The Messiah

1. Introduction

Song 1:1-2:7, Rev 12:1-5

Solomon described the love of Christ for His bride who seeks Him in the wilderness.^{Song 3:6} John said that she flew into the wilderness away from the presence of the serpent.^{Rev 12:6} Daniel said that Satan would desolate the sanctuary and wear out the saints through the power of the fourth beast.^{Dan 7:25} John described the cleansing of the sanctuary by four living creatures,^{Rev 4:6} four horses,^{Rev 6:8} and four trumpets.^{Rev 8:12} Four “hours”^{Rev 11:13 Rev 14:7 Rev 14:15 Rev 17:12} describe the judgment of the desolator.^{Dan 9:27} The story begins when the woman gives birth to her first child, and she flies into the wilderness for a time, times and half a time, which Daniel numbered 1,290 days. She comes out of the wilderness, and the sanctuary is cleansed, after 2,300 days.^{Dan 8:14} John called this the 1,000-year reign of the martyrs with Christ.^{Rev 20:4}

2. The Messiah’s Coming

Dan 9:21-27

Jeremiah prophesied that Israel would be taken captive in Babylon for seventy years.^{Dan 9:2} An angel was sent to tell Daniel that seventy sevens, were required for Israel to put an end to sin and iniquity.^{Dan 9:24} “From the going forth of the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem,”^{Dan 9:25} recorded in Ezra 4:21 and Ezra 7:6-9, there would be sixty-nine sevens until the Messiah was anointed.

This sixty-nine sevens, 483 years, brings us from 457 BC to the year 27, when Jesus was anointed. He was “about thirty years old,”^{Luke 3:23} according to Luke, “in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius,”^{Luke 3:1} who began to govern after October 23, AD 12.¹

3. The Crucifixion of the Messiah

Dan 9:21-27

The angel told Daniel that after sixty-nine sevens, the Messiah would be cut off.^{Dan 9:26}

Jesus was anointed in the fall of AD 27, 483 years, or sixty-nine sevens, after the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. After half a seven, after three and a half years, He was crucified.

We know that Jesus was crucified on the Passover, on Thursday, according to Luke Luke 24:21. From the time of Moses, the Passover was celebrated on the fourteenth of Nisan. In AD 31, the fourteenth of Nisan was a Wednesday, but it was moved to Thursday in accordance with the festival rules. This fulfilled the Aramaic Targum of Hos 3:2, which said: “I redeemed them by My Word, on the fifteenth of Nisan.” God prophesied the year, month, and day of Jesus’ crucifixion!