Darby’s most famous teaching concerns Daniel’s first “69 Weeks” being totally separated in time from the 70th week. Darby’s view is: 1) Weeks 1–69 ended with Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. 2) At this key point prophecy concerning Israel ends. 3) A new dispensation called the Church Age begins. 4) The end of the Church Age is unknown to Daniel and to us. 5) Only after the Church is raptured does God resume His dealings with Israel in the seventieth week.
However, history did not happen the way he predicted. Israel was reborn in 1948 and his interpretation ignored Christ’s ministry. His gap theory between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks was a defining feature of classic dispensationalism which has failed. Like the great idol to Dagon it fell flat on its face. God has continued to Bless the nation of Israel and the Jewish people. Darby was wrong.
Darby noted that Israel was sanctified by God with earthly promises, an earthly kingdom, literal land, and the Davidic kingdom. What he did not see was its rebirth, the regathering of the people, and Israel’s permanent ownership of the land and Jerusalem. Nor did he see that God would bless Israel outside the last 7-years. This was in Ezekiel’s prophecy of the dried bones 35:11- 14: “I will bring you back to the land of Israel….to your own land.” He failed to realize that Israel and Jerusalem “will be a heavy stone for the whole world.” We can see how Israel is a burden for the whole world. The wars we see now are a burden. And these trials along with the nation Israel will probably last longer than even America.
The Church has a heavenly inheritance, composed of the Body of Christ on earth, and in heaven the Bride of Christ. However, Darby described this “Body” as two distinct peoples with different destinies, though both are saved by grace through faith. His Dispensationalism leaves out the promises of God and His steadfast love for His Chosen people. The fact is God blesses many Jews in Israel with the 3.5-year Ministry of Jesus Christ and the Great Commission. Darby witnessed the persistent persecution and defamation of the Jewish people in his time and may have seen that as God’s judgment. He and DL Moody failed to see God’s blessings to come: 1) The rebirth of Israel, 2) Israel’s prosperity 3) The power of the Holy Spirit in bringing thousands of Jews into the kingdom in the last two centuries, 4) And the Church working alongside the nation of Israel.