AP

The key to understanding

To enter the holiday home where we spent our last summer, we first needed the code for the front-door lock. Once inside, we found a large entrance hall, but locked double doors kept us from seeing the rest of the house.

While we waited for the agent to deliver the keys, the children began guessing which rooms would be theirs. They asked about the TV room and the bathrooms, while their mother pictured the kitchen layout.

Only when the keys arrived and the doors were opened did we finally understand the layout of the house. The answer was in the keys.

Redemptive history as the interpretive key

God created Adam and supplied all his needs. Adam and Eve lived by God’s grace, but then Adam sinned, broke covenant with God, and faced the consequences. God’s justice demanded punishment: Adam would surely die. Yet even as God banished them from the garden, He gave the promise that one day someone would crush the serpent’s head (Gen.3:15).

That promise was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The Bible records God’s unfolding redemptive history, not merely world history. Reading Scripture as redemptive history provides the key to understanding its message.

Covenant grace and covenant obedience

God’s relationship with Israel is expressed through the covenant of grace. He calls His covenant people to obey His stipulations—not to earn grace, but because they have received grace. In that covenant, God graciously blesses obedience and justly punishes disobedience (Deut. 28).

Christ, the second Adam, was obedient unto death and bore the punishment and earned our righteousness before God. He became the One through whom covenant blessings flow. By satisfying God’s righteousness, He crushed the serpent’s head and became the Head of the New Covenant (Rom. 1:16–17).

Every event recorded in Scripture must therefore be understood within the framework of God’s grace in restoring fallen sinners to Himself through Jesus Christ.

Biblical prophecy is, in this sense, nothing but applied covenant theology.

Prophecy as covenant application

Consider a simple example: my father set rules for using his tools, allowing us to use them even when he was absent. If we failed to keep the terms of that agreement, my mother warned us of the consequences.

Her warnings did not make her a ‘prophetess’; she was simply applying my father’s rules. His discipline did not come as a surprise. It showed that he was just and worthy of honour. Without discipline, we would have lost confidence in his justice.

Israel repeatedly broke God’s covenant. In holy righteousness, God punished their sins. Though always merciful (2 Chron. 36:15–17), He was also just and faithful to His word. The prophets applied the terms of God’s covenant by calling the people to obedience and proclaiming God’s grace to restore and forgive. The inadequacy of the sacrificial system, the priests, the kings, and even the temple itself pointed forward to the fulfilment of God’s promises in the perfect life of Jesus Christ.

Israel’s national identity was grounded in covenant grace (Exod. 19:4–6). God never broke covenant with His people. Instead, He applied the terms of His covenant by sending them into captivity, where they lost the privilege of dwelling in the covenanted land (Deut. 4:25–27; Lev. 18:28). Yet in mercy, He promised to restore them to their inheritance and to raise up a prophet whom they must obey (Deut. 18:18). That prophet ultimately pointed to Jesus Christ (Acts 3:20–23). The Messiah would bear the curses of covenant breaking, and through His righteousness God would pour out covenant blessings on those who believe in Him, trust, and love Him.

Thus, prophetic predictions were consistently rooted in God’s covenant of grace.

Christ as the fulfilment of the promises

If, as premillennial dispensational theology supposes, Israel and the church remain permanently distinct entities, then the promises of the Old Testament can only be fulfilled in national Israel. On that view, old covenant prophecies must be shifted to a future point in history, when God resumes His dealings with Israel as a national entity returning to the promised land.

But God has united Israel and the church as one people. Old Testament prophecies and promises are fulfilled in Christ (2 Cor. 1:22). In Him, the plan of redemption reaches its goal and extends to all who belong to Him (Eph. 1:9–14). This is what the author of Hebrews declares in Hebrews 1:1–3.

• In Christ, the Promised Land expands to include “all nations” (Matt. 28:19).
• In Christ, God creates “a new man” (2 Cor. 5:16–17).
• Believers from every nation, tribe, and language are now part of His covenant people (Gal. 3:29; Eph. 2:11–13).
• God’s promise to Abraham and his seed is fulfilled in Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:16).

The prophecies of the Old Testament must be read within this framework.

Reading prophecy in context

The prophets spoke first to their original hearers. Covenantal prophecies were not detached predictions about a distant future. When prophecies are removed from their original audience and historical setting, they can be made to mean almost anything an interpreter wants. Ancient warnings become modern forecasts, and Old Testament prophets are turned into geopolitical commentators for the interpreter’s own time. Worse still, contemporary “prophets” are then added beside biblical prophecy as though their claims carried the same authority.

It is helpful to distinguish between the “to whom” and the “for whom” of prophecy. Old Testament prophets addressed particular people in specific times and circumstances; that is the “to whom.” Yet because those prophecies also speak to us, we are the “for whom.”

The meaning of words always depends on context. Once we understand what a prophecy meant to those “to whom” it was first written, we can rightly apply it to those “for whom” it was also preserved.

In every generation, people facing political, spiritual, and social turmoil are tempted to believe they are living at “the end of time.” In doing so, they often lose sight of Christ’s kingship and authority (Matt. 28:18). Daniel’s seventy weeks, Ezekiel’s visions, Zechariah’s predictions, and John’s Revelation are then applied only to the interpreter’s own generation. Contemporary events are superimposed onto the words of the prophets, turning prophecy into speculation that requires constant adjustment.

These speculative projections and interpolations must be rejected as false prophecy because they lack authenticity and salvific value. Prophecy disconnected from the accomplished work of Christ becomes little more than predictive speculation. The key to redemptive history is used to open the wrong doors.

The danger of speculative prophecy

“Last day” Christians may withdraw from social responsibility and reduce Christ’s kingdom to worship gatherings. The Great Commission can then be narrowed to saving souls only, while Christians seek escape from this ‘evil’ world instead of living as light, salt, and acting as the foundation of truth (Matt. 5:13–16; 1 Tim. 3:15).

At the end of the nineteenth century, J. N. Darby and his associates expected Christ’s return “very soon.” C. I. Scofield became one of the most influential advocates of this interpretation. They regarded Christian witness and participation in society as sinful.

Keeping Christ’s kingdom in view

God has indeed revealed aspects of His kingdom to His people, and in some measure, we may know what lies ahead (Amos 3:7). However, if we fail to see biblical prophecy as God’s unfolding redemptive history in Jesus Christ, we will not fully grasp the kingdom revealed in Him.

We will lose sight of the victory of the King and His kingdom.

– Rudi Schwartz