In our Post-Enlightenment, Post-Modern, Plato-influenced minds, we tend to want to force Bible Prophecies into a single category - but that's not how ancient Jews treated their sacred Scriptures.
I think a lot of Old Testament prophecies often predicted the future in very broad strokes. Grand imagery. The New Testament however unpacks that for us, rightly dividing it into what's now past, what's present and what's still future. The Old Testament passages themselves often didn't do that, but the New does.
"New heavens and a new earth", in Isaiah 65, for instance. Firstly notice the passage doesn't mention 'Millennium'. But that aside, Peter looked forward to new heavens and earth. But he said only righteousness will live in it. So 'the sinner' and the 'curse' mentioned by Isaiah in verse 20 can't be part of Peter's new earth.
First century Jews saw that God had begun his work of 'new creation' for Israel, at the return from Babylonian captivity, but they certainly saw it as incomplete and were still hoping for more.
Paul said that new creation was already a reality, in a sense, through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Though he too, like Peter, still looked forward to its culmination at Christ's coming.
So, Isaiah's prophecy looked forward in a broad sense, encompassing everything from the return from captivity, to the work of the gospel of Christ, to the still-future culmination of new creation. All of that. But the New Testament unpacks those themes for us more clearly than an Old Testament passage itself could.
I think a lot of Old Testament prophecies often predicted the future in very broad strokes. Grand imagery. The New Testament however unpacks that for us, rightly dividing it into what's now past, what's present and what's still future. The Old Testament passages themselves often didn't do that, but the New does.
"New heavens and a new earth", in Isaiah 65, for instance. Firstly notice the passage doesn't mention 'Millennium'. But that aside, Peter looked forward to new heavens and earth. But he said only righteousness will live in it. So 'the sinner' and the 'curse' mentioned by Isaiah in verse 20 can't be part of Peter's new earth.
First century Jews saw that God had begun his work of 'new creation' for Israel, at the return from Babylonian captivity, but they certainly saw it as incomplete and were still hoping for more.
Paul said that new creation was already a reality, in a sense, through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Though he too, like Peter, still looked forward to its culmination at Christ's coming.
So, Isaiah's prophecy looked forward in a broad sense, encompassing everything from the return from captivity, to the work of the gospel of Christ, to the still-future culmination of new creation. All of that. But the New Testament unpacks those themes for us more clearly than an Old Testament passage itself could.
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