The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed by Anjela Paje of Spokane, WA, from the tape, GC 1301-I, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 11." A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. ©1980. All Rights Reserved.
Question
I’ve studied Daniel and I really find it difficult to understand how if
the promise of the Holy Spirit is to lead us into all truth, how we can come up
190 degrees opposite from one another in the prophecy of Daniel, and it just
seems to divide from that point completely through Revelation and everything?
And, I can’t count the time accurately in the Bible either way. You know, it
doesn’t make sense to me.
Answer
You talking about the prophecy of the 70 weeks? I’m going to get to that Sunday
night. Well, let me respond by saying this:
1. First of all, the promise given in John 14, that he will lead us into all truth is not primarily given to us. It’s given to the Apostles. The statement there made, I think, is verse 26. Jesus said that He will, when the Spirit has come, He will lead you into all truth and bring all things to your remembrance. That was primarily a promise to the writers of the gospels. In other words, the apostolic writers were going to re-record the gospel. Now, how were they going to remember all those incidents. Well, the Spirit of God was going to come upon them and bring all things to their remembrance, and lead them into all truth. So, that the writing of the Gospel records would be absolutely accurate. That is a primary prophecy to the biblical writers. Not to us.
2. In a secondary sense, I do believe the spirit of God leads us into truth, but we don’t go from John 14: 26. We go from 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, where the apostle Paul says that the Spirit teaches us. Or we go to 1 John, chapter 2, that we have an anointing from God that teaches us all things so that we need not have a man teach us, and so forth.
So, what I am saying is that we do not have the absolute gild edge guarantee that the Holy Spirit is going to lead us into every single truth.
Now, all Christians, all Bible students who are true in the faith, substantially agree on those cardinal realities of the faith that are manifest in scripture. Where we find our basic disagreements is in passages that are not obvious in themselves as to their interpretation. Do you know what I’m saying?
Now, what makes it difficult to interpret a passage? I’ll tell you what. You have to close some gaps.
1. The first gap is a language gap. The Bible was written in, say you taking Daniel, Hebrew. Part of Daniel in Aramaic, but that part in Hebrew. We speak English. Well, you could say, “Let’s go over to Israel and see what it is in Hebrew, but you can’t do that because you also have a time gap.
2. The time gap. The Hebrew then was very different than the Hebrew now. So, we have to close a language gap. We have to redetermine what the words were in the Hebrew at that time, what they meant. We have to close that time gap.
3. We have a culture gap. Hebrews didn’t think like we think. We think, basically, from an abstract Greek concept, they think from a concrete Hebrew perspective. So, we have to close that gap.
4. We have to close a geography gap.
5. We have to close a philosophical gap.
6. We have to close a religious gap.
So, here we are trying to close all these gaps. We don’t have sufficient data in the text. I mean, it doesn’t tell us it starts in this year and it ends in this year. So, what we do then, is we do our very best to close those gaps. Now, the problem comes at this point.
1. And, I hope you understand what I’m saying. A lot of this could be resolved if people were just better students. There’s an awful lot of superficiality. And, guys will come up with conclusions, that if they were really put in the vortex of an academic situation, and were shot at by some erudite scholars, they’d tear them to shreds, because they really haven’t done their homework. That’s one of the problems.
2. The second problem is, if you go to the scriptures with presuppositions, then you’re going to push it into your own mold.
Take, for example, this is riotous, if you want to know the truth. Do you know what amillenialists are? They are people who believe there is no kingdom at all. All right? They believe there is no restoration of Israel at all. There’s no tribulation at all. Okay. So, their basic supposition in the book of Daniel is that Daniel is not talking about what we think he is talking about at all. That’s their supposition before they ever read the text. See. Well, they read, [and say], "Well it certainly isn’t talking about a kingdom, and it certainly isn’t talking about a tribulation. Therefore, it must be talking about something else. So, let’s find what else it’s talking about." So, you see, before you even start, you’ve eliminated a whole category of truth. So, they go in with these presuppositions. For example, I was reading one, and a very, very fine scholar by the name of Leupold, who takes the view of Keil, whose written probably the most definitive Hebrew commentary in the Old Testament. Keil-Delitzsch, and they say, “Well, the 490 years of the prophecy aren’t real years. Some of them are a few weeks, some of them are a few years, and they just make absolute hash out of the thing. I mean, they would take, for example, they would say, the first seven weeks are not really 49 years, and the 483 are probably many, many more years, and the last seven is just a general symbol for a little bit of time. And where do they get that? That’s just utterly arbitrary on their part. They do not want to have things fit into a mold, and so they determine their presuppositions.
A classic illustration: many scholars, for example, assume that, here’s their
basic presupposition, there’s no such thing as prophecy. That’s their basic
[assumption]--there is no such thing as prophecy. Therefore, Daniel couldn’t
predict anything before it happened. Therefore, Daniel had to say these things
after he already saw these events. Therefore, they all speak about a certain
thing that happened before Daniel came along, and he’s looking back in
retrospect. So, they shove the date of Daniel up hundreds of years till after
the events they think he was talking about have happened. See? That’s
presupposition. And, I think, that if you really look at it carefully, you’ll
find that the problem in disagreement in Bible study is number one, a lack of
careful scholarship, and secondly is a pile of presuppositions. You really have
to vacuum out your head. If you go in with some preconceived system, you’re in
trouble.
Question (continued)
Is it true that the seven groups of seven that breaks up the period of time
from beginning to end, and the way that we interpret the 70 weeks came out of
the Council of Trent during the Reformation, where the Catholic scholars and the
Hebrew scholars got together in the Council of Trent and set this up? Because
that worries me. We’re adopting something out of the Catholic system.
Answer (continued)
No. I don’t know that that’s true. I can’t speak specifically to that. But, I do
not know that that’s true. I would be interested to maybe pursue that a little
bit. I have read about 15 books on that text in the last two weeks, and I’ve not
come up with that substantial in any sense. If you are here Sunday night, you
can hear where I’m coming from. And, there are alternatives. I mean, you can’t
be dogmatic in that thing, but you can sure be pretty well right on the target.
Sir Robert Anderson says, “You can name the day.” And I’ll show you how you do
that Sunday night. It is unbelievable! That specific approach. But, again, this
is a question that comes up all the time. Disagreements come about because
basically we’re human. And, we don’t always do what we ought to. For example,
sometimes, I’ll interpret a text and I don’t have time, and a few years later,
I’ll go back to it and change my view in some sense. Not a monumental problem,
but because I have time to do a better study. So, I think we have to be careful
about that.
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and
Answers" by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
Box 119
Columbus, New Jersey, USA, 08022
Our websites: www.biblebb.com and www.gospelgems.com
Email: tony@biblebb.com
Online since 1986