar is not going to be where God’s mercy is shown; His mercy is being shown and offered now, and if you refuse it by refusing the gospel, then only judgment awaits in the life to come.

The word translated world in this passage is often used in the Bible for age or dispensation. So what Jesus is saying is that those who commit this sin against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven in this age (which was then the Mosaic age, while Jesus was among them showing His divinity to them, working miracles among them) or in the age that was to come (that is, after His resurrection, when the gospel would be confirmed by the apostles and preached to the Jews and, ultimately, to the whole earth). Before Calvary and the resurrection and after Calvary and the resurrection. Before the kingdom came and after the kingdom came, there would be no forgiveness for this sin.

Why was it so serious to sin against the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit’s work in Christ and His apostles was the ultimate confirmation of Christ and God’s final appeal to them. If they rejected it, there would be nothing else to convince them. Their hearts would be so hard and impenetrable that they would never turn to Christ and be saved if they rejected the evidence that the Holy Spirit was offering and ultimately would offer in the resurrection of Jesus.

Imagine that a man is in a boat floating down the river. Below him are some dangerous rapids over which if he passes, he will go to his death. A little way down the river, a man stands on the bank and shouts a warning. The man in the boat ignores it and floats on. He says, I see no danger, and he goes on his way. A little farther down, a second man shouts a second warning, even offering to pull the man out of the water. But the man refuses again, saying, I don’t know what these people are talking about. The water looks fine to me, and he floats on by. Just before he reaches the brink, a third man shouts a final warning and makes an impassioned plea to save the man. That, too, is refused. What’s going to happen? The man has ignored all three warnings and he is going to be swept over the rushing falls to his doom. He might’ve accepted the first man’s offer and have been saved. Perhaps he rejects that offer and he waits. He still has the opportunity to accept the second man’s offer. He could still be saved. In fact, he could reject both the first and second men’s offers and still accept offer number three and have been saved. But when he passed up the third offer, he passed the deadline. He passed his last chance for salvation.

That’s what many people have done. Think about it: when man sinned in the garden of Eden, God’s justice would’ve allowed the annihilation of the human race. But mercy stepped in and stayed the judgment of God. For at least 4,000 years, through the tearful pleadings of the Old Testament prophets, God sought to turn wayward man from his sinful course with little success. In fact, the prophet Isaiah represents himself standing with outstretched arms before a disobedient and gainsaying people according to Paul (Romans 10:21).

So, through the prophets, God extended the first offer, which was largely refused. They stoned the prophets. They killed the prophets. They rejected the prophets. Then, in the fullness of time, God sent His Son to the lost world. That was offer number two. That, too, was rejected. John 1:11 reminds us that, “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” Not only did the masses reject Him as the Son of God, but they crucified Him. Yet still, the mercy of God had not run out. Just fifty days after the resurrection on the Day of Pentecost, offer number three was extended through the work and influence of the Holy Spirit, through the apostles in their revealing and confirming the gospel to the world.

But listen, friend: that’s it. That was the last opportunity. The outpouring of the gospel there in Jerusalem in those first years of the kingdom, those first years of the work of the apostles—that was the last opportunity for the Jews as a nation. There will never be another plan offered to the world. The gospel which the Holy Spirit brought to earth through the apostles that was confirmed through them by the miracles they performed, their testimony of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the final offer of mercy to ALL of mankind. If you reject the gospel plan of salvation and harden your heart against it until there is no room for repentance in your heart, doom awaits.

Since we’re not able to see Jesus perform miracles, it is impossible to commit the same sin under the same circumstances that these people were either already guilty of or on the verge of committing. You can rule out the idea that you’ve somehow, accidentally or unknowingly, committed the unpardonable sin. That’s just simply not the case. But I do want to warn you that it is possible to be just as hardhearted, just as prejudiced, just as unyielding to divine testimony as they were. And when that becomes the case, there is no salvation because there will never be any repentance. It’s not a matter of God refusing to forgive such a sin because it’s so terrible or grievous; it’s that one is unable to repent because through their own stubbornness and rejection, they have finally hardened their heart. That’s what happens over time as one hears the truth, resists the truth, and ultimately, rejects the truth.

Let me illustrate the difference. In Luke 22, when they arrested Jesus as He was there in the garden praying that night with His disciples, they took Him before the high priest and so forth. Read with me from Luke’s account.

Luke 22:63-65 “And the men that held Jesus mocked him, and smote him. And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee? And many other things blasphemously spake they against him.”

You see, they blasphemed the Son of Man. Could they be forgiven? Well, what did Peter preach to these very people just weeks after this on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2?

Acts 2:23, 36-37 “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain…Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?”

Peter didn’t say, Well, too late for you. You crucified Christ, so you can’t be saved.

Acts 2:38 “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

We can read about another class of people in John 3:1. Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews who came to Jesus by night inquiring of Him. Do you remember what he said?

John 3:1-2 “There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.”

You see, they knew. Now, a lot happened between this occasion and the final rejection of Jewish leaders, but what this shows is that the leaders of the Jews knew Jesus was from God. But many of them, because of their pride, prejudice, political agenda, and hardheartedness still refused to believe on Him. Now, that’s a hard heart. Friend, your heart can become just as hard if you willfully reject what God says. It does not happen immediately, but it happens over time. It is a dangerous, silent, subtle process.

Ephesians 4:30 “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God…”

Like a disobedient child grieves a parent, when we refuse to submit to the will of God, we are grieving the Spirit who brought and revealed that word. Stephen told the Jewish leaders in Acts 7:51, “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.” It wasn’t that the Holy Spirit was represented by some better-felt-than-told feeling, vison, or dream that they had resisted; they had resisted the word of God that was preached to them by the Holy Spirit. Do you resist the Spirit’s teaching by ignoring, resisting, arguing or fighting with the word of God? Do you realize how dangerous that is?

Paul warned in 1 Thessalonians 5:19-20, “Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings.” Just like when you pour water on a fire, you quench it, you destroy its power. That’s what happens when one finally and totally closes his mind and heart to the teachings of the Bible. It’s a dangerous thing to resist the truth that you know is true. My friend, if you’ve not obeyed the gospel, today is the day of salvation. I urge you to act upon what you know you need to do before your heart becomes so hard, you’ll never have the desire to do it. If you want to be saved, you have not committed the unpardonable sin or anything like it. But time may be running out.

 

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A substantial part of the Old Testament is prophecy. The prophets pointed their inspired telescopes toward Christ, the bright and morning star, and they predicted His coming and His divine mission. Many of those prophecies point to the life and ministry of Christ, and others point to His church, which is the kingdom of Christ or reign of Christ here upon the earth. The prophet Daniel wrote about the reign of Christ and the future of Jerusalem specifically. Recently, we studied together Jesus’ statement to the first-century Jews of His day when He said, “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate” (Matthew 23:38). We saw how and why God abandoned the temple and how it was ultimately destroyed by the Romans, which was the final stroke of God’s judgment upon the Jewish religious leaders, and how that marked the end of the literal Levitical priesthood and its many temple sacrifices.

Today, we’re going to look at an incredible prophecy in the book of Daniel that shows how God was at work in all of this nearly two thousand years ago as it transpired and backing up several hundred years before that when the prophecy was initially uttered. Read with me from Daniel 9.

Daniel 9:24-27 “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And 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. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.”

Now, much is made of this prophecy concerning supposed future events. In fact, some suggest that much of it was fulfilled in the ancient past and that we are still awaiting the fulfillment of the last segment of it. But this prophecy—all of it—was actually fulfilled almost two thousand years ago and it, like all of the other prophecies of the Old Testament, show that Jesus was who He claimed to be: the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God sent by God. In this particular prophecy, Daniel paints the entire panorama of ancient Jewish history and its culmination in the coming of Christ and in the revelation of God’s redemptive plan–the offer of the gospel and God’s final appeal to Israel. We’re going to look closely at Daniel’s prophecy: what it was pointing to and what it means.

When Daniel wrote his prophecy, Jerusalem was in ruins. The city had been destroyed and the people had been carried off a good time before into captivity as punishment for their sins. You might say Daniel had been studying the word of God that day and he remembered that Jeremiah had prophesied that there would be seventy years of this punishment. Daniel begins to wonder about that, and he begins to pray. He confesses his sins and the sins of the people. Of course, the sins of the people are what had brought them to this point, and he prays for the city of Jerusalem and its future. He wonders when God would rebuild His holy city and when God would rebuild and indwell His temple. But before Daniel could even finish his prayer, God dispatched the angel Gabriel to come down and answer him and show him what the future held for the city. Thus, contained in the verses that we read is God’s answer to Daniel. He said that an order would go out to allow the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem and that from that day, there was going to be a prophetic period of seventy weeks in which several incredibly important events would come to pass. He lists them in verse 24.

Daniel 9:24 “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.”

First of all, he says that the transgression would be finished. This means that the Jewish nation would finally reach the height of its rebellion and wickedness by ultimately rejecting its promised Messiah. They would not sink to a deeper level than when, in the very face of all of the messianic proof that was before them, they would reject and crucify the Christ and spurn the gospel that He brought. So, as bad as their sins had been as a nation, they would not see the worst for another several hundred years.

Second, he says that God would make an end of sins. That doesn’t mean that sin would vanish from the face of the earth and cease to exist in the world. Rather, that God would triumph over man’s rebellion by finally giving His people freedom from their sins.

Thirdly, he says that God would make reconciliation for iniquity, meaning that His people who had been estranged from Him because of their sins could finally and ultimately be reconciled to Him through the forgiveness that Christ would bring.

Fourthly, He would bring in everlasting righteousness. That is, the unrighteous could finally be made righteous and righteousness would reign among God’s people at last.

Then fifthly, He would seal up the vision and prophecy, which simply means that all Old Testament prophecy—which of course in its entirety points forward to Christ and His coming to earth and the establishment of His church or His kingdom—that all of that prophecy would find its final fulfillment.

Lastly, He would anoint the most holy. The Hebrew there could be rendered holy of holies or holiest One. It could be a reference to the temple or the symbolism of the most holy place. I take it to mean that a priest would finally be appointed who would be able to restrain iniquity and fully atone for sin, which would of course refer to Christ who is our great High Priest, as no other priest was able to do as Christ does.

Now, all of those things obviously point to Christ, and Gabriel the angel said that all of those things would take place within the framework of this prophetic 70 weeks. The answer to Daniel’s prayerful question would take what Gabriel calls 70 weeks for God’s determinate plan for the future of the nation to fully unfold. But what is this 70 weeks? Are we to take it as 70 literal 7-day weeks? If we did, that would be 490 days. But that wouldn’t hold any significance historically or biblically. It wouldn’t correspond to the events that God said would take place in any way, shape, or form. But also, when you deal with prophetic language, you’re dealing in figurative language. The Jews understood this. They were aware of this kind of language and they more readily understood this type of language and those kinds of symbols and figures that were used by the prophets at various times. Today, many people go way off course trying to interpret prophetic numbers and symbols as literal values or objects. The numbers that the prophets used generally represented something. In this case, the Hebrew word translated weeks actually means sevens. In other words, we can paraphrase what we read in our English version as seventy weeks into seventy sevens or seventy groups of seven. So far as the original text is concerned, they mean the same thing.

If you go back to Ezekiel’s prophecy, he shows that a day in prophecy stands for a year (Ezekiel 4:6). Whereas to us a week means 7 days, in figurative prophetic language such as Daniel uses, a week actually means a period of 7 years. So, if there were to be 70 weeks according to Daniel’s vision, what the angel is referring to is not 490 days, but a span of 490 years. That interpretation is commonly accepted by scholars, and as we will see it fits God’s timeline perfectly. In fact, it’s amazing how well it fits His timeline and the unfolding of historical events concerning Christ and our redemption.

So, we’re dealing with a period of 490 years for the sins of the ancient Jewish nation to reach their height, for God to make an end to sin, to reconcile sinners to Himself, to bring in a state of righteousness, and to provide the ultimate high priest for His people. And it is astounding to see how true and accurate God’s word really is. Daniel goes on to say in verse 25 that this period of 490 years would commence with the order to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. Well, that order came in the year 457 BC when Artaxerxes allowed Ezra to lead the people back to Jerusalem and re-establish the commonwealth, the nation of Israel. They had been captives, but now they could re-establish the nation and rebuild the city. Watch carefully, because God breaks this entire period of 70 prophetic weeks or 70 sevens (490 years altogether) into three periods that total the 490 years: the first 7 weeks, then a period of 62 weeks, then finally some things that would occur in the final 1 week period. So, remember that a week here means 7 years. So, we have the first period of 49 years (7 weeks), followed by a period of 434 years (62 weeks), and finally a period of 7 years at the end, totaling 490 years (seventy weeks).

The first period of 49 years from the time Artaxerxes gave the order essentially covers the time it took for them to return and re-establish the commonwealth of Israel and rebuild the city. That is speaking of the time that the city and the temple were being rebuilt. Then we enter into that long period of 434 years. Look again at verse 25.

Daniel 9:25 “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.”

He says there would be two periods: one 7 weeks (or 49 years) and the other 62 weeks (or 434 years) and together they would span from the time the order went out in 457 BC to the time the Messiah or the Anointed One appeared. Now, if you start at 457 BC when the order was given and go forward 49 years through the restoration of the city by the people and the resumption of the sacrificial system and so forth, and you fast forward another 434 years, that would bring you to the year 26 AD. That’s the 1^st century. You might be thinking, That doesn’t ring a bell because that’s more than twenty years after Jesus was born. Yes, but you see, Daniel’s prophecy isn’t pointing to the birth of Jesus; it’s pointing forward to when Jesus appeared as the Messiah. The word Messiah means Anointed One. Jesus didn’t begin His Messianic ministry and work until near the end of His life. Specifically, His ministry began when He was thirty years old.

Luke 3:23 “And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph…”

That ministry specifically began when He was baptized of John in the Jordan River. You recall that when Jesus came up out of the water, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and God spoke from heaven giving His approval. Jesus was their anointed as the Messiah at that moment. The first thirty years of Jesus’ life, He lived as a man—without sin, but yet He lived as a man. He wasn’t working miracles or going about preaching the kingdom. But at the end of that thirty years, He was anointed as the Messiah and He began His Messianic work, you might say.

Considering that there is an alleged error in the calendar by some four years, many if not most scholars date the baptism of Jesus at what year? 26 AD. 483 years after the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem and restore it. 69 weeks after Daniel said this prophetic period would begin. Friends, divine prophecy was not some lucky hunch or some general, vague pointer to the future. It is stunningly accurate, and it proves beyond a shadow of doubt that Jesus is the Son of God and that the Bible is His word.

But we’re not finished. That’s only 69 of Daniel’s weeks. We’re still missing a week or a period of 7 years. Here is where great controversy erupts. What is Daniel’s 70^th week? Those who believe in and teach a futuristic view of prophecy and the notion of a literal thousand year millennial reign of Christ on earth believe that there has been a pause in God’s plan and that the 70^th week is yet to come and will be fulfilled in future events pertaining to that supposed time. The millennialists reason that God put these things that pertain to Israel that will take place in the 70^th week on hold after Christ came the first time and was rejected. They reason that God will resume them when Christ comes again. They say it’s like a ticking clock that God stopped at the end of the 69^th week and will resume when the world stage is set for the events of the 70^th week, and that the present age is somewhat of a parentheses or stop-gap measure in God’s plan. They say that while God presently extends His grace to the Gentiles, His plan for the Jews is suspended and when His time for the Gentiles is up, God will resume the clock and the 70^th week will commence. But, friend, there is not one single word of such in this text. Not one indication that there would be a 2,000-year or more gap of time between the first 463 years and the last 7 years. Just as the 62 weeks began as soon as the first 7 weeks ended, so the last week began as soon as the others were complete.

You see, we’re dealing with a total of 490 years from the time the Jews were allowed by Artaxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem in 457 BC. So, what about this last week beginning in 26 AD? What about this last week or this last 7 years? What are we to make of it? Look at verses 26 and 27.

Daniel 9:26-27 ” And 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. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week (that is, the 70^th week or 1-year period) he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.”

Notice carefully that he says after the 62 weeks that ended in 26 AD—after, not at– that Messiah would be cut off, which is simply a reference to Jesus’ death on the cross. And that ultimately, the city of Jerusalem would be destroyed by an army of people to come. All of that would happen after 26 AD, so 26 AD marked the end of the second period and the beginning of the third, which Daniel said will consist of 1 week or 7 years. What is generally stated in verse 26 is then specifically prophesied in verse 27: that God would confirm the covenant with many for one week.

Jesus began His ministry and foretold the end of the old covenant and the beginning of a new one. He heralded His kingdom at the beginning of His ministry and He heralded His kingdom reign which would commence on the Day of Pentecost just after His ascension back to heaven. He spent His ministry talking about the new covenant that He would establish, fulfilling the old covenant. In fact, hours before He died, He met with His disciples and instituted the Lord’s Supper, and as He participated in an institution that went back to the old covenant, he initiated an institution that pointed forward to the new one. When He took a cup containing fruit of the vine, He said, “This cup is the new testament in my blood…” Just hours later, He died on the cross, fulfilling the old and ratifying the new.

Daniel had said that he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week (seven years) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. Now, this 7 years began at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in 26 AD. The midst or middle of the week would be 3 ½ years later, which is when Jesus died on the cross. His ministry lasted just over three years. Do you recall what happened the moment that Jesus died? An earthquake violently shook the city and the veil in the temple was rent from top to bottom. That had great significance. It marked the official end of the sacrificial system.

Now, I realize that the priests still offered sacrifices for a few years after that until the destruction of the temple in AD 70, but those sacrifices didn’t do anything. Those sacrifices had no spiritual significance whatsoever from the moment that Jesus died on the cross forward. They were never able to take away sin; it took the death of Jesus to do that, but they served a purpose in God’s remedial scheme. God demanded those sacrifices UNTIL Jesus died on the cross. And when Jesus, the Lamb of God, died on Calvary, he fulfilled every single one of those types, shadows, sacrifices, and services of the temple. He nailed all of that to the cross, doing away with it, because He fulfilled it. He brought an end halfway through the 7^th week of sacrifice and offering.

Next week, Lord willing, we will talk about the remaining 3 ½ years and what Daniel could be referring to. I hope you’ll make plans to join me for that.

 

©2019 BibleWay Media. All rights reserved. BibleWay Media grants permission to copy this material for personal use. Permission is also granted to distribute this transcript as long as it is reproduced in its entirety, used solely for its original purpose of spreading the gospel, and attribution is given to the author and Let the Bible Speak.

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The temple was the center of Jewish life and religion. Although the temple standing in Jesus’ day was not the original one built by Solomon hundreds of years before, the temple that then stood was still considered by the Jews to be God’s house and His dwelling among them. You might imagine their reaction when in Matthew 23:38 Jesus uttered this shocking prediction:

Matthew 23:38 “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.”

Why would Jesus predict the demise of what was considered the house of His Father? There is an important spiritual lesson in this statement, both for them and for us and I want to consider that in today’s study.

Ancient Israel had the unique privilege of interacting with God in a direct and personal way. First, His Shekinah glory was among them in the pillar of the cloud and the pillar of fire that led them away from Egypt and toward the Promised Land. God then took up His residence between the two cherubim on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. This was in the holy of holies in the tabernacle that Moses had constructed. As time passed, David eventually became the king and he wanted to build God a house or permanent dwelling, according to II Samuel 7. The task fell to David’s son because David was a man of war. Solomon, when he became the king, constructed a magnificent temple.

When the new temple was dedicated, God’s presence entered and filled the place, and it literally became the house of God. It was God’s dwelling amongst the Israelites. This holy place became sacred and hallowed to the nation, and their national and religious life revolved around it. Psalm 122:1 captures the thrill of that place when the psalmist says, “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD.”

But that temple had a long and varied history throughout the life of the nation. The glory days of the Davidic and Solomonic empire did not last. Sin and idolatry entered the picture and the nation went astray. When Solomon died, the kingdom—under the leadership of his incompetent and haughty son, Rehoboam—was divided. In a matter of time, the temple was destroyed and the Jews were carried off to Babylon as slaves. They were finally allowed to return and they attempted to rebuild their beloved temple, but it really was a meager effort.

The next several hundred years marked the total loss of Israel’s independence and their being occupied by different world powers, ending with the Romans by the time of the first century. The political and religious state of Israel was in a sorry state when Jesus was born. Their political misfortunes had changed their hopes of a messiah to be nothing more than a political revolutionary of some kind who would solve their problems through political and social means. Consequently, their religion was corrupted by politics and materialism until by this point their worship was merely a formality, and it was an empty shell of ritualism. God simply was not in it. The temple no longer represented what it once had because God’s glory had departed long ago.

You may recall that early in His ministry, Jesus ran the moneychangers out of the temple, accusing them of making His Father’s house into nothing more than a house of merchandise (John 2:16). Three years later, the situation was no better and Jesus a second time entered the temple and He threw out the unscrupulous and greedy moneychangers, overthrowing their tables and quoting the scriptures to them.

Matthew 21:12-13 “And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.”

Meanwhile, the Jewish leaders had already been plotting to kill Jesus. Listen carefully to what they said among themselves:

John 11:48 “If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.”

Later, as Jesus looked at Jerusalem–once the city of God, and the temple–once the house of God, He said this in our text:

Matthew 23:38 “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.”

Jesus prophesied the city and the temple’s destruction. To His own disciples, He said just three verses later, “There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matthew 24:2). Indeed, within forty years, during the Jewish war, Titus and his Roman forces decimated the temple and the city. In AD 70, Jerusalem was laid waste and the center of their Jewish life and worship was forever gone.

But did you notice the change of expression in regard to the temple? Notice that Jesus called it “God’s house.” The Old Testament scriptures identified it as “God’s house.” But the Jews called it “our house.” Then, Jesus finally says “…your house is left unto you desolate.” What that means is, what once was a holy place where God dwelt and reigned had become by this time a profane place used for their own purposes. Their religion was empty, hollow, and ineffectual. By this time, they really looked upon the temple as their own possession–at least they treated it that way—to do with as they pleased. Their religion was no longer about pleasing God and obeying Him; instead, it was for their own personal agendas, ambitions, and self-aggrandizement. No longer did the law of God regulate their worship and the practices of the temple. Rather, the traditions of their fathers ruled the day. So, it had ceased to be God’s house and now they viewed it as their house. Jesus, who was the ultimate manifestation of God in their midst, stood in the way of their purposes. Therefore, in their minds, He must be eliminated. Jesus simply says, so be it. This was no longer God’s house because God had left it, and since He was no longer there, it was marked for destruction.

There are some lessons in all of that for us. First, God has a house today in which He dwells, and that house is the church. Not a physical structure, not a building somewhere, but the congregation of His people. Paul reminded the Corinthians:

1 Corinthians 3:16-17 “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God (that is, again, the church), him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”

Paul also once told Timothy this concerning the assembly of the church:

1 Timothy 3:14-15 “These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly: But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.”

You see, Paul says the house of God is the church of the living God. That being the case, we would do well to remember that the church is the house of God and it is not our house. It is Christ’s church; it doesn’t belong to us. Therefore, it is not our prerogative to operate it however we wish and to do within it whatever we please. Yet, we hear many today talk of my church, your church, this church, or that church, but not the Lord’s church. First of all, since the Lord has a house, it is His house.

Psalm 127:1 “Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it…”

You and I don’t have a right to build a spiritual house; that authority belongs to Christ and Him alone. During His earthly ministry, Jesus promised His disciples, “…upon this rock I will build my church…” (Matthew 16:18). He said nothing about building many churches. He didn’t give authority to those men to build their own churches, neither did He grant that power to any who would come later. For example, Martin Luther was not given any authority to build a church. Neither was John Calvin or John Knox. King Henry VIII didn’t have God’s permission to build a church. John Wesley, John Smith, nor any other religious leader was ever given the right by God to build a church. Jesus alone was given that power, and that’s all He did build: one. And it is His.

Today, religious people are divided into a seemingly innumerable myriad of religious bodies and organizations, holding to different doctrines and worshipping according to their own creeds and traditions, wearing all manner of unscriptural and unbiblical names, and practicing all kinds of things that are simply not authorized in the New Testament. Friend, all of that is NOT of God. He never said anything about building 1,001 churches and He never made any allowance for women and men to take it upon themselves to do so either. The Lord has one house. He built one house, and still today He has one house. Not only did He build His own house, but He is its ruler and its head. Again, it is His house.

Colossians 1:18 “And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.”

Now, if Jesus is the head of the church and it is His house, shouldn’t it follow His word in all things? Shouldn’t He have the say for what goes on within it and not us? Doesn’t He have the ultimate authority? You see, when Jesus established the church, he placed within it what He desired. He didn’t leave it incomplete and He didn’t leave it up to you and me to furnish it however we please. He placed within it the things He desired, and only He had the right, the power, and the authority to do that. Even the apostles only spoke and directed the church as they were guided by Christ to do so.

1 Corinthians 11:1 “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.”

You see, they could only follow Paul insomuch as Paul followed Christ. Continuing on in that passage:

1 Corinthians 11:2 “Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you.”

Paul said that we are not at liberty to do as we please. But we are ordered to do what Christ commanded us to do in the way that He commanded us to do it. That is why we so strongly insist on following the commands and examples of the New Testament. That’s why we refuse to accept the unending parade of innovations that people have introduced into religion down through the centuries. That’s why our worship is simple and primitive because Christ is its author and the church is His house.

You might ask, Why don’t you people worship with an instrument? If you’ve ever visited an assembly of the Church of Christ, you probably very well noticed that we do not worship with mechanical instruments of music and sometimes people wonder why that is. Is it just to be different? No, it’s because the church that Jesus built didn’t do so. It was absent for six hundred years from the time of the church’s establishment.

You say, Well, why don’t you have Sunday schools? Why don’t you get up with the times in how you serve the Lord’s Supper? Don’t you see that you’re on the wrong side of history, not allowing women to be preachers and elders and so forth? My friend, those aren’t our decisions to make. The word of God already spoke about those matters, and you see, it’s His house and it is not ours.

By Jesus’ day, the commands of God and even the ceremonies of Moses were largely forgotten in the temple. They were certainly corrupted, long since supplemented or even replaced by the traditions of the Jews that had evolved through the centuries since the law came through Moses. That is why Jesus said this:

Matthew 15:8-9 “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”

Was it simply the fact that their worship was insincere? Is that what Jesus means when He says, their heart is far from me? No, there’s more to it than that. Their hearts were far from Christ because they were giving preference to their own desires, traditions, and their own will instead of following the law of God, the word of God. The same can be said of religion today. The so-called Christian world is covered over with doctrines and practices that are totally foreign to the church revealed in scripture. Have you really stopped to think how true that is? Have you ever stopped to investigate where all of these things that are so prevalent in religion today came from?

Some months back, we had a series on Innovations in Religion. I hope you’ll go online and look that up. Watch those lessons because we deal with a lot of that in great detail. Many people have never really stopped to think about the origins of these things. The fact is, they didn’t come from God. They came from man after Jesus built His church. Can that be said of the church with which you assemble to worship? Have the traditions of men replaced the traditions of the Lord? We are to keep the traditions or ordinances that were originally authored by the Lord and given through the apostles, and we are to do so in the way that they were given. Not adding to, taking from, changing, or rearranging. We are to do it as the Bible says to do it. That’s a command of the scriptures.

Not only the church’s practices but the teachings of the church. What does it say about our mentality, for example, concerning the house of God when we hear of churches and religious bodies voting on theological and doctrinal matters? Sometimes you hear of denominations that come together in a convention or some annual meeting and they take some social issue or doctrinal issue and weigh it and come to a vote as to whether that denomination is going to accept, recognize, preach, or enforce that doctrine, or to recognize these marriages or those, whether to include this or that teaching. Friends, the church of Christ is the pillar and ground of the truth (I Timothy 3:15). That means there is no voting on the truth. We either accept, preach, and practice the truth or we reject the truth. Now, it’s as simple as that. The truth itself never changes, and it’s not up to us to determine whether it’s truth or not; it’s up to us to either follow it or reject it. If we reject it, then sadly, we are not followers of Christ. You see, the supposed church has become our house in many cases, instead of God’s house.

Our attitude about the house of God cannot only be seen by what goes on within it, but by what it’s called. Doesn’t it stand to reason that if Christ built His house, and He is the head of His house, and He even died and shed His blood to purchase the house as Paul affirmed in Acts 20:28, that it should be called His house? That it should be referred to as His house? We’ve already pointed out that we get in the habit of talking about my church or your church, but what about the Lord’s church? There is a prophecy about the church in Isaiah 62. There, God said that He would call the Gentiles and would establish a new name within the earth. Read how Isaiah speaks of this new Israel in Christ:

Isaiah 62:2 “And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name.”

You see, the name by which His kingdom would be called (and that’s talking about the dispensation in which we live) would be given by Him, not by us. First of all, His house has a name. That name is given by the Lord. That name is Christ. After the gospel was preached to the Gentiles starting with Cornelius, the Bible says in Acts 11:26, “…And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” The disciples were called something but not just anything. They were called Christians, meaning followers, disciples of Christ. They wore His name.

You hear people today say, Names don’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you call the church or how you refer to the church. It’s still the church. But if it’s the Lord’s church, why don’t we call it the Lord’s church? Why isn’t it Christ’s church? The church was identified with Christ from the very beginning. It was and it IS His church. Is it strange then that Paul simply referred to congregations of God’s people by saying, “…The churches of Christ salute you” (Romans 16:16)? You see, that’s not merely a sign over the door. It’s not a manmade name or designation. It is a divine description of the church, of the house of God. Paul said, The churches of Christ because they are united under the headship and lordship of Christ and Christ alone. Why would we want to call the church by a name belonging to one besides Christ?

As we noted earlier, Martin Luther didn’t build the church, nor did any other man or woman. Jesus did. Why would we call the church by some name that accentuates division? When we refer to the church by some doctrine that it puts emphasis upon in contradistinction to others, isn’t that just highlighting and sanctioning the division that exists in today’s world? The church is Christ’s body. It is His house. Every true and faithful congregation of His church is united under His headship, under the authority of His teaching and His word. So, why refer to it as something else or as though it belongs to or pertains to somebody or something else? It is the Lord’s house. Or has it become our house?

You know, God had nothing to do with the temple by the end of Jesus’ ministry. His Shekinah glory had departed. Their sacrifices were ineffectual. Their prayers were unheard. Their gifts were useless, their piety was pointless, and their worship was a waste because they were not worshipping in God’s house. They had made it their own. It was therefore their house and not God’s house. Oh, they talked about God and claimed to worship and serve God but God was not there. Could it be that the many conflicting religions in our world today are Christ-less religions, having rejected His authority and His way for our own?

In closing, I would remind you of the words of Jesus:

Luke 6:46 “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?”

Matthew 15:13 “Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.”

Let us honor God’s house. May it always be God’s house in word, indeed, and in practice.

 

©2019 BibleWay Media. All rights reserved. BibleWay Media grants permission to copy this material for personal use. Permission is also granted to distribute this transcript as long as it is reproduced in its entirety, used solely for its original purpose of spreading the gospel, and attribution is given to the author and Let the Bible Speak.