Question......

[Leah]

Do you all think its so unusual for prophecy to have more than one fulfillment?

Why or why not?

 

[HisdaughterJen]

Well, you might have to give a specific example of what you mean.

I think that things happen that make people think that the scripture is fulfilled. Like the scripture in Daniel 7-12 about a proud guy being given power to conquer the saints for 42 months.

Some believe that Antiochus Epiphanes fulfilled that prophecy yet Jesus warned of something yet future that He said referred to Daniel. Antiochus Epiphanes was 150-200 years before Christ so he wasn't the fulfillment of Daniel 7-12.

Some believe that the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70AD fulfilled Daniel 7-12 but for a number of reasons, that isn't it.

Reasons:
1. Sacrifices and oblation end in the 70th week after Christ was cut off and the temple was destroyed. Those two events were 40 years apart, therefore not within a 7-year final week.
2. There's a proud bad guy who sets himself up as God and has power to conquer the holy people and conquer them for 42 months before Christ comes to stop him. That hasn't happened yet.

I think it's possible that the devil has been pushing for his 42 month reign through-out history but God squelches it and essentially says, "not yet". So, that's one possibility why things appear to have a fulfillment or at least a partial fulfillment.

 

[Yekcidmij]

Do you all think its so unusual for prophecy to have more than one fulfillment?

Why or why not?

That's actually a really difficult question. I think the key term there is going to be "fulfillment" and what exactly that means. Here's a very common passage that is used as an example of double fulfillment:

Isaiah 53:2 He sprouted up like a twig before God, 6
like a root out of parched soil; 7
he had no stately form or majesty that might catch our attention, 8
no special appearance that we should want to follow him. 9
53:3 He was despised and rejected by people, 10
one who experienced pain and was acquainted with illness;
people hid their faces from him; 11
he was despised, and we considered him insignificant. 12
53:4 But he lifted up our illnesses,
he carried our pain; 13
even though we thought he was being punished,
attacked by God, and afflicted for something he had done. 14
53:5 He was wounded because of 15 our rebellious deeds,
crushed because of our sins;
he endured punishment that made us well; 16
because of his wounds we have been healed. 17
53:6 All of us had wandered off like sheep;
each of us had strayed off on his own path,
but the Lord caused the sin of all of us to attack him. 18
53:7 He was treated harshly and afflicted, 19
but he did not even open his mouth.
Like a lamb led to the slaughtering block,
like a sheep silent before her shearers,
he did not even open his mouth. 20
53:8 He was led away after an unjust trial 21 –
but who even cared? 22
Indeed, he was cut off from the land of the living; 23
because of the rebellion of his own 24 people he was wounded.
53:9 They intended to bury him with criminals, 25
but he ended up in a rich man’s tomb, 26
because 27 he had committed no violent deeds,
nor had he spoken deceitfully.
53:10 Though the Lord desired to crush him and make him ill,
once restitution is made, 28
he will see descendants and enjoy long life, 29
and the Lord’s purpose will be accomplished through him.
53:11 Having suffered, he will reflect on his work,
he will be satisfied when he understands what he has done. 30
“My servant 31 will acquit many, 32
for he carried their sins. 33
53:12 So I will assign him a portion with the multitudes, 34
he will divide the spoils of victory with the powerful, 35
because he willingly submitted 36 to death
and was numbered with the rebels,
when he lifted up the sin of many
and intervened 37 on behalf of the rebels.”

You probably recognize this as a common passage people say is fulfilled by Jesus, but people (us Christians specifically) often forget that this division of chapter and verses was not how scripture was written (not that it's a bad thing, but something to keep in mind). This is especially important here because back a few chapters we discover who the suffering servant is:

Isaiah 49:1 Listen to me, you coastlands! 1
Pay attention, you people who live far away!
The Lord summoned me from birth; 2
he commissioned me when my mother brought me into the world. 3
49:2 He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
he hid me in the hollow of his hand;
he made me like a sharpened 4 arrow,
he hid me in his quiver. 5
49:3 He said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, through whom I will reveal my splendor.”
49:4 But I thought, 7 “I have worked in vain;
I have expended my energy for absolutely nothing.” 8
But the Lord will vindicate me;
my God will reward me.

Isaiah identifies the suffering servant as Israel. So, what I've normally seen is people declare that Isaiah is full of prophecies that have double fulfillment, but there are problems with doing that. There's nothing explicitly stated in the Old Testament that prophecies would have double fulfillment. And why stop at double? Why not triple or quadruple? Where does it stop and why does it stop there? A common answer from us Christians is that it stops at Jesus, but that answer is sort-of arbitrary since it only begs the above question: why stop there?

Latter Day Saints like to use a prophecy from the Old Testament (Eze 37) to say that it points towards the book of Mormon. Clearly it's talking about reuniting Israel and a return from exile, and we are usually quick to point that out, but then we turn right back around and do the same thing to Isaiah and pretend we're justified in doing so. So why do we get to tell Mormons they're wrong here, but we get to tell Judaism we're right on Isaiah?

I think there's no easy answer here either and it's certainly not as easy as declaring mutiple prophecy fulfillment and being done with it. If we move foward from the Old to the New Testament and look at Jesus' parables, prophecies, and teachings, we are often quick to say, on many of them, that Jesus is talking about the Church and the second coming. I suggest that if that's what He meant by many of these parables, teachings, and prophecies, they would have had no meaning to His followers. I'll do another post on a good example (so this post doesn't get too long).

So, I'm not a huge fan of claiming multiple fulfillment without some further explinations, but I am open to the idea.

 

[Yekcidmij]

Here is a record from Luke 17 (cross reference in Matt 24) that us Christians will often jump at to say it's possibly a double fulfillment of some sort. Perhaps it had some sort-of half fulfillment in their time, but a full fulfillment in the future. Some like to say it's fulfillment will occur at the rapture, and this is exactly why I'm not a big fan of multiple fulfillment because that's not what Jesus was talking about. I'm going to go verse by verse:

17:20 Now at one point the Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God was coming, so he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, 17:21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is in your midst.”

Jesus, we discover in vs 11, is on the way to Jerusalem (this is important). He has been going around Galilee, Nazereth, Samaria, etc.. claiming that the kingdom of God was arriving. Not only, that, but He was claiming that it was coming through whatever it was He was doing or was about to do. His claim was Messianic in some sense and keeping that in mind helps explain the Pharisee's question and Jesus' answer. The Pharisees were expecting, and would probably even have supported (they had done it before and did it again around 70AD), a Messiah that would bring in the kingdom of God by defeating the Romans and re-establishing the throne of David. That's why Jesus says don't believe these would-be Messiah's. Not only that, he makes an allusion to the kingdom of God coming through whatever it was he was doing - "it's here in your midst".

Then he addresses his followers with warnings and instruction:

17:22 Then he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. 17:23 Then people will say to you, ‘Look, there he is!’ or ‘Look, here he is!’ Do not go out or chase after them.

One day, He won't be there, but there will be other would be Messiahs and His disciples need not follow them. Indeed, this actually happened at least 3 times after Jesus with the final one being Bar-Kokhba claiming to be the Messiah (went so far as to mint his own coins), that is, until the Romans did what they were good at and crushed each rebellion.

17:24 For just like the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. 17:25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

This is apocolyptic language where Jesus is simple predicting His vindication after a period of suffering. He even uses examples of what his vindiction will be like:

17:26 Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man. 17:27 People were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage – right up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. 17:28 Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, people were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building; 17:29 but on the day Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. 17:30 It will be the same on the day the Son of Man is revealed.

When Jesus' followers see Him vindicated, people will be living life. Notice he is stressing their being caught unaware since they were just living life normally, he doesn't stress their exceeding wickedness.

17:31 On that day, anyone who is on the roof, with his goods in the house, must not come down to take them away, and likewise the person in the field must not turn back. 17:32 Remember Lot’s wife! 17:33 Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it.

Jesus is saying that when He is vindicated, His followers must recognize it, get out of town, and not look back. They must be ready to leave their normal life behind and run.

And here is the supposed rapture reference:

17:34 I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 17:35 There will be two women grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.”
17:36 There will be two in the field; one will be taken and the other left.”

Many evangelicals, I did it at one time too, think he's refering to the rapture and the second coming, but the next verse gives away what he's talking about, and it certainly isn't any rapture I want to be in:

17:37 Then the disciples said to him, “Where, Lord?” He replied to them, “Where the dead body is, there the vultures will gather.”

The disciples want to know where those taken are being taken to. Jesus' response: to their death. Fun rapture huh?

Of interesting note, the Greek word for "vultures" can also mean "eagles" - which was the symbol used by the Roman legions. This whole passage is about Jesus being vindicated after a period of suffering; a time when they will know that He is Messiah and the other would-be Messiah's were not; a time when they would know that His kingdom proclamation was true and his authority was real (as he would pronounce judgement on the temple and Jerusalem very shortly). This occured, of course, in 70AD when Jerusalem and the temple fell. This would explain the use of "this generation" in Matthew and would have been recognized and understood by the disciples.

This is clearly not a rapture passage, unless you want to hang out with the vultures, nor was not a second coming/end times passage, unless Jesus is to suffer again, nor was it ever intended to be. This is why I'm not a fan of multiple prophecy fulfillment. It usually leads to manipulation of scripture so it takes on some new interpretation and meaning. What follows from that is....well....you can see it around here - newspaper eschatology, rampant interpretation, and bad hermeneutics (not from everyone in here, just some).

 

[NumberOneSon]

That's actually a really difficult question. I think the key term there is going to be "fulfillment" and what exactly that means.

Isaiah identifies the suffering servant as Israel. So, what I've normally seen is people declare that Isaiah is full of prophecies that have double fulfillment, but there's problems with doing that. There's nothing explicitly stated in the Old Testament that prophecies would have double fulfillment. And why stop at double? Why not triple or quadruple? Where does it stop and why does it stop there? A common answer from us Christians is that it stops at Jesus, but that answer is sort-of arbitrary since it only begs the above question: why stop there?

I agree with you; the key is understanding how Jesus and the Gospel writers used the term “fulfillment”. It wasn’t in the woodenly literal sense that most people in the Church use today. Isaiah 49 was a good example. Another is Hosea 11:1; In the Hosea passage, God’s son is the nation of Israel that He called out of Egypt but the nation quickly fell into idolatry after the Exodus (v.2). But in Matthew 2:15, Matthew applied verse 1 to Christ, saying it was “fulfilled” in Jesus coming out of Egypt. Matthew 2:15 certainly wasn’t a double fulfillment of Hosea 11:1. And the same can be said of all the other “fulfillment” passages in Matthews Gospels.

So, I'm not a huge fan of claiming multiple fulfillment without some further explinations, but I am open to the idea.

Again, I agree. I’m not a big fan of the multiple fulfillment claims either. I wouldn’t give OT prophecies any other multiple applications except for the examples Jesus or the New Testament writers specifically cited. Otherwise, I don't think believers have the authority to claim multiple fulfilments of any OT passages they wish.

In Christ,

Acts6:5

 

[Yekcidmij]

I agree with you; the key is understanding how Jesus and the Gospel writers used the term “fulfillment”. It wasn’t in the woodenly literal sense that most people in the Church use today. Isaiah 49 was a good example. Another is Hosea 11:1; In the Hosea passage, God’s son is the nation of Israel that He called out of Egypt but the nation quickly fell into idolatry after the Exodus (v.2). But in Matthew 2:15, Matthew applied verse 1 to Christ, saying it was “fulfilled” in Jesus coming out of Egypt. Matthew 2:15 certainly wasn’t a double fulfillment of Hosea 11:1. And the same can be said of all the other “fulfillment” passages in Matthews Gospels.

Again, I agree. I’m not a big fan of the multiple fulfillment claims either. I wouldn’t give OT prophecies any other multiple applications except for the examples Jesus or the New Testament writers specifically cited. Otherwise, I don't think believers have the authority to claim multiple fulfilments of any OT passages they wish.

In Christ,

Acts6:5

Yes. I think the New Testament authors had specific reasons in mind when they made allusions to Old Testament passages. The Matthew 2/Hosea 11/Jeremiah 31, 38 are good ones that I think are often misunderstood.

Matt 2:13 After they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to look for the child to kill him.” 2:14 Then he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, and went to Egypt. 2:15 He stayed there until Herod died. In this way what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet was fulfilled: “I called my Son out of Egypt.”
2:16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he became enraged. He sent men 27 to kill all the children in Bethlehem 28 and throughout the surrounding region from the age of two and under, according to the time he had learned from the wise men. 2:17 Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled:
2:18 “A voice was heard in Ramah,
weeping and loud wailing, 29
Rachel weeping for her children,
and she did not want to be comforted, because they were 30 gone.”

Matthew is simply doing what he is going to be doing through the rest of the book with this recurring theme. He's making allusions to exile and exodus. Jesus, like Israel, goes into exile - in Egypt of all places. The crying in Ramah and Rachel weeping for her children were also allusions to Israel going into exile. The crying in Matthew isn't because Herod is killing babies, however horrible that may be, it's because Israel's Messiah, like Israel herself, is going into exile. Matthew stays with this exile/return-from-exile theme, among a few others, through the entire book.