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Transcript 274D — Christ's Year of Birth
CALLER: You said that Jesus was born in 7 BC. Now if this is so, what's 0 AD? I always though that was when He was born. I thought that's what we have our timetable set on.
HC: The question is raised, How is it that Jesus could have been born in 7 BC if our calendar begins with 0 AD?
Actually, I believe that this was under God's purposeful plan. The monk who was assigned the task, several centuries ago, of giving us our calendar presumed to have started the calendar with the birth date of Christ, or the birth year of Christ. But he made a mistake, by as many as seven years. And the fact is, when we accurately examine the period when Jesus could have been born, it has to fall between 6 and 9 BC. And all of the circumstantial evidence points to 7 BC.
And some of that circumstantial evidence is very interesting. Let me just give you a couple ideas of this. In the Bible the number twelve is used very frequently as a number signifying the fullness of time, or the fullness of any program, or the fullness of believers, or whatever. For example, the New Jerusalem has got twelve foundations, twelve gates. Its walls are 144 cubits thick. That's twelve times twelve. Its size is 12,000 stadia by 12,000 stadia by 12,000 stadia. The number twelve is symbolically representing the fullness of all believers.
CALLER: Like the twelve disciples?
HC: Yes. The twelve disciples represent the whole New Testament church. The twelve tribes represent the Old Testament believers. The number twelve represents the fullness of anything.
Now it's significant that the Israelites went out of Egypt in the year 1447 BC. That's the year that the Passover was instituted, in 1447 BC. Now exactly 1440 years later, exactly twelve times twelve, we find that Jesus is born. He is the one, of course, who came to fulfill the Passover.
Now I mentioned that Jesus was crucified in AD 33, and that also ties in with 1440. Exactly forty years after the Israelites left Egypt, they entered the Land of Canaan, which is the figure of our entrance into salvation. And that of course was accomplished by Christ going to the cross. Well, exactly 1440 calendar years after 1407 BC., when Israel entered Canaan, Christ hung on the cross and paid for our sins, so that we might enter the spiritual Canaan. And so again you have the twelve times twelve.
Or again, the number ten is used in the Bible to illustrate the number of completeness. We find, for example, that God speaks of the completeness of believers in the figure of the ten coins of the parable. Or the number 100 is used in the same way, the hundred sheep, or the thousand years, the completeness of time during which Satan would be bound, in Revelation 20, or the thousand generations that Christ's love would continue, the completeness of His love for the children of the believers. And so the number ten, or a hundred, or one thousand, illustrates the completeness of something.
Now it's interesting that David, who is a great type of Christ, ascended the throne in the year 1007 BC, exactly 1000 years before Christ, who is the fulfillment of David's messianic type, was born. You have the completeness of time, you see, in there.
These are just a few that come into mind. These help to establish the fact, in my judgment, that more and more of the circumstantial evidence (I could give other evidences, I think, if I really work at this a bit) indicates that Christ was born in the year 7 BC.