Advancing the Revelation of Truth
Construction upon The Foundation
Part 2
The Jubilee and the Shem
ittah.A very important aspect of this last study was my introduction to the Jubilee[49 years] period and the Shemittah period[7 years]. See Leviticus chapter 25. This was to have a unique influence upon subsequent studies, particularly when I recognised that:
The Days of Jacob were the years of his life, a hundred and forty-seven years.
[Genesis 47:28]Three Jubilee periods, 3 x 49, not related to the Jubilee periods which commence ten years after The Tribes of Israel entered the Land of Canaan. Furthermore Jacob was 98 years old [two Jubilee periods] when a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day, blessing him and renaming him Israel. It seems that God has a fundamental timing period of 49. Since this is so, the end of the first period of 49 years in the life of Jacob marked his blessing by his father Isaac.
The introduction to the fundamental gematria of 49 and 7 is acknowledged as the basis upon which all of God's arrangements are made. The timing of The Last Days period is defined in this study being an example of the use of these gematria. Other examples follow:
The date of the Second Temple destruction.
The destruction of Herod's Temple in 69-70ad, accepted by Christ as
His Father's House,
was not completely destroyed. This is indicated by the figure 11 in the factors of
539. The
Messiah stated 'not one stone will be left upon another that
shall not be
thrown down'. However, the foundation stones, the present 'wailing wall',
remain to be destroyed at the later time of 2022ad.
The addition of these two periods, 2499 years, has the
remarkable factors of: 49 x 3 x 17. 49 indicates the Jubilee spans. 3 indicates the
completeness of the matter, which therefore indicates the probable construction of the
Ezekiel Temple following the destruction of whatever residual
antichristian edifice also occupies the
site at 2022ad. 17 is the addition of 10 and 7...The union of
Spiritual Perfection
with Ordinal Perfection. In other words: The Perfection of Spiritual
Order.
The Book of Enoch
During my studies, which had resulted in the understanding of these events, I had been drawn to consider the pseudopigraphical* book of Enoch. In the early centuries of the Christian Era, this book had come to be be ignored and discarded as inspired literature, even though at the time of Christ Himself it was accepted as Holy Writ. Many, many passages of the New Testament are quoted from it including the one by Jude, the brother of James.
To-day we do not have a copy of this Hebrew book, even in the collection of scrolls recovered from the caves at Qumran. It was however translated into the Koinee Greek of the New Testament at the time that the Old Testament was translated into the 'Septuagint'. Many parts of this Greek version are available and have been translated and compiled by R.H.Charles into a document which is published as The Book of Enoch. Although it appears that the early part of this work has been deliberately corrupted, there are three dream sequences recorded in the later part which have considerable interest.
R.H.Charles says of this section of the book: 'There is no difficulty about the critical structure of this section. It is the most complete and self consistent of all the sections, and has suffered least from the hand of the interpolator.
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The first is known as: The First Dream Vision on the Deluge, being a prophetic view of the Catastrophic Universal Flood.
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The second is entitled: The History of The World to the Founding of The Messianic Kingdom. A prophetic parabolic story in which animal types play the part of men, and stars that of angels, even as the Bible uses the same animal names to define grouping of peoples: sheep, goats, asses, foxes, serpents, wolves, etc. Stars define angels [Rev 1:20, 6:18, 12:4]
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The third is given the title: The Apocalypse of Weeks. This prophetic history divides into ten weeks of years concerning The Children of Righteousness, The Elect of The World and The Plant of Uprightness.
The Apocalypse of Weeks
It is the last sequence which has come to have so much influence upon my previous studies. Put in simple graphic form, the following diagram shows the plan of these weeks:
In seeking to understand the timing of each week, theologians have failed to recognise that Enoch could not have known of this present Mystery of the Administration of God's Grace, because as Paul tells us, he himself was commissioned:
Even, to enlighten all as to God’s secret administration,
which has been concealed from the eons in God, Who creates all these, [Ephesians 3:9]Because of this ignorance, theologians have been unable to determine the length of time allocated to each week and therefore have dismissed the authenticity of the record of this prophetic dream sequence.
Having recognised the absence of this secret Administration through my previous studies, in the light of the Bible record, I had no problem in defining each week as 7days, each day timed as 100years. To explain the next step in my understanding it is necessary to record the details of this prophetic time scale as translated and interpreted by R.H.Charles:
Chapter 93 verse 3...........And Enoch began to recount from the books and said:
' I was born the seventh in the first week, While judgement and righteousness still endured.
* * 4 And after me there shall arise in the second week great wickedness, And deceit shall have sprung up; And in it there shall be the first end. And in it a man shall be saved; And after it is ended unrighteousness shall grow up, And a law shall be made for the sinners.
* * 5 and after that in the third week at its close A man shall be elected as the plant of righteous judgement, And his posterity shall become the plant of righteousness for evermore.
6 And after that in the fourth week, at its close, Visions of the holy and righteous shall be seen, And a law for all generations and an enclosure shall be made for them.
7 And after that in the fifth week, at its close, The house of glory and dominion shall be built for ever.
8 And after that in the sixth week all who live in it shall be blinded, And the hearts of all of them shall godlessly forsake wisdom. And in it a man shall ascend; And at its close the house of dominion shall be burnt with fire, And the whole race of the chosen root shall be dispersed.
9 And after that in the seventh week shall an apostate generation arise, And many shall be its deeds, And all its deeds shall be apostate. [10] And at its close shall be elected The elect righteous of the eternal plant of righteousness, To receive sevenfold instruction concerning all His creation.
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[11] [For
And who can think His thoughts ?
and who is there that can behold all the works [12] of heaven ?
and how should there be one who could behold the heaven,
and who is there that could understand the things of heaven and see a soul or a spirit and could tell thereof, or ascend and see [13] all their ends and think them or do like them ?
And who is there of all men that could know what is the breadth and the length of the earth,
and to whom has been shown the measure of all of them ?
14 Or is there any one who could discern the length of the heaven and how great is its height, and upon what it is founded, and how great is the number of the stars, and where all the luminaries rest ?] [Chapter 91]
12 And after that there shall be another, the eighth week, that of righteousness, And a sword shall be given to it that a righteous judgement may be executed on the oppressors, And sinners shall be delivered into the hands of the righteous. [13] And at its close they shall acquire houses through their righteousness, And a house shall be built for the Great King in glory for evermore, [14d] And all mankind shall look to the path of uprightness.
14a And after that, in the ninth week, the righteous judgement shall be revealed to the whole world, [b] And all the works of the godless shall vanish from all the earth, [c] And the world shall be written down for destruction.
15 And after this, in the tenth week in the seventh part, There shall be the great eternal judgement, In which He will execute vengeance amongst the angels.[16] And the first heaven shall depart and pass away, And a new heaven shall appear, And all the powers of the heavens shall give sevenfold light.
17 And after that there will be many weeks without number for ever, And all shall be in goodness and righteousness, And sin shall no more be mentioned for ever.
To interpret these actions correctly in relation to the Scripture record, I had to find an 'anchor point'. The sentence emphasised in red has three major statements which are clearly recognised and associated in the Bible record:
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And in it a man shall ascend;
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And at its close the house of dominion shall be burnt with fire,
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And the whole race of the chosen root shall be dispersed.
The ascension of Elijah [2Kings 2:11] around 900bc, and the burning of the first Temple by Nebuchadrezzar [2Chron 36:19] around 600bc were considered, but the latter did not disperse 'the whole race of the chosen root'. The House of Ephraim-Israel had already been dispersed [1Kings 22:17] when, in 69/70ad the House of Judah-Israel was dispersed at the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. Because of this I was compelled to recognise that:
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The first statement referred to the ascension of The Lord Jesus Christ in 30ad [Acts 1:9].
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The second was anticipated by Christ [John 2:19] and recorded in secular history by Josephus. Jerusalem and The Temple were destroyed by the Romans in 69/70ad
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The third is the consequence of the second resulting in the 'Diaspora' or dispersion of the Jews, the House of Judah.
It is the second item which marks the close of the sixth day. This is confirmed by the character of the 7th day, the details of which are described in the 21 prophesies of The Last Days, which although having the benefit of a newly established Kingdom of The House of David in Israel, quickly deteriorates, as described in Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's Last Days dream vision of the multi metal image [Daniel 2:31-35]. Many Christians erroneously believe that most of these events have already occurred, but a careful reading shows that they have not yet commenced. See here.
Introducing this present Administration of The Grace of God.
From previous studies, I had realised that God had introduced this present dispensation, The Administration of His Grace, in 69ad......at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem and The Temple.
A quick calculation, acknowledging that Enoch's 6th week ended at this time, showed that Enoch's prophetic weeks began in 4132bc [6 x 700 = 4200 minus 69, plus 1(adjustment bc to ad)]. This is the year that Adam sinned by accepting the Serpent's suggestion that 'you will not surely die', and thereby partaking of the fruit of the tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil. This introduced death upon all the generations of mankind.
Here is a chart illustrating the years of the Pre-Flood patriarchs. These dates are given in table form here.
Enoch lived in the lifetime of Adam, timing his Apocalypse of Weeks on the basis of 700years equalling one week. The first chapter of the book of Genesis describes a 'week' in which the earth and its contents were formed and created. It is logical therefore that this time scale would be identical with that of Enoch's, the six + one days or one week of 700years, being the time taken by God to form and create the Earth. God uses the word 'day' to mean many different periods of time. Comments by Andrew Kulikovsky concerning these seven 'days' are made here. God's creation and forming during these seven days was perfect. He said of them: Behold it is very good.
'Without form and void' to The Day of God.
Does this period contain all of God's purposes from the time of 'without form and void' to The Day of God? There is however, another Administration of God referred to in Paul's letter to the Ephesians:
Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the Administration of the Fullness of Times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all these after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
[Ephesians 1:8]He makes it clear that this Administration of The Fullness of Times is being made known to us, i.e. we who are the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus living during this Administration of God's Grace. He points out that those with him have obtained this inheritance, likewise we, the ones to whom he is writing. Finally he says that we who believe and trust in Christ Jesus have been sealed by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
The implication of this remarkable statement is that, being made known to us, it was not made known before. So here we have a new revelation which again would not have been known to Enoch. Where then does it fit, and what is its duration?
1.The term 'Fullness' or completeness strongly suggests that it occurs at the end of this long period of 9660 years, before The Day of God.
2. As regards its duration, we should consider lengths of time determined by God's numerics, not our own. So what of its relationship to a multiple of the basic timing element of 49. How many years should be added to reach such a number of importance. 9660 years is 140years short of 9800years. At this point I am tempted to insert in brackets the Hebrew word 'Selah'. One lacking faith could regard this as a coincidence, but as we know there are no coincidences with God's arrangements.
We have then a period of 9800years[49 x 2 x 100] completed by an Administration of 140years[7 x 2 x 10] Those who recognise God's numerics will acknowledge that 10 determines 'the perfection of divine order' whereas 7 determines 'spiritual perfection'. But we have to point out that these figures are not complete in themselves because of the presence of the figure 2 which indicates difference and not completeness..
In the case of the 140years period it is part only of many which make up the total of 9800years. The 9800years is however another matter, more of which, later.
Our chart now looks like this:
You will observe another remarkable 'coincidence'. The whole of this period is divided into two equal parts each of 4900years duration at the time of the introduction of this present Administration of God's Grace in 69/70ad.
The Gap Theory.
I think you will agree that this journey of discovery is not yet complete. The Scriptures reveal facts which are not covered by this chart:
1. We have not reached backward in time to the point of the original creation revealed to us in the first verse of Genesis: In the beginning God created the Heaven and The Earth. Dividing verse one from verse two introduces a gap of time, such that those students of The Word who have considered this have named it 'The Genesis Gap Theory', which is very well discussed here. concluding as follows:
The Judgme
nt 'Gap Theory', then, is not a proven or provable fact; but it is a tenable theory for which no serious challenger has yet been proposed.It is my belief that the acceptance of the numeric time scales developed in this article show it to be no longer a theory.
2. The book of Ecclesiastes refers to an early period of time, the details of which are closed to us:
