Symbolic times in vision and prophecy are sometimes based on an ideal year of 360 days. There are twelve months each of 30 days. For example, the 1260 days of Revelation 12:6 is the same as the 42 months of Revelation 13:5. Divide 1260 days by 30 days and you get 42 months. This nice neat calendar of 360 days, or twelve 30 day months to a year, is most suitable for symbolic purposes. However it would not work in practice, unless a gap of some extra days were allowed between each year to keep the calendar synchronised with the seasons.
Calendars have always suffered from the problem that weeks don't fit exactly into months and years. There are not exactly 52 weeks in a year. This untidy fact drives accountants and paymasters mad. Even the symbolic calendar mentioned above doesn't fit an exact number of weeks because 360 does not divide evenly by seven. Fortunately this doesn't bother us in our study of prophetic times and seasons, where years and weeks never mix, and where symbolic times do not relate mathematically to actual times.
Attempting to correlate symbolic time with actual time periods is fruitless if one tries to turn symbolic years, months, weeks, and days into numbers of real historic years or to actual dates. Any attempt to use the symbolic periods as a code for some real number of years leads to confusion. Most of the predictions that Bible interpreters have made, as to the timing of future events, have been based on this misunderstanding of times and seasons in prophecy. That's one reason why their predictions always seem to be wrong. How many times has the date of the second coming been predicted, and the date has passed by with the world still here?
Symbolic times do not signify the date or duration of actual times, but rather that the period, whenever it may be, and whatever it may be in actual years, is within the knowledge and authority of God to determine. Prophetic days, weeks, months, and years are not a code from which to calculate real time periods, but rather a symbol to stand in place of real time periods which are not for men to know in advance. A symbolic period such as the 1335 days (Dan 12:12) indicates that this is a time or season "which the Father has fixed by his own authority" and it is not for us to know (Acts 1:7). The symbol certainly has meaning, as we shall see, nevertheless it is not a code for date setting.
One important time element in prophecy is the three-and-a-half symbol. This is expressed in several forms, including the expression "a time, times, and half a time" which appears twice in Daniel (Dan 7:25 Dan 12:7) and once more in Revelation (Rev 12:14). Let's examine this symbol in detail.
Three-and-a-half times. Most interpreters take "a time, times, and half a time" to mean "one time, two times, and half a time" or three-and-a-half times altogether. There is good reason for this. We discover periods of three-and-a-half in various passages of vision and prophecy where times and seasons are mentioned. Consider the following examples.
Three-and-a-half days. The three-and-a-half symbol occurs in vision and prophecy as three-and-a-half days (Rev 11:9,11). In the famous seventy weeks of Daniel 9, the 70th week has events occurring "in the middle of the week" suggesting that this final symbolic week is divided into two parts of three-and-a-half days each (Dan 9:27).
Three-and-a-half months. In the numbers of days at the end of Daniel (Dan 12:7-23) we find the three-and-a-half symbol as three-and-a-half months combined with three-and-a-half years. Using the symbolic calendar, we proceed as follows: Take 1260 days (three-and-a-half years) from the 1290 days and there are 30 days left, or one month. Take 1260 days from the 1335 days, and there are 75 days left, or two-and-a-half months.
The remainders of days, 30 and 75, add up to three-and-a-half months.
Three-and-a-half years. As we have just seen in passing, the three-and-a-half symbol is also found as three-and-a-half symbolic years. Another example, is the 1260 days of Revelation 12:6. Dividing the 1260 days by 360 yields three-and-a-half symbolic years. The same is true of 42 months (Rev 12:5). Dividing by 12, the 42 symbolic months become three-and-a-half symbolic years.
When we discover the three-and-a-half element within symbolic times, we have done no more than to relate symbols one to another and to see "a time, times, and a half a time" within various symbolic numbers of days, months, and years. We have not turned a symbol into actual or literal time. For example, when we see three-and-a-half years in 1260 days, we have not discovered a literal three-and-a-half years somewhere in history or the future. The three-and-a-half years remain as symbolic as the number they are derived from. You cannot divide symbolic days by 360 and get literal years any more than you can divide Australian cents by 100 and get U.S. dollars.
I would now like to propose to you that the expression "a time, times, and a half a time" is not a code for the three-and-a-half symbol, but rather an explanation of that symbol, showing its internal structure and meaning.
I must admit I get a little bit annoyed when people say, "A time, times, and dividing of time means three-and-a-half years", and then smile as if somehow they have enlightened me. It seems to me that they have missed the point entirely, and got the whole matter backwards. Three-and-a-half is not an insight into the expression "a time, times, and a half a time". Quite the reverse, the expression "a time, times, and a half a time" is an insight into the three-and-a-half symbol, whether in days, months, or years.
The three-and-a-half symbol is shown to have a structure of one, two, and a half. Whatever the "one time" represents, the "two times" also represents except that there is a doubling, intensifying or prolonging. Likewise the "half a time" represents the same thing again, but there is a limiting or cutting short.
We are not supposed to see the one, two, and the half as pieces of a puzzle to be joined together to get three-and-a-half as the solution. Rather, three-and-a-half is the puzzle and we solve it by seeing it as comprising these three parts, each part symbolic of the same thing differently measured. Let me explain...
A time
The "one time" represents a period of trouble, danger, struggle, and testing. Faith is tested in many ways. God's people are not immune from tribulations of various kinds. Even at the best of times, our Christian life is quite a struggle because we are involved in a battle between good and evil. Paul encourages us to "Be strong in the Lord... Put on the whole armour of God... For our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against... spiritual forces of wickedness". (Eph 6:10-18).
Times
The "two times" represent "double trouble", pain upon pain. Sometimes suffering and hardship can be very intense, or prolonged with no end in sight. Peter speaks of "the fiery trial which is to try you" (1Pe 4:12). In even the most terrible tribulation, however, we are never forsaken by God or separated from the love of Christ (Rom 8:35-39)
Half a time
The "half a time" represents the same thing as the "one time" or the "two times" but puts it in a different light. It represents a time of tribulation from God's point of view. There are three tribulation principles that in a sense shorten, or reduce our troubles or cut them in half. These are outlined below...
How God Halves Our Suffering
When God's people undergo painful trials, it can feel as though God does not notice or care. However God is certainly there. When we look at our troubles as God looks at them, then what appeared to us as "two times" is seen to be but "half a time".
God actively binds Satan. "God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able to bear" (1Co 10:13). What may seem like two times or even ten times too much trouble to us, is only half what we'd get if God did not bind the hand of Satan even as he did in ancient times for Job.
God gives us glorious hope. A time of tribulation, or even doubled tribulation, can seem as but half a time, when we look toward our future in heaven. Paul stated it like this: "I consider the sufferings of this present time not worthy of comparison with the glory that will be revealed to us" (Rom 8:18). Christ himself suffered double trouble even unto death, but God did not abandon his holy one, and raised him up (Acts 2:22-36).
We share in Christ's sufferings. Peter says, "To the degree that you partake of the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing..." (1Pe 4:12-19). When our sufferings test our faith, then our faith gives meaning to our sufferings because we can view our sufferings as Satan reviling us even as he reviled Christ who suffered for us. We therefore become partakers or sharers in Christ's sufferings, which also followed the three-and-a-half pattern. This understanding of troubled times halves our burden of distress and helps us to bear it with dignity.
The Spirit of Antichrist
In the context of the passages in which we find the three-and-a-half symbol, the activity of antichrist is in focus. In particular this antichrist is connected with the Roman empire. John makes it clear, however, that even before that antichrist in particular had come, there were already "many antichrists" rising up (1Jn 2:18 2Jn 1:7).
John sees the antichrist as "the spirit of error" (1Jn 4:2-6) rather than simply as a particular person. What was characteristic of a particular Roman Caesar at one time in history was "already in the world" (1Jn 4:3) before him, and certainly remained in the world after him. The spirit of antichrist is with us today, and will be in the world after we are gone.
The spirit of antichrist denies the love of God in giving and accepting the flesh and blood of Christ his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. It therefore reviles the Son of Man, and reviles those who believe him to be the Son of God and follow him. The spirit of antichrist works to inflict suffering upon us, or if not on us then on our brethren so that we suffer with them. But we are given into his hands for no more than "a time, times, and half a time". God is in control and though we suffer much, we shall not suffer for ever, nor is our suffering pointless.
In the Bible's presentation of tribulation and the antichrist, I believe there are two elements woven together.
A general world view. The Bible describes a wicked world, exemplified by, but not unique to, the Roman worldwide empire which was the crucible of Christianity. This view addresses "the world forces of this darkness" which have polluted the whole world with wickedness throughout history (Eph 6:12).
A particular personal view. Our own individual lives are a microcosm of that world problem. Within prophecy and vision we see our own personal experience portrayed, not just the broad sweep of world history. I consider it harmful that this personal focus has been lost in popular interpretation of prophecy and vision. So people's attention has been distracted toward future world scenarios instead of to their own personal struggle with Satan through the power of Christ operating in their own daily lives.
I think it is fitting to close this lesson with an interpretation of the days at the end of Daniel (Dan 12:7-13) which follows this line of thought and sees in these symbolic days not only the broad world view, but also sees oneself and one's own lifetime represented.
As we saw above, the 1290 days (Dan 12:11) and the 1335 days (Dan 12:12) are combinations of "a time, times, and half a time"(Dan 12:7). Let us take each number of days as composed of two elements. Using the symbolic calendar, we, take one element as 1260 days (three-and-a-half years). Now let us see what remains for the second element in each case. We have left over 30 days or one month from the first number, and 75 days or two and a half months from the second number of days. So there is a time, times, and half a time in months as well as the time, times, and half a time in years.
I don't regard the two numbers of days as separate periods but as one period of 1260 days with one month added in the first instance, and a greater burden of two-and-a-half months added in the second instance.
I would suggest that the years represent the world, and the months represent our individual lives. This fits in with the thrust of the passage where Daniel is seeking knowledge of the world, but he is not told much. Rather, the angel turns Daniel's attention to himself and his own lifetime: "As for you, go your way to the end, then you will enter into rest and rise again for your alotted portion at the end of the days"(Dan 12:13).
Each of us, like Daniel, has an interest and a place in world history and in the world future. But we don't live in history nor in the future but in the present. World history and the world future are symbolically represented as 1260 days or a time, times and half a time in years. Our own personal lifetime is symbolically represented as 30 days or a "time" in months. In our lifetime, as a child of God, we will suffer. It may even be that we suffer double trouble (two months) but God helps us along the way and he makes the seem like "half a time".
When we discover the