Chapter 1
Puzzle Pieces 1 and 2
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” Exodus 20:8
Hebrews 4:9-11 – “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.”
I’d like to start building the framework for this puzzle by talking about the 7000-year plan of God for mankind.
a) God sets a pattern in Genesis of 7 days - 6 days for creation and 1 day of rest.
b) The Millennium is referred to many times as the "rest“.
c) A day is like a 1000 years. Psalm 90:4 says, “For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.” 2 Peter 3:8 says, “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”
d) Another clue is that Hosea 6:1-2 predicts that the restoration of the Jews would occur after 2 "days", which is poised to occur now after 2000 years from Christ’s first coming. "Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but He will heal us; He has injured us but He will bind up our wounds. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will restore us, that we may live in His presence.”
The 7,000 year plan of God has been consistent with Jewish thought for thousands of years. The apostle Barnabus was a partner in ministry to the Apostle Paul (Acts 13:2, Acts 14:14). The Epistle of Barnabus written in the 1st Century explicitly tied the 7 days of creation to Psalm 90:4 and the 7,000 year plan of God. From the Epistle of Barnabas chapter 15, verses 3-5: He speaks of the Sabbath at the beginning of the Creation, "And God made in six days the works of His hands and on the seventh day He made an end, and rested in it and sanctified It." Notice, children, what is the meaning of "He made an end in six days"? He means this: that the Lord will make an end of everything in six thousand years, for a day with Him means a thousand years. And He Himself is my witness when He says, "Lo, the day of the Lord shall be as a thousand years." So then, children, in six days, that is in six thousand years, everything will be completed. "And He rested on the seventh day." This means, when His Son comes He will destroy the time of the wicked one, and will judge the godless, and will change the sun and the moon and the stars, and then He will truly rest on the seventh day.
The Bible teaches that Christ will return to the earth for a second time at the end of 6000 years, counting from the Creation. It also teaches that Christ will return at the beginning of the “third day”, or third Millennium, counting from the time of Christ. “After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.” Hosea 6:2
So, where are we? When does the 6000 years end? When does the 2000 years end? Do we count from the birth of Christ or the death and resurrection of Christ? Well, the 2000-year count could be from either the birth or death/resurrection of Jesus, so the count could end anytime between 1995-2034 A.D. Jesus should return to earth at some point during this time period. But what about the 6000 year count? When does that end?
I believe that we can count the years from Adam until the present day and be fairly accurate in our conclusions about when the 6000 years end. The Lord has laid everything out for us in the Scriptures. Have you ever wondered why the Bible records the ages of people all the way back to Adam? Or why it records the number of years the Kings of Israel ruled? The Lord was giving us the numbers so that we could COUNT the years from Creation and KNOW the approximate time of when the 6000 years would end.
We must keep in mind that when the Bible says that Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born, or that Lamech was 182 years old when Noah was born, that it doesn’t mean that they turned that age on the day of their son's birth. In many cultures, including Jewish culture, when someone turns 30, they are considered to be in their 31st year, therefore they consider them to be 31, as opposed to our own culture where we would say they are only 30. In Jewish culture and most ancient cultures, when a baby is born, they were already considered to be ONE; therefore, on what we would call their "first birthday", they would say the child is turning TWO. The same can be surmised when it says a king reigned 45 years, that it is mostly likely saying his term ended in the 45th year, not that he completed 45 full years.
It is crucial that we understand this in order to correctly count the years as laid out in the Bible. If we only count 130 + 105 + 90, etc., we will reach the end of 6000 years somewhere in the 1990’s. Obviously, we are past that time and Jesus has not yet returned to earth, so we must understand how the Jewish culture counts years in order to correctly count the years as laid out to us in the Bible. So, when the Bible says that Adam was 130 years when Seth was born, we must understand that he was in his 130th year, therefore he could have completed between 129 years to 129 years and 364 days. Since we do not know exactly his age, we should count that on average, he had completed 129.5 years of living.
The one number you may have a problem understanding is that Terah was in his 130th year when Abraham was born. Genesis 11 mentions that Terah lived 70 years and then gave birth to 3 sons, listing Abraham as the first. However, Abraham was not the eldest of these three sons. Stephen tells us in the book of Acts that Abraham did not leave Haran until after Terah died. Genesis 12 tells us that Abraham was 75 when he left Haran and that his father was 205 years old when he died. We simply need to subtract 75 from 205 to understand that Terah was in his 130th year when Abraham was born. The New Testament helps us to properly understand the Old Testament, and together the Old and New Testaments make up what we call the written Word of God.
I encourage you to go through these numbers in the Bible and verify them for yourselves. If you add them up, you will see that from Creation until the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem in 586 BC, there were right around 3400 years. Adding 585 to that reaches 1 BC. Then adding 2015 years to that number, and you will see that we are right at the end of the 6000 year mark, give or take a few years. We are right there. This is the outer framework of this puzzle. From here, let’s start with some of the major pieces. These pieces include Year of Jubilee and the 70 weeks of Daniel. We’ll also see how important the “7th day” is when we look at the 7th day of Tabernacles, 7th day of Hanukkah, 7th day of Unleavened Bread, and the 7th day of Daniel’s 70th week, a.k.a. the “Day of the Lord”.