Pretribulation interpreters reason that the church will not be part of the 70th week of Daniel (i.e. the last seven years) because it was not part of the 69 weeks. I have responded to this fallacious claim several times. But let me give you three reasons below, the third is a new counterexample I am making here against this foundational pretrib interpretation.
First, it is illogical, a non-sequitur. The church does exist now and therefore is present on earth. That would be like saying because my three-year old son did not exist four years ago, he cannot exist next year. The logic does not follow.
Second, it is an argument from silence. Daniel’s passage is specifically addressing Israel (“concerning your people and your holy city”). It also relates unbelieving Gentiles who will be oppressing Israel during this time. Daniel’s prophecy is not making claims of excluding the church. Pretrib teachers are making Daniel’s prophecy say more than it intends. The assumption of the church being excluded from the last seven years is being read into the prophecy. The prophecy is a positive statement for Israel, not a negative statement against the church.
Third, there is glaring inconsistency that pretribulation interpreters fail to recognize. While they maintain “a world-wide revival of Christian Gentiles during Daniel’s seventieth week,” Daniel’s prophecy, however, in Daniel 9:24–27 is completely silent on that event. So pretrib interpreters cannot claim that Daniel’s prophecy will not apply to the church because the church is not mentioned in the prophecy, all the while claiming that a world-wide revival of Gentiles will take place!
The New Testament through its progressive revelation reveals the overlay of the church during the final seven year period of Daniel’s prophecy, viewing God working with Israel and the church simultaneously to accomplished his purposes. God’s revelation of Daniel’s prophecy is augmented with more information from the New Testament, just as Old Testament prophecy is described more in detail in the New Testament (e.g. who the Messiah is and what he does). Robert H. Gundry (First the Antichrist, 135) rightly notes, “So progress in the biblical history of salvation makes the situation in a future seventieth week different from what it was during the past sixty-nine weeks. You can’t legitimately argue from one to the other.”
