The Jubilee Calendar and the Story of the End

The big idea

The Bible's story begins with a promise: if the people will be God's people, God will be their God. That promise is repeated again and again (Lev 26:12; Jer 7:23; 11:4; Ezek 36:28). Israel agreed to it at Mount Sinai (Ex 19:5-8; 24:7), and God promised to write it on their hearts one day (Jer 31:33). The story ends with the promise kept: God lives with his people, they are his people, and he is their God (Rev 21:3).

There is a problem in the middle of the story. People keep breaking their side of the promise. They needed someone to rescue them and make the promise last. That someone is the Savior, the Messiah (Matt 1:21; Luke 2:11; John 3:16-17). His two comings, the first to save and the second to finish the rescue, rest on this promise. Everything else in this paper hangs on it.

What happens when people ignore God's rules? The Bible shows the same lesson many times: hypocrisy leads to captivity. A hypocrite is someone who looks holy on the outside but does not follow God on the inside (Matt 23:27-28). Jesus quoted Isaiah about people who honor God with their lips while their hearts are far away (Matt 15:7-9; Isa 29:13). Captivity means being carried off as prisoners, and that is what happened to Israel and Judah when they refused to obey (2 Kgs 17:7-23; 2 Chr 36:15-19).

One rule the people neglected was rest. God told them to let the land rest every seventh year (Lev 25:1-7), and he warned that if they skipped those rests, they would be scattered and the land would enjoy its Sabbaths while they were gone (Lev 26:34-35). Jeremiah warned them about the weekly Sabbath too (Jer 17:24-27). The warning came true. The people were taken to Babylon, and the land lay empty for seventy years, keeping the Sabbaths the people had skipped (2 Chr 36:20-21; Jer 25:11-12). The captivity lasted exactly as long as it took to pay back the missed rests.

That gives a number worth noticing. Seventy missed Sabbath years means 490 years of neglect, because a Sabbath year comes once in every seven (70 × 7 = 490). In the calendar's terms, 490 years is exactly ten blocks of 49, and each block holds seven Sabbath years. Ten blocks of seven make seventy. The Bible says the land rested seventy years but does not say how long the neglect lasted, so the 490 comes from this arithmetic. The same number returns later in Daniel's seventy weeks (Dan 9:24).

God's rest laws are written down in three sizes. Every seventh day is a Sabbath (Ex 20:8-11). Every seventh year is a Sabbath year, and debts are released (Lev 25:1-7; Deut 15:1-2). After seven of those, the fiftieth year is a Jubilee, when slaves go free and land goes back to its owners (Lev 25:8-10). The Sabbath is also a sign of the promise itself: God gave it so his people would know that he is the one who makes them holy (Ex 31:13; Ezek 20:12). The pattern is six, then rest, then a fresh start.

This paper asks a simple question. Does one calendar count years in that same pattern, and does it fit the big story of the Bible, from the cross to the return of Jesus? The calendar is called the Continuous Jubilee Calendar, or CJC. The paper tells the story in order. It does not guess the day Jesus will return, because Jesus said that no one knows it (Matt 24:36; Acts 1:7).

How the calendar counts

The CJC counts years in blocks of 49. The first year of each block is a Jubilee year. Inside a block, the years come in weeks of seven. The last year of each week is a sabbath year, when the land rests. The middle year of each week is called Position 4. To tie the calendar to history, the paper uses dates that history and Scripture both record. The calendar places them as follows.

The first check comes from King Hezekiah's day. The army of Assyria had surrounded Judah, and the prophet Isaiah told the king that for two years the people would eat only what grew by itself, and in the third year they would plant and harvest again (Isa 37:30; 2 Kgs 19:29). That fits two rest years in a row: 703 BC, a sabbath year, and 702 BC, a Jubilee. The Assyrian attack and God's rescue came in 701 BC, the year after (2 Kgs 19:35; Isa 37:36). The paper treats this as a good fit but not a proof, because some scholars think the war itself caused the empty fields.

The second check comes 245 years later, in 457 BC, which also falls on a Jubilee year. Counting forward 483 years brings us to AD 27, when Jesus began his work (Dan 9:25). Three years later, the cross falls in the middle year of the final week, just as Daniel said the Messiah would be cut off in the middle of the week (Dan 9:26-27). That week ends in AD 33, a sabbath year, and AD 34 is a Jubilee, exactly 490 years after the order. From 702 BC to AD 34 is 735 years, which is exactly fifteen blocks of 49.

Jesus began his ministry by reading about the year of the Lord's favor, which is the Jubilee (Luke 4:18-19; Isa 61:1-2). Hezekiah's day, the royal order, and the cross all land on the same 49-year pattern. That fit is the heart of the paper.

An offer and an answer

When Jesus came, God made Israel an offer: welcome your Messiah, the promised King and Savior, and the great promises of the prophets will come true. John tells us that Jesus came to his own people, but most of them did not receive him (John 1:11-12).

Many said no. They did not accept Jesus as the Messiah, and their leaders had him put to death (Acts 2:23; 3:13-15). God knew this would happen before it did, but he did not force anyone's choice. Every person is free to choose (Deut 30:19; Josh 24:15). Knowing something ahead of time is different from causing it (Isa 46:9-10; Acts 15:18).

Still, the offer was real. Jesus wept over Jerusalem because the people did not recognize the time when God came to them (Luke 19:41-44). He longed to gather them like a hen gathers her chicks (Matt 23:37-39). Soon after the resurrection, Peter told the crowd to repent and turn back to God. To repent means to change your mind and your ways. Peter said they had turned away from the Holy One and killed the Author of life, and he called them to turn back so their sins could be wiped away and times of refreshing could come (Acts 3:13-21).

God also had a plan ready in case the offer was refused. Before the world began, God planned that Jesus, like a spotless lamb, would die to rescue everyone who trusts him (1 Pet 1:18-20; Rev 13:8). That is the rescue. The cross was not a surprise or a failure. It was God's plan all along.

Some promises in the Bible were like an offer with a condition. God said that if a nation turned away from its evil, he would hold back the disaster he had planned, but if a nation did evil, he would hold back the good he had planned (Jer 18:7-10). Jonah's warning to the city of Nineveh worked this way (Jonah 3:4-10). When a promise had an "if," it depended on how the people lived.

Ezekiel's temple plan is one example. God showed the prophet a vision of a new temple with exact measurements (Ezek 40-48) and told him to show it to Israel so they would be ashamed of their sins and follow the plan (Ezek 43:10-11). After the exile, the people never built the temple that way (Ezra 3; Hag 2:3), so that plan was set aside.

Other promises were only delayed. Zechariah wrote that people would look on the one they pierced and mourn for him (Zech 12:10). That one verse belongs to two different comings of Jesus. At his first coming, a soldier pierced his side on the cross (John 19:34-37). At his second coming, all the tribes of the earth will mourn when they see him (Rev 1:7; Matt 24:30). The piercing came first, and the mourning is still ahead.

The new covenant is a promise that has begun but is not finished. A covenant is a solemn agreement. Through Jeremiah, God promised a new one: he would write his law on people's hearts, forgive their sins, and be their God (Jer 31:31-34). At the Last Supper, Jesus said his blood was the blood of this new covenant (Luke 22:20). The book of Hebrews says it has started (Heb 8:8-12), and it will be completed when God's people are fully renewed at his return (Rom 11:26-27).

Daniel's two messages

The book of Daniel holds two messages. The first, in chapter 9, was open and clear. Gabriel told Daniel to know and understand it (Dan 9:25). It told about the first coming and said the Messiah would be cut off (Dan 9:26).

The second message was sealed until the time of the end (Dan 8:26; 12:4, 9). It holds the end-time countdown, the 1,290 and 1,335 days (Dan 12:11-12). John saw the Lamb open the sealed scroll (Rev 5:1-9). Because the countdown starts from an event and not from a date on a calendar, no one can use it to set a date (Matt 24:36).

The warning that came true, and the one still ahead

Daniel chapters 10 to 12 form one long vision in two parts. The first part (Dan 10:1-11:35) was written for the Christians who would live in Jerusalem before it fell in AD 70. It tells about kings of the north and the south fighting over the land until Rome arrives. The second part (Dan 11:36-12:13) is for Christians who will live through the great tribulation.

Both parts mention a strange phrase: the abomination that causes desolation. An abomination is something God hates, and desolation means a place left empty and ruined. So the phrase means a hated thing that brings ruin. In this vision Daniel uses it twice, in two different prophecies, and each one comes true once.

The first use has already happened. Jesus told his followers to watch for it. In Matthew's account, he says the abomination will stand in the holy place, and that those in Judea should run to the mountains (Matt 24:15-16). Luke explains what Jesus meant: when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, its ruin is near (Luke 21:20-21). The holy place means the holy ground around the temple and the city. When Roman armies stood there, the Christians ran, and they escaped. Then Titus destroyed the city in AD 70. Daniel had already pointed to this same event in an earlier vision. After the Messiah is cut off, "the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary," and ruin follows "the overspreading of abominations" (Dan 9:26-27).

The second use is still ahead. Near the end of the great tribulation, a death decree will be set up against God's people (Rev 13:15). Daniel gives the count: 1,290 days from the day the daily ends until the abomination is set up (Dan 12:11). The daily is Christ's regular work as our go-between in heaven's temple (Heb 7:25; Rev 8:3-5). The decree and the mark appear again later in the story. Daniel also gives a promise: at that time, everyone whose name is written in the book will be delivered (Dan 12:1).

The long wait

After the cross came a long wait. Revelation shows four angels holding back the winds of judgment until God's servants are sealed (Rev 7:1-3). God is patient, not slow (2 Pet 3:9). The Lamb opens seven seals one at a time (Rev 5:5-9; 6:1-17). The first three are read as already opened, in order (Rev 6:1-6). The fourth seal opens next, and it starts the great tribulation (Rev 6:7-8).

The angels' hold is understood to have been put into force in 1994. Three reasons support this.

Reason 1: six thousand years were finished. The Bible pictures history as six days of work followed by a day of rest (Gen 2:2-3), and it says that a day with the Lord is like a thousand years (Ps 90:4; 2 Pet 3:8). On that picture, six thousand years of work are counted. If those years ended in 1994, the count began about 4007 BC. That start date is worked backward from 1994, so it serves only as a test, and it gives no date for anything still ahead.

Reason 2: the seventieth Jubilee. The calendar counts its blocks of 49 years from 1437 BC because the calendar's math leads there. Worked backward from two firm dates, the crucifixion in AD 30 and the royal order of 457 BC, the pattern reaches a Jubilee year in 1437 BC, in the era commonly proposed for the Exodus. That year is a counting start only. It is not a claim that the Exodus began then, and the date of the Exodus is left open. Seventy blocks later, in 1994, the calendar reaches its seventieth Jubilee. Scripture often uses seventy for a full and finished period. Israel spent seventy years in exile (Jer 25:11-12; 2 Chr 36:21). Daniel was told about seventy weeks of years (Dan 9:24). Moses took seventy elders up the mountain (Ex 24:1, 9), seventy members of Jacob's family went down to Egypt (Gen 46:27), and Jesus sent out seventy followers (Luke 10:1). Seventy is read here as the number of completion.

Reason 3: a warning in the sky. In July 1994, a sign appeared in the sky. A comet named Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into the planet Jupiter. A comet is a ball of ice and dust that travels around the sun. This one was found in 1993 by Carolyn and Eugene Shoemaker and an amateur astronomer named David Levy. Jupiter's gravity had already pulled the comet apart in 1992 into about twenty-one pieces. From July 16 to 22, 1994, the pieces hit Jupiter one after another at about 60 kilometers per second. The impacts left dark scars, the biggest more than 12,000 kilometers across, about the size of the Earth. Some were even easier to see than Jupiter's Great Red Spot, and small backyard telescopes could show them for months. It was the first time in history that people watched two bodies in the solar system collide.

The event bears on the story because the first trumpets of Revelation sound like what a broken-up comet or asteroid could do to the earth. Fire and hail fall to the earth (Rev 8:7). A huge burning mountain falls into the sea (Rev 8:8). A great burning star falls on the rivers (Rev 8:10-11). The light of the sun, moon, and stars is dimmed (Rev 8:12). Jesus said there would be signs in the sky before the end (Luke 21:11, 25). The events of 1994 are therefore read as a fitting warning of what the trumpets could look like, and the years since as "overtime," extra time while God's servants are sealed (2 Pet 3:9).

These are interpretations. The Bible does not name the year 1994, and no one knows the day Christ will return (Matt 24:36).

In the test, the fourth thousand years closes in 7 BC, close to the birth of Jesus. His birth falls a little over half a year outside the range the paper allows, and that gap is left unexplained.

The four beasts of Revelation

Revelation uses four beasts to tell the end-time story. Two are named directly, and two are read from their descriptions.

The Lamb is Jesus (Rev 5:6; John 1:29). He is the one who opens the seals.

The dragon is Satan (Rev 12:9). He is the great enemy of God's people and the power behind everything that follows. In this paper he is also called the Antichrist. The word "antichrist" appears only in John's letters, where it means someone who opposes Christ (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7). Here the name is used for Satan himself, the chief enemy of Christ.

The leopard-like beast rises from the sea (Rev 13:1-10). It is read as Babylon, a one-world church-state, and the dragon gives it his power, his throne, and his authority (Rev 13:2). It has seven heads and ten horns. The seven heads stand for seven religious systems (Rev 17:9-10). The ten horns are ten kings who give their power to Satan (Rev 17:12-13). The same ten kings appear as the ten toes of the statue in Daniel's dream, a brittle mix of iron and clay (Dan 2:41-44). The wounded head, one of the seven, is explained next.

The wounded head. One of the beast's seven heads had a fatal wound that was healed (Rev 13:3, 12, 14). It helps to know what heads and horns mean. Each head wears a blasphemous name (Rev 13:1), so the heads stand for religious systems that claim to speak for God. The horns wear crowns of authority (Rev 13:1; 17:12), so the horns stand for political powers. A wound on a head is therefore a wound to a religion. Five heads had fallen by John's day, one existed then, and one was still to come (Rev 17:10). The one that existed then was the Christian church of John's time.

Many people say that this sixth head, after it grew into the Roman Catholic Church, is the wounded one. They point to 1798, when Napoleon's army took the pope prisoner and ended the church's power to rule, and to 1929, when Vatican City was recognized as a sovereign state and the church began to regain its influence. Revelation says the wound was healed by the time the beast rises, so the healing is complete by then (Rev 13:3).

This reading also answers a common objection. In Daniel 7 the papacy is usually called a horn, the little horn (Dan 7:8, 25), but in Revelation 13 the wound is on a head. If it is the same church, why are there two symbols? The two symbols show two roles of one institution. As a ruling power over kings, the church acts like a horn. As a religion, it is a head. In the last days the crowns move from the heads to the horns (Rev 12:3; 13:1), which means authority passes to political powers, and the healed head supports the new government instead of ruling it. Because the Vatican is both a church and a state, it may also stand among the ten kings.

This paper offers the idea as a possible reading and does not depend on it. The beast itself is a world government, not the papacy, and Scripture does not say the papacy will rule the world.

The lamb-like beast rises from the earth (Rev 13:11-18). It looks gentle, but it speaks like a dragon. It is the false prophet (Rev 16:13; 19:20), a being, and Satan works through him like a hand in a glove (Luke 22:3; John 13:27; 2 Thess 2:9). He performs signs, sets up an image of the first beast, and forces everyone to take its mark (Rev 13:13-17).

The great tribulation, day by day

When the fourth seal opens, a clock starts that runs 1,335 days, a little over three and a half years (Dan 12:12). In heaven, Christ finishes his daily work as our go-between. An angel throws the censer to the earth, and there is thunder, lightning, and an earthquake (Rev 8:2-6). The horsemen go out, the first four trumpets sound, and at least a fourth of the earth dies (Rev 6:7-8; 8:7-12).

At the same time, the 144,000 are sealed and sent to tell the whole world the gospel (Rev 7:3-4; 14:6-11). They speak for the two witnesses, the Holy Spirit and the Word of God (Rev 11:3-4; Zech 4:6; John 15:26-27). Their work lasts 1,260 days (Rev 11:3).

Meanwhile, world leaders form the church-state called Babylon, the leopard-like beast described above (Rev 13:1-10; 17:1-5). The dragon gives it his power (Rev 13:2). The lamb-like beast, the false prophet, rises alongside it (Rev 13:11-18). Ten kings will later give their power to Satan (Rev 17:12-13).

About two and a half years in, Satan is let out of the abyss and appears (Rev 9:1-11). For five months his angels torment people who refuse to worship him, but they may not kill (Rev 9:5). Then the fifth seal opens with the sixth trumpet (Rev 6:9-11; 9:13-21). Satan sets up a world religion and government. The image and the mark begin, and those who refuse are killed (Rev 13:14-17). A third of mankind dies (Rev 9:15). The martyrs are told to wait a little longer (Rev 6:10-11).

On day 1,260, mercy closes (Rev 22:11). The seventh trumpet sounds, and the seven last plagues begin (Rev 11:15; 15:1). On day 1,290, thunder announces that Satan's end is near, and in a rage he has the false prophet issue a death decree against all the saints (Dan 11:44; 12:11; Rev 13:15). Like the Jews in Persia, God's people face a set day of death (Est 3:12-13). On day 1,335, Christ appears, and everyone who is left sees him (Dan 12:12; Rev 6:12-17).

Only some of these days are stated in the Bible: the five months, the 1,260, the 1,290, and the 1,335. The rest come from the writings of Larry Wilson of Wake Up America Seminars, who worked out the order of events and the day counts, so the paper says "about."

Several other passages mention 1,260 days or forty-two months, and they are read separately. The 42 months in Rev 13:5 are the time when the ten kings run a one-world government before they give their power to Satan (Rev 17:12-13). Daniel 7:25 speaks of "a time, times, and half a time" for the little horn, and Revelation 12:6 and 12:14 tell of a woman who flees into the wilderness for 1,260 days. These two look back to a long period of persecution, often dated from AD 538 to 1798, when many believers were killed and some escaped to hidden places. Those dates are not confirmed, and neither passage is counted in the great tribulation.

Christ returns

Christ comes in the clouds, and every eye sees him (Rev 1:7; Matt 24:30). The dead in Christ rise first, and then the living believers meet him in the air (1 Thess 4:16-17). The paper holds that he gathers them and does not land on the earth (Acts 1:11). The wicked who are still alive are put to death (2 Thess 2:8; Rev 19:21), and Satan is bound (Rev 20:1-3). The false prophet is thrown into the lake of fire (Rev 19:20).

A thousand years of rest and a fresh start

The earth now lies quiet and empty for a thousand years, resting like the land in a sabbath year (Jer 4:23-27; Lev 26:34-35). The saints reign and help judge (Rev 20:4; 1 Cor 6:2-3; Dan 7:22). Jesus serves as our high priest in the true temple in heaven, the New Jerusalem to come (Heb 8:1-2; 9:11-12, 24; Rev 21:2, 22).

When the thousand years end, the holy city comes down. The wicked are raised, and the books are opened (Rev 20:11-15). They surround the city, and fire falls from God (Rev 20:7-9). Then God makes a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 21:1-5).

Now look back at the pattern. Six periods of work end with the thousand years as the sabbath year, and the new creation is the Jubilee, the fresh start (Lev 25:8-10; Rom 8:19-23; Acts 3:21). The CJC even builds this into its math: year 50 is also year 1 of the next block. One order ends, and another begins (Rev 21:5).

Where the details come from

The calendar math comes from the Continuous Jubilee Calendar method of Chip Welsh, worked from the two dates of 457 BC and AD 30. The order of the end-time events and their day counts follow the writings of Larry Wilson of Wake Up America Seminars, including Four Beasts of Revelation, his chapters on Daniel 10 to 12, and his chapters on the fifth and sixth seals in his Lamb's Book study. Every reading in this paper is offered as an interpretation of Scripture, and the verses are given so each reader can test it against the Bible, as the believers in Berea did (Acts 17:11).