CHAPTER THREE
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
Similarly today, many thousands of professing Christians study the
prophecies and misapply them in the same way as did the Jews: their
interpretation of the prophecies agrees with the Christ-rejecting Jews
and is actually opposed to the plain teachings of the New Testament. The
Jews pointed to the prophecies picturing the triumph of Israel over her
foes (such as those in Ezek. 38, 39; Joel 3; Zech. 12 and 14, etc.) and
felt certain of the protection and blessing of God. Today, Christian
expositors teach the same as did the Jews regarding those prophecies.
Both have overlooked the spiritual qualifications required by those
whose victory and blessedness are depicted: both have overlooked the
moral purpose of the prophecies.
In the days of our Lord, when the Jews read the promise contained in
Jer. 31:31-37, they applied it unconditionally to their nation. An
author, whose works give evidence of keen spiritual insight, says:-
"The Jews had misinterpreted God's promise of eternal favor
to Israel [the words of Jer. 31:33, 34 are then quoted]. 'Thus saith
the Lord . . . If those ordinances [sun, moon and stars] depart from Me,
saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a
nation before Me forever.' (Jer. 31:35-37.) The Jews regarded their
natural descent from Abraham as giving them a claim to this promise.
But they overlooked the conditions which God had specified. Before
giving the promise, He had said, 'I will put My law in their inward
parts, and write it in their hearts.
"To a people in whose heart His law is written the favor of
God is assured" ("The Desire of Ages," p.106.)
The New Testament clearly teaches that the church has inherited all
the promises and blessings assured to Israel. To the Jews, Jesus said:-
"The Kingdom of God shall be taken from you [literal Israel) and
given to a nation [spiritual Israeli bringing forth the fruits
thereof." (Matt 21:43.) To those who bear the "fruit of the
Spirit" (Gal. 5:22, 23) in the Lord's vineyard (Matt 21:33-43; John
15:1-11, etc.) are assured the blessing and protection of God. "Ye
[the church] are . . . an holy nation." (1 Pet. 2:9.) That the
church is now the nation of Israel is maintained throughout the New
Testament. This fact has been emphasized by many esteemed Bible
commentators. We will quote one, representing a large number of others
who could be quoted: "The Christian church absorbs the Jewish,
inherits her privileges, and adopts, with wider and nobler meaning,
her phraseology. . . . The Israel of God, the church of Christ, takes
the place of the national Israel." (Ellicot's Commentary, Notes
on Revelation, pp.96, 125.)
It cannot be too strongly stressed that this statement expresses the
clear and frequently repeated teaching of the New Testament, and the
explicitly stated declaration of Protestant churches and commentators.
But, alas! the enemy of truth has been working assiduously to blind
people to the true interpretation of the Scriptures so that they will
not see the moral purpose of the prophecies which is vital for them to
understand in this the hour of destiny. The time-tested belief of the
church, that the kingdom prophecies of the Old Testament have found
their larger, moral fulfillment in the New Testament Church, is being
thrust aside for a relatively new and decidedly revolutionary teaching
called Dispensationalism, which declares that these prophecies
"skip over" the Church age and will be literally fulfilled in
a Jewish kingdom age which will follow it This revolutionary teaching
drastically revises the interpretation of the book of Revelation, and
students of the Revelation should prayerfully consider as to whether
their interpretation of that book is influenced by the principles of
Futurism. Writing in condemnation of this system of interpretation, Dr.
Oswald T. Allis points out its fundamental error:-
"Dispensationalism has its source in a faulty and unscriptural literalism
which, in the important field of prophecy, ignores the typical and
preparatory character of the Old Testament. . . . This
Dispensational system of interpreting Scripture is very popular to-day.
The reasons are not far to seek. Literal interpretation seems to
make Bible study easy. It also seems reverent. It argues on this wise:
'God must have said just what He means, and must mean just what He has
said; and what He has said is to be taken just as He said it, i.e., literally.'
But the New Testament makes it plain that literal interpretation
was a stumbling block to the Jews. It concealed from them the most
precious truths of Scripture. The temple and its worship were typical of
the high priestly work of Christ (Jn. 2:19). But the Jews failed to
understand His application of it to Himself, and used His words to
encompass His destruction (Matt. 26:61). . . . He came to fulfill the
law and the prophets. But the fulfillment which He offered the Jews was
so different from their literal and carnal desires and
expectations that they sent their King to Calvary." ("Prophecy
and the Church," pp.256, 258.)
History repeats itself. The Jews looked for an earthly and temporal
dominion. They claimed the literal, unconditional fulfillment of the
prophecies concerning "Israel," refusing to see that they
forfeited their right to them because of their failure to meet the
conditions. Because of their false interpretations of the prophecies
concerning the kingdom promised to Israel, the Jews rejected Christ and
His spiritual kingdom. Similarly, to-day, many professing Christians
fall into the same error of interpreting the prophecies concerning
"Israel" in a literal Palestinian sense, failing to see that
the Jews, by their rejection and crucifixion of Christ, forfeited all
right to them. As the literal, Palestinian-centered system of
interpretation was the means of the Jews' rejection of Christ and
His spiritual kingdom, so, today, the literal, Palestinian-centered
system of interpretation - Futurism - causes people to
misunderstand and reject Christ's last-clay Message concerning the last
events in His spiritual kingdom of Israel. This Message is clearly
enunciated in the book of Revelation, but because it is couched in Old
Testament terminology its present moral purpose is not understood by
those following the Futuristic system of interpretation.
Because of the imagery pertaining to Israel so abundantly used in the
book of Revelation, futurists say that it is a book largely pertaining
to the literal Jew in Palestine. Failure to understand the New Testament
principle that Old Testament terminology is now employed in a spiritual,
world-wide sense in connection with the church is responsible for
much theological confusion. "Israel" is the key-word which
unlocks prophetic problems - especially those in the book of Revelation.
Only as they relate to the church can the prophecies be fully
understood. Many commentators rightly emphasize that "the symbolism
of the Revelation is wholly and exclusively Jewish";
only spiritual Israelites can understand the prophecies of the
Apocalypse. It is estimated that at least 550 quotations from the Old
Testament are found in the book of Revelation. The following extract
from "The Revelation of St. John," by Prof. W. Milligan, D.D.,
pp.27-30, illustrates what others have pointed out concerning the
exclusively Jewish nature of the Revelation:-
"The Christian church, even among the Gentiles, had been grafted
upon the stem of David. She had an interest in Zion and Jerusalem; she
saw in Babylon the type of her enemies; she felt herself to be the true
Israel of God. She was well acquainted with the tabernacle and
the temple, with their pillars and incense, with their
different altars, with the high priest's robes, with the
seven-branched golden candlesticks, with the ark of the testimony
with the hidden manna, and with the parchment rolls written
both within and on the back. These symbols were therefore closely
adapted to her condition, and must have gone home to her with peculiar
power.
"But the symbolism of the Revelation is wholly and
exclusively Jewish. Even 'the crown of life' in Chap. 2:10 is not
the wreath of the victor in Grecian games, but the Hebrew crown of
royalty and joy- the crown of 'King Solomon, wherewith his mother
crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the gladness of his
heart.' (Song of Sol. 3:11.) The 'white stone,' with the new name
written in it, of chapter 2:17, is not suggested by the white pebble
which, cast in heathen courts of justice into the ballot box, expressed
the judge's acquittal of the prisoner at the bar, but in all probability
by the glistering plate borne by the high priest upon his forehead. And
all good commentators are agreed that the palms of chapter 7:9 are not
the palms of heathen victors either in battle or the games, but the
palms of the Feast of Tabernacles when, in the most joyful of all her
national festivals, Israel celebrated that life. of independence on
which she entered when she marched from Rameses to Succoth, and
exchanged her dwellings in the hot brickfields of Egypt for the free air
of the wilderness, and the 'booths' which she erected in the open
country. The symbols of 'he Apocalypse are to be judged of with the
feelings of a Jew, and not with those of our own country or
age."
After presenting other "Israel" features in the Revelation,
Prof. Milligan continues:-
"If from the trumpets we turn to the bowls the following
particulars claim our notice:-
1. The very mention of bowls at once connects us, not with the world,
but with the church. The vessels so designated were not vials,
but bowls or basins, broad and shallow, rather than narrow and deep.
They were the gifts presented by the princes of the twelve tribes of
Israel for the service of the Tabernacle (Num. 7), and they were
used for offering on the golden altar of the sanctuary, the incense
which had been kindled by coals from the altar in the court. They were
instruments of religious service, and were peculiarly fitted, according
to the law of recompense in kind, pervading the whole Apocalypse, to
contain those judgments of the Almighty, which were designed . . . for
the faithless church. . . . [The plagues, primarily, fall upon spiritual
Babylon - the apostate church.]
2. A similar remark applies to the fact that, as mentioned in chapter
15:6, the angels which bear the seven last plagues come forth from the 'temple'
or innermost shrine of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven,
dressed as priests in pure white linen, and with golden
girdles" (pp. 54, 55).
"The Book is absolutely steeped in the memories, the incidents,
the thoughts, and the language of the church's past.
To such an extent is this the case that it may be doubted whether it
contains a single figure not drawn from the Old Testament, or a single
complete sentence not more or less built up of materials from the same
source. Nothing can convey a full and adequate impression upon the
point, except the careful study of the book itself in this particular
aspect of its contents" (p. 72).
And then he enumerates examples of the many persons, places,
incidents, etc., associated with ancient Israel and mentioned in the
Revelation. Prof. Milligan then continues:-
"The great earthquake of chapter 6 is taken from Haggai; the sun
becoming black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon becoming blood of the
same chapter, from Joel; the stars of heaven falling, the fig tree
casting her untimely figs, the heavens departing as a scroll, in the
same chapter, from Isaiah; the locusts of chapter 9 from Joel; the
gathering of the vine of the earth in chapter 14 from Joel; and the
treading of the wine- press in the same chapter, from Isaiah; the wings
of the eagle upon which the woman is borne for protection to the
wilderness are those of Deuteronomy and Isaiah, and the whole
description of the New Jerusalem in chapter 21, is molded upon Ezekiel.
"If we look at several of the larger visions, we shall have the
same lesson brought home to us-that of the throne in heaven in chapter
4, having its prototype in Isaiah and Ezekiel; that of the opening of
the seals in chapter 6, in Zechariah; that of the beast from the sea in
chapter 13, in Daniel; that of the olive trees in chapter 11, in
Zechariah; that of the measuring of the temple in chapter 21, in Ezekiel
and Zechariah; that of the little book in chapter 10, in Ezekiel.
"Or, once more, if we take any single vision and examine its
detail, we shall find that its various portions are often gathered out
of different prophets, or different parts of the same prophet. Thus, in
the very first vision of the book, that of the glorified Redeemer, in
chapter 1:12-20, the golden candlesticks are taken from Exodus and
Zechariah; the garment down to the foot, from Exodus and Daniel; the
golden girdle, from Isaiah and Daniel; the hairs like white wool, from
the same two prophets; the feet like unto burnished brass, from Ezekiel;
the two-edged sword, from Isaiah and the Psalms; the countenance as the
sun shineth in his strength, from Exodus; the falling of the Seer as
dead at the feet of the person who appears to him, from Exodus, Isaiah,
Ezekiel, and Daniel; the laying of the right hand of Jesus upon the
Seer, from Daniel.
"It is impossible to enlarge without going over every
chapter, verse and clause of the book, which is a perfect mosaic
of passages from the Old Testament, at one time quoted verbally, at
another referred to in distinct allusion, now taken from one scene in Jewish
history, and now again from two or three together. . . . The
sacred books of his people had been more than familiar to him. They had
penetrated his whole being. . . . In the whole extent of sacred or
religious literature there is to be found nowhere else such a perfect
fusion of the revelation given to Israel with the mind of one who
would either express Israel's ideas, or give utterance, by means
of the symbols supplied by Israel's history, to the purest and
most elevated thoughts of the Christian faith" (pp. 75, 76).
"If from persons, we turn to places the same rule is
observable. Jerusalem and Mount Zion and Babylon and the Euphrates and
Sodom and Egypt, all familiar to us in the history of Israel,
play their part in order to denote the holiness and happiness of the
saints, or the coming in of judgment, or the transgressors from whom the
righteous must separate themselves. The battle of Har-Magedon has
undoubted reference to one or the other, if not both, of the two great
slaughters connected in the Old Testament with the plain of Megiddo
(Judges 5:19; Ps. 83:9; 2 Kings 23:29.) . . .
"While nothing can explain the last attack upon the saints
as a gathering of Gog and Magog from the four corners of the earth, but
the fact that these names had already been consecrated to a similar
purpose in the prophecies of Ezekiel (chaps. 38, 39)." (Ibid. 72,
73.)
"A Commentary of the Bible, by Bishops and other Clergy of the
Anglican Church," says concerning Rev. 20:8:-
"The terms 'Camp' and 'City' are images borrowed from the
condition of Israel in the wilderness, and in the Promised
Land. (Ex. 14:19; Ps. 107:36."
The "Hebrew" emphasis runs throughout the Apocalypse. Even
to many Greek words John gives a "strong Hebrew coloring."
Notice the following extract taken from the pen of Prof. W. Milligan,
D.D.
"The writer does, then, intentionally Hebraise. .
. . Nothing can be more decided than his statement (Ewald's) that the
imitation of Hebrew idiom in the Apocalypse goes so far as to lead to
many a change in Greek construction with the view of imitating the
constructions of the Hebrew tongue." (Milligan's "The
Revelation of St. John," p.260.)
Referring to Rev. 9:11, the Professor states:-
"When we turn to the root of the Greek name Apollyon . . . we
discover that it expresses the same meaning as the Hebrew."
Uriah Smith, in his "Daniel and the Revelation," p.479, in
commenting upon Rev. 9:11, says: "His name. In Hebrew, 'Abaddon,'
the destroyer; in Greek, 'Apollyon,' one that exterminates or destroys.
Having two different names in two languages, it is evident that the
character, rather than the name of the power, is intended to be
represented . . . as expressed in both languages he is a
destroyer."
In describing the destruction of the enemies of the church, John is
careful to emphasize the symbolic "place called in the Hebrew
tongue Armageddon" (Rev. 16:16). As the character of the
power and not its literal name is expressed in the Hebrew name of
Rev. 9:11, 50 it is because of the character or the meaning "in
the Hebrew tongue" of the word Armageddon that it is
mentioned in Rev. 16:16. The meaning of Armageddon is given by
Christopher Wordsworth: "Armageddon or Har-mageddon is formed of two
Hebrew words - the one, har, signifying a mountain; the other, a
cutting to pieces; and thus it means the mountain of excision or
slaughter."
Ellicott's Commentary states:-
"'The Greek is molded by the Hebrew tendencies of the writer.'
Thus the strong Hebrew coloring is precisely what we should
expect from one . . . constantly talking over Messianic hopes and
prophecies" (pp.5, 6).
"The prevalence of Hebraic influences noticeable in the
Apocalypse might well fit in with the later date" (p. 11).
"The interpreter is too readily caught by external
resemblances, and pays too little heed to inner spiritual and
ethical principles. . . . Of these principles the chief seem to be
the following:(1) the root passages in the OW Testament prophecies
must be' considered" (pp. 12, 15).
In "The New Testament in Greek, General Epistles and
Revelation," Bishop C. Wordsworth states:-
"The diction of the Book of Revelation is more Hebraistic
than that of any other portion of the New Testament. It adopts Hebrew
idioms and Hebrew words. It studiously disregards the laws of Gentile
Syntax, and even courts anomalies and solecisms; it Christianises
Hebrew words and sentiments, and clothes them in an evangelical
dress, and consecrates them to Christ. Thus, for instance, it never uses
the Greek foim Hierosoluma, but always employs the Hebrew
Hierusalem; and by this name it never designates the literal Sion, but
the Christian church."
By many illustrations Bishop Wordsworth shows the Hebrew setting,
sentiment, etc., prevailing throughout the Revelation. He further says:-
"In a similar spirit of genuine catholicity, expanding the mind,
and spiritualising the language of the Jewish nation, and
investing them with the light of the Gospel, the Apocalypse designates
the Universal Church of Christ under the terms of a Hebrew
nomenclature by the names of 'the Twelve Tribes of Israel.' Thus it
extends the view of the Hebrew people, and enlarges the walls of Sion
and the borders of Palestine till they embrace within their ample range
the family of mankind. . . . The Apocalypse also elevates the heart and
voice of the Hebrew nation, even to the court of the church
glorified. Here the Hebrew language sounds in the solemn service
of the heavenly ritual, in which the angelic choir sing praises to God,
Amen, Hallelujah. . . . It deal' in a similar way with Hebrew
prophecy. It is characteristic of Hebrew prophecy to repeat the
same predictions at different times. The Apocalypse proceeds on a
similar plan."
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