Hi Garry,You are correct in stating that it was Jesus Christ who was cut off in the midst of the 70th week of Daniel’s prophecy (Dan. 9:24–27). His death immediately made the Temple sacrifices and offerings obsolete and redundant. However, it was not the Abrahamic Covenant that Jesus confirmed. [1]
He came to confirm the New Covenant for the forgiveness of sin, which had prophetically been promised to the houses of Israel and Judah in 587/6 BC. (cf. Jere. 31:31–34). [2] Jesus came as the Messiah, (the ‘Lamb of God’ and Isaiah’s ‘Suffering Servant’) to fulfil the six tasks listed in Daniel 9:24 that were prerequisites for the confirmation of the New Covenant that would achieve remission and forgiveness of sin for Daniel’s people in their Holy City, and for every person who believed in Him.
His tasks and their fulfilments were…
to finish the transgression, (cf. Heb. 9:15; 10:2)
to make an end of sins, (cf. Heb. 9:25–26, 28; 10:12; Rom. 11:26)
to make reconciliation for iniquity, (cf. Heb. 2:17; 2 Cor. 5:18–19)
to bring in everlasting righteousness, (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 9:12b, 14–15; Rom. 10:4)
to seal up vision and prophecy, (Luke 24:44; Rev. 1:1–3, 22:18–19)
and to anoint the Most Holy. (Heb. 9:12, 9:24–26, 10:19–23)
When Jesus chose to complete all of those tasks through His redeeming work on the cross, He said:
I have glorified You on the earth, I have finished the work You have given Me to do. (John 17:4)
On the cross He said, It is finished; and bowing His head He gave up the ghost. (John 19:30)
[Scriptures quoted below are from the NJKV]
The prophecy:
Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. …But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: [Context is after their 70 years of captivity in Babylon] I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. (Jere. 31:31, 33–34)
Jesus anticipated its fulfilment:
Then He [Jesus] took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission [forgiveness] of sins.’(Matt. 26:27–28; Mark 14:24)
Likewise He took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.’ (Luke 22:20)
It is noteworthy (with regard to the New Covenant and Daniel’s prophecy of 70 weeks), that the prophet states in (Dan. 9:2) that he had been reading Jeremiah’s letter (Jere. 29) and the book (Jere. 30–33) that Jeremiah had sent to the Jewish Elders and captives who had been taken to Babylon at the beginning of their respective captivities (605 BC and again in 586 BC). Jeremiah stated in 25:11–12 that their captivity in Babylon would last for seventy years. In Jere. 29:10 in his letter he said God would return them to Judah after the seventy years were completed; furthermore, in his book he said that after those days God would make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah (Jere. 31:31 above).
After Daniel read Jeremiah’s letter and book, it is interesting that Daniel afterward refers to God as a ‘covenant keeping’ God (Dan. 9:1–4). Daniel had obviously read the verses about Jeremiah’s (apparently forgotten) New Covenant (Jere. 31:33–34 above), so he followed Jeremiah’s instructions (Jere. 29:12–13) and confessed the sins of his people, and acknowledged that their punishment of 70 years exile from Judaea was deserved. He prayed that God would act, and he did…
Gabriel appeared suddenly to give him the skill to understand God’s timetable for the activation of a New Covenant that would be completed within 490 years (i.e., seventy weeks of years): it would involve seven weeks (49 years) of ‘troublesome times’ when Judah’s Capital city and its walls would be completed,[3] plus another sixty-two weeks (434 years) which means that 483 years would elapse after a ‘command’ was made to restore and build Jerusalem (as an autonomous state, Ezra 7:7, 11–26), before Messiah would appear to complete his mission in the 70th week. This particular command was made in the 7th year of Artaxerxes [458 BC] and so the Prince, ‘the Messenger of the covenant’ appeared suddenly in the Temple in Jerusalem approx. AD 27. (Cf. Malachi 3:1, with John 2:13–17). This 483 year long waiting period included 400 years of prophetic silence from heaven, which lasted from Malachi (4:5–6) until John the Baptist/Elijah appeared in the wilderness preaching baptism and repentance from sin, in preparation for the Lamb of God who would take away their sin.
Then in the midst of the 70th week (final seven year period) Messiah was ‘cut off’ confirming the new Covenant (in His blood), thus, making the animal sacrifices in the Temple obsolete and redundant. Afterward, the Gospel was preached exclusively to the Jews in Jerusalem for the remainder of the 70th week (Luke 2:51–53; Acts 2:41–47; 5:42), (i.e., to ‘the lost sheep of the house of Israel’) as instructed by Jesus in Matt. 10:6; cf. 15:24. This final seven year period concluded after Steven had the ‘opportunity’ to preach the Gospel to the Jewish rulers/Sanhedrin (Acts 7:1–53), which resulted in his martyrdom in AD 34. Thus, the 490 year period for Daniel’s prophecy of 70 weeks to be fulfilled, via the New Covenant promised specifically for the houses of Israel and Judah, was completed in accordance with the specified time period (458 BC–AD 34). (Note 1 BC and AD1 are one year)
After Steven’s death in AD 34, persecution broke out against the Jewish followers of The Way, (Acts 8–9) and the Jewish believers were scattered from Jerusalem throughout Judaea and beyond into the Roman world where the Gospel was first preached to Gentiles by Philip, Peter and John (Acts 8:4, 14, 26–40) and later by Saul/Paul (Acts 9–>) etc.
Furthermore, the six tasks listed in Daniel 9:24, which had to be accomplished by the Messiah—via the New Covenant for the forgiveness of their sin—are thoroughly expounded in Hebrews chapters 8–10, (see above), where Jeremiah’s New Covenant is quoted twice (cf. Heb. 8:8–12; 10:16–17), as having been fulfilled by Jesus. Although God had fulfilled His promised New Covenant for the Jews, Jesus told His people that because they did not know the time of His visitation…
“See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’” (Matt. 23:38–39 and cf. 21:9)
Desolations are determined, (Daniel 9:26b)
Even until the consummation which is determined, is poured out on the desolate (Daniel 9:27b).
At the consummation on that day—
…they will look on Me whom they pierced… they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a first-born. (Zechariah 12:10–14)
BUT—In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness. (Zechariah 13:1)
[1] The Abrahamic Covenant (circa 1913 BC) concerned the inheritance of the geographical land of Canaan by Abraham and his descendants, the multiplying of his seed, and the promise that God would be a God to him and his seed after him. It was a covenant of grace—unmerited by Abraham—and initiated by God while Abraham was sleeping. (Gen.15:12–18; 17:2, 19, 21; 18:17–19; 28:10–16; 35:9–13.) It was dependent upon their observance of circumcision.
[2] Because the ten northern tribes of Israel had previously been taken captive into Assyria, and Assyria was afterward conquered by the Babylonians, and then by the Media-Persian empire, it is logical to assume that many descendants of the original captives (from the ten northern tribes) were still living within the Assyrian, Babylonian, Media-Persian areas of control (722–458 BC), and therefore the New Covenant applied to them as well as the two southern tribes of Benjamin, Judah and the Levites. Descendants from all 12 tribes returned to Judah during their step-by-step release from captivity to build the 2nd Temple (538 BC), restore Jerusalem (458 BC), and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (444 BC) onwards—some of whom could not identify their tribes. (Cf. Ezra 1:1–3; 2:59, 62; 6:17, 19, 21; 8:29, 35.) Jeremiah 30:1–3 and 31:27–38 both refer to Israel and Judah, while in Jere. 30:10b it says Jacob shall return [i.e., which refers to all 12 tribes]. In addition, many of the Northern Tribes’ people had previously defected into the Southern Kingdom of Judah after Solomon’s Kingdom was split in two (cf. 2 Chronicles 11:13–17). There is also evidence in the New Testament that representatives from the Twelve Tribes were present in Jerusalem and Judaea during the establishment of The Way/early Church.
[3] This 49 year period, of ‘troublesome times’ lasted from 458–409 BC. Both Ezra 4:1–10:44, and Nehemiah 2:11–8:18 record the difficulties faced by those who returned to Jerusalem during those years because of the opposition raised by the neighbouring people groups who objected to the rebuilding work going on in Jerusalem, and who appealed to Persian officials to stop them.