To confirm that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah ("anointed
one"), the divine Savior of the world, God sent Daniel the spectacular
prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27 which
not only prophesied over 500 years in advance the very year of Jesus' baptism
and "anointing" with the Holy Spirit, but also the very year of His death
and its meaning as a saving act on our behalf!
Each of the last three verses of the Daniel 9:24-27 prophecy foretold
events that were to take place relative to both Jerusalem
and the Messiah.
Daniel 9:25
foretold the very year He would be anointed and become the Messiah, which
occurred exactly as prophesied, in A.D.
27.
Daniel 9:26
foretold that "after the sixty-two
weeks (i.e., sometime after 27 A.D.), Messiah shall be cut off" (put
to death).
Daniel 9:27
prophesied about the last seven years of the 490
year prophecy, the seven years after 27 A.D., and it explicitly states
that "in the middle of the week (the middle of the final 7 years of the
prophecy), He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering." These
phrases–"cut off" and "bring an end to sacrifice and offering"–are direct
references to Jesus' death. The "Messiah shall be cut off," put to
death, and "bring an end to" the lamb sacrificial system of the Old Testament,
"in the middle of" the final 7 years of this prophecy, or three and a half
years after 27 A.D., which would be 31 A.D.–the
very year Biblical scholars and chronologists have determined that Jesus
was crucified!
The exact year of the death of no other person in history has been foretold
like this. By foretelling over 500 years in advance of the very years
that the world's Messiah would be anointed for His saving mission and then
die, God provided important evidence to sincere, honest-in-heart seekers
that Jesus was indeed the Messiah of God, the One to whom we must look
for salvation and hope.
But far more important than the year Jesus died is the meaning of His
death. And that also has been revealed in this spectacular prophecy.
The only event in the life of Jesus that was assigned
a date in the Biblical record was the date for Jesus' baptism, which occurred
"in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar" (Luke
3:1,21), or 27 A.D., a
date prophesied over 500 years earlier
in the prophecy of Daniel 9:25.
All other events in Jesus life, even His birth, must be dated relative
to this date. For example, we know when Jesus was born because the
Bible says that the year He was baptized, 27 A.D., "Jesus Himself began
His ministry at about thirty years of age." Luke
3:21-23 Therefore He must have been born around 3 B.C. (27 A.D.
minus 30 years = 3 B.C.).
