Everything about the following sentence is wrong. For analysis, I ‘ll break it down into phrases, but it’s all one sentence. From Bruce Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, page 824:
The prophets ‘ predictions embrace
a beginning of fulfillment in Israel’s restoration from the exile,
a victorious fulfillment in the church age stretching from Christ’s first advent to his Parousia,
and a consummation in the eschatological new heaven and earth when Christ’s kingdom becomes coextensive with his creation.
I ‘ll take my first statement back: I have no objection to the first four words of the sentence. But after that, it’s a complete disaster.
First, were the prophets ‘ predictions fulfilled in Israel’s return to exile? In response, I would recommend you read any of the post-exilic books. The clear message of the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi is that the prophecies weren’t being fulfilled. The problem was not God’s faithfulness but the people’s response. Nevertheless, the prophets encouraged them that though they did not see the prophecies of restoration being fulfilled, God would still keep his promises. Therefore, obey!
Second, Waltke suggests that the prophet’s predictions have enjoyed a “victorious fulfillment in the church age.” Now, setting aside for the moment every single thing that those prophets said, I just have to ask, where is this victory? I don’t want to put the church down, and I know that the Lord is working faithfully in it every day, but I emphatically do not see, now or ever in the church’s history, anything that God would call a victory. The church was in awful shape from the time of Corinth to the letters of Revelation through the Middle Ages until today. You could argue that while the “professing church” is a miserable failure (think everything from “Crusades” to Joel Osteen’s megachurch), the true church is the “victorious fulfillment.” And while those who have been saved and made a part of the body of Christ have infinite reason to rejoice, it’s a distant cry from what the prophets foretold. Besides all of this, it might be observed that Paul explicitly said that the prophets didn’t foretell the church, as its existence was a mystery made known first to the apostles (Eph 3).
Finally, you think I could at least agree with Waltke that the promises of the prophets will be fulfilled in the “consummation in the eschatological new heaven and earth.” Alas, the irony is that while Waltke suggests three periods of fulfillment for the glorious words of guys like Isaiah and Ezekiel and Zechariah, he fails to mention the one period when these prophecies actually will be fulfilled! Of course, I am speaking of the time when Jesus “will be king over the whole earth” and when the city of Jerusalem will be re-named “the Lord is there” and the nations will stream up to the holy city where the Messiah will “comfort all who mourn” (Zech 14:9; Ezek 48:35; Isa 2:2; 61:2).
How can Waltke and I disagree so severely? Very simply: he believes that the OT prophecies must be “spiritualized, transcendentalized, eschatologized, and typified.” But I observe that all the prophecies in the past were fulfilled “normally, literally, and according to the way that all sensible people read words,” and Waltke would agree with that. (Jesus was born in Bethlehem, ministered in Galilee, was crucified and resurrected, etc.) It’s only the prophecies that have not yet been fulfilled that must be “spiritualized.” That leaves you playing hopskotch in the prophets, with one verse being fulfilled literally and the next one being fulfilled spiritually, and the one after that being literal, etc. He thinks that spiritualizing them makes them better. I say that it not only does it make them worse, but it steals them from the people to whom they were promised.
Good post. I agree with everything you say except for your first point.
You don’t think ANY prophecy was fulfilled in the return in 539? Dan 9:2 makes it pretty clear that at least Jer 25 and 29 was fulfilled in the return. Also, I’m not convinced that NOTHING from Jer 30-33 was fulfilled in the Persian period. Some of the language there is more modest and seems to allude to a more limited return, although I admit that it’s really hard to tell sometimes.
Benj – it seems to me that a major point of Daniel is to inform the exiles that the restoration has been delayed. Think about both the vision of the statue and the four beasts (chs. 2, 7). There Daniel learns that Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom is not going to be followed by the restoration of David’s kingdom, but rather by three other kingdoms, and thenby God’s kingdom. In Dan 9, he is expecting the exile to end because Jeremiah’s 70 years are about up, but the vision God gives him in response to his prayer is that it will not be 70 years but 70 weeks of years. The vision in chs 10-12 make it clear just how much more is going to happen before the prophecies will be fulfilled. I don’t think I’d go so far as to say that nothing was fulfilled in the return–indeed Jeremiah’s 70 years was fulfilled and the land no longer lay desolate. But all that did occur was but a shadow of what had been before and what the people expected (given the prophecies). I think Zechariah 7 is helpful in this regard. There some people come and ask essentially, is the kingdom here? Zechariah asks, how can it be when your hearts haven’t changed (verse 7)? Of course, in another sense some of God’s prophecies are always being fulfilled, such as in his continual preservation of his people (Jer 31:35-36).
I think we agree that the kingdom prophecies were not fulfilled with Zerubbabel and following. The question is, did the prophets envision a “halfway house” before the kingdom? I don’t have a clear recollection that they did.
Thank you, Todd, for pointing to God ‘s truth! Indeed, the OT knows NOTHING about this present age, for in fact Israel is yet in exile (far from God) and will be until the Lord brings the (elect of the) nation to salvation and into the Kingdom…which will not take place until the end of the Trib/first of Mill when He bodily returns, claiming His place on the Davidic throne in Jerusalem, as you said.
Yes, the church continues to fail miserably, and is filled with the false teachers that riddled the first-century churches. The NT letters were mostly written to warn of these. The good news is that God ‘s purposes are not thwarted, nor delayed, by the failings of man. All that He has spoken will come to pass exactly as He has promised.
Thanks for this post Todd! This one was a real blessing to me.