Seventy times seven

Seventy times seven October 12, 2008

In the first year of Darius, Daniel was studying the book of Jeremiah’s prophecies when he came upon the prophecy that Israel would be released from captivity after 70 years. The 70th year of exile was coming, and so Daniel began fasting in sackcloth and ashes, and be began confessing the sins of Israel and pleading with the Lord to hear and restore Israel. While he was praying, Gabriel appeared and told him that the Lord had decreed “70 weeks.” Another period of 70 was going to follow the 70 years of exile in Babylon, and, Gabriel told Daniel, at the end of that 70-week period, that period of 70 x 7, the Lord would finally take care of sin. After 70 x 7, the Lord would “finish transgression, make an end of sin, make atonement for iniquity, bring in everlasting righteousness, seal of vision and prophecy, anoint the most holy” (v. 24).

By the time of Jesus, this prophecy was an obsession for many Jews. It told them when the Messiah would come: From the time of Daniel to the Messiah, there would be 70 x 7, 490 years. It told them what the Lord would do: At the end of 70 x 7, the Lord would deals with Israel’s transgressions once and for all. At the end of the 70 x 7 period, there would be a great Jubilee, a release from debt, a manumission of slaves, a return to the land.

This would be the fulfillment of the hopes of all faithful Israelites. Yahweh had made promises to Abraham, a promise that Abraham and his children, the family of Abraham, would be Yahweh’s covenant partner in redeeming the world and bringing blessing to the Gentiles. Because of Israel’s sins, Israel was under a curse. Because of the curse, the promises and program of God through Abraham have been blocked by Israel’s sin and the curse on Israel’s sin. But Daniel’s prophecy tells them that after 70 x 7 years, the Lord will finally act and will remove that obstacle, and take care of sin once and for all.

This will be good news not only for Israel but for the world. God’s program to restore the world through Israel, the covenant with Abraham, depends on the forgiveness of sin. The nations will come to know the Lord only if Israel is released from sin, for salvation is from the Jews. And Jesus, the true Israelite, has come to accomplish that, to release Israel from sin and curse.

Peter said it at Pentecost: Repent, believe, receive forgiveness, that you may receive the Spirit. The Spirit is the great promise given to Abraham (Galatians 3). But the Spirit is, as it were, bottled up unless Israel can be released from the curse, because the Spirit will come to the nations through Israel. Only when Israel’s sin is taken care of will the promise be fulfilled.

When Peter asks Jesus how often he should forgive his brother, Jesus answers with an allusion to this passage: Forgive him 70 x 7. And by this, Jesus is informing Peter and the rest of the disciples that the 70 x 7 of Daniel’s prophecy is reaching its climax. The Lord is acting through Jesus to bring the forgiveness of sins, with all that this means for Israel and for the nations.

This is why forgiveness of sins is so central to the gospel story. It’s about the pardon of individual sinners, Yes. But it’s not just that. The gospel story is about the forgiveness of Israel’s sins, which means that the promises to Abraham can, at long last, come to fulfillment. This is the context for much of what the NT says about forgiveness of sins. the birth of John the Baptist, Zecharias blesses God for raising up the Christ, the savior, who will “give His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins” (Luke 1:77) and John comes “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (3:3). It’s the forgiveness of the PEOPLE that Zecharias celebrates.

After His resurrection, Jesus teaches His disciples that He has fulfilled all that Moses and the prophets had predicted, and He sums up the teaching of the Scriptures with: “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, 47and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24). The fulfillment is that forgiveness will be proclaimed to the nations, first in Jerusalem.

This is a constant theme of the apostles’ preaching. “Repent and be baptized in the name of Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the Holy Spirit,” Peter says at Pentecost. Before the Sanhedrin, Peter says that Jesus has been exalted “as a Prince and a Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins” (5:31). When the Spirit falls on the members of the house of Cornelius the Gentile, Peter acknowledges that God is not a respecter of persons, and says that all the prophets bear witness that “everyone who believes in [Jesus] receives forgiveness of sins” (8:43). In his first sermon, Paul tells the story of Abraham and David and Jesus, and concludes by saying “let it be known to you brethren that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you,” adding that through Jesus believers are justified from things that the Law could not resolve (13:38-39).

The message is that through Jesus, God has acted to deal with sin once and for all, and especially to deal with Israel’s sin, to deal with it in a way that the Law could not, to release Israel from the curse by the forgiveness of sins, so that the blessing of Abraham, the Spirit, can flow through Israel to the nations.

Jesus comes preaching the gospel of the kingdom. God is going to take His throne. He is going to assert His Lordship over creation. In Christ, humanity is being exalted to share in that rule. And when the Lord takes His throne, ascends to the throne of His kingdom, He is going to show clemency, and release people from sins and debts. His kingdom comes in His death, as He dies for Israel’s redemption, and through Israel died for the redemption of the nations.


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