15th Episode - Timeframes: 1260 Days, 42 Months, 3 1/2 Years in Revelation and Daniel

 While I was studying prophetic timeframes in Daniel and Revelation, our church accountant, Tony, was reconciling the church’s set of books. I teased him, saying, “After you’ve finished those accounts, could you help me reconcile Daniel’s 70 weeks, his 2,300 mornings and evenings, his 1,290 and 1,335 days with John’s 1,260 days, his 42 months, and both their time, times and half of time?” We had a good laugh. The same joke for my wife was also fun, and one that brings balance to her husband’s studies. She told me that “most people are just trying to live their life one day at a time.” 

 Be that as it may, how about you and I balancing these prophetic timeframes? It is time that we address Revelation’s various “timeframes.” In the last chapter, we saw the last reference to a 42-month period, and from chapter eleven to thirteen, we saw the following timeframes: “1,260 days,”“42 months,” and “time, times and half of time.” What do these timeframes mean? In the last chapter we surveyed the various approaches to 666, and in this chapter, we look at how the schools of interpretation understand these timeframes. I will also let you in on how I have perfectly reconciled them. 

Transcript

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Hi, I'm Mark Roser. Welcome back to the Unsealed Book podcast. Years ago, while I was studying the prophetic time frames in Daniel and Revelation, our church accountant, Tony, was reconciling the books. I joked with him. Tony, after you finish those accounts, help me reconcile Daniel's 70 weeks, his 2,300 mornings, evenings, his 1,290 and 1,335 days. Tony, I need your help to reconcile that with John's 1,260 days, his 42 months, and both there times, times and half a time. Well, we laughed. When I tried the same joke on my wife, however, she smiled and said, Mark, most people are just trying to live their life one day at a time. Whatever. Well, in Revelation, we do have three time frames presented. And this episode will deal with the 1,260 days, the 42 months, the time times, and half a time that appear in both Daniel and Revelation. But before we explain how they fit together, we must briefly survey how the major interpretive schools interpret them, both Daniel and Revelation. Well, praetorist, if you'll remember, the praetorist view says the events in Revelation are all first century past events. They say the same about Daniel's 1290 days, as well as the 1,335 days. They say those were events recorded later in the book of Maccabees, when the temple was desecrated and restored. That is commemorated in the Feast of Tabernacles. Well, the praetors also see the time frames in the book of Revelation, the 1,260 days, 42 months, time times and half a times as happening in the first century and culminating with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. They view that destruction as a type of the coming of the Lord in judgment. Well, the historical view and the futurist view. We've looked at these all along. The futurist views on the other end of the spectrum. Most futurists see Revelation's time frames as futur literal periods of time during a seven-year Great Tribulation. See, they divide Daniel's 70th week into two halves. That seventieth week into three and a half years each, equating them with Revelation's 1,260 days and 42 months. The time times and half of times they see. Carried over into Revelation. Well, we'll get to that. The historical view applies a day for a year. You'll find that in Numbers that the spies spent 40 days spying out the land, and because of their unbelief and rebellion, disobeying God, not entering in, they suffered a day. Yes, for each day of spying out the land, a year. That was the formula. It appears again in Ezekiel more specifically. The prophet says, I've set a day for a year. And that's how they apply in the historical view. The 1260 days are 1260 years, they claim, of papal dominance. Roughly from A.D. 538, when the Pope decreed infallibility and had ascended over all the churches and his authority, up until when Napoleon, Bonaparte Napoleon, in 1798 sacked Rome, removed the Pope, and declared Italy a republic. Well, Daniel does have these time frames, this 2300 evenings and mornings, but the context is the rise of Persia and Greece as a goat, as a as a as a lamb, as a wild goat, who uh removes the daily sacrifice. Well, the context, clearly, these animals um represent Antiochaphus Epiphanes. And the temple was desecrated, as we mentioned, and it was cleansed. There were two, however, desolations spoken of in Daniel. And that's important to understand because Jesus fulfills the first by during the seventieth week dying. And we'll talk about that in a moment. And that happened after the desecration under the Greco power. Well, the first is fulfilled before Christ comes, then, the second occurs after his death. Daniel 70 weeks. Let's talk about that. Daniel prayed over Jeremiah's prophecy of 70 years, and he fasted. And God responded with giving him a larger prophetic time frame of 77s, 490 units. These weeks outline God's redemptive plan. They culminate in the Messiah coming. And God has always liked to count in sevens with the Sabbath. So seventy-sevens, the first seven, the structure of the seventy weeks. The first seven weeks is the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity during a time of trouble when the surrounding inhabitants did not want them rebuilding the wall. Sanbalad, if you'll remember. So those were the first seven weeks or 49 years. 62 weeks leading to the Messiah, and one week culminating in his death, and the destruction of Jerusalem. After sixty-two more weeks, the anointed one, it says in Daniel 9, 26, will be cut off. The Messiah's death is followed by the destruction of the city and sanctuary by, quote, the people of the ruler who is to come, the Romans. Now, what did the Messiah accomplish? According to Daniel 9, verse 24, six accomplishments of the Messiah's death are being cut off. He finishes transgression. He makes an end to sin. He makes reconciliation for iniquity. He brings in everlasting salvation. And he seals up the vision and prophecy. And he anoints the Most Holy. That was Christ being anointed, sealing up the vision and prophecy of Daniel, and by his death bringing in everlasting righteousness, having obtained, it says in Hebrews, eternal redemption. Yes, he who knew no sin was made sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ. So he makes reconciliation. When he says it is finished, he pays the full price for sin to finish transgression. Now, every one of these Christ fulfilled in his first coming. His death ended the sacrificial system spiritually. Rome ended it physically because the Jewish people kept dotting over the temple worship even after Christ had come. But Rome came and destroyed the temple physically, fulfilling Jesus' prophecy, not one stone will be left on another. Well, when did the 70th week end? Now, some argue the 70th week, still a half of it at least, or the whole, is future. But Jesus himself places Daniel's abomination of desolation in the Roman siege of Jerusalem. Luke 21, verse 20 is pretty clear because in Luke, Jerusalem will be trodden down of the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled. We'll see that later in Revelation. Again, we saw it and Jesus said in Luke 21, 20, Your house is left to you desolate. Fulfilling Matthew 23, 38. The destruction of the temple completed the purposes we're saying of the 70 weeks. The 70 weeks do not extend into the distant future, nor require a rebuilt temple. Some futurists have a rebuilt temple. And Daniel and John share only one time frame. That is the time times and half a time, which is three and a half years. Time one year, times two years, half a time, half a year. Now, this does appear in Revelation as 1260 days, 42 months, time times, and half a time. But these time frames occur in visions filled with symbolic beasts, horns, imagery. The years are prophetic units, not calendar years. A prophetic year is not 360 days or exactly 42 months. No, they're symbolic, not literal countdown by which we might have a roadmap to the end of the age. Prophetic time frames, we say. And it's important to recognize that Daniel's 70th week, his time frame of a time times and half a time, is not taken from the 70 weeks. This expression appears on its own after the 70 weeks, when Daniel asks, How long? How long is this going to continue? For a time, it says in Daniel 12, verse 6. For a time, times and half a time. Daniel 12, 7. Now, this is not tied to the first coming, it's tied to the end. John picks up this unfinished symbolic time frame out of Daniel and uses it, as Daniel is told, to describe the entire period which the church suffers and the witnesses witness. And the woman wanders and waits. So Daniel has these three and a half time frames: 1260 days, 42 months, the time times, and half a times. And let me just talk about this as well, because I think it's interesting that what we do see in the book of Daniel with these symbolic time frames is that the symbolic one thing is given in place of another. That's what symbolism does. Times. Time and half a times not only produces three and a half, a very versatile number, and three and a half is a seven, a complete number, broken right in half. But it also explains the symbolic nature of the number when it's used, showing its internal structure, meaning it's time, times and half a time. See, that has a structure of one, two, and a half. So whatever the one time represents, the two time also represents, except there is a doubling or an intensifying, a prolonging. As we saw with the pauses after six, after the sixth seal, before the seventh seal, a paw. Same with the trumpet, after the sixth trumpet, a paw, because the end cannot come until God has sealed all his servants, and until he deals with his temple and includes his people Israel. So likewise the half a time represents the same thing again. There is a limiting or a cutting short. I like what Matthew Henry says here. It shall be for a time, a considerable time, for times, a longer time still, double what it was thought at the first that it should be, and yet it shall be but half a time or a part of a time. When it's over, it shall seem not half so much as was feared. That's Matthew Henry's commentary. And Jesus said those days would be shortened for the elect's sake. In line with Revelation's apocalyptic nature, what we are saying is the 1260 days, the 42 months, the time times, and half a times are symbolic time frames describing the character of our time, or the kind of era in which we live. Just like the kind of events that would happen. And the time frame is given in a plural kind of way: days, months, and in years. Three and a half consistently signifies a troublesome time frame. It is a time of testing, as we said, a broken seven, when God's purposes are being worked out but are yet unrealized. Yes, being a broken seven, three and a half indicates a restless, unfulfilled time, between times, before we reach the end. Three and a half in terms of years, yes, is 42 months. When it's associated with Satan's activity, it's given in months. Making war on the saints, persecuting the woman. 42, 42. It's a complete time that Satan is given to work his evil activities among men. Just as 40, the number 40, is a time of testing. Yes, 42 is six, evil identified, times seven of complete time he's allowed to operate. Now, 1260 days, when it focuses on God's people, has the number 12 in it. Namely, it applies to the witnesses and the woman who testify, the two witnesses. Recall, 12 is the number of discipleship. Now, by realizing the symbolic use of these numbers, whether in months or days, or as we saw in years, times, we will avoid the limitation of the praetorists, the historical, and the futurists' interpretation. We'll see that the book of Revelation speaks to the church throughout her sojourn in this world. So John's visions cannot be reduced to only a few literal days, months, or years, as men reckon them. And in the next chapter or episode, we will pick up where we left off in the text of Revelation in chapter 13. See, John showed us the followers of the beast, and in chapter 14, he will show us the followers of the Lamb. John continually uses parallels in his book, as we've seen. Two witnesses, two beast. We'll later see the church, the bride of Christ, contrast it with, parallel to the whore of Babylon. So the seventy weeks were fulfilled in the first coming, and the outstanding time frame carried from Daniel, a separate time frame to the 70 weeks, is found in the book of Revelation to signify the time that remains. It is symbolic time. Now each week we talk about the current events that are happening in our world. My wife and I, Pat, we're still in Zimbabwe and we're watching with great concern and with prayer. And before we pray to end this episode, we want to pray. The war, the conflict in Iran continues. It's continuing into its second week. And our prayer is that Iran will experience a new day, a day in which there will be freedom, democracy, that the church will not be persecuted, that believers can openly gather and share their faith. Well, we still hope that may happen. Though it may look like a long shot still, that is our prayer because the concern is if the current regime continues, they will be more oppressive and more bent on the destruction of Israel. Now, God may allow and permit that to bring about a fulfillment of the prophecy in Ezekiel concerning Gog and Magog. Persia is with her. But if that regime continues, we could see the animosity increasing and their attempt to continue to obtain a nuclear bomb, even if it's 20 years from now, without regime change. But with regime change, what could happen is the Abrahamic Accord could be expanded to other nations in the Middle East and strengthened. Iran could become a pro-Western friendly nation to Israel. And we could have what Paul spoke about, a time when everyone is saying peace and safety, which Paul spoke of, though, in terms of when they say it, then sudden destruction comes. And you'll recall also Ezekiel's prophecy speaks of Ezekiel says Israel will have secure borders. And there'll be no threat. They'll be at peace. And this will happen at a time when there's peace and safety. Well, God knows how all these scriptures are going to be fulfilled. And we look at general trends and types, kinds of events, and we're going to get, though, into Revelation 14, and we're going to revisit the subject of Israel as John does himself later. Until then, let's pray. God, intervene in our world. We pray. In Jesus' name, we pray for the people of Iran that they might know peace and freedom, that they might be able to worship and gather freely. Father, we are asking for this. And we are asking that your people in Israel would have peace as well. Lord, we know this has been a time of Jacob's troubles, but we're praying, Lord, for the peace. And that they will turn to you and cry out to you in their distress. Father, we're asking this in Jesus' name. Amen. Until next time, God bless you and keep you.