Folks, I just can’t catch a break. I was minding my own business, as best I can at the church Bible study last night and presto, yet another time when we as modern Christians can’t let the Bible define terms but have to project stuff into the text that it plainly never says.
The study lead brought up the time of the Gentiles. Before speaking, I actually looked up the verse before opening my mouth, not that it helped, but …
Oh, said passage is Revelation 11:2
2 But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.
So, there it is in black and white but as usual, nobody cared. It didn’t agree with Scofield so of course I had to be wrong. A parallel passage is found in Luke 21:24
24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
The leader tried to say that the time of the Gentiles began with the vision of Daniel of the statue representing four kingdoms. And continues until the return of Christ to establish the millennium. Somehow his understanding of the vision always leaves out the fact that the rock (Christ) destroys the statue and that the rock grows into a mountain that fills the whole earth. The rock clearly represents the growth and success of the Gospel which will eventually fill the whole earth.
Here’s the text from Daniel.
31 Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. 32 This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, 33 His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. 34 Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out fwithout hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. 35 Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
Daniel 2:31–35.
Daniel then interprets the dream.
36 This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. 37 Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. 38 And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold. 39 And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. 40 And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. 41 And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. 42 And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. 43 And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. 44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. 45 Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.
Daniel 2:36–45.
The four kingdoms are understood as Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece (Alexander the Great), and Rome. Rome initially protected Christians (see Paul and the book of Acts) but eventually turned on them and became an enemy of God’s people. If you don’t believe me, look up Nero and Roman candles.
Dispensational Premillennialism Wrong Again
Below is the Dispensational Premillennial position on the “Time of the Gentiles” per Logos software.
Jesus speaks of Jerusalem being trampled by Gentiles “until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled,” (Luke 21:24) a phrase that has generated considerable theological discussion about its scope and endpoint.
The term refers to God’s use of Gentile nations as instruments of discipline upon Israel1, functioning as a prolonged period of subjugation rather than a brief episode. This era commenced with Israel’s initial oppression in Egypt and will conclude when Christ returns to deliver Israel from Gentile domination and establish their prominence among nations in the millennial kingdom.1
The chronological boundaries remain debated. One interpretation places the beginning at Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, when Judah was exiled to Babylon, with the conclusion arriving through the Lord’s intervention from heaven.2 Another view suggests the era extends from Jerusalem’s destruction in AD 70 through the end of history.3 Throughout this period, four successive Gentile empires dominate world affairs, as depicted in Daniel’s visions.2
A common interpretive framework calculates the times of the Gentiles as 2,520 years based on calculations derived from Leviticus 26, yet no specific ending date appears explicitly in Scripture, despite numerous scholarly attempts to identify one.1 The phrase concerns political dominion over the Jewish people rather than the salvation of Gentiles—a distinction important for understanding what “fulfillment” actually entails.1
1 Finis Jennings Dake, in Dake’s Topics (WORDsearch, 1991). [See here, here, here, here.]
2 F. W. Grant, Leaves From The Book (Galaxie Software, 2004), 82.
3 Timothy A. Gabrielson, “Times of the Gentiles,” in The Lexham Bible Dictionary, ed. John D. Barry et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016). [See here.]
Please note that nowhere in the above discussion does anybody cite the actual biblical reference to the times of the Gentiles mentioned in the Bible. Using a term and purposely skipping its definition is clearly sloppy scholarship if not outright dishonesty.
Oh, in fairness, I did look up the notes for Luke 21:24 and Revelation 11:2 in my Scofield Reference Bible and Scofield claims that the time of the Gentiles began when Babylon captured Jerusalem and destroyed the first temple but as usual he never cites any actual evidence in the Bible to back up his claim.
Here’s a Contrary View
The following question was put to me. What follows is my response:
In Luke 21:24, after the prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, it says, “and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” The man on the street reading this without a theological bias and the person reading this with a literal interpretation would clearly think there is a time gap involved here.
The “gap” this person is referring to is the time between the destruction of Jerusalem that took place in AD 70 and some yet future time when the Gentiles—the nations—ravage Israel again. Supposedly we are living in that “in-between time” that’s nearly 2000 years long.
He is assuming a distant future fulfillment when none is implied. It’s certainly in the future for those who heard Jesus’ prophecy around AD 30, but not necessarily in the distant future. The fulfillment of the “times of the Gentiles” occurred when the Gentiles—represented by the Roman armies that made up “the nations” at the time (Rom: 16:25-26; 1 Tim. 3:16; Acts 2:5) and depicted as four kingdoms in Daniel 2–3—acted as God’s agent(1:1–2) in the destruction of the temple and the judgment on the city of Jerusalem.
Until the Times of the Gentiles are Fulfilled by Gary DeMar 02/09/2021
DeMar continues:
Milton Terry wrote the classic work Biblical Hermeneutics, a standard study on biblical interpretation that has been around for more than 135 years. Here’s what he wrote about the time of the Gentiles:
“The statement of Luke xxi, 24, that “Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled,” is supposed to involve events which did not take place in that generation. The “times of the Gentiles” (kairoi ethnown [nations from the Greek word ethnos from which we get the word “ethnic”]) are assumed to be the times of the opportunities of grace afforded to the Gentiles under the Gospel. But to understand the words in this sense would be, as Van Oosterzee observes, to interpolate a thought entirely foreign to the context. “The times of the Gentiles,” says Bengel, “are the times allotted to the Gentiles to tread down the city;” but there is nothing in the passage or context to authorize his further remark that “these times shall be ended when the Gentiles’ conversion shall be fully consummated,” and that the treading down by Romans, Persians, Saracens, Franks, and Turks is to be understood. These kairoi [times] are manifestly times of judgment upon Jerusalem, not times of salvation to the Gentiles.”
“The most natural and obvious parallel is Rev. xi. 2, where the outer court of the temple is said to be “given to the Gentiles,” by whom the holy city shall be trodden down forty-two months, a period equivalent to the “time and times and half a time” of Rev. xii, 14, and of Dan. vii, 25; xii, 7. This is a symbolical period of judgment (see above, p. 384 [in Biblical Hermeneutics], but does not denote ages and generations. It is three and a half—a divided seven, a short but signal period of woe. The “times of the Gentiles,” therefore, are the three and a half times (approximating three and a half years) during which the Gentile armies besieged and trampled down Jerusalem. (Milton S. Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics, unabridged ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, n.d.), 445.)”
Terry is not alone in his interpretation. Heinrich Meyer in his Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Mark-Luke (Trans. Peter Christie (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1884), 530–531.) argues in a similar way that “till the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled” refer to “the time that the periods which are appointed to the Gentile nations for the completion of divine judgments (not the period of grace for the Gentiles, as Ebrard foists into the passage) shall have run out. Comp. Rev. xi. 2. Such times of the Gentiles are ended in the case in question by the Parousia ([Luke 21:] 25f., 27), which is to occur during the lifetime of the hearers (ver. 28); … hence those καιροί [times]are in no way to be regarded as of longer duration.”
Closing Comments
As usual, the Premillennial Dispensationalist position cannot be found in the Bible, only imposed upon it as an interpretive grid. When something agrees, quote it, when it doesn’t, ignore it. When someone cherry-picks texts instead of looking at all the relevant data and then drawing a conclusion, then you know they have their thumb on the scales and are pushing something other than the truth.
As you can tell, such sloppiness gets me riled up, but I usually manage to keep myself in check. I find that picking my battles in this group is better than insisting on winning the war by bayonetting all the wounded. Instead, I vent on my blog.
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