I've been scanning Jewish sources, looking at the development through the centuries of various Messianic, kingdom, apocalyptic and eschatological concepts, interpretations, hermeneutics and expectations. Pre-exile, exile-period, post-exile, inter-testament period, New Testament period, post-second temple period, even as late as the eighth century BC and on to modern sources. Biblical, extra-canonical and neo-Hebrew sources.
I've come away with the feeling that the first-century idea that Jesus, the Church, Christianity fulfilled Messianic prophecy - and did so in its non-militaristic, non nationalistic, non political, way - was an idea that actually fit quite a bit more naturally and feasibly among the gamut of Jewish ideas of those times than what many modern Dispensationalists, end-times teachers and Hebrew-Roots people seem to think is possible.
Admittedly, the Gospel was a radical interpretation of the Messianic hope - but it wasn't so impossibly different from Jewish thinking of the day that no Jew could possibly accept that the Gospel was the fulfilment of that hope. Otherwise Christianity would never have taken off in Jerusalem and in Judea the way it did.
Many Dispensationalists tend to think that Christianity was so impossibly different to Messianic prophecies, different to Jewish expectations of the day, that Christianity must be something other-than, and that the Jewish Messianic aspiration must therefore be something which is yet to begin in future. But first-century Jews were capable of perceiving the Gospel-scheme as the very fulfilment of their Messianic hope - and that they did. They accepted the Gospel as being that, and went on proclaiming the Gospel as being that. If they did not think of the Gospel as fulfilling their expectation, it would never have been accepted the way it was. Not that all of them believed.
And all of that was allowable within the Jewish way of thinking, about God, about the Scriptures, about the Messiah, about the Kingdom. The Jewish mind and Jewish society, by the first century AD, was a hotbed for ideas about the Messianic. Confronted with the resurrection of Jesus, plus seeing miracles, coupled with the wide scope which some of them allowed with regards to the ways they applied apocalyptic texts - it wasn't something completely impossible for them to do to embrace the Gospel scheme of things as being the very fulfilment of their hopes, as being the true explanation of what the Old Testament was really foreseeing. Not impossible at all.
I also wondered, since Jews had a somewhat broader, looser, more fluid, more open rather than concrete this-or-that way of thinking about Prophecy; and since the Gospel itself was a radical way of applying Prophecy including of apocalyptic prophetic literature, yet not so radical that it wasn't allowable or acceptable - why we then think that a book which Christianity produced - the Book of Revelation - must be interpreted using such a different approach.
The Gospel didn't apply Old Testament prophecies in an entirely straightforward manner, did it - and Jews were okay with that, given the light-bulb moment of the resurrection. Why then would we think that a book, written in the same genre, must now be interpreted in a strictly straightforward manner? Historical Jewish ways of thinking may not have necessitated that approach to such a book, even if our Enlightenment, Modernist, Greek kind of categories of thought do.
It seemed to me that if instead of always trying to unravel the apocalyptic (such as the Book of Revelation, and parts of the Old Testament) using strict time-lined categories and other types of thinking, we explore using a more chilled-approach - a looser approach - it wouldn't be totally misfitting with the way the Jewish author of the book himself may have been thinking.Interestingly most of my sources weren't Christian sources, mainly Jewish. Jewish thinking, confronted with the truth of the resurrection, was capable of embracing the Gospel precisely as the very fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies in which they hoped.
The Book of Revelation was written with the same literary approach that the Gospel itself takes to the Old Testament, and is best understood that way. And all of that is entirely Jewish. It isn't so un-Jewish that the Gospel of the grace of God must be thought of as something so entirely unrelated to the Kingdom as if the Kingdom-scheme hasn't in any way already been inaugurated and all that belongs exclusively in the future.
Certainly there is the consummation of the Kingdom still to come: but it's not only for Israel, it's for all mankind; only the born again shall see it; it doesn't involve ritual Judaism - the Gospel is the Gospel of the Kingdom!
So a simple point in all this: the Gospel of Jesus really is it! God saw the end from the beginning. In all ages faith pleases God. Faith is reckoned for righteousness. It's all about JESUS! The cross and resurrection. It's really true. He alone is the way, the truth and the life.
Afterwards when I spoke in tongues a little bit, I began to smile and laugh a bit. And the words of the song bubbled up from within me:
...You stay the same through the ages
Your love never changes
There may be pain in the night
but joy comes in the morning
And when the oceans rage
I don't have to be afraid
Because I know that you love me
Your love never fails...
Many Dispensationalists tend to think that Christianity was so impossibly different to Messianic prophecies, different to Jewish expectations of the day, that Christianity must be something other-than, and that the Jewish Messianic aspiration must therefore be something which is yet to begin in future. But first-century Jews were capable of perceiving the Gospel-scheme as the very fulfilment of their Messianic hope - and that they did. They accepted the Gospel as being that, and went on proclaiming the Gospel as being that. If they did not think of the Gospel as fulfilling their expectation, it would never have been accepted the way it was. Not that all of them believed.
And all of that was allowable within the Jewish way of thinking, about God, about the Scriptures, about the Messiah, about the Kingdom. The Jewish mind and Jewish society, by the first century AD, was a hotbed for ideas about the Messianic. Confronted with the resurrection of Jesus, plus seeing miracles, coupled with the wide scope which some of them allowed with regards to the ways they applied apocalyptic texts - it wasn't something completely impossible for them to do to embrace the Gospel scheme of things as being the very fulfilment of their hopes, as being the true explanation of what the Old Testament was really foreseeing. Not impossible at all.
I also wondered, since Jews had a somewhat broader, looser, more fluid, more open rather than concrete this-or-that way of thinking about Prophecy; and since the Gospel itself was a radical way of applying Prophecy including of apocalyptic prophetic literature, yet not so radical that it wasn't allowable or acceptable - why we then think that a book which Christianity produced - the Book of Revelation - must be interpreted using such a different approach.
The Gospel didn't apply Old Testament prophecies in an entirely straightforward manner, did it - and Jews were okay with that, given the light-bulb moment of the resurrection. Why then would we think that a book, written in the same genre, must now be interpreted in a strictly straightforward manner? Historical Jewish ways of thinking may not have necessitated that approach to such a book, even if our Enlightenment, Modernist, Greek kind of categories of thought do.
It seemed to me that if instead of always trying to unravel the apocalyptic (such as the Book of Revelation, and parts of the Old Testament) using strict time-lined categories and other types of thinking, we explore using a more chilled-approach - a looser approach - it wouldn't be totally misfitting with the way the Jewish author of the book himself may have been thinking.Interestingly most of my sources weren't Christian sources, mainly Jewish. Jewish thinking, confronted with the truth of the resurrection, was capable of embracing the Gospel precisely as the very fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies in which they hoped.
The Book of Revelation was written with the same literary approach that the Gospel itself takes to the Old Testament, and is best understood that way. And all of that is entirely Jewish. It isn't so un-Jewish that the Gospel of the grace of God must be thought of as something so entirely unrelated to the Kingdom as if the Kingdom-scheme hasn't in any way already been inaugurated and all that belongs exclusively in the future.
Certainly there is the consummation of the Kingdom still to come: but it's not only for Israel, it's for all mankind; only the born again shall see it; it doesn't involve ritual Judaism - the Gospel is the Gospel of the Kingdom!
So a simple point in all this: the Gospel of Jesus really is it! God saw the end from the beginning. In all ages faith pleases God. Faith is reckoned for righteousness. It's all about JESUS! The cross and resurrection. It's really true. He alone is the way, the truth and the life.
Afterwards when I spoke in tongues a little bit, I began to smile and laugh a bit. And the words of the song bubbled up from within me:
...You stay the same through the ages
Your love never changes
There may be pain in the night
but joy comes in the morning
And when the oceans rage
I don't have to be afraid
Because I know that you love me
Your love never fails...
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