Chapter III
The Great Hermeneutical Rule Of Interpreting Prophecy — Continued
It ought to be fully evident that Jesus is the only One Who gives us the key of knowledge, so that we as His church may have the proper understanding of all that the prophets have spoken, in various times and diverse situations (Luke 24:25, 26). He was not simply a better teacher than the Scribes and Pharisees were; He was the One Who, admittedly, spoke not as the Scribes and Pharisees, whereas He spoke with authority which demanded obedience. He was the prophet, Whom all must hear, as He gave Divine answers on earth (Matt. 7:29; Mark 1:22).
Yes, He was different! Radically different from the Scribes and Pharisees, yea, from any other man. He was Immanuel, God with us, the Word made flesh.
Did not the very demon-world and all the powers of hell obey His word of authority? (Mark 1:26).
The populous adjudged that He spoke a "new doctrine," whereas even the demons obeyed him with trembling and hellish fear. Yes, He was the One Who was mighty in work and deed before God and all the people. And so His work and word is all authority, and these works testified of him that He was the mighty and true Prophet of God Who should come into the world (Mark 16:20; Heb. 2:4). Even when Paul preaches this word it does noot lose its power (1 Cor. 2:4, 5).
Yes, this Jesus is the true Prophet of God! The very prophecies in the Old Testament are words which Jesus spoke through the prophets by His Spirit (1 Peter 1:11). He is the chief prophet Who reveals to us the secret counsel of God concerning our redemption. For is the Christ not the "I Am" before Abraham "became" on the scene of history in Ur of the Chaldees? ( John 8:59). And does not John testify of the greatness of the One coming after him as being "before him"? (John 1:15). This Christ wrote His own sufferingg and death in the Old Testament Scriptures by the prophets. He is the One Who cries in Psalm 40:7, "Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is within My heart." And this great Prophet, the eternal Son, speaks here, yea, God spoke in these lastt days in a Son! (Heb. 1:1, 2).
Truly, by the prophets Christ has us see the tremendous activity of holy men as they searched out and inquired diligently of the sufferings to come upon Him, and of the glory of His kingdom to follow! And in all of the Scriptures this glory is Christ’s reward for suffering the inexpressible anguish and torments of hell for us, His people! (Isaiah 53:10, 11, 12; Phil. 2:9; Heb. 2:9).
We are taught by the Scriptures that these prophets, holy men of God, knew very well that what they struggled to see in the searchlight of prophecy lay in the future, in the fulness of time. They were not speaking of the things which would be realized in their own time. Abraham looked to a city which has foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God. He looked for a better country, that is an heavenly (Heb. 11:10, 14-16). That is the secret of their pilgrimage! They looked with earnest expectation of hope for a better country. He saw Christ's day from afar; he rejoiced greatly to see Christ's day, yea, he saw it in the prophetic word of promise, "In thee and in thy seed shall all nations be blessed" (Gen. 12:3; 17:6-8). Abraham never thought of the promise as being fuulfilled in terms of a mere earthly kingdom for his natural descendants from Isaac. Such, as we shall point out in depth, was the vain dream of the Jews of Jesus' day, and such is the vain teaching of Premillennialism, especially of what is known as Dispensationalism, following in the footsteps of Darby and Scofield. But father Abraham distants himself from such as these!
Well we take notice of this and be warned!
But to return.
Did not father Jacob, when he was too blind to see with his natural eyes, see in the prophetic light the future glory of the twelve patriarchs? Yes, he gathers these sons about his bed and blesses them. And is the future greatness of Israel not in Judah, from whom the Christ is born? (Heb. 7:14). Yes, our Lord sprang out of Judah. And this Jacob saw crystal-clear in his prophetic vision, and he said, "Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies ... The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, and unto Him shall the gathering of the people be" (Gen. 49:10). Yes, dimly Jacob saw the sufferinggs to come upon Christ and the glory to follow. It will be the glory of His new Testament church, as later seen by Isaiah, the Seer, some seven hundred years before Christ. Do we not read, "and the Gentiles shall come to Thy light, and kings to the brightness of Thy rising. Lift up Thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves, they come to Thee: Thy sons shall come from afar ... and the wealth of the nations shall come to Thee" (Isaiah 60:3-4)?
Truly the "people" shall be gathered unto Shiloh, as He comes out of Judah!
Judah, thou art he!
And did not even that wicked Balaam prophesy of the sufferings to come upon Christ and of the glory to follow? In most beautiful poetic strains Balaam says in the Spirit of prophecy, "I shall see Him but not now: I shall behold Him but not nigh; there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth."
Yes, it was revealed unto the prophets that they spoke of things to be fulfilled, things that shall befall the twelve tribes in the latter days when Shiloh shall come!
How did these prophets know this?
The Bible tells us that this fact of the future glory of Israel among the "nations" in the New Testament times was "revealed unto them." That is what we read in 1 Peter 1:12. "Unto whom (the prophets) it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the tthings, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the Gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, which things the angels desire to look into."
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