Regarding This Fullness of Time

Mark tells us the first public declaration of Jesus’ ministry was, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mk 1:15). Paul tells us God sent forth His Son when “the fullness of the time had come” (Gal 4:4). What time was fulfilled? What timeframe had filled up?

I submit the “seventy sevens” Gabriel told Daniel about in Daniel chapter 9. The chapter opens with Daniel realizing another time had been fulfilled: The seventy years of exile God had decreed through Jeremiah. Recognizing their fulfillment, the beloved prophet fasted and prayed. As he cried out to God, he fully embraced God’s rationale and covenantal right to punish His people during those seventy years. It was their fault, not the Lord’s. But confident God would be faithful to His word and sure of His mercy, Daniel asked the Lord to now bless His people.

And that’s when the angel Gabriel arrived to explain to the prophet that it would take seventy times seven years to fully deal with the pox of sin. History shows those nearly five centuries unfolded, from the decree of Cyrus to the appearance of John the Baptist, right up to the declaration of Jesus.

Now the time that the sons of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years. And it happened at the end of 430 years, to the very day, that all the hosts of Yahweh went out from the land of Egypt (Exo 12:40-41). Moses, a type of Christ, delivered the people at the precise fulfillment of the Lord’s prophecy to Abraham about his seed in Egypt. And that deliverance culminated with the Passover Lamb. So, Jesus, the True Deliverer of God’s people and the true Passover Lamb, performed His good and great work in time and on time, in fulfillment of prophecy.

Let us consider the key verse in Gabriel’s prophecy, Dan 9:24. Yes, people want to look to Daniel 9 about the end times, but the angel said the point of the seventy sevens was this:

“Seventy weeks have been determined for your people and for your holy city,
1) to finish the transgression,
2) to make an end of sin,
3) to make atonement for iniquity,
4) to bring in everlasting righteousness,
5) to seal up vision and prophecy,
6) and to anoint the Holy of Holies” (Dan 9:24)

I hope it is apparent to you, Theophilus, that Jesus Christ fulfilled all of that amazing to-do list nearly 2,000 years ago. As Jesus stated on the cross just before dying, “It is finished.”

Items 3 and 4 almost go without saying. Jesus is “the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29) and has become “the Source of eternal salvation” (Heb 5:9). And again, “For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Heb 10:14).

As for Item 5, consider what happened on the road to Emmaus as the Good Shepherd found and recovered a couple of His sheep scattered by His trial and execution. We read this:

“Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?" Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He interpreted to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures (Luk 24:26-27).

Jesus explained to them how He had sealed up vision and prophecy. Peter said the same thing to those gathered in Cornelius’ home: “Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins” (Act 10:43).

Item 6? The writer of Hebrews covers that one for us:

But when Christ appeared as High Priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy places once for all, having obtained eternal redemption” (Heb 9:11-12).

Even as the earthly temple was desecrated by God as He tore the inner curtain in two from top to bottom, Christ anointed the true tabernacle of God in heaven, the perfect one shown to Moses on the mount, that he might build his after its likeness.

But that brings us back around to the top of the list, to Items 1 and 2. Did Jesus really finish transgression and make an end of sin? These are seen and embraced by faith. We can do all things now through Christ Who strengthens us. Though the Law of Moses was weakened by the flesh, the Spirit of Christ in us is not. In the Old, the clean were not to touch the unclean or the clean would be sullied. But Jesus Christ touched the leper. Healing flowed out, leprosy didn’t flow in. Same with the woman with the issue of blood – power flowed out from Him, sickness didn’t flow into Him.

He, by His Spirit in us, can finish transgression and make an end of sin. Yet, "Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” (Jhn 11:40) “And these signs will accompany those who have believed” (Mk 16:17). It is by faith that the just shall live out the truth of what Jesus has accomplished.

Yet Jesus has fulfilled Items 1 and 2 on the grand scale, not just in individual lives. Transgression and sin have been dealt a death blow. They are dead men walking. All that has happened since Christ has merely been reverberations and reactions to His climactic actions. Therefore, we have been in the Last Days since those days.

This is like the Lord warning Adam that he would die in the day he transgressed and ate the forbidden fruit. That man may have walked about for many centuries before returning to the dust, but the fatal, suicidal blow was struck in the garden.

Time to wrap this up, beloved. God is on time. He has a plan and is working it. He has a schedule and is keeping it. Didn’t they insist on not killing Christ during the Passover, lest the people riot? He died as our Passover Lamb anyway, despite their scheming.

Now, it seems, we are approaching the culmination of another time, another age. It is only natural that we be apprehensive about it all. But we aren’t called to be “mere men”; we are called to be like Abraham and be fully persuaded of the faithfulness and power of God Almighty. “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful!” (Heb 10:23) Yes, “faithful is He who calls us, Who also will do it!” (1Th 5:24)