HAT�S THE SOURCE OF BIBLE PROPHECIES? What�s
their purpose? And how are we to understand and relate to them?
Prophecy is pervasive through the Old Testament, from beginning
to end. As soon as Adam and Eve disobeyed and were expelled from the Garden
of Eden, God gave them the promise of a Saviour (Gen. 3:15). Later God warned
Noah about a flood that would impact the entire world (Gen. 6). Several major
prophecies were given to Abraham, the physical and spiritual father of Israel�the
Egyptian sojourn of his descendants, for example. The other end of the Old Testament
contains the words of prophets such as Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
A brief look at the New Testament shows that prophecy is
common here, too. This section of the Bible begins with prophecies of the births
of John the Baptist and Jesus. And John, who announced the Messiah�s coming,
was considered by Jesus the greatest of prophets. Jesus Himself concluded His
ministry with the great prophetic sermon on Mount Olivet (Matt. 24). Paul recorded
his prophetic experiences in his first letter to the Corinthians and his second
letter to the Thessalonians. The most obvious example of prophecy in the New
Testament, of course, is the book of Revelation.
How did these prophecies come about? Did these people simply
decide they were prophets?
The answer is no. Prophets did not work themselves up into
an ecstatic state and then �break into prophecy.� Rather, they served at God�s
will, not vice versa�as is illustrated by Baalam�s story (Num. 22-24). Thus
the first point that can be made about the origin of prophecy, as 2 Peter 1:21
puts it, is that �men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God� (NRSV).
How Are Ancient Prophecies Relevant to Us?
The words of the prophets cover a continuum through time.
The first frame of reference for their messages is their own day. Their indictment
of the people�s sins generally come under this category. A good example of this
is in Amos 2:6-16, where the prophet castigates the people for current evils.
Such a prophecy was not meant for the future, except perhaps as a general warning
of the results of that type of behavior. This aspect of the prophetic ministry�speaking
for God to a current situation�is sometimes called forthtelling.
However, the prophet could also speak to issues in the intermediate
or distant future, an activity sometimes referred to as foretelling.
The length of time that the Jews would be captives in Babylon�70 years, according
to Jeremiah (Jer. 25:12), is an example of prophecy dealing with the intermediate
future. As God gave His prophets inspired views or words about the future, He
spread out before them events ranging from those in the immediate future to
those far in the distance�even into eternity.
If the biblical prophets predicted only events that were
to occur in the immedate future, they might be suspected of being simply better
guessers than their contemporaries, as some humanistic scholars believe. However,
God extended their view to events well beyond the scope of speculation. The
prophecies about the nations found in Daniel 2 and 7 present a fascinating example
of predictions ranging over many centuries. From a human point of view, Daniel
seems to have chosen the least likely alternative for the destiny of the Persian
Empire in which he lived; but from a divine point of view he was conveying exactly
what God foreknew.
Did Bible Prophecy Fail?
As we read the Old Testament, we run up against certain
prophetic predictions that, especially in recent times, have led to questions.
They have the form of eschatological prophecies�prophecies relating to
�the last things.� Did they find fulfillment? Or were the prophets mistaken?
The common element in these prophecies is that they begin
with the prophet�s circumstances (commonly the Babylonian exile), then look
beyond immediate events into the future. In that future, the prophets were shown
what ancient Israel could have become. They saw God�s people returning to their
glorified land. They saw Jerusalem as an exalted city�the world capital,
in fact, into which people from all nations would stream, seeking a knowledge
of the true God. The exaltation of this land and the entire world was to continue
until it would become, in effect, a new earth.
These prophecies about ancient Israel were never literally
fulfilled, however. Why? The humanistic answer is that the prophets were
not really recipients of divine foreknowledge and had simply guessed wrong.
A completely opposite answer, characteristic of some evangelical interpreters
(known as dispensationalists), is that, since these prophecies were inspired
by God, they must take place�in the literal, present country of Israel.
Seventh-day Adventists take a third approach�one in the
middle of the first two. Like the evangelicals, we believe these �failed� prophecies
were given by God and are true. But we agree with the humanists that they will
not be literally fulfilled in Israel.
How do we reconcile these two points of view? By considering
these prophecies conditional. As Ellen G. White put it: �The promises
and threatenings of God are alike conditional.�1 Following her lead, we have
placed these prophecies in the category of promises�promises of what could
have been if God�s chosen people had cooperated fully with His plan for them.
Unfortunately, they did not. We see the final frustration of God�s plan in the
New Testament. Here God�s own people reject the Messiah: �He came to his own
home, and his own people received him not� (John 1:11, RSV). While these prophecies
will yet be fulfilled in reference to spiritual Israel, the Christian church
(Gal. 3:15-29), they no longer apply to a literal Israel in the Middle East.
Two Kinds of Prophecy
Bible students speak of two kinds of prophecy�classical
and apocalyptic. Classical (or typical) prophecy commonly deals with
immediate events or issues. Apocalyptic prophecy (from a Greek word meaning
�to reveal� or �to uncover�) focuses on the end of human history
as we know it. It deals with events in the distant future, especially in regard
to the Second Advent. A major example of this type of prophecy is the book of
Revelation. Another is the book of Daniel. Passages such as Isaiah 24-27, Zechariah
9-14, and Matthew 24 are also regarded as apocalyptic prophecies.
Apocalyptic prophecy is identifiable by a number of characteristics.
1. There is a more frequent reference to visions than in classical prophecy.
2. There is a more intense use of symbols. 3. It frequently deals with the distant
future. 4. There is often intense contrast of good and evil, sometimes symbolized
by light and darkness. (We see this, for example, in Revelation�s description
of the great controversy between Christ and Satan.) 5. Apoca-lyptic prophets
not infrequently mention an interpreting angel who helps them understand the
message received.
By this point you have a good handle on the subject. But
in what follows, we want to say a word about four important approaches to interpreting
prophecy that you may find helpful.
Four Approaches to Prophetic Interpretation
Students of prophecy generally fall into four interpretive
schools of thought: historicists, preterists, futurists, and dualists.
1. The historicist interpretation sees
apocalyptic prophecies as revealing human history in a continuous fashion. They
believe, for example, that the prophecies in Daniel and Revelation present the
great sweep of the future from the prophet�s time to Christ�s coming kingdom.
Strong evidence for this can be found in the major series of symbols extending
through the centuries, in both Daniel and Revelation. Daniel 2 and 7, for instance,
present a series of metal and animal figures that symbolize kingdoms that will
succeed one another until the eternal kingdom of God is set up (the stone of
Daniel 2) or until the time when the saints of the Most High enter the eternal
kingdom of God (in Daniel 7). Daniel 11 and 12 repeat the pattern, describing
the actions of individual rulers along the way.
Thus there is strong internal evidence from the book of Daniel
(and also from Revelation) that these prophecies were intended to give their
hearers and readers a view of the sweep of history from God�s vantage point.
However, there are those who have denied this historic point
of view, applying the fulfillment of events mostly in the past (preterist),
or mostly in the future (futurist).
2. Preterists, applying the book of Daniel
in the past, for example, see its prophecies ending in the second century B.C.�in
the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, a Greek king who ruled in Syria. Since he
was a cruel king who did evil things to the Jews, preterists see him as the
fulfillment of the bad things that were to happen to God�s people. From this
point of view, the book of Daniel was not written in the sixth century B.C.
as future prophecy. Instead, they believe, it was written in the second century
B.C. while these events were happening. So the conclusion is that the
book of Daniel is not prophecy, but rather history�written up as prophecy by
an unknown author.
3. For futurists, the prophecies did
begin during the prophet�s own time. But then the great prophetic clock stopped.
There was a gap, and major segments of human history�such as Christ�s earthly
ministry and the early Christian church�have simply not been addressed by prophecy.
Futurists subscribing to the dispensationalist position are waiting for the
prophetic clock to start up again. When it does, they will count down the final
seven years of earth�s history (the seventieth week of Daniel 9), during which,
they believe, there will be a final (literal and personal) antichrist who will
appear in Israel and persecute the Jews for three and one-half years. Meanwhile,
the church, having been raptured out of the world, will have left the Jews to
be persecuted by this antichrist and his followers. These final seven years
will end with the second coming of Christ�actually the third coming for them.
Thus for the futurists, the great sweep of the Christian Age is represented
only by a gap. Prophecy did not address it at all.
4. Dualists want to take a �both and�
approach. And what occurred in Catholicism in the sixteenth century and in Protestantism
in the nineteenth century is now being repeated among some Adventists.
In the early 1980s a controversy over prophetic interpretation
developed in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. At that time preterism was offered
as an alternative to historicism. Under the label of �dual interpretation of
prophecy,� people were told they could keep their historicist view, �adding�
preterism to it.
Under these conditions, however, true historicism fades
away. After holding a major study conference in 1980, the Adventist Church rejected
preterism. The world delegates assembled for study in Glacier View, Colorado,
affirmed their adherence to the biblical and historic views held by the founders
of Adventism, who saw themselves as a prophetic movement, raised up at a certain
time to announce specific prophetic truths for this particular time.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Which of these interpretations is right? The preterist�s
position leaves the impression that God has been quite uninterested in us since
the second century B.C. (when, they claim, Daniel was written) or since the
first century A.D. (when Revelation was written). For since then, according
to them, God has really not spoken. It�s a truncated view of God�s activity
in history. The futurist faces the same problem, but claims that all these prophecies
relate to our time alone. The dual approach seems to want the best of both worlds.
For the historicist, God�s prophetic voice has continued
to speak to all ages. Just as the Old Testament has provided us with a history
from Creation to the end of the Old Testament Era, so these apocalyptic books
provide us a panoramic view of our Christian Era in advance.
The Protestant Reformers were distinctly historicist. One
of the events they observed was the activity of the �little horn� of Daniel
7:7-26, which they identified with the Papacy in Rome.
Quite naturally, papal scholars saw things differently and
attempted to parry the Reformers� thrust during the Catholic Counter Reformation
in the latter half of the sixteenth century. In 1590 Francisco Ribera of Spain
published a lengthy commentary on Revelation in which he denied the Protestant
interpretation and applied the prophecies in the future. Meanwhile, a Spanish
interpreter named Luis de Alcazar introduced the preterist interpretation into
Catholic circles.
Similar developments did not occur in Protestantism until
considerably later. The first preterist approach to the book of Daniel in Protestant
circles came with Anthony Collins� commentary published in 1726. Up to this
time almost all prominent Protestant interpreters were historicists. With the
inroads of rationalism, humanism, and liberal thought in the nineteenth century,
however, many mainline Protestant denominations drifted toward preterism.
Futurist interpretation of apocalyptic prophecy was introduced
by an Englishman named John Darby in the 1820s, at the time William Miller was
preaching the prophecies of Jesus coming from a strongly historicist point of
view.
At present, preterist views are held mostly by the liberal
mainline Protestant denominations, while futurist views are found especially
among conservative evangelicals. The historicist interpretation of prophecy
has continued, however, through the teaching and preaching of Seventh-day Adventists.
In a sense, our church stands virtually alone as the heir of the Reformers�
interpretation of Bible prophecy. Details of these relations have been spelled
out by LeRoy Edwin Froom in his monumental four-volume work The Prophetic
Faith of Our Fathers.2
Much time has elapsed since these Bible prophecies were given.
That means we have almost reached the end of time as we know it. Maranatha!
May we be ready for Christ�s soon coming.
This article first appeared in Dialogue, vol.
5, No. 2, 1993. With the author�s permission, we have modified and shortened
it for our use.
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1 Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, book 1, p. 67.
2 LeRoy Edwin Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers
(Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1950-1954).
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William H. Shea wrote this piece while serving as associate
director of the Biblical Research Institute of the General Conference in Silver
Spring, Maryland. Now retired, he lives in Red Bluff, California.