Blessing, Cursing, Willful Sin, and the Two Witnesses

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Daniel’s 70th Week as the Covenant Life of the Believer

📜 What We’ve Been Taught—And Why It’s Worth Rethinking

What follows is a simple walk through the covenant pattern that Scripture repeats across Daniel, Revelation, and the prophets — a pattern that plays out in the life of every believer

Daniel’s 70th week seen in Daniel 9:27 can be read not only as a prophetic timeline, but as a symbolic picture of the believer’s covenant life. The week divides naturally into two halves, each reflecting a different spiritual state:

• First 3.5 units → Obedience
• Midpoint → Willful sin (Hebrews 10:26)
• Final 3.5 units → Discipline and restoration

This pattern does not happen only once. It repeats throughout the believer’s life as God patiently teaches, corrects, and restores His people.

1. The First Half: Covenant Obedience

The first half of the week represents seasons of faithfulness. This follows the Titus 2:11–12 pattern:

• Grace appears
• Grace teaches
• Grace trains us to deny ungodliness

This obedience is not sinless perfection.

Covenant obedience means that when a believer sins they confess it to Jesus, and are forgiven 1 John 1:9.

It is a Spirit‑led posture of trust and faithfulness. This is the Gerizim side of the covenant — the mountain of blessing.

2. The Midpoint: Willful Sin (Hebrews 10:26)

The turning point of the week corresponds to the believer’s moment of willful sin:

“If we sin willfully… there remains no more sacrifice for sins.”

This does not mean salvation is lost. It means the believer steps into the covenant‑curse side of the relationship:

• Jesus’ sacrifice does not shield willful sin from discipline
• God must act as Father, not as shield
• The believer enters the Ebal side of the covenant

This midpoint is the hinge between blessing and cursing.

3. The Second Half: Covenant Discipline

The final 3.5 units symbolize the believer’s season of discipline. Hebrews 12 describes this clearly:

• God disciplines every son He receives
• Discipline is painful
• Discipline produces the peaceable fruit of righteousness

This is the Ebal half — the covenant curse functioning as loving correction, not destruction.

4. Gerizim and Ebal:

Deuteronomy 27–28 presents the covenant in two voices:

• Blessing (Gerizim)
• Cursing (Ebal)

Daniel’s week mirrors this structure internally:

• First half → Gerizim (obedience)
• Second half → Ebal (discipline)

The believer lives between these two covenant realities, as the grace of God teaches them to deny ungodliness Titus 2:11-12.

5. The Two Witnesses of Revelation 11 are Two Believers Living the Covenant Cycle

Revelation 11 dramatizes the same covenant pattern through the two witnesses of Water and Blood of 1 Jn 5:6. These are not historical individuals. They are:

Two representative believers — each flawed, each willfully sinful at times, each disciplined, and each restored.

Each witness independently lives out the full covenant cycle of Daniel 9:27:

• Rev 11:3 – Spirit‑enabled obedience (1260 days in sackcloth/3.5 units/42 months)
• Rev 11:7 – Willful sin, (their testimony is “finished”)
• 2 Thess 2:11 – The Man of sin is handed over to the Beast for discipline
• Rev 11:2 and 8 – Spiritual “death/ruin” (subdue and destroy their testimony or tread down 42 months =1260 days = 3.5 units) refer to the carcase of Matt 24:28 and Mk 6:29.
• Rev 11:11 and 2 Thess 2:8 – The Wickedness is revealed – repentance restores (Matt 17:11) – and then the wickedness is Consumed (Job 42:6 and Daniel 9:27). This is the Restoration and resurrection by the Spirit

Revelation 11 portrays an inner covenant pattern in which Spirit‑enabled obedience endures for 1,260 days, but when the testimony is finished, willful sin allows the “man of sin” to be handed over to the Beast for discipline.

This produces a period of spiritual death/ruin (1 Thess 4:13 and 4:16).

This is called the the Day of the Lord, in which the holy place is trampled for 42 months, matching the 3.5‑unit pattern of judgment.

In Rev 11:8, the witnesses whose testimony has ended are described with the same Greek word Jesus uses in Matt 24:28 to refer to those upon whom the “Day of the Lord” will come.

The judgment of the “Day” will come upon their dead bodies or carcasses.

When the appointed discipline completes its work, the hidden wickedness is revealed, repentance is granted, and the Spirit restores and resurrects the inner life, just as the breath of God raises the witnesses and the Lord consumes the lawless one with the brightness of His coming, 2 Thess 2:8.

Both witnesses are killed by the Beast, showing that both represent believers who have entered the discipline phase.

Their resurrection symbolizes God’s restoring work after discipline has completed its purpose.

Two witnesses are used because:

Two establish a valid covenant testimony.

Together they show how God deals with His people.

6. The Valley: The Low Place of Covenant Judgment

Scripture often uses “the valley” to describe the believer’s lowest spiritual point — the place where God brings exposure and decision:

• Joel 3:2-14 — “The Valley of Jehoshaphat is the valley of Decision”
• Ezekiel 37 — The Valley of Dry Bones
• Revelation 11 — The witnesses lying in the symbolic street

This valley is not a location on a map. It is the believer’s spiritual condition under divine judgment — a place of:

• exposure
• humbling
• helplessness
• divine verdict

But also:

• breath
• restoration
• resurrection

The valley is where the covenant curse does its work and where the Spirit begins renewal.

7. Willful Sin, Delusion, and the Descent Into the Valley

Paul describes this descent in 2 Thessalonians 2:

1. Willful sin
2. God sends delusion
3. The Backslidden Christian believes “the lie”
4. Satan becomes the instrument of judgment, and in this way the Day of the Lord comes as a thief

This delusion is not random deception. It is judicial blindness, the divine handing‑over that allows discipline to run its course.

Jesus describes this valley as a kind of spiritual imprisonment:

“You will not come out until you have paid the last penny.” (Matthew 5:26)

This is not eternal damnation. It is corrective confinement — the believer is held under discipline until the work of humbling and restoration (Repentance Mark 9:12) is complete.

8. Armageddon: The Believer’s Internal Battle in the Valley

The valley of Jezreel means God will sow.

The valley of Jehoshaphat is the valley of (God’s) decision (Joel 3:14) Jehoshaphat means God Judges.

In the Jezreel Valley, God plants to show what people have sown in their hearts, and in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the Lord judges according to the harvest.

“God plants His word (Jezreel), His discipline, His circumstances, His conviction, and His mercy — and each of these divine plantings exposes what we have sown in our own hearts. Amos 7:7-9.

Then, in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the Lord judges according to our conformity to His covenant.”

Revelation 16 names the final conflict Armageddon — Har‑Megiddo, the “mountain of Megiddo.”

Megiddo sits on the edge of the Jezreel Valley, a place of decisive battles in Israel’s history.

This geography becomes a symbol:

⭐ Armageddon = the decisive spiritual confrontation, where God brings a person to the crisis of judgment.

It is the believer’s internal struggle:

• between delusion and truth
• between pride and repentance
• between collapse and restoration
• between the Beast’s judgment and the Spirit’s renewal

This is the battle that follows willful sin and precedes restoration.

9. The Unified Pattern

All these passages converge into a single covenant cycle that repeats throughout the believer’s life:

• Obedience (Gerizim / first half of the week)
• Willful sin (Hebrews 10:26 midpoint)
• Delusion and discipline (Ebal / second half of the week)
• The valley and the internal battle (Joel 3, Ezekiel 37, Armageddon)
• Restoration (resurrection of the witnesses)

Each witness embodies this full cycle. Two witnesses together establish the covenantal testimony.

This is the believer’s covenant life — repeated, cyclical, and Spirit‑led.

THE COVENANT CYCLE OF THE BELIEVER

[1] Obedience (Gerizim)
↓
[2] Willful Sin (Midpoint)
↓
[3] Delusion & Discipline (Ebal)
↓
[4] The Valley & Internal Battle (Armageddon)
↓
[5] Restoration (Resurrection/standing up)
↓
(Cycle Repeats as the Spirit Leads)

This pattern is not theoretical — it is the lived rhythm of every believer who walks with God through obedience, failure, discipline, and Spirit‑given renewal.