Faith is in Prophecy

This is an extract from the complete Bible commentary, which includes the 'Topic Notes' referred to below. The whole is available entirely for free at https://sites.google.com/site/freecommentary

Faith is in Prophecy

Have you read the prophets?

The simplicity of faith is that it demands true prophecy to predict the future, before there is anything to believe in.

Heb 11:1 Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.

Rom_8:24 For in hope were we saved: but hope that is seen is not hope: for who hopeth for that which he seeth?

Faith is about the future, and the only reliable way of knowing the future is to hear it from God.

2Pe_1:19 And we have the word of prophecy made more sure; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts[This must refer to beyond conversion, for Peter is addressing the already converted]

True prophecy in turn, demands that there have been sufficient public proofs and scrutiny to ensure that a prophet's words are accepted and recorded and guarded from change. Other religions usually don't have original wording. They claim that the ideas are what matters, and that successive 'inspired teachers' can add to or edit the teaching. That is mere 'human tradition; doctrines of man', not true prophecy.

And true prophecy about the future demands true faith.True prophecy is characterised by predicting something impossible for man -- something miraculous, like a recreation and resurrection. True faith demands, for its existence, adequate public evidence and convincing proof of a prophet's credentials. See Topic Notes\ Prophecy, Scripture and Truth\ The Certainty of Prophecy, for long lists of fulfilled prophecies.

A false-prophet, by contrast, has no public credentials as a prophet, or doesn't even predict anything testable of a spiritual nature, and any predictions of miracle interventions which he makes, fail.

The background to true faith is having a clear, written and reliable record of the original wording of the true and proven prophets, together with a similar record of already proven predictions and public and historical miracles. Other religious 'faith's lack what Judao-Christianity has always had.

We need true prophets so that there are predictions about the future, but we also need the history of already recorded fulfilments, to have any faith in future fulfilments.

So true faith is necessarily in true prophecy. It cannot be otherwise. It is a truism.

A sequitur is that false faith is placed in false prophecy or in non-prophecy.

Why it needs to be said, that 'Faith is in Prophecy'

There are a number of reasons why this simplicity has been covered up.After reading this long list, I hope you see the need to reassess the place of prophecy in your reading.

~ The church does not teach the viewpoint that 'faith' is 'in prophecy'.

~ The church does not teach prophecy.This may be because they find it too hard to work out;Or it may be that they only have time to teach the basics; Or that the people reject the meaty stuff;Or the church may have a doctrine that the Old Testament is no longer relevant.

~ The church does teach its own traditions, laws, mystical heritage, doctrinal statements and so on.The priority given to church teachings and sectarian dogma, militate against hearing more about what God has had to say through His spokesmen.

~ The traditional Catholic disregard for the authority of scripture stops huge numbers of Christians from seeing the worth of prophecy.

~ The New Testament almost presumes that everyone knew the prophets and the nature of prophecy and of faith in the prophets. Therefore it concentrates more on Jesus being the fulfilment of the prophets.Faith is in prophecy, but Christian faith becomes 'Christian' only when one names Jesus as the Christ who fulfilled the Messianic prophecies.

Act 26:27-28 King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest. 28 And Agrippa said unto Paul, With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian.

There is power in the trust that Jesus fulfilled what was written, and the power is to grant to the believers heart-conversion, and Spirit, spiritual gifts and the good things still yet to be delivered.

Faith in 'the Messiah', who is not Jesus, is anti-faith.

Luk 24:25-27 And he said unto them, O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Behooved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory? 27 And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

The gospels are full of references to fulfilled prophecies. Paul majors on previous scripture. Peter is strong about it. John's Revelation is packed with Old Testament prophecies.

Jesus was a prophet, and predicted many things, about the short, medium and long-term.Faith in Jesus demands faith in what he predicted; otherwise it is a perverse or pretend 'faith'.

~ The gospel which the church teaches is mainly about previously fulfilled prophecy. It is thus wrongly given as a gospel of the past-tense.

We have difficulty seeing how much prophecy still remains unfulfilled, because we are taught so much about what has been 'fulfilled'.

It is easy to say 'I believe that Jesus was the Messiah, crucified, buried, raised on the third day, was witnessed by many, and ascended to the right hand of God'. But that is all past-tense. 'I'm saved' is past-tense. 'I've been born-again and spirit-filled' is past-tense. It may all be 'according to the scriptures', but that sort of belief is not 'faith' for the future. The hope remaining after the first century, depends upon the backing of the associated scriptures which go beyond the history.Resurrection, judgment, salvation, inheritance in the kingdom of God -- these are future-tense. These require 'faith'.

1Co 15:12 Now if Christ is preached that he hath been raised from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?[This immediately follows Paul's definition of the preaching of the gospel of salvation]

We need the past fulfilments, to give us courage about future fulfilments.We need the past, and the sure future, to properly fit ourselves into the present life of faith.We need to live in faith for the prophesied deep future, and to die in faith, with those promises still unfulfilled.

~ Faith is long-term. If Abraham were alive today, after 4,000 years, he would still be living in faith and would die in faith in the coming promise of an eternal inheritance. It took 1,000 years after David, for the promised resurrection of the Messiah to take place, so why complain of the 2,000 years so far, before the next major change happens?

~ Prophecy is long-term. It is easy to make a prediction of what will happen in the short-term. It is safe to make a prediction of something (beyond the next election, or) for after you die. But who can predict accurately over centuries and millennia? Nostradamus didn't. Isaiah did. Moses did. Jesus did.

Until we see that prophecy is long-term, we will not see that faith is long-term.

~ Prophecy can only be fully fulfilled in the last Day.Prior to that there are multiple fulfilments -- in the short term, to give evidence for the hand of God, in the medium-term, as a historical realityat the time of Jesus, to fulfil the gospel,for the Millennium, as a preview of peace,and lastly for the Last Day.

~ The multiple layering of prophecies hides the future fulfilments of what is said to have been already 'fulfilled'.

~ The past tenses covers over the future applicability.

~ The so-called 'prophetic perfect' grammar of prophecy, masks the future aspect of prediction. It is pitched as if it has already happened ('Ye have been seated with Christ in the heavenlies'), but should be interpreted as 'This is what God has decided will happen'. The prophets speak what God is saying through them, and God believes in what He said, so He talks as if it is beyond doubt, settled.

~ Salvation (from the wrath to come) is talked about in the 'accomplished' sense:Act 2:47 praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to them day by day those that were saved.

Western Christians do not understand the ways of using language when dealing with spiritual themes such as prophecy fulfilled along with a conviction of faith in the future.

~ Other religious faiths have no reliable prophecy or reliable written records -- so that their 'faith' is more like blind faith in whatever their teaching and practices are.

The existence of 'blind' faith, on all sides, stops us seeing what a 'reasonable' faith is.See Topic Notes\ Questionable Doctrines\ Faith... Blind Faith

Thus we have a distorted idea of what 'faith' is. Instead of seeing the big split between 'religion' (practices) and 'faith' (belief), we talk of 'religious faith'. The New Covenant faith, for instance, saw the Old Covenant Law as its enemy, and as an alternative master trying to adulterously steal Christ's own wife away.

We ourselves are blind to the uniqueness of Judao-Christianity among the religions, of the historical and prophetic undergirding of all that our 'religion' teaches.

Other religions may have prophecy, but when you ask for believable prophecy, it is very hard to find outside of Biblical scripture.

~ Other 'avatars' and 'theophanies' do not have a sound historical setting, or a theological scope to cover the past, present and future of the world, or a sound prophetic backing which had already predicted the details of who would come, when and why and with what consequences.

~ Predestination teaching removes the incentive for Christians to search out what the prophets have prophesied. Those 'assured of salvation' through an earlier single confession, or infant baptism, think that their 'salvation' cannot be lost.Jesus told the Devil that man must live by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God. 'Mouth' often means 'prophecy'; and the context must demand some sensible interpretetion of 'every word' -- not literally interpreted, for a start; still relevant, or rather, allowing for the New Covenant to have begun; properly understood and well-applied; and so on. But having said that, the whole Bible is the word of God, and a slogan such as 'I'm saved' is not true knowledge.

See Topic Notes\ Questionable Doctrines for this topic, and so for many of the points which follow.

~ The 'faith-doctrine' in the 'faith-churches' and 'faith-healing' and 'prosperity doctrine' all degrade 'faith' into a belief for what has not been specifically prophesied. You may believe for a miracle-healing, or for a new car, but the details of the Messiah's second ministry, are far from anyone's mind.

See Topic Notes\ Questionable Doctrines\ Prosperity Doctrine.

~ Christianity is often pitched as for solving problems in this life.

~ The 'social gospel' of 'social justice' concentrates on this life's problems, not on the Spirit of God.

See Topic Notes\ Questionable Doctrines\ Social Gospel

~ Many try to establish the kingdom of God on earth, without acknowledging the prophecies that heaven-on-earth will only be in a future age, after death.

~ There is a doctrine that the kingdom of heaven is already come to earth, which stops us looking for much greater things still to come.

~ The trend to 'adapt' the gospel 'to the local culture' and 'to the times' must necessarily allow a drift in the promises, without any anchor in the absolute truth of the word of prophecy.

~ There is a scorn for Christians who do not 'get on and do it' -- the 'job' of 'applying' the faith to this life -- as if the only good faith is utilitarian and practical and workable.

~ There is a similar scorn for those who study the prophets -- as if it is all useless speculation.

~ There is a false-doctrine of 'child-likeness in faith' and an anti-intellectual bent -- as if God does not want us to grow up.

See Topic Notes\ Questionable Doctrines\ Childlike FaithSee Topic Notes\ Questionable Doctrines\ Hearts not Heads

~ Conspiracy theories against true prophecy -- 'It was all made up after the events' -- stop people embracing the historicity of the Bible record.For arguments which put the lie to that impossible claim, see Topic Notes\ Prophecy, Scripture and Truth.

~ It is under-appreciated that Spirit is prophecy -- that the Bible is prophecy from the Spirit. The Bible is spirit, for that is how the Bible describes prophecy -- the spirit of inspiriation; the inspiriation of the spirits; the word of the Spirit; the spirit of prophecy, and so on.

The Pentecostal and Charismatic focus on the spiritual gifts for this life, loses sight that the Bible's prophets are far more reliable than all of their prophets put together. The spiritual gifts will also cease. Recorded prophecy, and the words of Christ will endure.

~ There is a poisonous scorn in the church, for the Spirit, the Spirit-infilling, the spiritual gifts, the interpretation of tongues. This makes many ignore the prophets.

See Topic Notes\ Questionable Doctrines\ Baptism... No Holy Spirit Baptism.

~ There is a popular scorn for anyone claiming to interpret the Bible with accuracy. This makes many ignore any exposition of the Bible.

See Topic Notes\ Questionable Doctrines\ Interpretation... Own Interpretation

~ Over-literalism when interpreting scripture is diametrically opposite to what is needed to understand the figures of speech used by the prophets.See Topic Notes\ 'Imagery' and 'Interpreting the Bible\ Figures of Speech'.

~ There is a doctrine which says 'We are under a New and different covenant now, so don't bother with the Old Testament'.But most of the Old Testament consists of prophets, who predicted a new and stonger covenant of faith, Spirit and Messiah; in other words, the replacement of the Old Covenant. The New Testament refers to these prophets several times per page.

~ The false idea of Jesus being a failed prophet (in that 'he didn't come back within one generation as he said he would'), stops many from trusting prophecy.The truth is that Jesus never said that, but only the translations did. The meaning of 'generation' in older times was a nation, a race, brood, offspring and 'descendants' throughout their 'generations'. People 'generate' more people, and a whole race is a single 'generation'. Further, Jesus was talking against a spiritual 'generation', of a brood of the sons of the Devil -- the Jewish rulers who rejected him.

See Topic Notes\ Questionable Doctrines\ "Coming Soon"

~ The failure of Millennial hopes in the past has had a profound effect on the present shape of church attitudes toward preaching the prophesied Millennium and associated details.End-of-the-world cults have not helped, except to make everyone wary.The simplicity is that false interpretations of prophecy, and misplaced zeal for a soon-coming paradise, should not damn prophecy.For Bible-based interpretations, rather than flawed church dogma about the future times, see Topic Notes\ Questionable Doctrines\ "Heaven when we die" "Go to Heaven" "Imminent Adventism" "Coming Soon".

Beginning

You can revitalise your 'faith' by turning your attention to prophecy.If any of the above hurdles have been in your way before now, you can afford to do a somersault over this idea: Faith is in prophecy. Learn about your faith.

So, have you read all the prophets? and the Psalms and the Wisdom Books? -- about the ages to come and about the Messiah's final purposes? Even the Law of Moses contains much prophecy, whether it be open or hidden.

Luk 24:44-45 And he said unto them, These are my words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms,concerning me. 45 Then opened he their mind, that they might understand the scriptures;

Do you know what you have future-faith in?

2Pe 1:5 Yea, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue; and in your virtue knowledge;