🕒 8 min read · 📝 1417 words
The Christian life is a covenant-confirmation process resulting in sin being consumed.
Grace teaches → obedience develops → failure may occur → discipline may follow → restoration results → covenant is confirmed.
Dan 9:27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
Daniel’s seventieth week is the believer’s covenant-confirmation process.
The first half represents obedient response to grace.
The midpoint is marked by willful covenant violation, Heb 10:26.
The second half is the Day of the Lord, when God exposes, judges, and consumes hidden wickedness through discipline.
Jesus commands us to leave believers as they backslide in Matthew 24.
Then as He determines He brings the disobedient back into contact with the obedient if they maintain their faith through the judgment.
Romans 14:4 KJV — Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.
He gathers the backslidden believer through their association with obedient believers as He brings them together.
This is Armageddon, and it ultimately restores the believer to covenant obedience, completing the covenant-confirmation process.
Grace first teaches the believer obedience and faithfulness to God’s covenant.
Some believers remain responsive to grace, confessing their sins and continuing in covenant obedience.
This is the Millennium period as seen in Revelation 20, when the Devil is bound (Proverbs 16:7).
This is referred to in Col 3:1 and Rev 20:5 as the First Resurrection.
It is the Obedient Christian life while on earth.
Pr 16:7 ¶ When a man’s ways please the LORD, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.
When a believer sins during this half of the representative week, they recognize and confess the behavior as being sinful and are forgiven 1 Jn 1:9.
This is what happens during the first half of Daniel’s 70th week.
Other believers enter a period of willful covenant violation. This time begins with delusion leading to judgment 2 Thess 2:12.
2 Thess 2:12 that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
This involves a time of the delusion of willful sin without confession 2 Thess 2:11; Heb 10:26.
The judgment is designed by God to promote repentance 1 Cor 11:32.
Before God removes hidden wickedness, He often permits it to manifest openly. The believer who has embraced pride, self-righteousness, or willful sin may become unable to perceive his true condition.
This delusion does not create the wickedness but reveals it.
It becomes more noticeable and clear to the person when God hides His presence, and the weight of the sin is felt more intensely Ezek 39:23-29.
Job could not initially see his pride, yet through God’s dealings the hidden issue was brought into the light and removed.
Likewise, God sends strong delusion (2 Thess 2:11) so that what is concealed within the heart may be manifested and ultimately judged.
The engine that drives the entire covenant-confirmation process is not judgment itself but revelation.
God reveals what the believer cannot see.
Delusion brings the awareness of hidden wickedness, judgment exposes it, and discipline removes it.
Job became aware of His pride during one of these time periods and then repented during the Armageddon confrontation.
- 1. God placed a hook in Job’s jaw (Magog influenced by Gog’s prideful spirit, Ezek. 38:4)
- 2. He was brought into contact with other believers, illustrating the encirclement principle of Rev. 20:9.
- 3. Elihu’s testimony didn’t accuse Job of the hidden sins imagined by the three friends but instead defended God’s righteousness. Unlike them, Elihu wasn’t rebuked by God and pointed out that Job’s self-justification was the real issue (Job 32:2).
- 4. God then removed the weapons of wickedness from Job’s hands- pride, in this case- and restored him.
God then summarizes Job’s entire affliction period using these words: Leviathan is king of the proud Job 41:34.
Job 31:34 He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride.
As in Job, some believers have hidden sin which they are not even aware of, such as self-righteousness or pride Job 32:1.
This judgment period begins after willful sin is chosen.
This is the beginning of the Day of the Lord.
It happens after the sacrifice ceases and the believer chooses to sin willfully, this begins the second half of the week.
Jesus tells obedient believers to flee from the presence of willfully sinful believers as they see this day approaching Matt 24:28.
Then God brings the errant believer, the believer under the influence of the spiritual leadership of Gog, against Israel (obedient believers) and in concert with the testimony of the faithful (luke 21:13) disarms the unfaithful Ezekiel 39:3. This is the Armageddon conflict.
God disciplines everyone He accepts as a son, so we will all be disciplined in some way, and must determine in advance to maintain faith.
During this time of Armageddon, they are brought into contact with covenantally obedient believers, and the testimony of the faithful plays a part in their becoming obedient again Luke 21:13 and Ezekiel 39:3.
This is a time when they are disarmed, and their weapons of wickedness become ineffective 2 Thess 2:8.
The revealing and consuming process is illustrated in 2 Thess 2.
This requires God’s corrective discipline to bring them back into the bond of the covenant.
Eze 20:37 And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant:
This is known as the Day of the Lord or the discipline of the three-woe process of Revelation.
Zep 1:12 And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The LORD will not do good, neither will he do evil.
A process of judgment based on willfully sinful behavior, intended to guide the believer back to obedience, as referenced in 1 Corinthians 11:32.
Daniel 70, Gog/Magog, Armageddon, the Day of the Lord, strong delusion, Job’s pride, and resurrection language all describe different stages of God’s covenant-confirmation process whereby hidden wickedness is revealed, consumed, and removed.
Throughout Scripture, God does not merely judge covenant failure; He exposes and removes the wickedness causing it.
The symbolic language of Daniel’s seventieth week, Gog and Magog, Armageddon, the Day of the Lord, and the consuming fire of God all portray different aspects of God’s covenant-confirmation process whereby hidden sin is revealed, judged, and removed from His people.
2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
Thus, God remains faithful to complete His covenant-confirmation work in His people.
Paul summarizes this restoration process in covenantal resurrection language:
1 Thess 4:16-17 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout… and the dead in Christ shall rise first…
Those who had fallen into covenantal sleep are raised through God’s restoring work, while those who remained obedient and responsive to grace are gathered together with them unto the Lord.
Thus the resurrection and gathering language describes the completion of God’s covenant-confirmation process in all His people.
Through the judgment process, God begins by hiding His face, making the errant believer realize their situation (Eze 39:24-29), and then removes the wickedness from within them.
“We shall not all sleep” indicates that not all believers enter a prolonged state of covenant failure.
Some remain covenantally responsive to grace, while others require divine chastening before restoration.
1Co 15:51 ¶ Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
God gives grace to the humble, but God resists teaching the proud to deny ungodliness.
Some grow through grace’s guidance without prolonged discipline, while others learn through God’s discipline.
Jer 29:13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
These things are spiritual in nature, and are constantly happening in the lives of believers as they are being conformed to the Image of Christ.