The Resurrection of Christ

Another way of proving that the prophecy of the sixty-nine weeks was fulfilled comes from viewing it as a poem employing symbolism. The angel's entire message is united by poetic structure, of the type known as step parallelism. Symbolism is a feature of much great poetry both in the Bible and in all other literary traditions.

Twice in his prayer recorded in Daniel 9, in verses 16 and 20, Daniel refers to Jerusalem as the holy mountain of God. In a veiled manner he suggests that the holy mountain bears a double sense. Although he states that he has prayed on behalf of "the holy mountain of God" (verse 20), the actual closing words of his prayer seek divine aid for "thy city and thy people" (verse 19). It appears, then, that the holy mountain, Jerusalem, can represent either the actual city in Palestine or the spiritual body of people originating in that city.

The same double sense in the term "mountain" stands out prominently in Daniel 2. The stone that fell upon the feet of the image was cut out without hands from a mountain (verse 45). Then after it pulverized the whole image, it grew and became a great mountain filling the whole earth (verse 35). In the first sense, the mountain is earthly Jerusalem, the physical place where God created a people for Himself. In the second sense, the mountain is spiritual Jerusalem, the people of God when they have grown to full number and taken the whole earth as their possession.

In Daniel 9:25, we read of a "commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem." Having discovered a double meaning in Jerusalem elsewhere, we are entitled to wonder whether Jerusalem here might be a symbol as well as the name of an actual place. If it is a symbol, it has only one possible meaning, since Scripture is consistent in its use of symbols. It must refer to the people of God.

Jerusalem as the Church

From Daniel's perspective, the people of God were the godly in Israel. But after the Cross, we have a better understanding of who belongs to this privileged group. We know now that the godly in Israel were merely the forerunners of a great body of believers who would be taken from all nations and tribes. The single spiritual body uniting these believers, both Israelite and gentile, is known as the church. It is therefore appropriate, upon recognizing Jerusalem in Daniel 9 as a symbol for the people of God, to identify the people as the church. Indeed, like the godly in Israel, the church sees Jerusalem as its home city. It was born there on the day of Pentecost. There Jesus carried out His redemptive work. Jerusalem was the spiritual home of the Jews who became the first Christians.

We should never foist symbolism on a text to avoid its literal meaning, if the literal meaning is possible. And we must always limit ourselves to symbols that Scripture itself defines. For example, when used as a symbol, leaven is always evil, a star is always an angel, and a fig tree is always Israel. But we violate neither rule if we suppose that Jerusalem in Daniel 9 is a symbol of the church. We are not denying its primary reference to an actual city. Moreover, we are adopting a usage found elsewhere in Scripture.

In Hebrews 12:22, Jerusalem, or Zion, is a name for the heavenly city, and in Revelation 21:2, 9-10, where the church appears with some mystery under the description "the bride, the Lamb's wife," the heavenly city is a picture of the church. For Christians down through the centuries, Zion has been one of the most familiar and beloved of all Biblical symbols. Recognition that it stands for the church pervades older commentaries and older hymns. Among these hymns are "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken, Zion, City of Our God" and "Hail to the Brightness of Zion's Glad Morning."

Some might object that in treating Jerusalem as a symbol for the church, we are imposing a New Testament idea on the Old Testament. But the Bible is the work of one author, God. If we can go to the New Testament to determine the length of a prophetic year, we can go there also to learn the larger significance of Jerusalem.

Opening and Closing Events

If we come to Daniel 9:25 with eyes open to symbolism, we find another prophecy concealed beneath the obvious and well-known prophecy that we have already expounded. The oracle implies that there would be sixty-nine weeks "from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build" not only the actual city of Jerusalem, but also spiritual Jerusalem. "Commandment" can be translated simply as "word" and "restore" as "turn back" or "convert." Therefore, at the symbolic level of meaning, the initial event is a word to convert and build the church. The word obviously intended is Jesus' announcement in Matthew 16:18 that "upon this rock I will build my church." By our reckoning, the date was December 8/9, A.D. 31.

If this announcement is the opening event in a second interval of sixty-nine weeks, what is the terminal event? That is, in relation to God's intention to build His church, what event revealed Jesus as Messiah the Prince? The wording "unto the Messiah the Prince" is deliberately vague to allow more than one fulfillment. As we have seen, it aptly describes the Transfiguration. But just as aptly, it describes Jesus' no less significant appearing at the Resurrection.

According to the Old Testament, the Messiah was the man who would save us from sin. The work of salvation was finished when Jesus rose from the dead. Therefore, the Resurrection marked Jesus as the One whom the church could embrace as the Messiah—in other words, as the One who succeeded in rescuing the church from sin and hell.

At the Transfiguration, Jesus was first seen as King, but at the Resurrection, He was first seen exercising His kingly power (Romans 1:14), especially His power to build the church as He promised. This work started when He ascended to the Father and presented His body as a sacrifice for sins. His body then became the invisible, universal church to which all believers are joined. As a result of union with His body, they will live forever, as He will live forever.

Some might object that it is improper to find double meaning in Daniel 9:25—the first a prophecy about the city Jerusalem, the second about the church. But let them remember that double meaning is a common feature of Bible prophecy. The prime example is Malachi 4:5, which refers both to John the Baptist and to one of the two witnesses who will appear during the seventieth week. Let them remember too that Daniel solved the riddle on the wall at Belshazzar's feast only by recognizing that the words had double meaning. "TEKEL," for example, meant either "weighed" or "found wanting." "PERES" meant either "divided" or "Persian." Since the prophecy of the sixty-nine weeks is manifestly another riddle, we must allow the possibility that it contains double meaning also.

Convergence of Prophecy and History

The second prophecy we have unearthed from Daniel 9:25 refers to a sixty-nine week interval that opens with Jesus' promise to build the church and closes with the Resurrection. Since both events lie within the lifetime of one man, we must assume that the weeks are ordinary weeks.

Was the prophecy fulfilled? From the date of Nehemiah's prayer, we deduced that the Messiah would come during the month following December 8/9, A.D. 31. Then we made an assumption—that this was the day when Jesus announced the Transfiguration. Since this assumption yields a solution of the prophecy that Scripture urges us to understand, it must be correct. We made also a second assumption, which now becomes critical—that on this same day came the other three momentous announcements recorded in Matthew 16, all connected with the completion of the sixty-nine weeks. That is, on December 8/9, A.D. 31, Jesus revealed four great truths: He was the Christ, He would build His church, He would undergo suffering and death, and He would soon come in His kingdom. We provided evidence from the other Synoptic Gospels that the second assumption is correct.

The opening date of the sixty-nine weeks pertaining to spiritual Jerusalem was therefore December 8/9, A.D. 31. If the Crucifixion fell on April 3, A.D. 33, the date of the Resurrection was April 5 of the same year. The lapse between the date in A.D. 31 and the date of the Resurrection is exactly 483 days, or sixty-nine ordinary weeks.

A Pattern by Design

We have come to an amazing result, with profound significance in two respects.

We have verified again that the main prophecy in Daniel 9:25—the prophecy concerning the coming of Christ sixty-nine weeks after the rebuilding of the actual city—was fulfilled. It predicts that the Messiah would come during the month following December 8/9, A.D. 31. We argued that this was the date of the momentous declarations recorded in Matthew 16, including Jesus' announcement that He would build His church. By recognizing the double meaning in Jerusalem, we discovered a second prophecy that sets the Resurrection 483 days later. By computation, the date was April 5, A.D. 33. The strong historical and chronological evidence confirming that this was indeed the date of the Resurrection shows that the earlier date, December 8/9, A.D. 31, must be correct. Moreover, since the Transfiguration was indisputably six days after this earlier date, the same evidence shows that our date for the Transfiguration, December 14/15, must be correct also.
We have discovered a scheme of intervals that must be supernatural. From the Book of Nehemiah, we learned that Nehemiah prayed during the month following November 17/18. 446 B.C. From the study of New Testament chronology, we concluded that Jesus rose on April 5, A.D. 33. The two dates are totally independent. Each rests on evidence and reasoning that in no way takes account of the other. Yet look at the relationship between them. From the first we obtain the second by moving forward in two simple steps: by sixty-nine prophetic weeks (coming to December 8/9, A.D. 31), then by sixty-nine ordinary weeks.

Could successive sixty-nine week intervals between the given date in 446 B.C. and the given date in A.D. 33 be mere coincidence? To calculate the probability that such a pattern could be a chance outcome is a difficult task. It requires that we first determine all possible outcomes. If we look for the probability that such a pattern might emerge between any datable event in the Old Testament and any datable event in the New Testament, we must specify the number of these events as well as the possible range of the period between one event and the other. It may be shown that for every set of reasonable estimates, the probability is low, but not essentially zero. Yet the probability diminishes to essentially zero if we attach the requirement that the events at the beginning and the end must seem to fit the prophecy. The scheme of intervals we have uncovered is not accident, but design.

This sort of convergence between prophecy and history cannot be dismissed as mere coincidence. The prophecy of the sixty-nine weeks is clearly supernatural in origin. In all of the world's literature apart from the Bible, there is no prophecy that correctly specifies the nature and timing of unusual events hundreds of years in the future. Thus, the prophecy of the sixty-nine weeks is in itself enough to establish, first, that the Bible is the Word of God and, secondly, that the One who came at the appointed time was the promised Messiah.