A fresh review of biblical end times prophecies
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Do you thirst to clearly understand what bible prophecy genuinely predicts concerning end times? Do you want to gain this knowledge without having to get bogged down in huge books, absurd speculations or rigid denominational arguments? This easy to follow book has been written for bible believing Christians who want to cut through all that and just see what the bible clearly teaches on the subject.
Version: 26 August 2011
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** FIRST CHAPTER - FOUNDATIONS **
One of the significant foundational prophecies of the bible may be discovered folded into words spoken by the Lord right back in the Garden of Eden. Consider whether God had a secondary meaning in mind as he pronounced his curse on the serpent saying:
... "Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel."
(Gen 3:14-15)
That last sentence must certainly be taken as prophetic, even if only concerning the future conflict between man and serpents. How many times since then have people been bitten on the feet by snakes? And how often have people protected themselves by crushing a snakes head? But surely there is more to the verse's meaning than this mundane interpretation. Since Satan was personified in the serpent, wasn't God alluding to something of much greater significance. It seems reasonable to take from it that God may have been telling mankind, right back at the fall, that Satan would afflict the human race but that a seed of the woman would ultimately crush Satan's head. There's not enough biblical evidence to cast this in stone, but it's beautiful to consider that even at that dark moment in time, even as the very curses due to sin were being pronounced, God seems to have been expressing that his heart was set on the redemption and blessing of mankind.
WHAT IS PROPHECY?
From these Genesis chapter 3 verses we gain insights into the topic of prophecy more generally. Their example introduces at least two aspects of what prophecy is. First we see that prophecy is God revealing some aspect of the future, either blatantly or subtly. Secondly, we see that a prophecy can predict more than just an event; it can be the revelation of a future pattern. (Over and over the relationship between mankind and serpents was to be played out.) So even just from what we've opened up this far these Genesis verses introduce the idea that prophecy can have layers of meaning. Furthermore, beyond specific interpretation, prophecy may sometimes have yet one more dimension to it that we can illustrate here. That is, it may contain a principle, or reasonable application of the verses, that is beyond the direct meaning of the text. For example, Genesis 3:15 could also be thought of as speaking to us about the wrestling matches a follower of God experiences with sin. Satan bruises our heel, he invenomates us with the poison of sin, but ultimately as we grow in faith and sanctification we should come to the point where we are bruising his head; severely knocking out his power in our lives.
All up prophecy is an amazing treasure; revealing the future, the spiritual patterns of this world and also at times challenging and convicting us. The threads of prophecy run through the vast majority of books in the bible; indeed God's prophetic plan actually forms the very superstructure on which everything else hangs. Therefore it follows that if we do not understand prophecy correctly then we can't fully understand the biblical story of God's work with mankind. On the other hand it is true to say that if we don't genuinely, and as little children, believe the bible then we will not rightly understand prophecy. Prophecy is a mystery that is specifically hidden from that natural man, the purpose of which no doubt is to avoid the revelations themselves from distorting the unfolding of the future events they speak of.
HOW SHOULD WE APPROACH PROPHECY?
The principle of scripture being hidden to worldly wisdom is broadly illustrated by what Jesus said of his own teaching:
In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, "I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in your sight.
(Luke 10:21)
This is a recurring principal in the New Testament; effectively telling us that the revelation of the mysteries of God cannot be understood by intellectual powers alone. In fact, over intellectualising Christ's teachings can quickly take away their obvious meaning and replace it with the foolishness of mans reasoning. While some understanding of context and the culture of the times is definitely helpful to our understanding, we also need to make sure we keep that which is simple simple. We must come to Christ with plainness of thought and readiness of heart like a small child, along with the childlike humility to know we need the father, and that we need his Holy Spirit to enlighten us. This is true for most of what Jesus taught, our approach to the bible as a whole, and in particular to our understanding of prophecy.
Sadly though, far from being generally Holy Spirit led, prophecy has the distinction of being the most abused topic in the bible. While mankind has abused every topic of the bible in the pursuit of his own vain thinking, prophecy stands out in that unlike other topics it is subject to a lot of misuse even within otherwise sound, bible believing and spiritual Christian circles. Hype, speculation passed off as fact and mistaken context have often been not just accepted but swallowed without discernment. Excessive excitement has allowed notions in that would have been exposed and thrown out if applied to any other area of bible teaching. What is the essential fault? The number one culprit would appear to be that of trying to get more detail out of prophecy than what God has made knowable in advance. Prophecy may predict many aspects of the future but one of its greatest purposes, in times past and for times yet future, is of providing those living in the days of actual prophetic fulfillments with an understanding of the times and seasons they are in. Many exact details are not really knowable beforehand, but can only be fully understood as they come to pass. This is easily demonstrated by the prophecies fulfilled in Jesus first coming. Some were utterly predictable from what was revealed beforehand in the Old Testament, such as the Messiah being born in Bethlehem. Others would never have been guessed, like the future prophetic significance of God saying that he had "called his son out of Egypt". In its original context this was speaking of Israel coming out of its time of slavery in Egypt, but we discover by its use in the New Testament that it also foreshadowed the fact that Jesus, much like his nation, would spend his early years in Egypt before returning to the land of Israel. So bearing in mind previous abuses, especially the tendency to "see" more than is actually revealed in advance, one of the objectives of this study is to stick to a clear, biblical and un-hyped approach to prophecy.
THE PROMISES TO ABRAHAM
Now, when you build a house it's good to start with the foundations. So it is with prophecy; laying the foundation correctly goes a long way towards ending up with a stable and coherent result. With this in mind let's take a look at one of the most foundational prophecies contained in the bible, the Genesis account of God's promises to Abraham.
Now the Lord had said to Abram, "Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
(Genesis 12:1-3)
God calls a man, Abraham. He blesses him and promises to make him a great nation. From this we know the pathway that God's blessing flowed down at that time. When it was spoken it was prediction, but for us it's now a validation that God's hand was in a special way behind the nation that eventuated. We also discover in the passage that God set up an enduring pattern, a principal concerning Israel - "those who bless you I will bless, those who curse you I will curse". One of the beauties of understanding prophecy is the opportunity to align with God's will. Israel exists in the world today, so should we bless it or curse it? Hopefully Christians will bless it with the same blessing that it originally blessed us gentiles with, the knowledge of Messiah. That God's blessing to the gentiles would come through the Messiah of Israel, the descendant of Abraham, was also pointed towards in the very verses we're looking at here when God said to Abraham, "And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed". So, far from being surprised when they realized that God had opened the way of life to the Gentiles the apostles should almost have expected it, both from this and many other Old Testament passages that one way or another made the same prediction.
HAS GOD FINISHED WITH ISRAEL?
Unfortunately you don't go far into prophecy without stumbling on controversy. In this case the key issue is that some suggest God has now cut off his blessings from Israel, from Abraham's seed, and given them to the "spiritual children of Abraham", the church. They claim that this has come about due to Israel's national rejection of their Messiah. Proponents of what is often called "Replacement Theology" may justify this idea by pointing to Romans 11:17 which says that some of the natural branches were broken off from the root and fatness of the olive tree that the gentiles might be grafted in. They may also point out that Galatians 3:7 says that the true children of Abraham are those who have faith, and other verses that appear to support their position. Certainly a rational argument can be built to support this point of view, yet it is plainly not biblical when taking into account the fullness of God's word.
For instance, in Romans 11 Paul says:
For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "the Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins."
(Romans 11:25-26)
This passage, following the section about the branches being broken off, would have been the perfect opportunity for Paul to explain Replacement Theology, but instead he does the opposite. He tells us that the blindness of Israel nationally will only continue until the fullness of the gentiles have been gathered, and that Israel will then be grafted back in. In explaining this he refers back to Isaiah.
"The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob, "says the Lord. "As for Me," says the Lord, "this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the Lord, "from this time and forevermore."
(Isaiah 59:20-21)
Paul interprets these verses as being yet future to his time, not part of the blessings to the church or something that happened at the time of Christ's first advent, but something that will occur in the future concerning the redeemer coming to the literal children of Israel.
In addition to failing to believe this plain declaration on the matter in Romans, supporters of Replacement Theology end up having to teach that all the Old Testament promises made specifically to Israel now have to be re-interpreted as "spiritual" promises towards the church. This means that portions of the Old Testament that once had a clear literal meaning to the Israelites, and formed much of the basis of their national identity and hope, are assigned a completely different meaning. John Calvin sells this approach to "spiritualizing" the book of Isaiah this way:
Now the Prophets hold out those things which relate to the present life, and borrow metaphors from them; but it is in order that they may teach us to rise higher and to embrace eternal and blessed life. We must not fix our whole attention on these transitory blessings, but must make use of them as ladders, that, being raised to heaven, we may enjoy eternal and immortal blessings.
(John Calvin)
This sounds great, but in essence what he is saying is that we can't take the prophets words literally. But if we can't take their words to mean what even the prophets themselves appear to have believed them to mean, what value are their words to us at all? Doesn't it just leave the field wide open to interpret them in whatever way suits us? The early reformers may have done a great thing in breaking away from the darkness of Catholicism, but we have to realize that they could only see so far. That they were so embedded in a Roman Catholic mindset that there were limits to how far they could shift their thinking in that first big step of the reformation.
The key point in covering this issue is to clarify that promises to Israel will never in this study be redefined as now being towards the church. God made both unconditional and conditional promises to Israel at different times in the past. The unconditional promises must be fulfilled, for God cannot lie. The conditional promises have been, and are being, fulfilled or not fulfilled according to Israel's keeping or breaking of their conditions. But even when it comes to the conditional promises, whether fulfilled or unfulfilled towards Israel, they are still not transferable to the church via clever twists of theology.
WHY STUDY PROPHECY?
Even in just introducing this study of prophecy we have already touched on controversy and the abuse of the subject itself, therefore it's no wonder some people just want to avoid the topic like the plague. And yet it is probably more relevant and timely today than at any time since Christ's ascension, for truly one of the remarkable things about the time we are living in is the growing social consciousness of our nearness to end times. And although this consciousness is expressed via some rather diverse perspectives, it still seems poignant that the sum total of many voices is that some kind of end times is near. In amongst the diverse mix are those who refer to the Mayan prophetic calendar, Nostradamus followers, Christians, Muslims, New Age teachers and even total atheists who worry about horrific world scenarios. Speaking from just about every shade in the spectrum of beliefs, it seems that the voices of multitudes are combining to warn that mankind stands on the brink. Plenty of world issues could be highlighted to suggest this, but there's something more to it than that. It appears that somewhere in the collective total of the facts and information swirling around us many have simply developed a gut feeling that we really are on the verge of a great time of testing.
So given all the opinions and superstition that abound in the world, it's important that Christians really know how to rightly divide the word of truth, how to give a clear account of Gods plan amongst all the confusion, and how to discern true prophetic fulfillments from false. Will there be false fulfillments? It would seem so. For example, II Thessalonians 2:9 tells us that the Antichrist will come with "all signs and lying wonders". This is not conclusive on its own but we'll see as we go on that there are strong indicators that Antichrist will probably be hailed by many as the Christ and touted as fulfilling (incorrectly interpreted) biblical prophecies concerning Christ and his kingdom. This abominable deception cannot arise out of nowhere. Rather the foundations of deception have to be laid first, and indeed they are already being laid. It's easy to keep on just living life without lifting our heads to see the great deception that's developing in the world around us, or the darkness starting to overshadow the land. But if ever there was a day for Christians to be alert, students of prophecy and of God's word as a whole, it is surely today. That's the motivation behind preparing this study; to help those who desire understanding to get a clear grasp of the most immediately relevant and essential themes of bible prophecy.
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