The Seven-Year Tribulation

There are many Christians who today hold to a theology, and belief, that there is a seven-year tribulation period following the rapture of the saints, or the Church.

This idea of a seven-year tribulation is relatively new, as it only emerged in the mid-1800s and took shape in mid-1900s. Before that the Church of Jesus, by and large, did not see any such seven-year tribulation period, nor was there hardly any idea of the so named rapture.

Both the rapture and the seven year tribulation came out from interpretations of the scriptures from John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) and later his ideas and doctrine were picked up and disseminated widely by Cyrus Ingerson Scofield (1843-1921) in his publication of the Scofield Reference Bible (first published 1909) where Scofield took a King James Bible, and cut it up, placing his own notes, or commentary, based largely on the ideas and bible interpretation of Darby and his writings, which Scofield plagiarized in the margins of his new bible.

John Nelson Darby, a defrocked Irish cleric, is regarded by many as the father of dispensationalism.

Classical dispensational theology is based on a literalist futurist interpretation of the Bible, which focuses on an Israel-centered salvation story and not a Christ-centered theology. This unorthodox theology got its name from Darby’s reading of the Bible, in which he divided it up into several economies, or dispensations, of time in which God deals with mankind differently.

Darby assumed there was a pattern throughout the bible, where God offers deliverance and prosperity to his people Israel based on their obedience, or judgement based on disobedience. Because in each dispensation humankind is alleged by Darby to have failed the test of obedience, this brought on a new dispensation with new opportunities.

Unfortunately, Darby believed that his present dispensation of biblical time, the age of the Church and age of the Holy Ghost, had also failed or was already failing, so he centered salvation on Israel, and the millennial future kingdom of God, with a future Jewish kingdom.

Darby narrowly focused the Bible into several key dispensations, which today thanks to Scofield, who adapted Darby’s five original dispensations to seven, can be seen in following widely accepted examples:

1. Innocence
2. Conscience
3. Human Government
4. Promise
5. Law
6. Church (or Grace)
7. Kingdom

Darby focused his system of theology on the physical nation of Israel and future Jewish kingdom in the millennium. Darby claimed there were two divine plans of salvation, one for the Jews—God’s earthly people, and one for the Church—God’s heavenly people.

Darby believed since the Jewish people rejected Jesus as their savior, and thus interrupted the divine plan of God, God therefore postponed the kingdom of God and created a “great parenthesis,” leaving the Church in decline and the Jewish people in limbo until the Second Coming of Christ Jesus.

According to Darby, at that time God would reinstate the Jewish people, a Jewish kingdom, the Jewish city of Jerusalem, and the Jewish temple ritual worship and sacrifices system.

It is important to realize that for many evangelicals today dispensationalism or dispensational theology may not mean very much except it has to do with Jesus Second Coming and the end time events. For these evangelicals the restoration of the nation of Israel, its receiving Jesus as the Messiah is merely part of those end time events that are in a premillennial framework, and thus their central message of the gospel is their focus on Jesus Christ. Their view of the book of Revelation is Christ-centered as the revelation of Jesus and not the revelation of the nation of Israel, or Israel-centered.

Paul Pomerville in his amazing book The New Testament Case Against Christian Zionism illustrated four basic categories that the evangelical community today can be broken down to as regards to the influence of dispensational theology within the larger Church.

1. Evangelicals fully committed to Reformation systematic theology and premillennial view of the Second Coming of Christ and end-time events (no connection to dispensational theology.)

2. Evangelicals that hold to a “biblical theology” and use the historical-grammatical hermeneutic; their biblical theology focuses on Israel as a vehicle of God’s Christ-centered plan of redemption in salvation history while holding to Reformation theology giving primacy to the New Testament.

3. Evangelicals influenced by Darby’s dispensational theology, to varying degrees, usually as an ad hoc theology of end times, while still holding to Reformation theology in self-contradiction and holding to a primacy of the gospel and the New Testament.

4. Pseudo-Christian Zionists and progressive dispensationalists who commit to either “classical” or a “revised” Darby system of dispensational theology and its hermeneutic. Progressive dispensationalists who attempt to reconcile a revised system of dispensationalist theology with Reformation theology. Pseudo-Christian Zionists, on the other hand, radicalize the unorthodox Darby system of dispensational theology while overtly reject Reformation theology, marginalizing the New Testament and perverting the gospel.

Because Darby instituted a parenthesis in the time of his dispensation theology, there must follow a gap in the interpretation and reading of Daniel 9:24-27.

C.I. Scofield, who was not a bible scholar, relying on Darby’s dispensationalism read the prophet Daniel and misinterpreted Daniel 9:24-27 to be split into two parts showing the first part referring to the Messiah, or Jesus the Christ, and second part referring to the antichrist, creating a several thousand-year gap of current Church-age of the Holy Ghost, from Christ extending to the so called seven-year tribulation period.

Let’s look at the scripture, and see if we can’t figure out the correct interpretation.

Daniel 9:20-27
¶ And whiles I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before YHWH my God for the holy mountain of my God; 21 Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation. 22 And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. 23 At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision. 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. 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. 26 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. 27 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.

A proper reading of this scripture to “understand the matter, and consider the vision,” is to read all of Daniel 9:24-27 as one continuous text referring largely to Christ.

Let’s look at this, and break it down line by line.

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.

Seventy weeks, a time period set by God, are determined on Daniel’s people Israel and upon the holy city Jerusalem, to finish the transgression, (this was finished when Jesus bled on the cross for his people Israel) to make an end of sin, and make reconciliation for iniquity (this happened when Jesus died on the cross for the sin of the world), to bring in everlasting righteousness (again, Jesus accomplished this), to seal up the vision and prophecy (Jesus fulfilled the prophecy) and to anoint the most holy (this was accomplished by Jesus on his cross, the blood of the lamb making atonement once and for all).

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.

This time period, the angel Gabriel gives to Daniel, refers to a future commandment to restore and build Jerusalem and extends to the arrival of the Messiah.

Understand, this time period of seventy weeks is not a literal 70 weeks, for the house of Judah in Babylonian captivity (586 BC) lasted for seventy years.

The 70 weeks must be interpreted in the context of the Bible, and we have another prophet, the prophet Ezekiel, who was commanded by YHWH to lie on his side and bear the iniquity of Judah. Let’s read that scripture.

Ezekiel 4:1-12
¶ Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and pourtray upon it the city, even Jerusalem: 2 And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about. 3 Moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel. 4 Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity. 5 For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. 6 And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year. 7 Therefore thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and thine arm shall be uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it. 8 And, behold, I will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege. 9 ¶ Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof. 10 And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it. 11 Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink. 12 And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.

So, from the prophetical book of Ezekiel, God has shown the reader that one prophetical day means one literal year.

With this knowledge of God, let’s now do the math.

70 weeks. A week has 7 days, therefore there are 490 days. Using Ezekiel’s one day for a year principle, means we have 490 years.

So, going forth from the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, is where the prophecy starts.

This commandment came in around 457 or 458 BC by the Persian king Cyrus, allowing this restoration of Jerusalem to happen. The angel said the time was “seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks,” or 62 weeks and 7 weeks, which is a total of 69 weeks. Using Ezekiel’s time principle, we have 483 years.

So, starting with 457 BC and subtracting from 483 years, we have 26 or that puts us about 26 AD.

But realize there is no 0 year in our date time keeping, it goes from 1 BC to 1 AD. So, that bring us to around 27 AD.

Most people do not realize that a Hebrew year based on the Hebrew Sabbath is actually longer in time than our 12 months year of time because its reliant on the Hebrew lunar/solar calendar. So, essentially, we could possibly be looking at 29 or 30 AD which is likely when Jesus started his ministry to Israel. It’s believed Jesus died on the cross roughly three years of his ministry later on the Passover of 33AD.

Continue to read Daniel.

Daniel 9:26
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.

This is referring to the crucifixion of Jesus, and the later destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

Daniel 9:27
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.

The “he” in this scripture is the Messiah, Jesus the Christ, who confirmed the New Testament, or the New Covenant YHWH made with Israel.

From the time Jesus begins his ministry, to the time of the start of the age of Christ’s apostles with the Holy Ghost, and ministry to Gentiles has begun, is one week, or seven years.

In the midst of this week, Christ in his death on the cross ended, or annulled, the ritual sacrifices at the temple, and they meant nothing any more to God, for Jesus was our one-time holy blood sacrifice and atonement for the sins of Israel and all the sin of the world.

Later, God would make Jerusalem desolate, in the 70 AD Roman siege and do away with the temple of Israel (forever, as it meant nothing any more to God).

Where Scofield and many other like-minded dispensational Christians who have misinterpreted Daniel 9:24-27, is that they insert a gap in the scriptures which does not exist.

Therefore, they teach the following idea which can be seen in the 2015 Amplified Holy Bible by Zondervan press where the bottom notes in the Bible state regarding Daniel 9:24:

The prophecy that follows pertains only to the Jews and Jerusalem. It records six objectives to be achieved by the Messiah. The first three are resolved by the death and resurrection of Jesus, the final three are resolved at His second coming.

The first mistake made here (by the Bible Scholars) is that the prophecy pertains to ISRAEL the people of ISRAEL which include both house of Judah, the Jews, and Israel, the house of ten lost tribes of Israel.

Jesus did not die only for “the Jews” or house of Judah.

Second mistake here is to break up the scripture.

All of the objectives were achieved on the cross by Jesus the Christ. His death, and resurrection, and ascension all took place “in the midst of the week.”

Once Jesus had ascended to heaven, after his resurrection, he surely anointed “the most Holy,” as Christ is our High Priest.

John 20:17
Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

This is clearly mentioned in the book of Hebrews.

Hebrews 9:11-12
But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; 12 Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.

Hebrews 9:12 does not read ‘but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place but only when Jesus returns in his second coming.’

Such a doctrinal belief is nonsense!

As stated before, many confuse the second part of Daniel 9:27 by reading it and misinterpreting it to refer to the antichrist, who is supposed to make a covenant with the Jews during a last seven-year period of tribulation?

Why is this believed by so many?

Because Scofield taught them so.

The Scofield Study Bible on the discussion of Seventy Weeks states:

“These are “weeks’ or more accurately, sevens of years; seventy weeks of seven years each. …The seventy weeks are divided in to seven ==49 years; sixty-two =434 years; one =7 years (vs. 25-27). In the seven weeks ==49 years, Jerusalem was to be rebuilt in “troublous times.” This was fulfilled, as Ezra and Nehemiah record. Sixty-two weeks == 434 years, thereafter Messiah was to come (Daniel 9:25). This was fulfilled in the birth and manifestation of Christ. Daniel 9:26 26 is obviously an intermediate period. The date of the crucifixion is not fixed…

…When the Church-age will end, and the seventieth week begin, is nowhere revealed. Its duration can be but seven years. To make it more violates the principle of interpretation already confirmed by fulfilment. Daniel 9:27 deals with the last week. The “he” of Daniel 9:27 is the “prince that shall come” of Daniel 9:26, whose people (Rome) destroyed the temple, A.D. 70. He is the same with the “little horn” of chapter 7. He will covenant with the Jews to restore their temple sacrifices for one week (seven years), but in middle of that time he will break the covenant and an fulfill: Daniel 12:11; 2 Thessalonians 2:3 2 Thessalonians 2:4. Between the sixty-ninth week, after which Messiah was cut off, and the seventieth week, within which the “little horn” of Daniel 7. will run his awful course, intervenes this entire Church-age. Daniel 9:27 deals with the last three and a half years of the seven, which are identical with the “great tribulation.” Matthew 24:15-28 “time of trouble” Daniel 12:1 "hour of temptation” Revelation 3:10…”

This is simply a bad interpretation of the Bible scriptures; something Scofield was quite often witnessed doing, making poor interpretations of the scriptures in his reference bible, leading to ridiculous proclamations, gross conclusions, and even heresy.

I won’t go into all of problems of Scofield’s ill repute and double-minded life as a Christian, when he was teaching and writing his reference bible, but I believe Scofield never should have added to the Word of God in the form of a bible version which many then bible illiterate in early 1900s simply thought his words were a part of the actual the Word of God.

Revelation 22:18 -19
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: 19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

There is no last seven years of tribulation! Nor is there a several thousand-year-old gap in time because the Jewish people rejected their savior. Nor is this seven years tribulation mentioned in the bible.

Darby, Scofield and their classical dispensational theology are not only wrong, but can be dangerous to a Christian’s theological belief.

Why? Because it ignores and usurps the Gospel of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven on earth which is the present kingdom of the Holy Ghost on earth.

Many call this the age of grace. By the grace of God, you have the Holy Ghost within you.

Luke 17:20
¶ And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: 21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

We —who have been baptized and received indwelling of the Holy Ghost —now wait for the return of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior who will return one day soon and only then, after the tribulation we are experiencing in this present world begin to get horrible, shall he appear and gather the saints, the dead in Christ first, and those of us blessed to be alive who are worthy of God’s salvation.

The pre-tribulation rapture simply does not exist. We will certainly go through the tribulation before Christ returns to saves his elect.

Radical dispensational theology is dangerous to the present-day Jewish people, who are told by false Christians, such as Zionist Christians, they don’t have to have faith in Jesus to be saved. They say God, when Jesus returns, will save the Jews in a separate salvation plan of God.

There won’t be a mass awakening of the Jewish people, if they don’t believe in this present age, and have ignored Moses own words, Jesus the Christ, his apostles, the Church, and the two witnesses, who shall one day come on the earth to Jerusalem; they won’t be saved.

Who is actively preaching the Gospel of Jesus to the Jewish people today?

Christians need to put down the bible commentary notes and read their Holy Bible more closely.

I would suggest in addition to reading other bible translations, that you make sure to read an Authorized King James Version Bible.

While the King James Bible is harder to read for some, and may not be perfect, it is far better a translation than most other modern easy to read modern language and note filled bibles, that can distort the message of the Greek and Hebrew text of the Bible, and flood the Church today.

It is my sincere prayer that you have learned something, or you have been edified, and that if you believe in classical dispensationalism, the rapture, and the seven-year tribulation, that you might think again and you turn back to your Holy Bible and learn the truth of what the Word of God says.