Prophetic Perspective
One of the more important principles for interpreting prophecy, especially as it relates to the coming of the kingdom, has been called Prophetic Perspective. In layman’s terms, it simply means dual fulfillment. We might remember this from some famous Messianic prophecies. 2 Samuel 7 and Isaiah 7 are two places where the Christian believes that Jesus’ birth or His role as King are foretold. One of the difficulties that has to be accounted for is that not too far removed from the Messianic portion are words that cannot possibly pertain to Jesus. The Jew is quick to point that out, though, to be consistent, the Jewish conception of the Messiah has some explaining to do with that surrounding context as well.
This is even more prevalent when it comes to prophecies about the coming days of judgment and mercy for God’s people. Is it for the exiled people, the immediate post-exilic people, or of the end of all days? That is where all parties recognize some amount of dual fulfillment going on. But how exactly does this work?
George Eldon Ladd explains the difference between the way the prophets envisioned and the way we come to the text:
“The modern mind is interested in chronology, in sequence, in time. The prophetic mind usually was not concerned with such questions but took its stand in the present and viewed the future as a great canvas of God’s redemptive working in terms of height and breadth but lacking clear dimension of depth. The prophets usually saw in the background the final eschatological visitation of God; but since they primarily concerned themselves with God’s will for his people in the present, they viewed the immediate future in terms of the ultimate fulfillment without strict chronological differentiation and thus proclaimed the ultimate will of God for his people here and now.”1
Whatever the Old Testament prophets consciously “saw,” when speaking of the divine full meaning of Scripture, we must eventually turn to the objective reality that is ultimately being communicated. We must “turn the canvas” away from the viewpoint of the human painter (to borrow from Ladd’s imagery), and view things from “the side” that encompasses the chronological whole.
A Simple Explanation of Prophetic Perspective
In his book, A Case for Amillennialism, Kim Riddlebarger explains the concept in this way:
“There are specific instances in the Scriptures when a prophet foretold what appears to be a single future event, but as history unfolded it became clear that the original prophecy referred to multiple events ... A simple analogy may be useful. As I stand in the greater Los Angeles basin and look to the mountains to the northeast, I see a single mountain ridge on the horizon. Yet if I were to drive directly toward the mountains, I would soon realize that what appeared to be a single ridge was actually a series of hills, valleys, and mountains separated by many miles. So it is with some Old Testament prophecies.”2
Viewed from its time-line focused “side,” what the Prophets viewed as God’s coming visitation in terms of a horizon actually turns out to be two horizons—two mountain peaks—separated in time by centuries or even millennia. Without the fuller revelation of what the Messiah would do the first time, as opposed to the second, and why, there is less sense in even expecting any differentiation of that sort at the coming horizon.
Storms expresses the same in biblical theological terms: “whereas the Old Testament saw the consummation of God’s redemptive purposes in one act, the New Testament authors portray it as coming in two phases. This is often seen in the New Testament in terms of the ‘overlapping’ of the ages. The consummation of God's redemptive purpose has begun in Christ but we still abide in the present evil age. Some refer to this as the ‘inauguration of the end.’”3
Main Conceptual example—The “Day of the LORD”
The difficulties surrounding the expression “Day of the LORD” transcend the question of time. There is the very nature of it as both the day of judgment (deliverance) and of mercy (restoration). One must learn a little covenant theology to get a grasp of who all is being addressed: who will be cut off and who will be the remnant.
This day is a “visitation” by God Himself — “that you would rend the heavens and come down” (Isa. 64:1). Although the prophet could pray this in a spirit of anticipation, others in his day were not so level-headed. Central to the ministry of Amos was to bring correction to shallow notions about this Day of the Lord.
“Woe to you who desire lthe day of the LORD! Why would you have the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light, as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. Is not the day of the LORD darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?” (Amos 5:18-20)
This would be the true expectation of most.
As the Scriptures drew to their fulfillment, it would be the division of time in this “Day” that would seemingly become its most obscure point. Why should it be called a “day” if it is not in fact a literal day?
It is because this is a “revealing” of the guilt of those judged — the idea of “Day” is often used in Scripture, like light and fire, to be an exposure of what lies hidden, “for the Day will disclose it” (1 Cor. 3:13). So Lombard wrote it is “called the day of the Lord not on account of a quality of time, but of things, because the thoughts and intentions of each person shall be made manifest at that time.”4
Christ is The Prophet, yes—but still a Jewish Prophet.
Hoekema points out about prophetic perspective, that “It occurs also ... in some of the apocalyptic passages of the New Testament.”5 This is often overlooked when coming to the Olivet Discourse or to Revelation. While Jesus speaks above and beyond that other prophets, it does not follow that He would speak in an utterly foreign way to their regular manner.
Consequently, we must ask on what grounds we would assume that dual fulfillment entirely goes away in the New Testament.
If anyone replies: “It is because now the Messiah has come; therefore the first part of two has been fulfilled.” However, one problem with this is that some of what was to be fulfilled in the first advent came at the very end of the Jewish age—i.e. AD 70—which was still future to the moment of NT authorship.
So, as with “the Day of the Lord,” so with “the end of the age.”
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1. Ladd, The Presence of the Future, 64-65.
2. Riddlebarger, A Case for Amillennialism, 56.
3. Storms, Kingdom Come, 28.
4. Peter Lombard, The Sentences, Book 4: On the Doctrine of Signs (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2010), 235.
5. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, 9.
