I want to comment on a pretrib argument. The argument goes something like this: God works with both the church and Israel during the “gap” between the sixty-ninth and seventieth week, but he does not work with the church during any of Daniel’s seventy years prophecy, including the seventieth week; therefore the church must be raptured before the seventieth week begins.
For example, Renald Showers contends,
The church did not exist during any part of the first 69 weeks or 483 years of the 70 weeks. . . . [which is consistent with] that God determined all 70 weeks specifically for Israel and Jerusalem, not for the church.[1]
God does not intend the church to be present on the earth for any part of the 70 weeks or 490 years He has determined specifically for Israel and Jerusalem. He intends to keep His 70-weeks program for Israel and Jerusalem and His program for the church separate and distinct from each other, just as Israel and the church are distinct entities.[2]
However, he then makes the following qualification:
This does not mean that God stopped working altogether with Israel and Jerusalem when He interrupted the 70-weeks program and started the church. Instead, it means that God temporarily stopped one specific program (the 70-weeks program) with Israel and Jerusalem while He works His program with the church in the world. There is a major difference between saying that God stopped working with Israel altogether and saying that He temporarily stopped one specific program with that nation.[3]
Showers’s view is flawed. It does not logically follow that since Daniel’s prophecy was made to Israel, therefore the church must be excluded during the seventieth week. Showers does not provide an actual argument, failing to explain in principle why the church must be excluded from the earth during the seventieth week. He merely asserts his position rather than defend it.[4]
While Showers’s argument may not go to the extreme claiming that God does not work with both Israel and the church during the church age, he fails to provide good reasons why the church will be excluded from existing at the time of the seventieth week. It is therefore invalid to object on biblical and logical grounds that God therefore cannot work alongside both the church and Israel during the seventieth week of Daniel.
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[1] Showers, Maranatha, 241.
[2] Showers, Maranatha, 243.
[3] Showers, Maranatha, 243.
[4] In addition, it should be noted that the seventy weeks prophecy is not completely unrelated to the gap period. Both the seventy weeks prophecy and the gap includes the purpose of judgment for Israel. God has judges Israel during both the seventy weeks prophecy and the gap. Thus, while there is a gap between the sixty-ninth and seventieth week, there is a thread of continuity between the gap? dispensations, not the least the Gentiles play an important role in both dispensations!
