Purposes of Predictive Prophecy (Part 2)
God intends prophecy to have a definite impact on people. Commentators and hermeneutics texts warn us not to misconstrue the intent of prophetic passages. Much of what they say is helpful; what’s curious is what is left unsaid or even denigrated. Many interpreters downplay some purposes that seem not only self-evident but Scripturally emphasized. The best way to answer this question, then, would seem to be to explore what God Himself says are the purposes and effects of prophetic revelation.
In Part 1 we explored NT passages that explain why God gives us prophecy. Now we turn to the OT. Many OT passages speak to this issue, but we will confine ourselves to Isaiah (with occasional clarifying help from Ezekiel). The passages below are certainly not exhaustive on the subject, but they are God’s definitive expressions of why He gives and how He uses prophecy.
Isaiah
In the second half of Isaiah God is especially concerned to display and defend His character by magnifying the reliability of His words. The classic passage on this theme is chapter 55 (especially verses 9–13). But there are many others. What are some of the reasons for prophecy according to Isaiah?
To prove the reliability of God’s words and thus of God Himself (41:18–20; 46:9–11; 55:9–13; cf. Ezek. 36:33–36).
The point God makes in these passages is not merely that He will do remarkable things, but that He has said He would do them so that, when they happen, it cannot be passed off as anything other than the hand of God doing exactly what He said. He is not only utterly able but utterly reliable, and is determined for the nations to know that.
To display universally God’s unique sovereignty.
In 41:22–27 God challenges any other so-called gods to demonstrate their god-ness by predicting the future and bringing it to pass. There are no takers. Why? Because there is no one else; there are no other gods (44:6–8). God alone creates, God alone does the unthinkable and unpredictable, and God alone exercises His authority even over secular rulers, such as Cyrus, who do not know Him (44:24–28; 45:1–7, 18–21). He is uniquely sovereign over all.
To elicit universal conversion, confession, and worship.
The final reference above (45:18–21) leads directly into another purpose that God intends for prophecy—namely, that it would prompt people to see and acknowledge that He alone is God (45:22, 23).
To preclude false conclusions about how events come to pass (Isa. 48:1–5).
God goes on record declaring what He will do, so that no one can credit it to some other cause—least of all, to some idol.
To defend His honor, holiness, and glory by fulfilling His promises to Israel (Isa. 48:9–11; cf. Ezek. 36:22, 23).
God’s point in these passages is two-sided: (1) He will not admit failure by giving up on Israel and disowning and destroying them contrary to His covenantal obligations to them through Abraham; therefore, (2) He must do everything He has said He would, just as He has said it.
To motivate God’s people to prayer (Isa. 62:6, 7).
This is a remarkable text. Two chapters outlining, with stunning specificity and grandeur, God’s intention to restore and bless Israel uniquely among the nations (Isa. 60–61) are followed by an exhortation from God to pester Him in prayer until He does what He has promised. The phrase “ye that make mention of the Lord” (62:6) should be rendered “ye that make mention to the Lord,” or better, “ye that remind the Lord” (the verb is zaqar, to remember, in a causative form, to cause to remember, remind). And, God continues (v. 7), “give him no rest” until He does all He has promised to do in and for and with Israel. The praying becomes a means through which God will accomplish what He has promised, and the prophetic promises are what He uses to motivate the prayers of His people.1
Purposes of Predictive Prophecy: Recap
It may be helpful at this point to pull together the reasons for prophecy that we have gleaned so far from both OT passages and NT passages (see Part 1): (1) to rebuke skepticism about future prophecy; (2) to elicit repentance; (3) to motivate to holy living; (4) to stabilize against the influence of teaching that conflicts/contradicts and to spur to ongoing growth in the truth; (5) to prompt personal study and investigation in the ways and purposes of God; (6) to minister to the church; (7) to stimulate diligence, sobriety, hope, and personal transformation; (8) to differentiate believers from unbelievers and give us opportunity to display faith in God via faith in God’s words; (9) to give opportunity for demonstrating our belief in larger realities and affinities; (10) to test our sanctified ingenuity for defending the reliability of God’s promises; (11) to furnish both doctrinal and practical instruction necessary for a well-equipped believer; (12) to comfort the afflicted; (13) to compel to loyal service aimed at pleasing God; (14) to feed faith in God’s knowledge and control over all things; (15) to prove the reliability of God’s words and, thus, of God Himself; (16) to display universally God’s unique sovereignty; (17) to defend His honor, holiness, and glory; (18) to preclude false conclusions about how events come to pass; (19) to elicit universal conversion, confession, and worship; (20) to motivate God’s people to prayer and involve them in His larger purposes.
That’s a pretty impressive list. But it’s worth asking, is anything missing? I already suggested this list is not exhaustive. But is anything significant missing in terms of a purpose of prophecy? Extensive as it is, this list is not only incomplete but is missing one of prophecy’s most important purposes—the one purpose, in fact, that makes all the other functions “work,” and without which none of the other purposes make sense.
The Missing Purpose of Prophecy
The most fundamental function of prophecy is to provide understandable information and certain knowledge about future events. All the other purposes are hollow without this. All the other purposes are meaningful only if God communicates reliable, understandable, precise, verifiable, and essentially clear predictions about the future.
God tells us about the future (revelation via predictive prophecy) because He actually wants us to know what is going to happen and expects us to believe that it is going to happen just as He says. As obvious as this may seem, it’s worth stating unambiguously because I keep picking up signals in the current eschatological atmosphere that undermine this role of predictive prophecy. In many works on hermeneutics, for instance, eschatological prophecy isn’t “information about the future” but rather symbolic pictures of the future. Consider carefully the following assertion:
We must conclude that a method of interpretation that demands that the promises of the OT be literally fulfilled, so that there is exact correspondence between what is promised and what eventually comes to pass, does not fit the evidence of the Bible. Of course, there are many details of fulfillment in the NT that exactly correspond to the promise. Such literal correspondence of a few details does not establish the principle of literal interpretation (Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible, 65–66).
Without a doubt, some literalists have abused and misused prophecy.
To walk by the sight of a prophetic time line rather than by faith is a misuse of prophecy, even if the time line is correct. God never revealed the future to satisfy man’s natural curiosity about the future. Both the purpose and the nature of prophecy work to fuel faith, not replace it. God reveals the future to affect the present (Michael Barrett, Beginning at Moses, 212).
Absolutely. But the only way prophecy can meaningfully affect the present is if its communication is understandable. We certainly should not dispute or ignore the present, ethical, applicational purpose of predictive prophecy. But neither should we dispute or ignore its future, informational purpose. Amid this dispute over how to interpret prophecy, we are in danger of losing sight of an even bigger picture than this present life. Isn’t the theological purpose of prophecy at least as significant as the ethical? God states expressly that He uses prophecy to display His uniqueness, His wisdom, His providence, His control, and His trustworthiness (see Isa. 45–55). All of those divine attributes have present, practical, ethical applications; but what gives substance and weight to the ethical impact is the prophecy’s communication of knowledge—not for the sake of satisfying curiosity or constructing charts, but because God chooses to tell us ahead of time what is going to happen as a way of displaying His glory and the reliability of His words.
Being a form of prophecy, eschatology should function the same way that historical prophecy did in the OT. It may sound like a crazy idea, but it seems that God wants to tell us things ahead of time so we will see just how great He is! The impact of that expectation is diminished when the ethical role is stressed to the virtual exclusion of the informational.
Dr. Layton Talbert teaches theology and apologetics at Bob Jones Seminary, Greenville, SC and is a Frontline Contributing Editor.
(Originally published in FrontLine • May/June 2013. Click here to subscribe to the magazine.)
Photo by takomabibelot Pier-Francesco Sacchi. Les Docteurs de l’Église (Genoa?, 16th c). Louvre INV 598. Use of photo under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) license.
- For more on this and other similar passages, see Talbert, Not by Chance: Learning to Trust a Sovereign God, chapter 13. [↩]