Limapela Education Project
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The fulfilment of prophecy used to be one of the main evidences advanced for the truth claims of Christianity. But the rise of the historical-critical method and the sceptical, secular outlook of our time has led to prophecy being widely ignored today, even by committed Christian believers. Yet, surprisingly, over a quarter of the content of the Bible is predictive prophecy. In this first message in a series on biblical prophecy, given at the Classical Service of Greyfriars Presbyterian Church, Auckland, New Zealand on 1 March 2009, Rob Yule explores the practical purpose and importance of prophecy.
There are three ways of finding out about the future.
The first is the superstitious way: by means of divination. This ancient pagan practice is still very widespread today - as seen in the popularity of clairvoyants and mediums, crystal balls and ouija boards, tarot cards and tea-leaves. Horoscopes are fervently read in magazines, and astrology programmes avidly searched on computer screens. Yet - according to Bible teacher David Pawson - it has been estimated that none of these channels is more than 5% accurate, which means they are wrong 95% of the time.
The second way is the scientific: through the emerging academic discipline of futurology. New Zealand briefly had a Commission for the future under the Muldoon Government in the 1970s. James Naisbitt's book Megatrends made future projections based on the technique used by military intelligence to monitor grassroots changes as documented in community newspapers and news sources. Environmental scientists, industrial and commercial interests, local and national government planners, all try to estimate future developments by calculating present trends. The likely impact of global warming on sea levels and coastal populations would be one example. Another would be trying to calculate when world supplies of oil or minerals will be depleted. These predications often tend to be very depressing. Their average accuracy, according to David Pawson, is estimated to be about 25% - or up to 75% wrong.
The third way of discerning the future is the scriptural method: by attending to biblical prophecy. The Bible tells us 'We have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it . . .' (2 Peter 1:19). Predictive prophecy occupies a major part of the Bible. J Barton Payne, in the Encyclopaedia of Biblical Prophecy (Grand Rapids, Baker, 1980, pp. 681-682), gives some very impressive statistics. Out of a total number of 31,124 verses in the Bible, 8,352 verses are predictive. Over one quarter of the Bible's content - 27% - is prophecy predicting the future. The proportion in the Old Testament is slightly higher, 28.5%, in the New Testament rather less, 21.5%, since the coming of Jesus fulfilled numerous Old Testament prophecies.
Payne says that 737 separate subjects are predicted in the Bible; some mentioned only once, others mentioned hundreds of times. Of these 594 have already come true (over 80%). Since those predictions which have not happened yet relate to the return of Jesus and the end of the age, the scriptural method of ascertaining the future has so far proved to be 100% accurate. And there are many more prophecies about the second coming of Jesus than there were about his first coming.
Our passage tells us the purpose of prophecy. It is 'a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts' (2 Peter 1:19). The role of prophecy is like car headlights - to lighten the road ahead until the sun rises and daylight comes. In other words, prophecy has a practical and clarifying function to light the way ahead, to give us clarity, direction, confidence, until we experience the full light of the age to come.
Just as car headlights light up the immediate path ahead, so prophecy illuminates near not distant events. Prophecy is for clarification, not speculation. It has a practical rather than a speculative purpose. 'The object of prophecy was not to excite surprise but to stimulate enterprise.' (R. B. Girdlestone, 1901, in Payne, p 14). Prophecy awakens vision to live purposefully in our lifetime; it doesn't let us pry into the secrets of someone else's lifetime.
A good example was the remarkable way Christian love of the Bible led to a belief among British Restorationists that the Jewish people would be regathered to their ancient homeland in the land of Israel, which led British parliamentarians like Lord Shaftesbury, Arthur Balfour, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill to work for the establishment of a Jewish state in the Middle East.
Our passage also tells us the origin of prophecy. 'Prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.' (2 Peter 1:20-21).
Prophecy isn't subjective, arising from our human impressions and intuitions, our speculations and extrapolations about the future. Prophecy is objective: it comes from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The verb phero refers to the prophets being 'carried along' or 'borne along' by the Holy Spirit, rather as a wind or current carries along a small boat. Similarly Jesus said of the Holy Spirit: 'He will tell you what is yet to come.' (John 16:13). God is the only person who can 'make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come' (Isaiah 46:10).
Because prophecy is of divine origin, there is a mystery about it that defies human comprehension and analysis. In another passage Peter tells us that the prophets searched diligently to fathom the meaning of their own prophecies. 'Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing.' 'Even angels,' Peter adds, 'long to look into these things.' (1 Peter 1:10-12).
Prophetic inspiration doesn't abolish our human finitude and limitations. The prophets sometimes acknowledged their ignorance of what their prophecies meant (Daniel 8:27, 12:8-10, Zechariah 4:13). A person may speak prophetically and not be fully aware of it, for example Abraham, when he said that 'God himself will provide the lamb' for the sacrifice (Genesis 22:8), or Caiaphas, when he said it was 'better for one man to die for the people than that the whole nation perish' (John 11:49-52).
Even Jesus said that he didn't know the time of his own return. 'No-one knows about that day or hour, not the Son, but only the Father.' (Matthew 24:36). Not even the Holy Spirit knows - so beware of anyone claiming to be inspired by the Spirit asserting absolute certainty about the future.
The Bible gives us three reasons why prophecy is of value for us:
Only God can know the future. This was the one of the points in Isaiah's mocking of idols: they can't foretell the future, but God can:
'Tell us what the future holds, so that we may know you are gods,' Isaiah challenges the idols (Isaiah 41:23). He asks, 'Who told of this from the beginning, so that we could know, or beforehand, so that we could say, "He was right"?' (Isaiah 42:26).
The historic Christian view was that fulfilment of prophecy was evidence not just of the truth of the Bible, but of the Bible's divine inspiration. But the modern sceptical attitude to Scripture denies the reality of predictive prophecy. Prophecy is regarded as forthtelling not foretelling, proclamation not prediction. Instances of predictive prophecy in the Bible are treated as prophecies after the event (vaticinia ex eventu) and redated to after their occurrence (e.g. a late 2nd century BC date for Daniel, after the last of his predicted empires; or dating prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem to after AD 70).
But Psalm 22 or Isaiah 53, even in interpretation of most critical scholar, can hardly be dated later than crucifixion of Jesus!
The fulfilment of prophecy has a key function in demonstrating God's ability to complete his purposes in history.
If there was no consummation of history, it would suggest that God is unable to bring justice to the world or bring to completion his programme of redemption. So eschatology is essential to salvation. God's character is at stake. The problem of evil has no final resolution unless God or his appointed Messiah ultimately intervenes in history to punish evil and put right injustice.
Paul was passionate about this. He often expresses the confidence that God can complete his programme of salvation. He assures the Philippians, 'that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ' (Philippians 1:6). In Romans 8 he affirms that 'in all things God works for the good of those who love him' (Romans 8:28), and says confidently that nothing 'will be able to separate us from the love of God revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord' (Romans 8:38-39).
Messianic Jewish writer Lance Lambert says, 'The Lord will not fail those he has redeemed, nor will he forsake them, for he has provided in their salvation sufficient power and grace to bring them to his goal.' (Till the Day Dawns: The Relevance of Biblical Prophecy, Eastbourne, Kingsbury, 1982, p. 61).
Our secular age removes people's sense of accountability to God for their actions - which accounts for some of the appalling crimes we see today. Prophecy underlines the fact that we are, in fact, accountable to God for our actions. Preaching about a God who rules history, about the end of the age and about the return of Jesus reinforces our moral accountability. 'Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.' (2 Peter 3:11-12).
Paul told the intellectuals at Athens that 'God commands all people everywhere to repent, for he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed' - and he has given evidence of this by raising Jesus from the dead (Acts 17:30-31).
Because they preached accountability to God, the biblical prophets had an enormous impact for social justice and on the moral character of their society. The greatest revival in the Western world in our lifetime was the Jesus People movement in California and the Pacific North West of the United States in the late sixties and early seventies. Some three million surfies and hippies came to faith in about two years. A key factor in many of these conversions was bold street preaching about end-time prophecy and Jesus' coming again.
'Repent, for God has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.'
Rob Yule, 1 March 2009
© 2009, Greyfriars Presbyterian Church
