Foundations of Biblical Interpretation (Part 2)

Richard Belcher focuses on the principles and methods of biblical interpretation. He emphasizes understanding the Scripture’s context and applying its lessons accurately in contemporary settings. The sermon serves as a guide for both laypeople and scholars to approach biblical texts thoughtfully and responsibly.

The following unedited transcript is provided by Beluga AI.

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I want to talk about prophetic perspective, and give a definition of it. The prophet sees the events of the future as taking place at one time.

Basically what we’re talking about here is if you have a prophet who’s looking to the future, he sees the events of the future as all taking place in one complex of events at one time, if you will. So that when he prophesies salvation and judgment, he sees both salvation and judgment happening together. So that when God comes to save his people, he will also, at that time, judge all the enemies of God’s people. The end.

So when they talk about the day of the Lord, they’re looking to the future, and they’re seeing the events of the future all happening together. And a good way to talk about that is they talk about salvation, they talk about judgment. Both of those things happen together. So, for example, if you look at Joel 2:28, and I’ve got the things listed for you in your notes, all these things happen at once.

²⁸ “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. ²⁹ Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. ³⁰ “And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. ³¹ The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. ³² And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls. (Joel 2:28-32, ESV)

I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy. I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth. The sun will be turned to darkness, the moon to blood. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. I will bring back the captives of Judah. I will gather all nations for judgment. All these things happen together. There’s no differentiation as to whether something will happen earlier or later. It just all takes place together associated with the day of the Lord. That’s the Old Testament expectation. When God comes or when the Messiah comes, he will deliver God’s people. The salvation part.

He will destroy the enemies of God’s people. People the judgment part. And they’re looking forward to the coming of God. They’re looking forward to the day of the Lord. They’re looking forward when the messiah comes because they want that full salvation and they want that judgment. John the Baptist had that perspective. You remember, they came out to him by the river Jordan. And what was his message to them? Well, he said several things to them, but one thing he said to them was that the winnowing fork is in his hand.

God will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor, and then notice what John the Baptist says. Matthew 3:12. He will gather his wheat into the barn. That’s the salvation part. He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. That’s the judgment part. That’s what John the Baptist was looking for, for God to gather the wheat into the barn and to burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.

¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:12, ESV)

Those things would happen together when God comes, when the messiah comes. Now, you know what happens to John the Baptist, right? Well, you know what ultimately happens to John the Baptist?

But before he lost his head in that tragic event, he was in prison, and he sent messengers to ask Jesus if Jesus really was the one they’re looking for. Matthew 11. Why was he concerned? Why did he have doubts? He didn’t see the judgment. These things are supposed to happen together. When God comes, he saves his people, and he judges the enemies. And what does he see Jesus doing? Well, Jesus responds to this contingency from John the Baptist and points out the salvation that is taking place.

And he says blessed is he who is not offended at me. Now, we can get a good perspective on this if we compare two passages of scripture. I’ve done this in some of my other classes, so some of you have heard this before. But turn over to Luke 4, and then turn back to Isaiah 61. We’ll start with Luke 4, and then we’ll drop back to Isaiah 61. In Luke 4, Jesus goes to the synagogue, as was his custom. Being the visiting rabbi, he was given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, verse 17.

He says he unrolled the scroll and found the place where it is written. And here’s what he reads, Luke 4:18.

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, ¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19, ESV)

Those are the things that he pointed to, that contingency from John the Baptist. This is what you see happening to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, verse 20.

²⁰ And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹ And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:20-21, ESV)

Now, if you look back at Isaiah 61, very interesting. And you read in Isaiah 61 what Jesus was reading from the scroll of Isaiah 61:1,

¹ The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; (Isaiah 61:1, ESV)

That’s when he stopped reading and rolled up the scroll. Very next phrase. What’s the next phrase? The day of vengeance of our God. He didn’t read that part.

² to proclaim the year of the Lord ‘s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; (Isaiah 61:1-2, ESV)

You see, now, things do not happen in one major event. Now, things happen in two events. Salvation. Let me put it down here. Salvation and judgment. Two events. And we connect salvation with the cross, and we connect judgment with the second coming. Now, this doesn’t mean that there’s nothing judgment going on in this in-between period, but we’re talking about the ultimate judgment, the day of the vengeance of our God. So what the Old Testament saw as one major event, we see now two major events.

I went to college at Lookout Mountain Covenant College. And up there, you can supposedly see seven states from Rock City. I’m not sure I really saw seven states, but it’s beautiful. And you can see a long way. And I would look out to the distance in the direction of my home, and you’d look out in the distance, and you’d see out there what looked like just one huge mountain range. One. One big mountain. One big mountain range. That was the perspective from the distance. I’d get in my car, go up by 24, heading toward home, and wouldn’t you know it? There’s several mountains and mountain ranges. And that’s sort of a good illustration of what is taking place.

The prophets saw these things from a distance, and they worked themselves out in history, as we now know, because we live on the other side of the coming of Christ. They worked themselves out in history in this way: salvation, judgment. And as you know, we are now living in the last days. The kingdom of God is here already, not yet. you’re familiar with all of that terminology. And the parables of the kingdom that Jesus gives partly relate to this. The kingdom of God is here in a way you didn’t expect.

The mystery of the kingdom, the parable of the four soils. The kingdom of God is here, but not with irresistible power. You can reject the word of the kingdom from an Old Testament perspective. When God came, there was no rejecting it. You were toast, you were done. But now you can reject the word of the kingdom, the parable, the wheat and the tares, the sons of the kingdom and the sons of the evil one will live together in the world. That was not the Old Testament perspective. When God comes, the evil ones are done.

They’re gone. But now there’s a living together in this world. The parable of the mustard seed. The kingdom seems small, it seems insignificant. It’s not what you were expecting, but it will one day be a great and glorious thing. So the parables of the kingdom relate to this so prophetic perspective. When you read an Old Testament passage, many times, the prophets have this perspective. They look to the future, and they see everything happening together. One big major event, the day of the Lord.

But we see that it works out a little differently with the coming of Christ into two major events. And so you then have to read the prophets and understand the prophets not only in the original context in which they were given, but then how they are fulfilled, what their meaning is for God’s people. Now that we live in this sort of in between time, where the powers of the age to come have broken into this age, and we’re living in this now but not yet situation.

So it’s important when you read the prophets to know that they have this perspective. When you read Joel 2, Joel is looking at all these things that he’s talking about happening together, but they actually may work themselves out connected with the first major event of salvation, or some of them may work themselves out connected with the second major event of judgment. Comments or questions before we move forward? All right, we now come to another issue a little more complicated, and we actually get into this issue much more in advanced biblical exegesis.

But it’s so related to the prophets that at least we want to touch upon this question. And the major question here is, what’s the meaning of the prophets in light of the New Testament? That’s at least part of what we’re going to talk about. And the best way to get at this is to look at Hosea 11:1. Out of Egypt, I called my son. Now, if you look at Hosea 11:1, it says,

¹ When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. (Hosea 11:1, ESV)

What is Hosea referring to here? When Israel was a child, I loved him. He’s referring to the Exodus event. When Israel was a child, I loved him. Out of Egypt I called my son. He delivered his people out of the bondage of Egypt. Now, how does the New Testament use this passage? And this is where the possible problem comes in. Matthew 2:15 uses this passage to refer to what Jesus coming out of Egypt, or he goes down into Egypt to avoid Herod and then he comes out of Egypt. Out of Egypt I called my son.

This was fulfilled what was spoken to the prophet Hosea. Out of Egypt, I called my son. Jesus came from Egypt. Now the problem is that Matthew seems to use the prophecy of Hosea in a way that Hosea himself did not intend for it to be used. Hosea seems to be talking about the exodus event, and yet Matthew says Hosea is talking about Jesus. How do you put those two together? That’s the problem.

How do you bridge this gap that seems to be there between the original meaning of the prophet Hosea and the way Matthew seems to use it of Jesus? Doesn’t seem to be in line with what Hosea really had in mind. That’s the problem. There are various ways this problem is handled by critical scholars. Critical scholars are those who don’t approach the Bible as the word of God or inspired, as we would understand that definition. Critical scholars use this to argue against the authority of the Bible. The Bible is wrong.

For example, some quotes here from a critical scholar. To attribute inerrancy to the Bible is to ignore the way the New Testament uses the Old Testament. The New Testament modifies the Old Testament, reads into the Old Testament meanings that are not there, meanings not intended by the original author. They did not regard the Old Testament as an eternal, unchanging, inerrant document. It was a living tradition. It could be modified to fit new situations. The New Testament writers misapply and misunderstand the very texts from which they derive their authority and their teaching. That’s the critical response.

The New Testament authors misuse the Old Testament texts. That’s not our response. Another response to this problem is to stress the intention of the human author. Walter Kaiser has done a lot of work in this area, and he’s worth reading in the Old Testament. He is on the conservative end of things and has done a lot of good work in the Old Testament.

And he gets around this problem by saying that the prophet Hosea must have had in his mind, and it was a part of his intention, what Matthew says in Matthew 2:15. Hosea himself, the prophet, must have understood that his prophecy would one day be used to refer to the Messiah. Now, this is based, and we get into this more in advanced biblical exegesis. This is based on a concept of theoria, where God gives the prophet a vision, and that vision relates to the prophet’s own historical situation.

But it also goes beyond the historical situation to the future. And the prophet understood all the future fulfillments of his prophecy. The human prophet Hosea understood all the future fulfillments of his prophecy. And so Hosea had to have in his mind and a part of his intention when he wrote Hosea 11:1, the use, the later use of Matthew. Now a lot of good things about Kaiser’s approach.

He wants to understand the Old Testament text in its context, and thinks if you do that, you clear up a lot of problems that people raise related to the Old Testament, New Testament. I agree with him on that. He stresses the intention of the human author, which is good in light of some of the hermeneutical issues today. The intention of the human author is a part of the meaning of the text. He insists that a text has a single determinant of meaning, which is good.

I would nuance that differently than he does, but that is positive. And he wants to avoid allegory. He wants to avoid reading back into the Old Testament meanings that are not there, and that’s certainly a worthy goal. However, do the prophets always fully understand the future fulfillments of their prophecies? And I don’t think so. I think it’s tough to answer this problem with just the human author. Daniel 12:8, I heard I did not understand. Daniel says many times the prophets did not know precisely how their words would be fulfilled.

⁸ I heard, but I did not understand. Then I said, “O my lord, what shall be the outcome of these things?” (Daniel 12:8, ESV)

They may have been ignorant of the details of timing and circumstance, so it’s difficult to put all your eggs in the basket of the human author. We want to stress the importance of the role of the human author in understanding prophecy and in the whole understanding of the meaning. But there’s more going on, as we will see in a few minutes. Another response to this problem: typology, briefly defined, is a type—a biblical event, person, or institution that serves as an example or pattern for other events, persons, or institutions.

So you have the type which is the Old Testament example or pattern, and you have the antitype, which would be the New Testament example or pattern. And the antitype fulfills the Old Testament type. Now, very briefly, since we get into this in much more detail in advanced biblical exegesis, let me just say several things that’s important when we talk about typology. The type must have significant meaning to the Old Testament people of God. In other words, the type must have meaning to God’s people in their Old Testament context.

If you use a sacrificial system as an example, as an institution of the Old Testament, it has significance to God’s people in the Old Testament, doesn’t it? The whole sacrificial system allows them to come into the presence of a holy God. It teaches a substitutionary atonement. Secondly, the nature of the type must lie in the main message of the material, not in some incidental detail. This is part of the problem of the way the early church fathers approached the Old Testament. Every time they came across the color red, they would draw connections to blood.

Or every time you come across wood, they draw connections to the cross. Well, those incidental details, that’s not the way typology works. It has to be part of the main message of a particular passage. And obviously the sacrificial system is a part of the main message of the Old Testament. And when you read Leviticus, it’s part of the main message of Leviticus, chapters one through seven. So it’s not just taking some incidental detail and making a connection, but it’s understanding that this is a part of a major text.

And then the fulfillment, the antitype, must be greater than the type. And you can see this with the sacrificial system. The sacrifice of Christ, which is a fulfillment of that sacrificial system, is greater, is it not? How many times was Christ sacrificed? Only once. But they kept bringing those animals over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, bull after bull after bull, calf after lamb after lamb after lamb. And so, this Christ is the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. And He was sacrificed once; that was sufficient.

So the antitype must be greater than the type in its fulfillment. Now you could look at Hosea 11:1, going back to the Exodus event, and you could see that in the Exodus event, Israel is called son. And you could draw some typological connections between Israel as son and Christ as Son. This is probably what Matthew does at the beginning of his gospel. He shows the true son is here. And the early events of Jesus’ life in Matthew’s gospel parallel the history of Israel.

And so there is legitimately a typological relationship between Israel as God’s son and Jesus as God’s son. He is the true son. So that is an appropriate approach and response. However, it still doesn’t answer the question, what did Hosea have in his mind? What did he intend when he wrote Hosea 11:1? He’s referring back to the exodus event. And although there are some typological relationships between the exodus event and Jesus, it doesn’t answer. There’s still this gap between what Hosea, the human author, intended and the way Matthew used the prophecy.

That brings us to one more way to approach this, which I think does fill in the gap. It’s called census plenier, not sure how you pronounce that. Plein, air, plenois, whatever. You know what we’re talking about. Tomato, to me, I don’t know. But this is different from typology in that it deals with words more so than events or institutions or persons. This is defined as a fuller meaning in scriptural texts than that which is consciously intended by the human author, but it is a sense or meaning intended by God.

The divine author, Raymond Brown, has a definition that additional, deeper meaning intended by God, but not clearly intended by the human author, which is seen to exist in the words of a biblical text when they are studied in the light of further revelation. So, this is based on the fact that there are two authors in scripture, and this is in line with our view of inspiration. There’s not just a human author, but there is a divine author. And this view wants to bring into the discussion of meaning, the role of the divine authority.

We can omit that from the discussion of interpretation. Now, the divine author and the human author are not contradictory. They’re complementary. But the human author, the prophet, may not fully understand everything about his own prophecy, because between the statement of the prophecy in Hosea 11:1 and the fulfillment Matthew 2:15, there is the progress of redemptive history so that things develop. More information is given so that later these things can be seen clearly, whereas they may not have been seen by Hosea himself.

When God, the divine author, sees the end from the beginning, Hosea, the human author, may only see a limited perspective because he’s human. Now, God may reveal to the prophets things about the future that go beyond their own human capabilities, but they don’t always fully comprehend their prophecies. Now, this is not a hidden meaning. We’re not saying that Matthew looked back at Hosea 11:1 and sort of found some hidden meaning there. No, this is clear in light of the progress of revelation.

And this can be seen once you have the fullness of revelations here, some of these things, you can’t make these connections until Christ himself comes. So I believe the divine author is important and fills in the gap. And I don’t believe, as Kaiser does, that this opens us up to all kinds of allegory. Reading into the Old Testament, things aren’t there because there are limits. There are controls. We are controlled by the historical situation of which Hosea writes. We are controlled by the progress of redemptive history and things that develop in redemptive history.

And once the fullness of revelation comes, that’s when you begin to see all these different threads in the Old Testament beginning to make sense. Whereas before Christ came, it was difficult to put all these things together because the fullness of revelation hadn’t come yet. But once Christ comes, now you can. All these threads in the Old Testament, is the messiah a priest? Is he a king? How does he suffer? All these things now make sense in light of the coming of Christ. Yes, sir.

Is that kind of like trying to put a puzzle together without having the image on the box? That might be a good way to. Yeah. The prophets were giving you pieces of the puzzle, and they didn’t have the total picture. They had segments of it, and so they were not always seeing the total picture. They were giving you a segment of it. And then when Christ comes, who is the total picture? Now, you look back at these pieces and they all now fit together.

The other example that sometimes people give is, you know, you look at one side of a and I forget what it is. Yes. You know, the front side, you can see. You can see it’s beautiful, but you look at the back side and it looks. So it might be another illustration. Whatever works for you. Any other comments or questions on this? Yes, sir. I’ve heard some people use more picture fulfillment language. Is that the sense of the census? What would you mean by picture fulfillment?

So that Israel was a picture of Christ, and that lambs were a picture of Christ. So there’s a sort of Jesus connection between. There’s a picture of things in the Old Testament that isn’t the actual thing, doesn’t bring fulfillment, but Christ brings that. That might be a way to talk about it. That sounds very similar to type, anti-type, maybe just a different way of talking about it. Certainly, the Old Testament is not the reality; it’s not the full reality of what God intends.

It is set up as patterns in the way God works that will be fulfilled. And one way perhaps to talk about that is to talk about that as pictures that might work. Well, how significant this is ultimately? It is significant. You don’t always see the significance of it, and we’re not always going to be consciously talking about this, but this is, I think, foundational and advanced biblical exegesis goes into this in more detail.

All right, now we come to something a little more relevant, perhaps to your day-by-day life, maybe, and this relates to the fulfillment of the prophecies. How do we understand prophecies that are related to the nation of Israel? How do we understand those prophecies being fulfilled? I left my regular notes at home; otherwise, I’d put up on the screen a chart. We talk about eschatology and prophets. You need a chart, right? And I got a real complicated chart that I’m going to put up here, but I don’t have it with me.

Maybe I’ll bring it next week and put it up here. We will put some charts up on the board, but they’re very simplified charts. There are basically three answers to this question that we want to lay out, and the third answer has two parts to it. So there’s basically four different approaches to this issue of how the prophecies related to the nation of Israel are to be understood to be fulfilled. So three general answers, but four eschatological approaches are for millennial views, if you want to look at it that way.

First, the prophecies and promises to Israel in the Old Testament are fulfilled and apply only to the nation of Israel and have very little to do with the church. So you got prophecies in the Old Testament related to the nation of Israel. How are we to understand those prophecies to be fulfilled? Well, they’re not fulfilled in the church. They’re fulfilled in the nation of Israel, and they have very little to do with the church. Now this is your classic dispensational view.

Dispensational pre-millennialism, Ryrie, Vulvard, Schofield Bible, Hal Lindsay’s Late Great Planet Earth in the seventies, and the Left Behind series, which is prominent and popular today. I don’t want to get into this in too much detail, but you have to understand, in classic dispensationalism, God has two programs, one for Israel, one for the church. He has two peoples, and never shall his purposes and plans for those two peoples be confused with each other or intermingle with each other. They are always to be kept separate and distinct.

Israel, in this view, stands for an earthly national theocratic kingdom. And so the prophecies related to Israel refer to a national theocratic kingdom. And their literal hermeneutic comes into play here. If it says Israel, it means Israel, a national theocratic kingdom. The church is a spiritual and heavenly people, not a national theocratic kingdom. So when the Jewish people rejected Jesus, the church age began. So if we want to draw a chart up here, we’ve got the Old Testament prophecies related to Israel. We’ve got the cross where the Jewish people rejected their messiah.

Okay, that begins the church age, but that church age is sort of parentheses in God’s prophetic program. And the next, well, depending on who you read, one of the next major events will be the rapture, because God has to remove the church in order to deal with his people, Israel. So the rapture is a removal of the church so God can then deal with Israel. And you have a seven-year tribulation period before the second coming. And we’ll talk about that when we get to Daniel 9. That’s the 70th week of Daniel 9.

And then, following the second coming, there is a thousand-year millennium, which is then followed by the new heavens and the new earth. Now, the purpose of the millennium is to fulfill all the physical and national promises made to Israel. Maybe we could close that door.

So all the promises in the old testament related to the nation of Israel will be fulfilled, not in a church, but they will be fulfilled in this thousand year millennial period where a theocratic kingdom will be set up, Christ will reign on the earth, and all those Old Testament prophecies related to Israel will be fulfilled. So none of the Old Testament prophecies about Israel applied to the church. They only apply to the nation of Israel.

So in the millennium, you got the nation of Israel, you got the land, you’ve got the temple, you’ve got many arguing that there will be a rebuilt temple with sacrifices offered in the millennium. We get over to the book of Ezekiel. I’ll give a quote to you from a scholar who argues for why there will be sacrifices in the millennial period, even though Christ has already come. So that’s the dispensational view. I grew up on it. I read the Schofield Bible growing up.

When I was small, I was a mascot of our church basketball team, and we had an away tournament. I prayed that the rapture would not come until after the tournament was over. Okay, so just part of my background. So that’s one answer to this question.

Second answer to this question: how are the prophecies related to the nation of Israel fulfilled? Well, the prophecies and promises to Israel in the Old Testament are fulfilled or apply both to the nation of Israel and the church.

This is what’s been called progressive dispensationalism would fit in here, and historic premillennialism would also fit into this category. Now, progressive dispensationalism and historic premillennialism have a lot of overlap, although progressive dispensationalists don’t want to be identified with covenant stuff. So progressive dispensationalists are more dispensationally oriented, whereas historic premails are more covenant oriented. Progressive dispensationalists stress more discontinuity between Israel and the church, whereas historic premills would stress more continuity between Israel and the church. So those are some differences, but they have in common a basic hermeneutical principle.

The Old Testament prophecies related to Israel are in some way fulfilled in the church. That’s the way the New Testament seems to use a lot of the Old Testament prophecies. You are a royal nation, a chosen race, a royal priesthood. Is that loosely paraphrased? But you get the point. In some way, the Old Testament prophecies about Israel are fulfilled in the church. They would affirm the fact that the kingdom of God is present. Now, they may or may not believe in a rapture. Dispensational or progressive dispensational tend to go that direction.

Historic premills may or may not. Many of them will argue that the church goes through the tribulation period. There’s no rapture, but the church goes through the tribulation period. There is a second coming, and then they would argue there is a thousand year millennial period, and it’s in this thousand year millennial period that the promises related to national Israel are fulfilled. So the Old Testament prophecies are in some way fulfilled in the church, but there are Old Testament prophecies related to national Israel that will not be fulfilled until this thousand year millennial period.

And it depends on who you read as to whether or not they believe that there are literal sacrifices. I think Walter Kaiser, who is historic pre mill, denies that there will be literal sacrifices, although I do think he believes there will be a temple. And of course, both of these views believe in a new heavens and new earth. Dispensational premillennialists even believe in the new heavens and new earth. This is top view. You still got a separation between the earthly people of God, Israel, and the heavenly people of God, the church.

So that distinction even continues in new heavens and new earth for the dispensationalists. But the progressive dispensationalists, historic premillennialists, do understand that in some way, the prophecies related to Israel in the Old Testament are fulfilled in some way in the church. Yes, sir. So the historic premillennials do believe in a rapture or some. Doctor, it depends who you read. Some might, those don’t. Yeah, that’s the big station. They tend not to, although you will find some that do, but generally they don’t. Yes.

Which is identified in essence with the second coming, that the rapture is really the second coming. All right, let’s at least get a start on, well, I’ve got. Well, I don’t know if I’m right or that clock is right. Let’s begin this third response; it’ll have two parts to it. We’ll stop here in just a minute. The third answer to this question, how are we to understand the prophecies related to the nation of Israel being fulfilled?

The prophecies and promises to Israel in the Old Testament apply only to the church, or perhaps primarily to the church and with the coming of Christ, no longer apply to the nation of Israel. And a distinction is made here between the nation of Israel and ethnic Israel. And most in this third category, which will have two varieties, would affirm that God still has a purpose for ethnic Israel, but it’s not necessarily tied to the nation of Israel over in the mid eastern part of the world. So that’s an important distinction.

God has a purpose for ethnic Israel, for His people, the Jewish people, but it’s not necessarily tied to events in the Middle East. Now, there are two varieties of this which we will pick up on. One is the post-millennial view, and the other is the amillennial view. Progressive dispensationalism has also been at Dallas Seminary in the last several years, blazing a block or two, that would fit into that. Darrell Bock as well. There’s a book, Progressive Dispensationalism. If you’re interested in this, you can read that book.

Historic premillennialists are found in a variety of different situations and denominations. At Covenant Seminary, when I was there in the seventies, there were several professors who were of the historic premill view. The old RPCEs, Reformed Presbyterian Church Evangelical Synod, which eventually joined with the PCA, had a strain of historic premills. So, there are historic premills that have been within the reformed tradition.

Now we come to the third answer to our question: how do we understand the prophecies related to the nation of Israel to be fulfilled?

And we stated, the third answer is that they are fulfilled primarily in the church and with the coming of Christ, no longer apply to the nation of Israel, the nation of Israel as a secular nation, or a theocratic nation. There are two varieties of this particular view. One variety is post millennialism, and there’s a variety of types of post millennialism, if you do any studying of this. But there are general characteristics. Post millennialists stress the triumph of the preaching of the gospel over the whole world, leading to an era of righteousness on this earth.

So in the post mill view, you’ve got the Old Testament you’ve got the cross. You do have the church, and the church fulfills the mission by going out into the world, by preaching the gospel. And that is going to bring transformation not only to individuals, but transformation to families and societies and culture. That is a stress among some of the post millennialists, so that there will be a golden age on this earth, brought about through the preaching of the gospel. This is not some liberal social gospel stuff.

This is through the preaching of the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. Individuals, families, societies, culture, nations will be transformed, leading to a golden age on this earth. After which, post the millennium, Christ will come. Now, there is some bad stuff here at the end. All views have some bad stuff at the end, and so there is some bad stuff here at the end, before Christ comes. Some post millennialists argue that although the church is spiritual in nature and the kingdom is spiritual in nature, the impact of the gospel will have cultural effects.

The transforming power of the gospel will transform culture. And many talk about the development of civilization, christian civilization, and they associate the victory of Christ and the preaching of the gospel with these cultural effects and with this christian civilization. Especially the post millennialists, who are on the theonomic side, the christian reconstruction side, they emphasize that quite a bit.

Many of them will argue that the covenant sanctions of Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26, the blessings and cursings of the covenant, should be applied to history in a cause and effect way, so that the blessings of great material prosperity, the blessings in Deuteronomy 28, should be fulfilled in this world when peoples and nations are obedient to God. So they want to take the sanctions and the blessings and cursings of the mosaic covenant and apply that to the outworking in history of nations and kingdoms.

And in the theonomic version, there’s a gradual return to the biblical norms of civil justice, and there will be the application of the penalties of the Old Testament to societies. And this will not be imposed on societies, but societies will want to have those penalties. They’ll willingly accept them so that they will stone incorrigible children. All those penalties, the Old Testament, will be applied to civil society.

Yes, sir. How do those who are not in the theatre camp at Sylphos Mill, how do they define the, I guess, cultural change? Well, they’re not as explicit.

They talk about the victory of the preaching of the gospel on the impact. But this is an explicit transformation of culture view that is a part of the Calvinistic heritage applied to culture, government, and what they call civilization. So, this is more explicit than maybe some of the older ones were, as a good example of. Well, I don’t know. I mean, on one level, you could argue that you want to talk about a golden age in history, certainly the last 40, 50 years in this country.

Where else would you rather live in terms of the opportunities? But I don’t know if they talk in those terms or not specifically. I haven’t read extensively in a lot of the post-millennial stuff. If you’re interested in this, Gentry’s book, He Shall Have Dominion, is a book that lays out the post-millennial view. We have room up here, Gentry, He Shall Have Dominion. So, you got a golden age on the earth, you got bad stuff, and then you’ve got the second coming, which leads you into the new heavens and earth.

And there’s a real stress on continuity between this age and the new age. I mean, that’s part of the reason why you’re faithful and because there’s continuity between the two. The other response is amillennialism, and nobody really likes the term amillennialism, but we’re sort of stuck with it. Sort of gives you the idea there’s no millennium, but the amils believe that the future millennial reign of Christ is not needed, for Christ is now reigning. In fact, most mills would also agree with that, that Christ is now reigning from heaven.

And so there are a lot of overlaps. In fact, some of the historic premill and progressive dispensationalists would also affirm, in some sense that Christ is now reigning. They’re just looking forward to a reign on the earth before the new heavens and new earth, whereas the post mills and amills would not be as, would not be looking for a literal thousand year period. Post mills are looking for a reign of Christ on the earth through the preaching of the gospel and the transformation of society.

The omni position includes an eschatology of suffering, and there’s debate between amils and post mills. You know, post mills say, o mills are too pessimistic, and all mills say post mills are too optimistic. Well, there’s a little bit of both that’s appropriate. I mean, we are optimistic, pessimistic in what the power of the gospel can do. The amils are a little more pessimistic on whether or not that will have such a transforming effect on this earth before the coming of Christ.

Within the Calvinistic tradition, you have both post-mill and amuls who want to talk about the transformation of the gospel and the transforming power of the gospel. So, there is overlap in that regard. In the OMn position, victory is not just tied to the development of civilization or cultural effects. In the omnipotent position, victory is also suffering for your faith, dying, if need be, for the gospel, and that has a tremendous impact on the world, those who are willing to suffer and die.

So there’s overlap here on how you define victory, but there’s also some differences in terms of the direction that victory might go. God may still do a mighty work among the jewish people, but it will be through the preaching of the gospel. And the great material prosperity promised in the prophets will be fulfilled in the new heavens and new earth. In fact, a helpful way to distinguish each of these views is to think in terms of how they conceive of the prophecies in the Old Testament related to God pouring out his blessing in abundance.

And one of my favorite passages we will look at next week, or when we meet together, is Amos 9: mountains will drip with wine. Just the abundance of blessings that God is going to pour out, the sower will overtake the reaper is in that Amos 9 passage. How do these views understand that to be fulfilled? Well, in the dispensational view, the top view, those passages of abundant blessing will be fulfilled in the thousand-year millennium, in the progressive dispensational, historic premill.

Most of those will be fulfilled again in the thousand year millennial period related to things relevant to what they still think is the nation of Israel. In the post mill view, the outpouring of abundant blessing from those passages and the prophets will be fulfilled on this earth in a golden age before the coming of Christ. In the Ol mill view, those abundant blessings that are promised in the prophets will not be experienced on this earth until the new heavens and the new earth. That’s when we will experience the outpouring of the abundance of blessings.

So that’s sort of a good way to sort of differentiate these four different views. However, it’s important that you see something here. These three views, the bottom three views, progressive dispensationalism, historic premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism, all have something in common that’s very important. All three of these views operate with the hermeneutic that the prophecies related to Israel are in some way fulfilled in the church. There is a commonality among these three views that is not found in the top view.

Dispensationalism, because none of the prophecies of the Old Testament relate to Israel, are fulfilled in the church. That sets this top view apart from the bottom three views. So no matter where you fall, the bottom three views have, at least to some degree an overlap in their basic hermeneutics as they approach the Old Testament prophecies related to Israel. In some sense they’re fulfilled in the church. That’s huge. And you will find within the reformed camp people in all three historic premills, post mills and, ah, mills.

All three of those views are represented in the reformed camp and in the history. So that’s important to see. There are differences between the views, but there is this level of commonality that I think is extremely important. Yes, sir. Just to thoroughly study this, is there an objective book that you recommend that goes through all the views? Well, there’s two. I don’t know how objective, but there’s two good ones. Stanley Grinz’s book, The Meaning of the Millennium. G R E N Z. Grins, Meaning of the Millennium.

If you want an all-mill perspective, Anthony Hoekema’s book, The Bible and the Future, is a broad look at issues related to this topic. Anthony Hoekema, The Bible in the Future. It’s a fairly old book. I think it’s still available. That’s a good book. A recent book that I’ve come across is a book by Riddlebarger, A Case for Amillennialism. Now you can see what position he’s coming from, but he does review all of the views in a fairly objective way.

He also raises questions related to all the views and sort of where their weaknesses are, including amillennialism. So it’s a more recent book that I found helpful. He makes good definitions of some of the major concepts and terminology. So I would suggest that book as well. Yes. Is there a four or five view series? There’s a couple of books. There’s an older one. The meaning of the millennium or the four views in the millennium.

I forget four views of the millennium, but there’s a newer one that’s replaced it, that Gentry argues for the post-mill view. So there is a four views book. There may be a couple of them on this issue that you could find very easily. Yes, sir. One thing real letter doesn’t touch, I’ve always had a question about, is what do we do with these reformed Baptists like MacArthur who want to have their covenant. Okay, get dispensational, either. Dispensation was high at Saints Iron. What do we have to do with it?

Where do we, where do we, I mean, because it seems like they, they try to play it both ways. Both Dyspo and Calvinistic, a little bit of Calvinistic covenant stuff. See, in the back door, I heard a rumor. I don’t know if I should say that. I might turn the mic off before I out there in the web world, don’t listen for me. I heard a rumor, I don’t know if it’s true. I have no footnote that MacArthur may be moving its position, but I don’t know that for sure.

I’ve heard it in several places, so. But I don’t know how a person’s particular view relates to their upbringing. A whole variety of things go into it. And there are some dispensationalist Calvinists who are still dispensational in their whole approach. It’s sort of an anomaly to us. But once you see that the New Testament takes these prophecies related to Israel and says they’re fulfilled in the church, that’s what has been the unraveling of the classic dispensationalism. And that’s where the progressive dispensationalists, they’ve seen that this is what the New Testament does.

We can’t avoid this. And so they’ve accepted that hermeneutic. They’ve also held on to some of, they’ve tried to hold on to some of the distinctives related to dispensationalism, especially with Israel. But that’s sort of the struggle. Yes, sir. How recent is the progressive movement? Well, I’d say the last ten or 15 years. It’s fairly recent, maybe 20. I don’t know where the seeds are, but certainly the book progressive dispensationalism was published since I’ve been here, which is in the last ten years.

One more comment before we move on here, and this relates to the amils especially. We’re not just talking about the spiritualization of the Old Testament prophecies. Sort of the older amills and maybe some of the post mills talked about the spiritualization of the Old Testament prophets. We’re talking about something beyond that.

We’re talking about the fact that God has one purpose for his people and that we as the church are the recipients of the promises of God, and that we are looking forward to the fulfillment of the promises of God in a physical way, which in the omnial position may not happen until the new, new heavens and new earth. Now there may be some of those temporal blessings that we might experience here in this life, but we’re promised persecution, suffering for the sake of Christ as well.

So some of the older omnials you read sort of get the idea that these Old Testament prophecies related to these material abundance is just a, we’re just going to spiritualize this to be spiritual blessings? No, some of that may be appropriate, but we’re talking about the fulfillment of these prophecies in a physical way. The new heavens, new earth is a physical manifestation. Sometimes we get the idea we die and we go to heaven. That’s our final home. Well, that’s not our final home. We’re going to be reunited with our bodies.

Just as Christ had a physical body after his resurrection, so it will be a physical new heavens and new earth. We will have physical bodies. I can’t explain it all, but we want to see the fulfillment of these prophecies in a physical, tangible way. And depending on your view, it could be in this earth, the golden age, or it might be the new heavens and new earth. So, we are moving away from just a spiritualization of Old Testament prophecies. Yes.

Could you comment just real quickly on how a theonomist person deals with the theocracy and the transition from the physical people of Israel to the church? Well, on one level, they would say that God’s, that there’s been a difference between the Old Testament and New Testament. Israel is a theocracy. The church is not a theocracy; it’s spiritual. But I don’t think they consistently carry that through, and that maybe gets us a little bit too far afield. But they’re willing to recognize differences between the Old Testament and New Testament.

But I think they’re inconsistent when they talk about the penalties of the old covenant and when they talk about the covenant blessings and cursings being worked out in history. I think there’s a change that has taken place, and the penalties of the old covenant are used in the New Testament in church discipline type cases. First Corinthians 5. So that’s the avenue that I would go; the covenant blessings and cursings of Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26 might, to some degree, relate to the church today in terms of temporary benefits.

But ultimately it relates, I think, to the final judgment in the new heavens and new earth. So those would be some differences that are there.

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