“And after the sixty-two weeks
Messiah shall [
j]be cut off, but not for Himself;
And the people of the
prince who is to come
Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
The end of it
shall be with a flood,
And till the end of the war desolations are determined.
27
Then he shall confirm a [
k]covenant with many for one week;
But in the middle of the week
He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.
And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate,
Even until the consummation, which is determined,
Is poured out on the [
l]desolate.”"
A. A quick dissection of verse 27. We start with the subject of he. How are we to find out who he is? By using the previous verse, since because he is mentioned here, it means that who that is was defined previously. You say it is the Messiah, I say it is the prince who is to come, whose people destroyed the city and the sanctuary.
B. What did this "he" do? He confirmed a covenant with many for one week. If this is the prince of the previous verse, then this would be like a peace treaty.
C. What happened next? "BUT in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering...". A very straightforward way of saying that this "he"
broke the covenant. And the last 3 1/2 years are a living hell, going by what it says above. So, you should now see why I say this is not the Messiah, but the prince who is to come.
Yes, I imagine you do. Many have been calling Christ the antichrist fo years not knowing it. Just as you are.
This would mean something if you weren't allegorizing/spiritualizing the prophecy above. This is why I said I was concerned that you isolated the verse from the context. I say I believe it is the antichrist, however, this could be another case of things happening to Israel in their history, that become future dual fulfillment prophecies. (Like for Jesus. There were quite a few dual fulfillment prophecies in the Old Testament for His first coming.)
To be honest, it doesn't matter that much to me. The reason is that as things keep going the way they are going, I am seeing pieces falling into place. I don't have the time to go over everything.
What exactly do you believe it to be?
To put it simply, I believe that the mark of the beast is the greatest blasphemy perpetuated upon the Holy Spirit. [The rest is explanation] Here you have the beast, his image (which just happens to be a definition of son...), and his mark. Jesus is the Son of God, and as such, He is the image of the unfathomable God, but, it also means that He is God. Hence John 1:1. I think I wrote this in another thread, but I see AI playing a huge role in all of this, especially since it is supposed to be human like, and it was made by man. Add the huge jump forward they are making in robotics, you can have a robot with an AI brain, which would make it a creation in the image of man. And then you have the mark. Everyone has to take the mark or they are killed. However, those who take the mark are forever damned without hope. Another however, scripture always pairs the taking of the mark with the worship of the beast and his image. So all three, and your ticket is stamped for hell. It does leave the question, what about those who took the mark solely to survive, but hate the beast and his image? John MacArthur would say they could be redeemed, once they hear the gospel from the 144,000. They aren't repenting and being saved from believing in the beast and his image, just for getting the mark because they wanted to survive. (Can't eat, buy, sell, etc. unless one has the mark.) Kind of like a Christian false convert. Get all the blessings by being in the church, without any of the "you have to stop sinning..."
So, basically, the beast is truly perpetuating himself as a triune god, just not spiritual but physical, and for those who worship the beast and his image, the mark is a seal of ownership, in the same way, that the Holy Spirit seals believers in Christ. You have the beast, who sent forth his "son" (the image of the beast), in the same way, the Father sent forth the Son, and both beast and image perpetuate the mark, in the same way that the Holy Spirit was sent forth by the Father and the Son. That is basically where I am at the moment. To the mark is given the nature of the Holy Spirit, in that it conveys that the one marked belongs to Satan...that is the beast and his image. The other thing is that the Bible says that we will only live on Earth. So either the world ends, economies collapse, the world is destroyed, or we have someone living on Mars in less than 10 years. (I think they were saying in 5 years, but I don't remember.) As it is to be a one-way trip, literally living there. That timeline doesn't seem feasible anymore, but they are pushing pretty hard. These short stints in space are not the same. They now have the technology to halve the amount of time it takes to get to Mars. (Whether or not it will ever reach production is just another question.)
On the worship of the beast and his image, a scholar has said that the definition conveyed in Greek is not some simple yay, I worship the beast. The connotation is that these people would choose to continue worshiping the beast and his image in the lake of fire, that is after death. The complete opposite of what God commands us to do. We are to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength, not the beast and his image. And the connotation is that this truly is WHOLE heart, mind, and strength. To see the glory of God will not phase them.