Prophecy & 'Fulfilment'?

1.  Some people think in terms of two categories: 'prophecy' and 'fulfilment'. Like the meaning of all prophecy was concrete and single and so was its fulfilment. 

Some details in some Bible Prophecies were indeed like that. But the New Testament didn't always only treat all Old Testament prophecies with those two categories. It sometimes treated Prophecy a bit differently to that. 

2.  Others think of 'Prophecy' and 'fulfilment' plus 'double fulfilment'. But that's not precisely what the New Testament was always doing with all Old Testament prophecies either.

For example, when David wrote that 'they pierced my hands and feet'; and that God would not allow his flesh to decompose, the New Testament didn't say that it was in the first instance about David himself and then that it was also about Jesus in some sort of 'double fulfilment' kind of way. No, Peter said 'David was NOT talking about himself'. It was about Jesus, period!

Same with the prophecy of the virgin birth. There's only ever been one virgin birth, hasn't there? So Jesus' birth by the virgin Mary wasn't a 'double' fulfilment: it was 'the' one and only fulfilment! 

A problem with claiming a 'double fulfilment' hermeneutic, without explaining it better, is that it could leave open the possibility of a third fulfilment. In fact, some people are already expecting a third fulfilment of some of Daniel's prophecies (the first fulfilment having been, they claim, in the time of the Maccabees; the second, at the hands of the Romans; and an alleged ultimate and third fulfilment in future with the involvement of an 'Antichrist'). So why not a fourth fulfilment or fifth or sixth? It would mean we could hardly ever be sure that a current fulfilment is definitely the last. 

Another problem with it would imply that other themes in the same prophecy must also see a repeat fulfilment today - but in some cases that would be tantamount to reversing the achievement of the cross.

For example if we claim that a prophecy which predicted the return of Jews to their land is seeing a 'double fulfilment' today, it would imply that other themes in the same prophecy must see a repeat fulfilment too, themes such as the nations taking flocks of rams to the altar in the temple - but that would nullify the achievement of the cross. So even if it's correct to see some sort of relationship between the modernday return of Jews to their land and those ancient prophecies, simply citing 'double fulfilment' can't adequately explain the link. 

No, the New Testament was doing something different than that, with Old Testament prophecy. The New Testament unpacked Prophecy a little differently to that. 

The New Testament was claiming a certain story. And it explained Prophecy in such a way that Prophecy was now seen as having touched on all the elements which ended-up comprising that story.

3.  The story claimed in the New Testament was that JESUS - and His cross and resurrection - was the pinnacle of Prophecy and the Law and types and promises. Certain things were achieved by the cross - and it was irreversible, for the better. And the revelation of the New Testament was that promises and prophecies had been fulfilled, but in two comings of the Messiah, not one. Inauguration (already), and completion (not yet). 

The Apostles came to see that timeline and all of those elements and their outcomes and aftermath, in Old Testament prophecy. So that's how Old Testament prophecy is to be unpacked! In accordance with the Apostles' doctrine - the story the New Testament is telling us!

That is, Prophecy included some concrete, single predictions and their one-and-only fulfilment; it also included themes some of which are timeless and ongoing, and it also spoke of achievements as a result of which things would forever be irreversibly changed for the better. Some details in prophecy were written in prose, others described vision and included imagery which required interpretation. 

But not private interpretation. Everything was declared by the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. John the Baptist was a witness. The Apostles declared it. The Old Testament must be 'rightly divided' Paul said - and the way we do that is in light of Jesus the Messiah - His cross and resurrection - and the significance given to it in the gospels and in the sermons and epistles of the apostles. 

The 'gospel' was Prophecy-explained. So if we don't interpret Prophecy in accordance with the apostles' doctrine as our rule, we could end-up making 'prophecy' something separate to the 'gospel'. We could think that some details in ancient prophecies are meant to be repeated, when really they're not (like Levitical worship). 

If we don't distinguish between a historical timeline and the aftermath of a world-changing event, we could downplay the significance of the cross and of the gospel. We could drag details into the future which belong in the past. That could develop a wrong picture of the future. Our focus in the present could shift. The way we understand the present could shift. 

We could confuse shadow for substance; type for the ultimate; physical metaphor for spiritual reality; a historical timeline for the aftermath of an achievement - and it can also cause some to not see when and how the physical fit into that process, as if the physical never mattered. It did matter, and some of it still does, to the extent it was meant to matter, and in the way it was always going to.

The gospel meant that certain things changed forever. That came about in an exact historical order. Other things weren't ever revoked by the gospel. But how that's expressed now may have changed. While some things didn't change.

All of that can't be explained adequately enough by simply claiming the categories of 'prophecy', and 'fulfilment' or 'double fulfilment' - all of the elements of history, and of the old and new covenants, and of the reality of Jesus, and of the significance of His cross and resurrection, and His first and second comings are each touched-on in the Old Testament. 

So it's like reading an eye chart. The New Testament described for us how it's all meant to look, even the bottom line. The problem is that some have read the Old Testament through a lens that blurred some of it. But Jesus and the Holy Spirit - the gospel; the New Testament - tells us how it really is, how it really looks.