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From Here to Forever
They could not understand His words foretelling His suffering and
death.
“The Time Is Fulfilled”
Christ had sent them forth with the message: “The time is ful-
filled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the
gospel.”
Mark 1:15
. That message was based on the prophecy of
Daniel 9
. The “sixty-nine weeks” were to extend to “the Messiah
the Prince,” and the disciples looked forward to the establishment of
Messiah’s kingdom at Jerusalem to rule over the whole earth.
They preached the message committed to them, though they mis-
apprehended its meaning. While their announcement was founded
on
Daniel 9:25
, they did not see in the next verse that Messiah was
to be “cut off.” Their hearts had been set upon the glory of an earthly
empire; this blinded their understanding. At the very time when they
expected to see their Lord ascend the throne of David, they beheld
Him seized, scourged, derided, and condemned on the cross. What
despair and anguish wrung the heart of those disciples!
Christ had come at the exact time foretold. Scripture had been
fulfilled in every detail. The Word and the Spirit of God attested
the divine commission of His Son. And yet the disciples’ minds
were shrouded in doubt. If Jesus had been the true Messiah, would
they have been plunged into grief and disappointment? This was the
question that tortured their souls during the hopeless hours of that
Sabbath between His death and resurrection.
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Yet they were not forsaken. “When I sit in darkness, the Lord
shall be a light unto me. ... He will bring me forth to the light, and
I shall behold his righteousness.” “Unto the upright there ariseth
light in the darkness.” “I will make darkness light before them, and
crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not
forsake them.”
Micah 7:8, 9
;
Psalm 112:4
;
Isaiah 42:16
.
The announcement made by the disciples was correct, “The time
is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand.” At the expiration of “the
time”—the sixty-nine weeks of
Daniel 9
which were to extend to the
Messiah, “the Anointed One”—Christ had received the anointing of
the Spirit after His baptism by John. The “kingdom of God” was
not, as they had been taught to believe, an earthly empire. Nor was