Prophecy doesn’t make things come true; they look ahead and tell us what will happen naturally.

14 The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, turning a person from the snares of death.

Yesterday, we were reading in Daniel 9. Let’s review:

²⁴ “Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city [Jerusalem] to finish sin, to set an end to sin, to wipe out lawlessness, to atone for wrongdoings, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Holy of Holies.” LXX

Much of this verse seems like code; if it is, then the answer to the code is in the next two verses,

²⁵ “You shall know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the word to be answered and to build Jerusalem, until Christ the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. Then the time shall return, and the streets and the wall shall be built; the times shall be left desolate.
²⁶ “After the sixty-two weeks, the Anointed One shall be put to death, yet there shall be no upright judgment for Him; and he shall destroy the city and the sanctuary with the prince who is coming, and they shall be cut off with a flood, and to the end of the war, which will be cut short, he shall appoint the city to desolations.

Hindsight is 20/20, so we get to apply history to these verses.

1. The decree by Artaxerxes to allow the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem and their temple was given in 444 B.C.
2. All the weeks are actually years and add up to 490 years.
3. There were seven weeks (49 years) to build Jerusalem and the temple, and then sixty-two weeks (441 years) until Christ entered Jerusalem on…a donkey’s colt! After which He was put to death–only to rise again!

Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem fulfilled several prophecies to the day and began a week on which all history pivots. On the cross, Jesus reached back with one hand to include all who had already died, and He reached ahead with His other hand to include everyone from that point on. There are three passages that explain this point:

²⁵ For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he passed over the sins previously committed, ²⁶ for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus. Romans 3:25-26

³² For God has bound everyone [those before and those after] over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all [at one time]. Roman 11:32

¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵ by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶ and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. Ephesians 2:14-16

Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem that day was, indeed, momentous. What would have happened if He had ridden in on a white stallion? Let’s talk about that tomorrow.

Abba, thank You for telling us ahead of time what was going to happen. It didn’t make sense to the apostles as it happened, but it sure did after You rose from the dead! Thank You for opening their minds to the Scriptures. Please open our minds, too, so that we can appreciate all that You have done for us. Amen.