Sunday 9 October 2016

The Purpose of Old Testament Prophecy

I'm currently not sure that the main purpose of most Old Testament Prophecies is to give a detailed description of still-future historical events - other than that God is still coming to judge the living and the dead.

Rather, I think the main function of many Old Testament Prophecies was to describe the stage of history onto which Messiah was to make His debut.

And He did come and make His debut - Jesus of Nazareth - and in the precise circumstances that were predicted.

Old Testament Prophecy therefore validates the Gospel, and places our focus on the Gospel - the Gospel isn't merely some unforeseen parenthesis inserted while we wait for God to get back to fulfilling Bible-Prophecy.

The Gospel is the fulfilment of Israel's promised-salvation - it's just that only believing-Jews experienced it, and Gentiles were later grafted-in to the same spiritual blessing, the precise scenario that was predicted.

But the message of the Gospel is that there has come the inauguration phase of the Kingdom of God, and there is the consummation phase yet to come.

The Kingdom Now/Not Yet.

The time that spans in-between is not of the essence.

That's my level of understanding so far. 

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