אבנימ

In his book The Interpretation of Prophecy (regretably out of print), Patrick Fairbairn investigates and sets forth the principles for the sound interpretation of prophecy, and proceeds to apply them to the future of the Jewish people as delineated in Biblical prophecy. In exploring this critical area of hermeneutics, he identifies the following three prevalent modes of interpretation: the Jewish, the Semi-Jewish, and the Spiritualistic.

The Jewish school holds to a strict literal fulfillment with respect to the land, the people, the Temple, et. al. In other words, the adherents of this school take a consistent literalist view according to which they look for the restoration to the Jewish race of all their ancient territory, the rebuilding of their Temple, the re-instatement of the rites and services of Levitical worship, and Israel’s supremacy over the nations of the world. The Semi-Jewish school concurs with the latter only with respect to the literal return of the Jews to Palestine. In other matters that are explicitly interpreted in the New Testament, it acknowledges the fulfillment of prophecy in Christ and His Church. Thus they hold that there is a distinction to be made between prophecies concerning the land and people of the Jews, which are to be understood literally, and the rest of prophetic scripture, which must be taken in accordance with the spiritual hermeneutics of the New Testament writers. The Spiritualistic school rejects this idea that there is any such distinction to be made, but rather maintains that all prophecy must be consistently interpreted according to the light of the realities of Christ and the Gospel revealed in the New Testament.

To evaluate and compare these three views, it is right that we turn first to the direct teaching of our Lord and His apostles as our highest authorities. In the words of Jesus we find no explicit statement concerning the literal restoration of Israel and the Temple. On the contrary, we have His clear prophetic statements concerning its destruction in Matthew 24. Moreover, as to the Temple worship, we have His teaching in John 4 and elsewhere that a new era is now come in which the locus of worship is no longer a geographical location, “on this mountain” or “in Jerusalem” (John 4.20), but rather in a spiritual location, “in spirit and in truth,” at the feet of Jesus Christ as it were, in and through Him, Who is the true temple of God by the Incarnation.

As for our Lord’s apostles, He informs us that the least of these was greater than John the Baptist, who was the greatest of all prophets. In their case, the words of truth came for the most part directly, and not by dream or vision. Indeed, our Lord told them that “many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” (Matthew 13.17). It is therefore quite telling to observe with these men the marked difference in their understanding before and after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. While before we note their concern over the restoration of national Israel, e.g. Acts 1.6, after Pentecost this concern is conspicuously and completely absent. Instead we have their clear statements of no distinction between Jew and Gentile, the unity of all believers as “the children of Abraham” in Christ Jesus, et al. The Jews’ return to God is put forth in terms of simply their reconciliation with the one spiritual body in Christ (Romans 9-11). Before Pentecost these men questioned the Lord concerning the restoration of the kingdom to Israel (Acts 1.6), but afterwards, in the fullness of the Holy Spirit they confidently proclaim in Jesus “restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.” (Acts 3.21). In the Apocalypse of John we have that apostle plainly using the nations and institutions of the Old Covenant history to denote spiritual realities, e.g. Sodom, Egypt, Jerusalem and Babylon. To take these and the other symbols, e.g. 144,000 sealed, as strictly literal is to ignore the manifest style of the book, and to embark upon a twisted and thorny path of interpretative confusion and folly.

In further comparing and evaluating the three prevalent views of interpretation with respect to the future of national Israel, we must also consider the typical nature of the Levitical rites and institutions. It is clear from Scripture, and most notably from the book of Hebrews, that all of these institutions of the Old Covenant were temporary and have since passed away, being fulfilled and subsumed in what is far better: Christ and the Gospel. God Himself testifies that the rites of Temple worship have been fulfilled and superseded in Christ, by the rending of the temple veil from top to bottom. Will those who insist upon a literalist interpretation affirm that at some future time God will sew it up again to reinstitute the temple service? As noted above, the worship of the Living God is no longer mandated by geography, but “in spirit and in truth.” (John 4.23) Christ declares that the Passover would be “fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 22.16) The apostles in the Jerusalem council of Acts 15 determined that the Gentiles should not be burdened with circumcision and adherence to the Law of Moses. The people of God are no longer national Israel, but “in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him” (Acts 10.35). “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3.28). And the inheritance is no longer an earthly, but an eternal heavenly inheritance in Christ which is “incorruptible, undefiled and unfading” (1 Peter 1.4). In short, as with the religion of the Old Testament, so also with the people, and with the inheritance of the Old Testament. They are all of a piece, and the common principle is that the old which has passed away is typical of what is higher and better, the permanent spiritual reality in Christ. To adopt any kind of a literalist view is therefore to regress from what is full and perfect and real, back into what was partial and temporary and shadowy.

When we come to the prophetic portions of the Old Testament with the clarity outlined above, we find nothing there to substantiate a literalist approach, but rather the application of sound principles points decisively to the spiritualistic mode of interpretation. Predictions of the future must necessarily take the form of what is known in the present or the past in order to be intelligible to the hearers. For example, Messiah’s reign is set forth in terms of the Davidic kingship, yet we know that our Lord’s kingdom is not of this world. As a priest himself, Ezekiel portrays the future glories of God’s Church with his ideal temple (Ezekiel 40-48), and we know that the temple of the Living God not a building at all, but it is His people, His Church, those incorporate with Jesus Christ. We could fill a book with illustrative examples of this kind.

Hence, to understand all of prophetic Scripture in this consistently christo-centric manner, but then to make one exception in the case of national Israel, is to introduce interpretive confusion, and to yield trustworthy hermeneutical principles to the whim of popular opinion. Prophecy has a pervasive moral and hortatory element, and is never intended to satisfy human curiosity with respect to times and seasons. Moreover, any strictly literal fulfillment can only be partial and incomplete, as in the accession of Solomon to Israel’s throne as the Son of David. As to the reality and the substance, it only becomes fulfilled and complete when the form, e.g. Davidic kingship, temple service, Levitical priesthood, blood sacrifices, et al., have passed away. Therefore we know that in the truth, literal Zion is gone, and the true Zion, the new Jerusalem, is the spiritual Church of Christ.