The Gap Principle

That principle by which God, in the Jewish Scriptures, ignores certain periods of time, leaping over centuries without comment, is known as the Gap Principle.

A good example of the Gap Principle is found in Luke 4:17-20. Here we have recorded the incident of Christ going into the synagogue. Isaiah 61:1, 2 - Compare these Scriptures and you will find that the Lord didn't finish the sentence. He stopped in the middle of it and said This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears The next words speak of the vengeance of the Lord, that period which is still in the future. It will not take place until He comes again. The Acceptable Year has been 1900 years plus already, so the Day of Vengeance is still future. I Peter 1: 10, 11. When the prophets of old wrote of the sufferings and glory of the Lord, they recorded the events as though they occurred at the same time. They did not understand the Gap Principle.

LIFE	OF	CHRIST
His suffering	(Gap)	His Glorification

The Gap Principle is illustrated by the mountain peaks one may see in the distance; between them is the valley or valleys that one does not see.Daniel 8 records the Ram and the He Goat. The two have a fight, and the Ram with two horns is defeated. Then the He Goat with the one horn waxed very great until that one horn was broken off, and in its place four horns grew. And then out of them comes the "little horn". We are not left in the dark as to what the Ram and the He Goat are. The Ram is the Medo-Persian Empire. The He Goat is the Grecian Empire, with Alexander the Great, as the Great Horn. He died and the kingdom was divided between his four generals. Then comes the GAP PRINCIPLE. Between the four horns and the little horn there have been around 2300 years.

The "Little Horn" is none other than the Antichrist. In Daniel 9, Daniel is praying and is given a vision: (Daniel 9:25) "Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people ..." God says to Daniel that "Seventy weeks are determined upon his people"; "weeks" is really seventy sevens. We ask the question, "Of what?" Daniel didn't know, and it isn't stated. In Daniel 10:2 we read, "In those days, I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks. This is three sevens; he was in mourning for three full weeks. Whether these seventies are days, weeks, months, or years is not said, and the only way we know that these weeks are weeks made up of years instead of days is because the passing of time has brought to us a fulfillment of prophecy.

The angelic visitor said there would be seventy weeks determined on the people of Israel, and he spoke of them in three divisions. The first division was seven weeks; the second was sixty-two weeks, and the last division was one week, These seven weeks have to do with the edict of Cyrus and the rebuilding of the streets and walls, which can be found in Nehemiah. From that time on to the Messiah, it is sixty-two weeks; this is from the time when he rode into the city of Jerusalem on a colt, the foal of an ass. These run right on, but when you come to the end of the sixty-ninth week, there is a GAP and you run right on to the time which is the end. When the end comes, that week will be fulfilled, and the end will come when the Anti-Christ comes, for that one last week has to do with, him.

The Gap Principle is absolutely necessary for the understanding of that Scripture, and you will find many places in the Word of God in which the GAP PRINCIPLE is worked out.Hosea 1:4-It seems like all this happened at once, but there is a gap there of many years. Rev 12:5,6-There is a long gap between verses 5 and 6. Verse 5 is the Ascension of Christ, and verse 6 is the tribulation. There are many years in that gap.Isa 9:6, 7-The Child has come, but the government is not on His shoulders; this shall come to pass. There is a long stretch of time between the two.

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