Faith seeking Understanding

There is an inherent fascination in the human psyche with knowing the future. We all would like to have the ability to know and/or predict the future, because, let’s be honest, the unknown can be downright frightening. In the Christian context, this fascination works itself out in an obsession with the prophetic portions of Holy Scripture. Passages like Daniel’s 70 weeks, Jesus’ Olivet Discourse, or John’s Revelation along with numerous others become the seed bed for a diversity of end-times scenarios and perspectives. Modern day geo-political entities and events are identified with biblical images to suggest that we are living in the end times, or even to predict specific dates for the end of the world and Jesus’ second coming. So-called prophecy teachers write books espousing their views on end-times events, and they host prophecy conferences to advance their particular eschatological agendas.

The problem with all of this is that it is based on a fundamental hermeneutical error as it relates to the interpretation of the prophetic genres of Holy Scripture, namely that these prophecies speak with specificity to the events and political personalities of our own day. Certainly, the teaching of Holy Scripture, especially its prophetic portions, applies to the day in which we live, but these passages do not identify the specific movements of geo-political entities or personalities as we know them. The actions of nations like Russia, Iran, Syria, or Israel in our world have no relationship whatsoever to the prophecies of Holy Scripture. So, instead of trying to use current newspaper headlines like a cipher to “decode” the prophecies of the Bible, we should attempt to understand these texts within the boundaries of a reasonable and sound hermeneutical method. In the space that remains, I will attempt to lay out some of interpretive principles that may guide us in our understanding of the prophetic genres of Holy Scripture.

First, we must give interpretive priority to the original author’s intended message for his specific audience. In other words, a text cannot mean something today that it did not mean when it was originally written/spoken. But, someone might say, “well, isn’t the Holy Spirit the original author of all of scripture,” and then, they might go on to argue for a sensus plenior, a fuller sense than the human author was able to realize.  However, we must affirm that in inspiration God did not violate or override the identity of the human authors. Rather, in His graceful condescension, he used the personality and circumstances of the human authors to convey timeless truths, even while speaking to a specific people at a specific time in a specific way. So, any “fuller sense” we may supposedly identify must be consistent with the human author’s intended message, and if an interpretation or any applications we come up with would not make sense to the original audience, then we have violated this fundamental principle.

Second, and somewhat related to the first, we must give interpretive respect to the original context in which a particular a text occurs. In other words, a text without a context is a pretext for a proof text. The original authors of Holy Scripture were writing to specific people living at a particular time in a particular place, so, in order to understand their intended message, we must give consideration to the particulars of their historical and literary contexts. This is especially true when it comes to texts like the prophets, because, more often than not, they are using evocative cultural imagery, symbolism, and metaphors that would resonate with their intended audience. So, any supposed correspondence or identification of their imagery with persons, places, or things our modern context must be considered suspect if it could not have made sense in the original context within which it was spoken/written.

Third, we must reconsider our understanding of the prophetic task. The prophets of the Old Testament, and those prophetic texts in the New Testament, are not interested in laying out a step by step playbook for the events culminating in the end of the world. That kind question is more a reflection of our own interests than it is of theirs. The prophets were more interested in forth-telling God’s truth for their audiences than they were in foretelling future events, and all of their foretelling serves their overall purpose of forth-telling. Their primary interests and motives were moral, to bring about change in behavior and conduct; they were not interested in prediction simply for the sake of prediction. In other words, the prophets purpose is to indict Israel for her failure to keep God’s covenant and call her to repentance, to warn of impending judgment and punishment for disobedience, and to instill a hope for the future restoration in spite of that punishment.  We must remember that almost all of their predictions find their fulfillment in Israel’s immediate future, and the ones that do refer beyond that immediate time frame find their fulfillment in the eschaton at Jesus’ coming. So, any supposed fulfillment in our own day should be rejected outright as outside the boundaries of the prophetic task.

Finally, we must not let our theological/eschatological presuppositions (read hobby horses) control our understanding of Holy Scripture. Rather, Holy Scripture should govern our theological/eschatological conclusions.  Most of the obsession with the prophetic scriptures presupposes the framework of classic dispensational premillenialism; however, this kind of presupposition puts the proverbial cart before the horse. Now, I am not interested here in evaluating the particular tenets of that eschatological perspective, but it is important that we do not impose our preferred theological or eschatological viewpoint on the text. We certainly can and should draw theological conclusions from Holy Scripture as a part of the interpretive process, but we must remember that those theological conclusions should be held in submission to not in presumption of the teaching of Holy Scripture.

Ultimately, we must remember that the purpose of eschatology in the Bible is always sanctification. In nearly every instance, the foretelling of future events is meant to elicit life changing transformation. So, when we teach or preach from the prophetic portions of Holy Scripture, we would do well to follow their lead and invite our audiences to respond likewise. Even when our world seems dark and dim, our eschatological hope in Jesus’ second coming should lead to renewed and strengthened faith for living. If our interpretation of the prophets does not accomplish this task in us and in our hearers, then we have completely misunderstood the prophetic genres of the Bible.