In part one, I talked about the Menorahs in the Bible and how God’s covenant with Abram was the servant lamp position of a menorah and a prophecy of the future fulfillment by God’s son. In part two, I want to look at another menorah; and that menorah is history. But, in order to see this menorah, we must have an accurate picture of who God’s son is. If history is a menorah, it will point to Jesus as the Servant of God.
First, we need to understand that God is omnipresent. What does that mean? Well, if we were on a planet that was circling around a sun that was 50 light years away from earth and had the ability to observe earth close up, we would see 50 years into the past. That is the definition of 50 light years away. Light from events on earth would take 50 years to reach the planet we were on.
That means, if we were on both planets; (we can’t say at the same time because time is not the same everywhere in the universe). But, if we were on both planets, we would be in both times. So to define God as being omnipresent is to first say that there is no ‘there’ to God; everywhere is ‘here’ to God. And if everywhere is ‘here,’ then every time is now. God is not a prisoner of the present, like us, waiting for the passage of time to unlock the future, He is already in the future as well as the past and present. To think otherwise is to be rebuked by God. In Psalm 50:21, God says to the evil man: “You thought that I was altogether like you; but I will rebuke you.”
So when God created the universe, He created time. He didn’t create the beginning of time; He created time or history, if you will, from start to finish.
So, how does that relate to history as a menorah? Well, theologians have looked at the 1000 millennial period as a type of the seventh day of creation when God rested from His creation work of six days. This has a basis in 2 Peter 3:8 “But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.” Also Psalm 90:4 “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past.” Then history up to the beginning of the millennial period should equal 6000 years
There is at least one problem here. According to Bishop Usher in his book, “Annals of the World,” creation was 4004 BC. That means 1997 AD would the end of 6000 years of Biblical history. (remember to add a year when going from BC to AD since there is no year zero.)
However, several years ago I came across a passage which may shed light on the chronology problem. “And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month that he began to build the house of the LORD.” 1 Kings 6:1. The year was 967 BC. 480 years earlier would have been 1447 BC, a date which I have verified from other sources (More about that in another article.) So, what is the problem? Well do the math with me.
The children exit Egypt and wander in the wilderness for 40 years. Then they enter Canaan and the experience 400 years of the Judges. Then comes the reign of King Saul (40 years) and the reign of King David (another 40 years). Add those years together and the total is 520 years, a long way away from 480 years.
Another verse might be helpful. 1 Samuel 7:12 says, “And Samuel judged Israel all his life.” So the period of the Judges ended when Samuel died. We don’t know when that happened but, it appears that Samuel died shortly before King Saul died. That means that the life of King Saul should not be considered a separate age but his reign should be considered a part of the Judges period.
That moves the creation 40 years closer to the present age or the creation date would be 3964 BC. The 4th Millennium would start in 964 BC and end in 37 AD. The 4th millennium would the servant lamp in the seven-thousand-year menorah. All of Christ’s earthly ministry, His birth death and resurrection would be in the 4th millennium and show that history is a menorah which points to Jesus as the servant of the Lord and the focal point of history.
That also means that the end of 6000 years of human history will come to an end at about 2037 AD. I say ‘about’ because that date is assuming every other date of Bishop Ussher is accurate. Is there any way we can check Bishop Ussher’s dates? I can think of one way
Many Christian writers have taken the position that history is a sacred week with each millennium representing the day in which God worked in creating the universe and the seventh millennium representing the seventh day in which God rested in the creation week. Early Christian writers held that at the end of 6,000 years of history, Christ would return and reign for 1,000 years. These included Barnabas (c. A.D. 100), Justin Martyr and Irenaeus (c. A.D. 150), Lactantius (c. A.D. 325), and Methodius, Bishop of Tyre (c. A.D. 300). For example, Barnabas wrote: ‘As there had been 2,000 years from Adam to Abraham, and 2,000 from Abraham to Christ; so there will be 2,000 years for the Christian era and then the Millennium.'”
Many Christian writers have pointed to the year 2000 as the end of the age of the Church, but an important question to ask is, “When did the Christian era begin?” The date of 2000 AD as the end of the Church age assumes the beginning of the Church was started when Christ was born. But did the Church Age begin with the birth of Christ or with the birth of the Church at Pentecost? If the church age began at the birth of Christ in the year 2/3 BC and lasted for 2000 years, then it ended in the year 1997/8 and the millennial kingdom has already begun. But if it began with the birth of the church at Pentecost in 30-32 AD, then the age of the Church will end about the year 2030 to 2032. There is a difference of only 5-7 years between our revised date of the end of 6000 years of human history and the end of the church age. The seven-year tribulation period would fit in that gap very neatly.
So we can see from this that history (His story) is a week (one day equals 1000 years) but also a menorah with Jesus earthly life and ministry in the center of history i.e the servant lamp position of history.