Gospel = Kingdom

Last week I gave a key for understanding Old Testament Prophecy:

ANY PROPHECY WHICH WAS ABOUT LEVITICAL-STYLE WORSHIP MUST HAVE BEEN FULFILLED AT A TIME WHEN THE OLD COVENANT STILL STOOD.

Malachi 3:1-6 is a classic example of how applying that key can open-up the intended meaning of an Old Testament prophecy for us today.

The Malachi passage is popularly assumed to have application to the future, but actually it must already have been fulfilled. And the impact is practical and thrilling.

Verse 3 predicted Messiah would come and purify the Levites so they could offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness, and so the offerings brought by Judah and Jerusalem would again be pleasing to the Lord, as in former years. This is popularly thought to be a prophecy about Israel's future - at the second coming, or during a future millennium.

If it's about the future, it implies Judaism will be required in future; it also implies the Messiah has not come yet. That would legitimise Judaism and discredit the GOSPEL.

But it can't be about the future - because it foresaw that the LORD would come to His Temple (verse 1). That Temple ceased to exist in AD70 - it's not about some other future, replica temple. So if the Messiah had not come and the prophecy had not been fulfilled while that Temple still stood, the prophecy forever lost its opportunity to be fulfilled.

It also can't be about the future, because offerings are no longer required. The Levitical order of priesthood was superseded when the New Covenant was made - and it can never again be legitimately reinstated, because the genealogies required in order to prove a priest's descent from Levi were forever lost.

Israel can't in future resume keeping the Law exactly "as in the days of old, as in former years" (verse 4). To attempt that would be both logistically impossible and also covenantally illegitimate. It could only be said that Israel was again keeping the Law as in former years, if keeping the Law was still at the time both possible and legitimate. Modern Judaism isn't exact compliance with Moses' Law - rather, by its own admission, it's a humanistic response to the fact that exact compliance with Moses' Law forever ceased to be possible after AD70.

Therefore the prophecy must have been been fulfilled at a time when the Old Covenant and all of the hardware associated with it still stood - because the Word of God cannot fail.

The prophesied-MESSENGER who was to be sent ahead of the Lord, who would prepare the way of the Lord (verse 1), was JOHN THE BAPTIST, the New Testament tells us.

It has to refer to Jesus' first coming - because when Jesus comes the second time, He's coming ready or not. But the things He came to bring the first time He came could only be experienced if a person's heart was prepared, irrespective of whether they were Jewish.

The LORD who then came to His Temple, in the very generation which later saw its final destruction - is JESUS. He was daily with them in the Temple, teaching.

But did salvation come to Israel at that time, as prophesied? This question is why many expect a future fulfilment. Well John did come preaching the baptism of repentance, and the Gospel of Mark tells us that all Judaea and Jerusalem came to him, and all were baptised, confessing their sins.

Jesus also preached repentance and the KINGDOM OF GOD - and He successfully made and baptised more disciples than John (even though it was Jesus' disciples, not Jesus Himself, who did the baptising).

Their ministries saw a nationwide move of God! Heart-issues were brought to the surface and dealt with, and Israel's Law-keeping was lifted to such a level that hadn't been seen in the nation for a long, long time, as prophesied by Malachi.

But Messiah was more than that, He was also the messenger of the covenant - the prophesied New Covenant (verse 1). He transitioned the Old Covenant into the New.

Malachi's prophecy itself revealed that the Messiah's prophesied-coming wouldn't necessarily mean exactly what some of them were thinking. Some Israelites would be unable to stand His coming (verse 2).

His coming would involve not only the message of the covenant (verse 1) - the New Covenant - but would also result in judgement (verse 5).

In fact it would become evident that it had been only because the Lord doesn't change - because His gifts and calling are without repentance - that national Israel hadn't already been consumed (verse 6).

John the Baptist warned about all of this, in keeping with the prophecy.

The GOSPEL of Mark also portrays Jesus and the GOSPEL as the fulfilment of the prophesied Messiah and salvation of Israel. Mark never said the prophecies had been postponed until the future and that the Gospel was something else. He said the Gospel was the Gospel OF THE KINGDOM. The Gospel WAS the fulfilment.

It's just that some of the seed fell by the wayside, or among thorns, or stones - not all of it fell in fertile hearts who would understand the nature of the Kingdom, and endure and be saved.
Some would be hardened and blinded, as a consequence of their unbelief.

Only believers grasped the mystery of the KINGDOM, Mark records. The mystery of the Kingdom was not that Kingdom--prophecy must yet be fulfilled in Israel in future. The mystery of the Kingdom was that only believers would receive it. Only the born-again would see it. Only the repentant. Only through JESUS.

Preaching the Gospel - the New Covenant - to all nations would be part of how Kingdom-prophecy would get worked-out. Signs and wonders, laying hands on the sick, casting out demons, speaking in tongues and baptising believers would all be part of it.

That's how Mark understood and applied Old Testament prophecy. To him the Bible-Prophecies in question were not about future Judaism during some coming special dispensation. Messianic kingdom/salvation prophecies were all about JESUS - all about the GOSPEL.

So where does that place us? where does it place modern Israel? the nations? the Church? It places everyone regardless of ethnicity on a level playing field - all in need of a Saviour.

Whoever believes and is baptised shall be saved, but whoever does not believe will be damned - regardless of whether they're Jews or Gentiles.

It makes believers COMPLETE in Jesus without obligation to Judaism.

It means, in the words of John Wesley, that "you have nothing to do but to save souls; therefore spend and be spent in this work".

A thrilling part of this is it means you can expect the Lord to work with you, CONFIRMING this WORD (the word, or message of the Kingdom, of fulfilled Prophecy) with SIGNS following - just like He did with the Apostles.

And then the end shall come.

See how "rightly dividing the word" - rightly distinguishing between fulfilled and unfulfilled prophecy - easily nullifies some wrong concepts, and reinforces the GOSPEL? Simply by remembering that ANY PROPHECY WHICH WAS ABOUT LEVITICAL-STYLE WORSHIP MUST HAVE BEEN FULFILLED AT A TIME WHEN THE OLD COVENANT STILL STOOD.

Applying that key proves Jesus to be the Messiah.

It highlights the Gospel as the final and the most important program God has - and its all-sufficient.