PROPHECY AND PRE-WRITTEN HISTORY
I overheard a
Christian scholar claim that Matthew’s use of Hosea 11:1 (in Matthew 2:13-15)
was an abuse of OT scripture. He wasn’t saying anything like: “Matthew was
making an ‘application’ of Hosea 11:1.” If he’d been saying that, the remark
would almost have been harmless because it’s what preachers do all the time.
They go to a text that is there for one purpose and they “apply” it in an
entirely different direction and for an entirely different reason. [I’m not
suggesting that that’s always harmless—far from it.]
No, this scholar
was quite exercised about it. The Hosea 11:1 text, he insisted, wasn’t even a
prophecy (in the sense of a specific prediction)—it was a reference to an event
about half a century before Hosea. Anyone with a bit of sense can see that, he
said, and I wondered why Matthew hadn’t seen it?
Maybe Matthew did
see it but didn’t care and just threw it in for “filler” material. Maybe
Matthew didn’t see it and in his eagerness to make a point he picked on a text
he hadn’t really done his homework on. However you construe it Matthew comes
out on the losing end.
Hmmm. Maybe
there’s more to the text and the event in the life of Jesus than this scholar
had seen. I tend to side with Matthew who was writing to Jews who believed in
Jesus as the Messiah and who were living among Jews who did not. I tend to
think Matthew wouldn’t have made points to enrich and strengthen the faith of
Messianic Jews when a non-believer could as easily see what this Christian
scholar so easily saw. Imagine a Jewish Christian using Matthew’s abusive point
to a non-believing Jewish brother. Would the non-believer not simply poke his
finger through the flimsy falsehood and shame the believer? [“You poor fool,
Hosea 11:1 is no ‘prophecy’ and it certainly has nothing to do with Jesus of
Nazareth and Egypt.”]
I purpose a little piece on Hosea 11:1
later.
Maybe Matthew saw
more in Hosea 11:1 and the person and life of Jesus than the scholar saw. Part
of the reason for that, I’m supposing, is that we tend to reduce “prophecy” to
“prediction” and then we reduce prediction to something like, “pre-written
history” about some event or other. The NT use of OT prophecy has so many
angles to it and certainly to think of “prophecy” as pre-written history that
must be fulfilled as written takes
leave of how the NT works with OT prophecy.
Biblical prophecy
is set within the context of God’s character and purpose toward the human
family which he seeks to finally bless with peace and joy in deathless life
under Jesus Christ. That life and blessing can only be completed in
relationship with God and must be
shaped by the nature and character of God. It’s that truth that lies mostly unspoken behind all that the prophets
(OT and NT) have announced to us.
It’s because the
Holy Father cannot (because he will not) live at peace with sin and
unrighteousness that he brings judgments on his human children. To see his
judgments as something other than his redemptive love at work is a profound
mistake. The Holy Father’s “wrath” is another face of his holy love and
redeeming grace and its aim is to destroy what makes that “wrath”
necessary.
God’s wrath is
his response to a specific problem as he works to bring to fulfillment his
overarching purpose. It is not to be isolated from that Fatherly intention nor
is it to be denied its place.
This means that
“prophecy” of a blessed future is to be understood as “promise” and promise
must be understood in light of the nature and character of the Holy Father who
will not live at peace with evil or make a covenant with impenitent
unrighteousness. Therefore, this means that all prophecy/promise of future
blessing presumes a mutual loving relationship between the Holy Father and his
human family rather than God waving his magic wand like a good fairy and
changing everything into something other than it is.
A blessed future under the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ requires a free and glad allegiance to him from his children.
There’s
no blessed future without God but there is no
blessed future with God without free human righteousness! And unless you
believe humans are mere pawns in God's great chess-game this means that
by his grace we must freely choose to live together in love for him and one another.