Scripture and prophecy - Part 2
In my pastoral experience, people struggle with the topic of prophecy. Either they struggle to accept that earlier biblical writers were precisely predicting future events (which I think they are right to struggle with) but then not knowing how to think about prophecy, or they uncritically accept that earlier biblical writers were precisely predicting future events not realizing the interpretive problems that causes.
To be clear, I do believe Old Testament scriptures are predictive. Jesus said they were. I just don’t believe they are “clearly” predictive as Jesus said they were, at least not in the way we tend to think of predictive. I’m not saying Jesus was wrong. I’m saying our understanding and expectation of “predictive” is wrong.
When we think about someone predicting the future we imagine that person seeing future events in precise detail, being able to tell us dates, times, locations, and specifics. We then apply that definition to Old Testament passages and conclude, “See, Isaiah was talking about Jesus when he wrote about a virgin giving birth,” or “See, Isaiah was writing about Jesus when he described the suffering servant,” or “See, David was writing about Jesus when he talked about God not letting him rot in the grave.”
I’m not saying that way of looking at certain Old Testament passages is wrong. As you’ll see by the time this mini post series is over, I believe all scripture points to Jesus even if the biblical authors themselves didn’t consciously see their writing as having that function when they wrote. Consequently, it’s a perfectly valid interpretive move to say that David was writing about Jesus, as we saw in the last post Peter did. In a sense, David was writing about Jesus even if he didn’t think of it that way.
I also think this way of interpreting certain Old Testament passages can have rhetorical, evangelistic power (if done thoughtfully). The reason the Apostles used this strategy was because, at least at first, evangelism mostly involved reasoning with other Jews, which meant reasoning “from the scriptures” they shared. It made sense for Peter to say to his fellow Jews, “Hey, consider what David wrote in the Psalms. Doesn’t it make sense that he was writing about someone else? David did die after all and remained in the grave. But Jesus didn’t.” He was essentially inviting his Jewish listeners to consider that their sacred texts had a different or deeper meaning than they previously believed.
Another great example of this is the Apostle Paul in Acts 17. In Thessalonica Paul “explained the prophecies and proved that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead.” The story says some of the Jews who were listening were persuaded.[1] Some.
So much for “proving.”
But Paul was inviting the Jews in Thessalonica to do the same thing Peter was inviting Jews in Jerusalem to do; consider the possibility that these prophetic texts have a different or deeper meaning than you previously believed. Could they be pointing ahead to this man named Jesus? When Paul tried the same strategy in Berea the story says the Bereans “searched the scriptures day after day” to see if he was “teaching the truth.”[2]
What did that look like? It’s not like they had a decoder ring and what they were doing was assessing if Paul’s words matched their fool-proof decoder ring sequence. They were painstakingly reviewing texts they thought they understood in light of Paul’s testimony and asking themselves if they could indeed mean what Paul was suggesting they meant.
All of this reinforces the idea that while Old Testament passages are predictive, they are not clearly predictive, at least not in the way we typically think of predictive. We need to change the way we think of predictive.
Let me offer one option before closing this post, which I’ve already kind of alluded to. Certain Old Testament passages are predictive of Jesus in the sense that they can be read with a different or deeper meaning in light of his life, death, and resurrection. In other words, the biblical authors were not consciously referring to Jesus when they wrote but their words take on a different level of meaning, a greater fullness when applied to Jesus.
Jesus himself said that he came not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them, a word that means something like “to make complete.”[3] Jesus’ life gives all of the words in the Hebrews scriptures their fullest or completest meaning.
I think this is what Jesus means when he says in John 5 that the scriptures “point to him.”[4] They don’t point to him with a one-to-one correspondence. We’ve already said they are predictive but not clearly predictive in this way. But looking back, because his life gives them their fullest or completest meaning, it is fair to say that they point to him, that they were pointing to him all along without anyone knowing it.
At least that is how prophetic speech plays out in the New Testament. For example, consider the prophecy of Caiaphas. Caiaphas was the Jewish High Priest involved in Jesus’ execution. John 11 says that he was led to prophesy that Jesus would die not only for the entire nation but to bring together all the children of God scattered around the world.[5] That makes it sound like Caiaphas understood the purpose of Jesus’ death and his participation in it was a good thing. I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. I think Caiaphas believed Jesus needed to die, that his death would save the nation from suffering a Roman crack down, but that it had nothing to do with forgiveness, atoning for sin, or reconciling the world to God.
But after Jesus’ death and resurrection, his words came to be understood in that fullness or completeness.
John 12:16 says, “His disciples didn’t understand at the time that this was a fulfillment of prophecy. But after Jesus entered into his glory, they remembered what had happened and realized that these things had been written about him.” John wrote these words in reference to a specific prophecy, but I believe they can be applied to all prophetic speech as a way of understanding how prophecy “works.”
The people speaking and writing as prophets did not consciously believe they were speaking or writing about future events or persons. They very much believed they were speaking and writing about present events and persons, which is what gave their words meaning and significance for the audiences that received them. But following Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection his followers reread these texts and began to interpret them as having larger, fuller, more complete meaning with reference to Jesus.
In that sense, they were “about” Jesus and had always been “about” Jesus even if the authors themselves did not know that. The scriptures “clearly” predict Jesus in the sense that when read in the light of his life, death, and resurrection they point to him. In this way, Jesus is the fulfillment of all prophecy.
[1] Acts 17:3-4
[2] Acts 17
[3] Matthew 5:17
[4] John 5:39-40
[5] John 11:49-50
To be clear, I do believe Old Testament scriptures are predictive. Jesus said they were. I just don’t believe they are “clearly” predictive as Jesus said they were, at least not in the way we tend to think of predictive. I’m not saying Jesus was wrong. I’m saying our understanding and expectation of “predictive” is wrong.
When we think about someone predicting the future we imagine that person seeing future events in precise detail, being able to tell us dates, times, locations, and specifics. We then apply that definition to Old Testament passages and conclude, “See, Isaiah was talking about Jesus when he wrote about a virgin giving birth,” or “See, Isaiah was writing about Jesus when he described the suffering servant,” or “See, David was writing about Jesus when he talked about God not letting him rot in the grave.”
I’m not saying that way of looking at certain Old Testament passages is wrong. As you’ll see by the time this mini post series is over, I believe all scripture points to Jesus even if the biblical authors themselves didn’t consciously see their writing as having that function when they wrote. Consequently, it’s a perfectly valid interpretive move to say that David was writing about Jesus, as we saw in the last post Peter did. In a sense, David was writing about Jesus even if he didn’t think of it that way.
I also think this way of interpreting certain Old Testament passages can have rhetorical, evangelistic power (if done thoughtfully). The reason the Apostles used this strategy was because, at least at first, evangelism mostly involved reasoning with other Jews, which meant reasoning “from the scriptures” they shared. It made sense for Peter to say to his fellow Jews, “Hey, consider what David wrote in the Psalms. Doesn’t it make sense that he was writing about someone else? David did die after all and remained in the grave. But Jesus didn’t.” He was essentially inviting his Jewish listeners to consider that their sacred texts had a different or deeper meaning than they previously believed.
Another great example of this is the Apostle Paul in Acts 17. In Thessalonica Paul “explained the prophecies and proved that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead.” The story says some of the Jews who were listening were persuaded.[1] Some.
So much for “proving.”
But Paul was inviting the Jews in Thessalonica to do the same thing Peter was inviting Jews in Jerusalem to do; consider the possibility that these prophetic texts have a different or deeper meaning than you previously believed. Could they be pointing ahead to this man named Jesus? When Paul tried the same strategy in Berea the story says the Bereans “searched the scriptures day after day” to see if he was “teaching the truth.”[2]
What did that look like? It’s not like they had a decoder ring and what they were doing was assessing if Paul’s words matched their fool-proof decoder ring sequence. They were painstakingly reviewing texts they thought they understood in light of Paul’s testimony and asking themselves if they could indeed mean what Paul was suggesting they meant.
All of this reinforces the idea that while Old Testament passages are predictive, they are not clearly predictive, at least not in the way we typically think of predictive. We need to change the way we think of predictive.
Let me offer one option before closing this post, which I’ve already kind of alluded to. Certain Old Testament passages are predictive of Jesus in the sense that they can be read with a different or deeper meaning in light of his life, death, and resurrection. In other words, the biblical authors were not consciously referring to Jesus when they wrote but their words take on a different level of meaning, a greater fullness when applied to Jesus.
Jesus himself said that he came not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them, a word that means something like “to make complete.”[3] Jesus’ life gives all of the words in the Hebrews scriptures their fullest or completest meaning.
I think this is what Jesus means when he says in John 5 that the scriptures “point to him.”[4] They don’t point to him with a one-to-one correspondence. We’ve already said they are predictive but not clearly predictive in this way. But looking back, because his life gives them their fullest or completest meaning, it is fair to say that they point to him, that they were pointing to him all along without anyone knowing it.
At least that is how prophetic speech plays out in the New Testament. For example, consider the prophecy of Caiaphas. Caiaphas was the Jewish High Priest involved in Jesus’ execution. John 11 says that he was led to prophesy that Jesus would die not only for the entire nation but to bring together all the children of God scattered around the world.[5] That makes it sound like Caiaphas understood the purpose of Jesus’ death and his participation in it was a good thing. I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. I think Caiaphas believed Jesus needed to die, that his death would save the nation from suffering a Roman crack down, but that it had nothing to do with forgiveness, atoning for sin, or reconciling the world to God.
But after Jesus’ death and resurrection, his words came to be understood in that fullness or completeness.
John 12:16 says, “His disciples didn’t understand at the time that this was a fulfillment of prophecy. But after Jesus entered into his glory, they remembered what had happened and realized that these things had been written about him.” John wrote these words in reference to a specific prophecy, but I believe they can be applied to all prophetic speech as a way of understanding how prophecy “works.”
The people speaking and writing as prophets did not consciously believe they were speaking or writing about future events or persons. They very much believed they were speaking and writing about present events and persons, which is what gave their words meaning and significance for the audiences that received them. But following Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection his followers reread these texts and began to interpret them as having larger, fuller, more complete meaning with reference to Jesus.
In that sense, they were “about” Jesus and had always been “about” Jesus even if the authors themselves did not know that. The scriptures “clearly” predict Jesus in the sense that when read in the light of his life, death, and resurrection they point to him. In this way, Jesus is the fulfillment of all prophecy.
[1] Acts 17:3-4
[2] Acts 17
[3] Matthew 5:17
[4] John 5:39-40
[5] John 11:49-50
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