Prophets and Prophecy: 101B

Continuing on the subject of prophecy, I want to talk about the nature and complexities of prophecies, and the difficulties in interpreting them.

An important aspect of prophecy is understanding the symbology of the Bible.  In John 3:14, Jesus says “As Moses lifted up a snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man shall be lifted up”.  This was in reference to an event in Numbers 21:7-9.  It went something like this:

Israelites: Moses! We’re getting bit by snakes and dying, can you talk to God about that?

Moses: Fine, I’ll see what I can do. [To God] So God, what should we do?

God: Make a bronze snake, put it on a stick, and then when people get bit, lift the snake up.  When they look on it they will be healed.

A snake is commonly seen as a symbol of sin in the Bible, and bronze is known by biblical scholars as the “metal of judgment”.  So, people become poisoned by a snake (sin), and then they look at “the judgment of sin” on “a piece of wood”, to be healed.  Sound familiar?

Many people are familiar with the symbolic representation of numbers in prophecy.  Ten, for example, is known poetically as “many”.  Ten tens (100), would be seen as a great many, and ten ten tens (1,000), would be a great-great many.  There are also twelve tribes that contained the whole of Israel, and Jesus had twelve apostles sent out to save the world.  Twelve, then, could be seen as representative of the whole of a nation.

Now let’s look at the number of people saved from each tribe of Israel in Revelation 7:5-8.  It wasn’t just 12 (thus symbolizing the whole of an nation), and it wasn’t 1,000 (a great-great-great many).  It was 12,000—everyone, a great-great-great-many.  Combined with the fact that John makes sure to name every tribe in this passage, we can say that the totality of the people saved is then doubled.  Everyone-everyone gets saved, a great-great-great many.  Cool huh?

We can play these numbers and symbols games ad infinitum, but the trouble we face with interpreting prophecies in the Bible is the same problems we face when interpreting poetry in any other form of writing: a symbol can mean more than one thing.

The Bible isn’t just a set of laws or a recorded history of one ethnic group’s relationship to the supernatural, its also a book of poetry.  Because of this, some of the meaning can get muddled not only through translation, but through personal prejuidices and experiences.  Fire, for example, is seen as a symbol of purifying, but it is also a symbol of passion.  Does this mean that when John said Jesus will come and baptized people with the Holy Spirit and fire (Luke 3:16), that people will be immersed in purification, or passion?  It would probably be fair to say both.  But what about the fallen angels in the lake of fire?  The people who entered Hell?  Are they being purified, or impassioned?  I think it would be fair to say neither; they will never be purified, they will always be condemned.

Prophecy, then, is tricky business.  I personally think that we should stick to some of the prophecies that have already come to pass (the ones about Jesus), moreso than what will happen in the end times.  Logically speaking, even if I knew everything that would happen from studying Jesus’s prophecies in the gospels and the visions contained in Revelations, could I stop any of it?  Not really.  Would knowing the exact order of events, down to the second, help me prepare?  Not really, all I need to know to prepare for Christ’s coming is explained (more clearly) in every other book besides Revelations.

So, I couldn’t change anything even if I knew, and my best preparation isn’t in studying prophecies—it’s in the rest of the Bible.

Don’t get me wrong, I think many prophecies can help show the different aspects of God’s character and His plans for our lives, but I think we need to be serious and sober-minded when it comes to the predictions of doomsday that we hear, and that we have to have an attitude of respect and humility when it comes to trying to understand prophecy, and the entirety of the Bible.

Next week I’ll (hopefully) talk about the Baltimore Riots. See you there.