70 Weeks Prophecy (Part 4) – Dan 9:24 (Part D)

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A.    To seal up the vision and prophecy.

5. Seal – II. To fasten with or as with a seal. 5. a. trans. To fasten (a folded letter or other document) with melted wax or some other plastic material and impress a seal upon this, so that opening is impossible unless the seal is broken.  6. a. To place a seal upon the opening of (a door, a chest, etc.) for security. Also with up.
6. Vision – 1. a. Something which is apparently seen otherwise than by ordinary sight; esp. an appearance of a prophetic or mystical character, or having the nature of a revelation, supernaturally presented to the mind either in sleep or in an abnormal state.

iii.   Prophecy n. – 1. The action, function, or faculty of a prophet; divinely inspired utterance or discourse; spec. in Christian theology, utterance flowing from the revelation and impulse of the Holy Spirit.

1. To seal up something is to close it so that it cannot be reopened (Job 14:17).
2. In other words, by the end of the 70 weeks, prophecy and revelations from God to men would be closed never to be opened again.
3. This is exactly what happened when the New Testament was completed.
4. The only other place in the Bible where the phrase “seal up” is used in the context of prophecy refers to a prophet not writing down the vision he saw (Rev 10:4).
5. When something is sealed up it is full and perfect (complete) (Eze 28:12).
6. This verse is speaking of Lucifer before he fell when he was still perfect before iniquity was found in him (Eze 28:15).
7. It has nothing to do with the sealing up of prophecy, but it does show that when something is sealed up it is complete and full.
8. When the revelation of the word of God was complete and full the gift of prophecy would be sealed up and cease.

vii. Paul wrote that God hath spoken to us by His Son (Heb 1:2).

1. Paul didn’t say that God speaketh (present tense) to us by His Son.
2. This verse indicates that the revelation from God to men was complete in the days of the apostles.

viii.         Jesus delivered the revelation that God gave Him (Joh 7:16; Joh 8:28; Joh 14:10, 24; Joh 17:8).

1. He then sent the Holy Spirit to bring all things that He spoke to the remembrance of the apostles (Joh 14:26 c/w Joh 2:22 & Joh 12:16).
2. The Holy Spirit would teach them all things (Joh 14:26), guide them into all truth, and show them things to come (Joh 16:13).
3. The Holy Spirit would also deliver God’s words to them that they were not able to receive when Christ was with them (Joh 16:12-15).
4. The Spirit would testify of Christ to them (Joh 15:26).
5. Jesus Christ gave the revelation of the NT to His apostles after He returned to heaven (Gal 1:11-12; Eph 3:3; 2Pe 1:19-21).
6. The apostles then revealed to men the things that Jesus and the Holy Spirit taught them (Joh 15:27; Eph 3:1-4; Act 2:33).

xii.  They prophesied in part until all of the New Testament was written at which time the gift of prophecy ceased (1Co 13:8-10).

xiii.          Isaiah prophesied that the testimony and law (the canon of scripture) would be bound up and sealed among Christ’s disciples (Isa 8:16).

1. This prophecy was spoken in the context of the first coming of Christ and the ministry of the apostles which followed (Isa 8:14 c/w Rom 9:33 & 1Pe 2:8; Isa 8:18 c/w Heb 2:13).
2. The revelation of the word of God was sealed by the end of the lives of the apostles.
3. There is no more revelation to be expected after that given through the last apostle in the last book of the New Testament, which significantly bears the name of The Revelation of Jesus Christ (Rev 1:1).
4. Nothing is to be added to this revelation of Jesus Christ (Rev 22:18).

xiv.The completeness of the revelation may be seen in that from Genesis to Revelation we have a history of this present heavens and earth from their creation to their dissolution. At the end we are introduced to the new heavens and the new earth, the eternal abode of the redeemed.

1. How was prophecy sealed up within the 70 weeks which ended around 30-33 AD if the apostles wrote the New Testament many years afterward?
2. Nearly all of the gospels and epistles were written between the late 40’s to late 60’s AD.
3. There is much evidence that the book of Revelation was written in 96 AD (see part 8 of Preterism Refutation: https://kjvchurch.com/preterism-refutation-8).
4. The gospels and the epistles are an extension of Christ’s revelation to men through the apostles whom He inspired to write them.
5. The book of Revelation was the culmination of the revelation that Christ delivered to the apostles for them to write down and give to His churches (Rev 1:1, 4).
6. A legal end and an experiential end.

(i)    The legal end of the Old Covenant happened at the crucifixion of Christ, and God’s dealings with the nation of Israel legally ended 3 1/2 years after the crucifixion of Christ (more on this later).

(ii)  However, the experiential end of the Old Covenant and God’s dealings with the nation of Israel came nearly 40 years later in 70 AD when Jerusalem was destroyed.

1. The same is true for the vision and prophecy.

(i)    Jesus Christ personally delivered to His disciples all of the revelation that the Father had given Him during His lifetime by the end of the 70 weeks.

(ii)  Jesus legally put the New Testament into effect when He died on the cross (Heb 9:15).

(iii)          However, the experiential end of prophesy happened after the last book of the New Testament was written down by the apostles (Isa 8:16).