Prophecies That
Cannot be Fulfilled
and Promises That Have Been
Forfeited
Many Christians
have been misled on a very
important matter causing a great
deal of confusion. Here is the
problem: Other than the book of
Daniel (which was sealed up until
the appointed time of the end),
the Old Testament says nothing
about the last days or the Second
coming. In other words, the Old
Testament does not speak about
events that will transpire in our
day or at any time in the future.
All of the promises and
prophecies presented in the Old
Testament would have been
fulfilled soon after the seventy
weeks expired in A. D. 33 if
Israel had repented of its
rebellion during the seventy
weeks and honored the covenant
which God gave it. In short, the
Old Testament contains many
prophecies that cannot be
fulfilled and many promises that have
been forfeited.
Christians have
been misled on this matter for
several reasons. First, many
Christians have not studied the
Old Testament thoroughly and lack
a working knowledge of what
actually transpired between God
and Israel, so it is easy to be
misled. Second, many Christians
do not understand the profound
difference between a unilateral
and a bilateral covenant. In
other words, Old Testament
promises are either “one
sided” (unilateral) or
“two sided”
(bilateral). Very few promises in
the Old Testament are unilateral;
in fact, most of them are
bilateral. Knowing the difference
is essential if you want to
understand the ways and actions
of God. Third, many Christians do
not realize that there are five
types of prophecies that exist in
the Old Testament. Further, they
have no idea about the
hermeneutics (rules) that
specifically govern the
interpretation of these five
types of prophecy. Mixing and/or
merging the rules for each type
of prophecy produces
insurmountable confusion. Last,
many Christians believe that
everything God spoke must come to
pass. This is a true statement,
but not in a way that most
Christians think.
It is true when
God makes a promise, He will
certainly keep that promise.
However, we must remember that a conditional
promise has two possible
fulfillments. For example, I
might promise my daughter $50 if
she gets an “A” in
Biology. Suppose she gets a
“B” and I give her
nothing. Was my promise
fulfilled? Yes! The point is that
many Christians read promises in
the Old Testament without
understanding the conditional
basis on which the promises
were made. They erroneously
think, “Since the provisions
in a particular promise have not
been fulfilled, the fulfillment
must be forthcoming!” This
reasoning is flawed because most
of God’s promises and
prophecies in the Old Testament
were conditional (bilateral). For
example, notice this promise God
spoke to the people of Israel at
Mt. Sinai: “…You
yourselves have seen what I did
to Egypt, and how I carried you
on eagles’ wings and brought
you to myself. Now if you obey me
fully and keep my covenant, then
out of all nations you will be my
treasured possession. Although
the whole earth is mine, you will
be for me a kingdom of priests
and a holy nation…” (Exodus
19: 4-6) did you notice the terms
and conditions of this covenant?
Did you notice the word “if”
in the text? “Now if you
obey me….then….”
The point is that God keeps His
promises. Israel rebelled against
Him, and true to His word, He
rejected them as trustees of His
gospel. (Leviticus 26; Romans
9-11) Years later, “Jesus
said to them, ‘Have you
never read in the Scriptures: The
stone the builders rejected has
become the capstone; the Lord has
done this, and it is marvelous in
our eyes? Therefore I tell you
that the kingdom of God will be
taken away from you and given to
a people who will produce its
fruit….Look, your house is
left to you desolate. For I tell
you, you will not see me again
until you say, ‘Blessed is
he who comes in the name of the
Lord.’” (Matthew
21: 42,43; 23: 38,39)
Think this through
very carefully: God rejected
Abraham’s rebellious
offspring as promised because His
covenant with them was “two
sided” (bilateral). How can
a marriage survive if one party
is constantly unfaithful?
God’s covenant with the
nation of Israel was based on the
condition of loyalty and
obedience. (Exodus 19, Leviticus
26, Deuteronomy 28) On the other
hand, God’s promises to
Abraham were “one
sided” (unilateral). This
means that God promised Abraham
that he would do certain things
and God’s fulfillment of
those promises was not based on
Abraham’s actions. The
problem can be stated this way:
God’s promises with Abraham
were one-sided, but God’s
promises with Abraham’s
offspring were two-sided.
Therefore, God had to make a
change after Israel refused to
cooperate with Him. God had to
introduce a new covenant in order
to fulfill His
“one-sided” promises to
Abraham. This change is called
“the new
covenant.”
When God declared
to Abraham that he would be the
father of many nations
(this included Jews and
Gentiles), God’s promise was
based on the success of
Abraham’s offspring.
God’s plan was that ancient
Israel would be a light to the
Gentiles and the people from all
nations until they came to know
and love God, as did Abraham.
But, Israel refused to be a light
unto the Gentiles. To make His
unilateral promise to Abraham
come true, God created a new
covenant that redefines
Abraham’s descendants. Under
the new covenant, God declared
that believers in Christ are
Abraham’s seed (Greek:
sperm). The end result is that
trustees of the gospel are not
biological, but spiritual! God
has grafted Gentiles into the
unilateral covenant given to
Abraham. This is why Paul wrote, “If
you belong to Christ, then you
are Abraham’s seed, and
heirs according to the
promise.” (Galatians
3:29)
Plan
A/Plan B
Under the
“new” covenant, there
is a “new” Israel. This
is a “new” sequence of
prophetic events that will
culminate during the “end
time.” To help clarify this,
I like to say the prophecies in
Daniel and Revelation concern
“Plan B.” In other
words, God has implemented a
“new” covenant or Plan
B, because “Plan A”
(the original promises and
prophecies given to ancient
Israel) could not be accomplished
because of Israel’s
apostasy. Plan B is a bigger and
better plan. Plan B contains a
brighter set of promises and
prophecies and unlike Plan A, it
is unconditional! This
time around, God is not waiting
upon a group of people to get
their act together or is He
depending on a particular
religious body of people to
accomplish the gospel commission.
At the appointed time, He will
bring His work to completion by
handpicking 144,000 people from
all over the world. These
servants of God, having
Abraham’s faith and love for
God will accomplish all that God
wants to be done in a mere 1,260
days!
Once a person
understands the sharp distinction
between the “”Old
Testament Plan A” and the
“New Testament Plan B,”
the Bible becomes much clearer
and easier to understand. Plan A
events are not to be confused or
mingled with Plan B events. God
wants His children to clearly
understand the intended meaning
of Scripture. The Bible is
consistent. It does not suffer
from internal conflict once you
understand what is being said.
Rule
Three
The book of Daniel
provides four rules that govern
the interpretation of apocalyptic
prophecy. Rule Three states:
“Apocalyptic language can be
literal, symbolic or analogous.
To reach the intended meaning of
prophecy, the student must
consider: (a) the context, (b)
the use of parallel language in
the Bible, and (c) relevant
statements in which define that
symbol if an element is thought
to be symbolic.”
The following
words need at least five seconds
of serious thought: The books of
Daniel and Revelation are cryptic
and short for two reasons. First,
God wanted these two books
preserved for the final
generation. Given the facts that
copies had to be transcribed by
hand for thousands of years,
these two mysterious books had to
be kept short in order to
maintain their internal
integrity. (Ancient scribes would
have asked, “Why spend
hundreds of hours making a copy
of a huge book that no one
understands?”) Second, the
end time story contains a huge
revelation of many things about
God and this story takes several
hours to tell. How can a huge
story come from two short books?
God has done a
very clever thing. He created
Plan B using some parts from Plan
A. The all-important difference
is that Plan B contains an unconditional
sequence of events. To fully
appreciate Plan B we first need
to understand Plan A. In this
sense, the prophecies and
promises in the Old Testament are
indispensable! By closely
studying the Old Testament’s
Plan A, we can understand
God’s plans better because
there are many parallels between
Plan A and Plan B. Keep in
mind that Plan B lays out an
unconditional order of events and
this highlights why Rule Three is
so important. By comparing
parallel language found in Daniel
and Revelation with “Old
Testament Plan A” language,
we discover many marvelous
elements that these two short
books do not directly address.
The bottom line is this: The
better we correctly understand
the prophecies and promises made
in the Old Testament, the better
we will understand the prophecies
and promises in the New
Testament.
For example, many
people have asked me if I think
the Jews will rebuild the temple
in Jerusalem because the Old
Testament indicates the temple
would be rebuilt. Let me clarify
the facts about this issue. The
Old Testament does indicate the
temple would be rebuilt; the Old
Testament is not talking about as
third temple! Nebuchadnezzar
destroyed the first temple
(Solomon’s temple) in 586
B.C. and Artaxerxes issued the
decree to rebuild it in 457 B.C.
The Romans completely destroyed
the second temple in A.D.
70.There is no prophecy in the
Bible indicating a third temple
will be built and the reason for
this is simple. God abandoned the
nation of Israel at the end of
the seventy weeks (Daniel 9) and
He has no need for a third
temple.
Jesus told the
Jews, “Look, your house [your
temple] is left to you
desolate. For I tell you, you
will not see me again until you
say, ‘Blessed is he who
comes in the name of the
Lord.’” (Matthew
23:38,39) Jesus declared
the temple of Israel, which was
designed to be His dwelling
place, to be desolate. Jesus
declared it desolate because
Israel had rejected Him and He
had rejected Israel. Second,
Jesus made it perfectly clear
that he would never dwell in
Israel ever again. The next time
the nation of Israel would see
Him would be at the Second
Coming.
Another
interesting point. The temple
mount was permanently removed
from Jewish control in A.D. 684
when the Dome of the Rock mosque
was built on the temple mount. It
seems evident that God gave the
site to the Moslems so another
Jewish temple could not be built.
The presence of the mosque
frustrates a lot of Christians
who do not understand Plan B, but
it shouldn’t. There will not
be a third temple. The temple
that we should be studying and
understanding is in Heaven!
(Hebrews 8:1-5) That is where
Jesus intercedes for us. Soon,
Jesus will call for the seven
trumpets to begin! (Revelation
8,9) When that day arrives, the
present confusion over rebuilding
a temple in Jerusalem will
vanish.
