Can we focus on just this one aspect of Daniel's prophecy for a bit?
Daniel 9:24 brings up the first purpose is to finish transgression. From Jews for Jesus: "The Hebrew word translated "to finish" means "to restrain firmly," "to restrain completely" or "to bring to completion." The Hebrew word translated "transgression" is a very strong word for sin and more literally means "to rebel." The Hebrew text has this word with the definite article, so literally it means "the transgression," or "the rebellion."
The point is that some specific act of rebellion is finally going to be completely restrained and brought to an end. This act of rebellion or transgression is to come under complete control so that it will no longer flourish. Israel's apostasy is now to be firmly restrained, in keeping with a similar prediction in Isaiah 59:20."
And that's being put off to the future by the futurist's theology. What other aspects are shoved off into our future?
ISTM that the futurist's theology places these purposes off to our future as well (for the Jews, anyway):
The second purpose of the 70 sevens is to make an end of sins. The Hebrew word translated "to make an end" literally means "to seal up" or "to shut up in prison." It means to be securely kept, locked up, not allowed to roam at random. The Hebrew word translated as "sins" literally means "to miss the mark." It refers to sins of daily life, rather than to one specific sin. Even these sins are to be put to an end and taken away. This, too, is quite in keeping with predictions by the prophets that proclaim that in the messianic kingdom, sinning would cease from Israel (
Isaiah 27:9,
Ezekiel 36:25-27,
37:23,
Jeremiah 31:31-34).
The third purpose is to make reconciliation for iniquity. The Hebrew word translated "to make reconciliation" is "kaphar," which has the same root meaning as the word "kippur," as in Yom Kippur. The word "kaphar" literally means "to make atonement." The third purpose, then, is to make atonement in some way for iniquity. In fact, it is by means of this atonement that the first two purposes will also be accomplished, that of finishing the transgression and making an end of sins. The word translated "iniquity" refers to inward sin. This has sometimes been referred to as the sin nature, or perhaps a more common term among Jewish people would be yetzer hara," the evil inclination."
The fourth purpose of the 70 sevens is to bring in everlasting righteousness. More literally this could be translated "to bring in an age of righteousness," since the Hebrew "olam" is better translated as "age" rather than as "everlasting." This age of righteousness is to be the messianic kingdom spoken of in the Prophets (
Isaiah 1:26,
11:2-5,
32:17;
Jeremiah 23:5-6,
33:15-18). It is this very age that Daniel had been expecting to see established after the 70 years of captivity, but now he is told that will only be after the 490-year period.
The fifth purpose is to seal up vision and prophecy. Here Daniel used a word which means "to shut up." So "to seal up" means to cause a cessation or to completely fulfill. Thus, vision and prophecy are to be completely fulfilled." Vision" is a reference to oral prophecy, while "prophecy" refers to written prophecy. Both oral and written prophecy will cease with the final fulfillment of all revelations.
