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The Kingdom in the Prophets (Continued)

Jerusalem has been under the control of the Gentiles since the time of Daniel, as illustrated by his visions of the successive Gentile empires. But a time will come when it will be trodden underfoot, and Israel will turn back to God, at which time the Gentile kingdoms will be subdued by God’s Kingdom.

Matthew 23:
38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

The Kingdom in the Prophets

The promise of land and blessings to Abraham and his descendants was only temporarily fulfilled by the kingdom of Israel. But they did not keep God’s covenant, and so they were divided, the northern kingdom (Israel) being defeated by Assyria and scattered, and the southern kingdom (Judah) being taken captive to Babylon. Yet God had promised to establish David’s throne forever.

Many mainstream denominations have the following basic belief: “Whenever God gives people a prophesy, that prophesy is guaranteed to come true - exactly as it was stated.” In other words, the belief is that God’s prophesies always come true - regardless of what humans do.

From what I have seen, the above belief appears to stem from the idea of a completely “sovereign” God - i.e., the idea that God is explicitly controlling each and every event that occurs on the earth.

In any case, the question is: is the above idea supported by Scripture? In other words, is it really true that every single time God gives us a prophesy, that prophesy always comes true as it was stated?

Since the Reformation, it has been taught more and more among Protestants that Jesus declared the Kingdom to have arrived, but that he taught his disciples the “true” understanding of the Kingdom, namely that of God’s reign in one’s heart.  In addition, another common misunderstanding that leads to the belief that the Kingdom must have been redefined is the question of when Jesus expected it to take place. If Jesus had indeed meant a political kingdom that would overthrow Israel’s oppressors, he would seem to have been wrong about it being “at hand.” Much is made of Jesus’ supposed belief that his return would be in the lifetime of his disciples, but he told them he did not know when he was going to return (Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32).

In Part 1, we saw that the words for “generation” (Hebrew, dowr; Greek, genea) can have more than one meaning, and one of the meanings is a group of people with like characteristics, especially a group characterized by negative traits, as in “this crooked and perverse generation.”  We saw examples in the Old Testament, and we saw that this sense was in fact used more often than the literal sense in the Gospels.

When it comes to the statement Jesus made that “this generation will not pass till all these things be fulfilled” (in Matthew 24:34, Mark 13:30, and Luke 21:32), is he identifying the generation chronologically or morally?  Is he talking about all his contemporaries who lived at that time, or is he speaking of “this wicked generation”?  Scholars have given various interpretations of this passage, and frequently miss the figurative use of “generation” as it is more common in Hebraic thought than in Western. Nevertheless, that passage must be considered in light of its context and other related Scriptures.

One of the main reasons that other viewpoints don’t like the idea of a futurist interpretation of prophecy is that certain sections of Scripture appear to have Jesus say that the end would come before that generation passed away.  There has been much speculation about whether Jesus was mistaken or misunderstood, since the Kingdom apparently did not come to pass in the lifetime of his disciples.  C. S. Lewis wrote in his essay, “The World’s Last Night” (in 1960),

I was going to continue with the next article in the series on my web site, about how the definition of the Kingdom has been changed over the years.  But I’ve been doing some reading, especially in the Early Church Fathers, and will be expanding that article.  In the meantime, this article is from the Future Events section, and deals with one of the most crucial issues regarding the nature and timing of the Kingdom of god. Thanks to Alex Hall for much of the research in this article.

There is now a schedule for new blog posts, with a different writer each day of the week.  From this point on I will be posting once a week, on Mondays.  Today I will finish the article I started, and continue with another one next week. (Please note I added another passage of Scripture to Part 1 which I had missed before.)

I believe Jesus was born in the late summer/fall.  Yet this is the time of the year that most folks talk about the birth of the Messiah, so I thought I would post this interesting article on Isaiah 9:6.  You can find it originally posted at “koinonia.”  The bold lettering is my doing.  I found these statements to be particularly insightful.

WHAT IS IN A NAME? (ISAIAH 9:6)

by John H. Walton

Here in revelation a verse of scripture has captured my attention:

Rev 13:7a And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them:

Now based on what is written in this whole passage does it look like God has given the power to the beast or is it the devil?

Rev 13:3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

Rev 13:4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?