On March 27, Peter Cockrell, an associate pastor in a rural church not far from Greater London who is also the UK National Director of OC International, a global missions
agency committed to fulfilling the Great Commission by encouraging local
churches in discipling the nations, published an excerpt from pages 12-13 of my book,
Biblical Eschatology, on his blog, "Already Not Yet."
The portion he published was a section from chapter two entitled "Progressive Revelation." Here it is:
Graeme Goldsworthy states an important hermeneutical point, “It is
impossible from the Old Testament alone to understand the full measure
of God’s acts and promises that it records.” The reason why the OT alone
does not convey its full, underlying meaning is the doctrine of
progressive revelation, i.e., the truths of the Bible were not revealed
all at once but were progressively revealed over time. Thus, the OT is
the preparation of the gospel; the Gospels are the manifestation of the
gospel; Acts is the expansion of the gospel; the Epistles are the
explanation of the gospel; and Revelation is the consummation of the
gospel.
Jesus and the NT authors understood this. They saw the entire OT as
in some way a book about Jesus. He is its central person and integrating
theme and is “the final and the fullest revelation of what the promises
are really about.” Because the Bible ultimately is the story about
Jesus Christ, who is explicitly revealed only in the NT, the NT writers
generally look at the OT in a “typological” way. The NT reveals that OT
Israel as a nation, and all of its laws, ceremonies, and institutions,
and the OT prophecies concerning it, were
“types,” “symbols,” “shadows,” “copies,” or “examples” of NT realities that
were fulfilled and superseded in Christ and his church. Willem
VanGemeren points out, “The coming of our Lord radically altered the
understanding of the Old Testament. The apostles understood the canon in the light of Jesus’ ministry,
message, and exaltation. The traditional understanding of Moses’ words
and the Prophets had to undergo a radical transformation in view of the
coming of our Lord.”
Edward Young describes the transformative
significance of Christ’s coming with respect to the issue of how to
approach OT prophecies hermeneutically: “The revelations granted to the
prophets had somewhat of the obscure about them. They are characterized
as dreams and visions, and probably, enigmatic sayings. . . . Since the
revelation granted to the prophets was less clear than that given to
Moses; indeed, since it contained elements of obscurity, we must take
these facts into consideration when interpreting prophecy. We must
therefore abandon once and for all the erroneous and non-Scriptural rule
of ‘literal if possible.’ The prophetic language belonged to the Mosaic economy and hence, was
typical. Only in the light of the New Testament fulfillment can it
properly be interpreted.” How the NT fulfills the OT “types” and
promises is not self-evident. Goldsworthy points out, “It was not
self-evident that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament promises. Those Jews
who looked for a literal fulfillment of the Old Testament promises
failed to recognize Jesus as the fulfillment.”
Menn, Jonathan (2013-09-04). Biblical Eschatology (Kindle
Locations 624-648). Resource Publications – An Imprint of Wipf and Stock
Publishers. Kindle Edition.
