08/28/2026
Daniel's Seventy Weeks (6)
Everlasting Righteousness Revealed ⑥
The Garment of the Bride — Between Two Mountain Peaks
Of Daniel’s seventy weeks, sixty-nine have already passed, and one final week remains.
Daniel 9:26 tells us that after the Messiah is cut off, the city and the sanctuary will be destroyed. Just as the prophecy said, Jesus Christ was crucified, and later, in A.D. 70, Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans.
But the final week does not immediately follow those events. Verse 26 speaks of the Messiah being cut off and Jerusalem being destroyed, and then verse 27 returns to the final “one week.”
Between those two points lies the long period in which we are living today.
One of the simplest ways to picture this is to think of two mountain peaks.
From far away, two peaks can look as though they stand right next to each other, almost as if they belong to one continuous ridge. But as you come closer, you discover a deep valley between them—a distance that was impossible to see from far away.
The Old Testament prophets saw the Messiah in much the same way.
They saw that the Messiah would suffer, but they also saw that He would one day reign in glory.
First Peter 1:11 says that the prophets testified beforehand of
“the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.”
They saw both peaks—His suffering and His glory—but the long stretch of time between them was not clearly visible.
We are living in that valley now.
This is the age of the Church, the age of grace.
After Israel rejected the Messiah, the Gospel went out to the Gentiles. Paul explains in Romans 11 that through Israel’s fall, salvation came unto the Gentiles.
That is how people like us, who were not born into Abraham’s physical bloodline, were also able to hear the Gospel. As we saw earlier in this series, those who belong to Christ—whether Jew or Gentile—are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.
This valley has now stretched on for nearly two thousand years.
But that does not mean God has been doing nothing.
The Gospel has continued to spread from one generation to another and from one nation to another. People have continued to hear the Gospel and come to Christ.
So this is not simply an empty gap between the sixty-ninth week and the final week. It is a time of grace in which God is carrying the Gospel to the Gentiles and gathering His Church.
But this age will not continue forever.
The Bible tells us that one day the dead in Christ will rise, and the believers who are still alive will be caught up together with them to meet the Lord.
“Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.”
— 1 Thessalonians 4:17, KJV
And when this present age comes to its close, Daniel’s final week still remains.
Daniel 9:27 speaks of a ruler who will make a covenant during that final seven-year period and, in the middle of the week, cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. Jesus Himself referred in Matthew 24 to Daniel’s prophecy of the “abomination of desolation” and spoke of the great tribulation that would follow.
But the Bible does not end with tribulation.
The Antichrist is not the final figure in the story.
The prophets saw another peak beyond the sufferings of Christ: His glory. And that part of the prophecy still lies ahead.
Jesus Christ will return. His kingdom will be established, and in the end there will be a new heaven and a new earth.
And then Scripture brings us back to the scene we saw at the beginning of this series: the marriage supper.
Revelation 19:8 describes the garment of the bride:
“And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white…”
I especially love the words, “to her was granted.”
It does not say that the bride made the garment herself. It does not say that she spun the thread with her own hands, worked for years to prepare it, and finally became worthy to wear it.
The garment was given to her.
And that brings us back once again to Daniel 9.
Daniel confessed before God that he was not coming before Him on the basis of his own righteousness. He knew that he had no righteousness of his own to present before God.
And yet it was to Daniel that God gave this remarkable promise:
“…to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in **everlasting righteousness**…”
— Daniel 9:24, KJV
Man had no righteousness, yet God promised to bring in everlasting righteousness.
And the Messiah came to bring that righteousness.
Only two verses later, Daniel prophesied that the Messiah would be cut off. The KJV gives us that unforgettable phrase:
“Messiah be cut off, **but not for himself.**”
His death was not for Himself.
Jesus did not die because of His own sin. He died for us. He received the judgment that belonged to us, and in Christ we received the righteousness we could never produce for ourselves.
That is the righteousness given to the bride.
It is everlasting righteousness.
It is not a righteousness we make for ourselves. It does not increase because we did well today or disappear because we failed tomorrow. It is the righteousness Christ has already accomplished through the cross.
Daniel saw that righteousness from afar.
At the cross, it was revealed.
And today it is given to those who believe the Gospel.
At the end of Scripture, we see the Church clothed in that righteousness, waiting for Christ.
The Messiah came. He was cut off, but not for Himself.
And one day, the Bridegroom will come again.
