Conclusion
The Bible is a continuous story from beginning to end, but in another
sense, it is a collection of diverse
stories. These stories may be varied in worldly terms, but
spiritually, they tell the same message
throughout This is
evident from the fact that the names in one story are interchangeable with the
names of persons or places in
another story: Jerusalem is called
Sodom. Jeremiah calls Babylon Sodom
and earth.
Jeremiah calls the king of Babylon Sheshak making a comparison to the
pharaoh.
The prophets point out likenesses between one story and another because
the spiritual message is the same.
These places and events demonstrate principles which are needful for us
to learn and prefigure things to
come. Much of prophecy is simply a
revealing of the spiritual significance of historic events.
Jesus gave prophecy about the end in plain talk, then pointed out that
the end was prefigured-- like the
days of Noah--as Sodom.
Some say these end prophecies have all been fulfilled in the first
century the events culminating in
the destruction of Jerusalem. Others
say the end prophecies refer to the end of the world which is about
to come. This debate comes from a failure to grasp a basic principle
of prophecy: All prophecy is
fulfilled twice at least. Examine
the prophecies throughout the Bible. They were
all fulfilled in Biblical times
and, yet, we take them to refer to the time of the end.
The law concerning a prophet is this:
If his prophecy comes to pass, he is a true prophet.
If his prophecy fails to
happen, he is a false prophet. Prophecy
tells what will happen in advance. If
you have to wait for it to happen before you know
if it will happen, then you had no advance knowledge and the prophecy told you
nothing. This is pointless
and makes no sense at all were it not for the fact that prophecy is fulfilled
twice: God said He had reserved 7000
which had not bowed the knee to Baal. In
the days of king Ahaz, the entire
number of the men of Israel had dwindled down to 7000 through which salvation from
the Assyrians was granted, (1 Kings 19:18, 20:15).
The prophecy was fulfilled and, yet, Paul speaks
of this prophecy as referring to the end, which is yet to come.
Predictions of the prophets all came to pass in the short term.
This was the confirmation of the prophet
and it explains why the Jews were so diligent in preserving the records.
Once the prophet was
confirmed, then his words were known to be true prophecy referring to the
distant future. Re- examine the
prophets and you'll find this to be the case.
These prefiguring events were not understood by the people of those
times. For the most part, people
involved in those events didn't understand the significance of their own words. Irony is the operative
term here and irony in the Bible is so thick you can almost swim in it.
When the high priest said that one should die for the nation, he was
speaking about the worldly threat of
the Romans not realizing those words were placed in his mouth by the Spirit and
the nation referred to was the
kingdom of God. My favorite irony
is the testimony of Pilot:
Jesus witnessed a good confession before Pilot, (1 Tim 6:13).
Frequently we take witnessed to mean
testified but, if one is not guilty, we don't call it a confession.
Sometimes "witnessed" actually means
witnessed--ambiguities in the Bible are frequently intentional.
Consider that Jesus was a witness
to Pilot's confession:
Pilot asked, "You are king of the Jews?"
(You might want to look up the Greek words here. The
question was phrased as a statement.) We
know that no one may confess that Jesus is lord, (lord or
king is the same statement), except those words are given by the Spirit.
And you can be sure that Jesus
was aware of the significance of Pilot's confession.
Jesus did not take Pilot's words as a question.
He responded to the statement and asked if he said
this of himself or if another, (the Spirit), had told him, (John 18).
Pilot then states that His own nation had delivered Him up.
Pilot was confirming the prophecy to
be fulfilled that He would be born king of the Jews and His own would reject and
kill Him and Pilot didn't have a
clue. Jesus then tells Pilot that
this was the reason He came into the world.
These ironies come from a failure to understand.
Carnal minds do not discern spiritual things; the
true meaning is hidden as in a riddle.
Here is a riddle I heard as a child:
"Railroad crossing, look out for the cars; Can you spell that
without any r's?"
Yes, you can spell "that" without any r's because there are no
r's in "that." The first
part of the riddle has nothing to do
with the solution, it is only to divert your attention from the simplicity of
the question.
A magician's trick works the same way.
The magician misdirects our attention to what he is doing
with his right hand while hiding the prop in his pocket with his left hand.
He does the trick right in
front of us and we don't see it because our mind was focused elsewhere.
Riddles are a verbal sleight of hand.
We don't grasp their meaning because our minds are misdirected.
In the case of the Bible, we don't grasp the spiritual meaning because
our minds are misdirected by the worldly sentiments of our hearts. It is our own carnal minds and the cares of this life
which mislead us.
If you really want to understand, don't set your heart on things of this
life. Don't even take thought
of what you will eat or drink, nor of what you will wear God provides.
Understanding requires that
you set your heart on things above.