Books At a Glance (Fred Zaspel)
Hi! This is Fred Zaspel with Books at a Glance. We are here today to talk about biblical prophecy. We have with us Dr. Alan Bandy and Dr. Benjamin Merkle to talk about their new book, Understanding Prophecy: A Biblical, Theological Approach. Dr. Bandy is Professor of New Testament at Oklahoma Baptist University, and Dr. Merkle is Professor of New Testament and Greek at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Good to have you guys with us. Thanks a lot for coming.
Alan Bandy
Thank you for inviting us.
Zaspel
All right, I’ve read through the book, and I think it is just a great read. I think it is a great resource for people to have, and I think it would be great if you could talk to us about it. First, just tell us your goals for the book. What is it you hope to accomplish?
Bandy
For the most part, what we’re looking for is to provide a resource for people, both the common church member as well as pastors and seminarians—that it could provide a framework for approaching prophecy in a way that sets it within the tone of the entire Bible and how we understand it rather than just, say, as a fortune cookie or crystal ball that we can go to and see what is going to happen in the year 2016. So, kind of a much more, say, biblically grounded approach to prophecy.
Zaspel
All right, and we can take from the title that you’re working toward how to understand it and how to approach it, I assume—right? A framework for getting it?
Bandy
That’s correct.
Zaspel
Tell us about the book in general terms. How is it unique? There are a lot of books out there on prophecy. How do you approach the subject in a way that called for this book?
Benjamin L. Merkle
Well, I think one of the things that, when we approach it, as Alan said earlier—we really want to provide a hermeneutical approach. That is, how do we approach prophecy? To be straightforward, our approach is really a non-dispensational approach. That really does make it unique when you look at most books related to prophecy. We’re also looking at the whole Bible. Of course we’re not looking at every verse of the Bible, but we’re trying to look at the general flow of Scripture and see where prophecy comes up and how it relates to the overall message of Scripture.
Zaspel
Okay, I’ve got a couple more questions along that line exactly. Before I get there—when I grew up, and I think in a generation past it was pretty typical of churches, to find that there is a kind of “party spirit” forming around the various understandings of prophecy and the end times. It seems today that there’s a growing awareness that at least many of those fences should not be allowed to divide us and shouldn’t be such big fences as they maybe once were. I think the reason, of course, is that we’re recognizing that we have more in common. So before we talk about differences and all of that, sketch out for us the things that we hold in common, the [commonalities], let’s say, for an evangelical, that we hold in common in terms of biblical prophecy.
Bandy
Right. Well, I think one of the things that’s interesting about that “party spirit” is—you know, I was raised in a dispensational eschatology in which that was the right reading and all others were some sort of product of, say, allegorical readings or liberal agendas. So in many respects it became an acid test for orthodoxy. So your view of eschatology was connected with—do you have a right view of God and a right view of the Scriptures? I think where Ben and I came together so much was as we were talking and discussing Scriptures, we recognized that we don’t come from that framework anymore, but we share a common belief in the Bible as God’s revealed Word, that it’s truth, that it’s the product of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that it points us to Christ and His accomplished work on the cross and then the resurrection and what that actually entails, that we’re now living in light of the inauguration of the kingdom where the Holy Spirit is indwelling followers of Christ, and this in some way anticipates the age to come, but also that one day Jesus will come back to rule and reign, and that he will judge all people—that there will be a general resurrection of everybody. So I think that those are some of the broad categories that we can all agree on, and recognize that these things are things that Christians throughout history have all affirmed.
Zaspel
Okay, you’ve mentioned that you’re non-dispensational. Your subtitle says that this is a “biblical, theological approach.” Explain what that is. What is a biblical, theological approach? Give us a sense of that.
Bandy
Well, I think ultimately what we’re looking for is—when we talk about biblical theology, we’re talking about what the theology of the Bible is saying. So in other words, while there may be theological topics as in what we find in systematic theology, within biblical theology it is something that is much more organic to the book itself. It considers the historical context in which the book is written. It also considers the canonical context in which the book and the message is placed and how one part fits with the other, so how the Old Testament and New Testament interrelate. So we’re looking at the big picture of Scripture, both in terms of the grand story of the Bible as well as what each individual writer is saying.
Merkle
Yeah, I would add to that as well, just a Christological approach, meaning we’re seeing Christ, especially in his first coming, being really the center of God’s work and history, and therefore the prophecies of the Old Testament pointing toward that end, and letting that be the hermeneutical focus of where the Bible is going and the lens by which we read the text of Scripture. That really becomes the focus area.
Zaspel
Yeah, you make a point in your book that we should understand prophecy as Christocentric, or Gospel-centered. Fill that out a little bit more, and I suspect it is going to have something to do with inaugurated eschatology. Can you fill that all in for us?
Merkle
Yeah. Just to give you one example in the book, we view Old Testament prophecies related to Israel, for example, as being fulfilled in Christ and His first coming, that He is the focus and He is the center of what God had intended. Really, if you look at the New Testament, that’s how the New Testament authors understood Christ’s work. So what they preached was Christ and His resurrection, the fulfillment of what Christ has done. So the Old Testament prophecies—many people would look and say those are fulfilled sometime in a future millennium, sometime in the future, and almost neglect or bypass God’s most important work in salvation history, and that is the death and resurrection and ascension of Christ.
Zaspel
Do you disallow that it could be a both/and?
Bandy
Not at all. Part of what we’re looking at is Christ as the climax of biblical revelation. As the author of Hebrews begins, “In times past God spoke to us in various ways through many prophets. But in these last days, He has spoken to us through His Son.” So we certainly recognize that there is a sense that the prophecies point to the first coming of Christ, but we also recognize that there’s a culmination, a final summing it all up. There’s the question that we are kind of taking to the text, and as we wrote in the book, is in what way has Christ fulfilled all of the law and the prophets, and what does that mean when He says, “I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it,” in other places, where Paul says that all the prophecies and all the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ. So what we’re saying is that in Christ, there was a significant moment in which God acted in space/time, and became flesh, and through His death and, very importantly, through His resurrection—that that was a moment that changed everything and guarantees a final consummation of all that He has promised to do. We want to recognize that the work and what Christ has done really does provide the ultimate shape of everything Scripture points to.
Merkle
Exactly. So without the first coming of Christ, there is no hope, there is no second coming. So I guess what I was trying to say is that there is a tendency, when you think about prophecy, to skip the first coming of Christ, and all the attention and all the focus becomes the second coming. But we have to remember that everything that we have at the second coming was secured at His first coming. And that’s where the Bible is actually pointing most forcefully, that that becomes the emphasis, so we don’t want to neglect that.
Zaspel
Great. Let’s talk about some of the areas of disagreement. That’s always the juiciest. Especially for those who are new to the discussion, what are some of the common, more notable areas of disagreement? Can you sketch them out for us, characterize the various camps and where we are, and then also maybe with that—is it generally right (not to say that these things are unimportant) but that it is generally right to say that these things have more to do with details?
Bandy
Yeah, I would say they are largely due to details, but I think one of the things that Ben and I recognized was that the reason why we were united was that we shared a similar hermeneutical approach. How do we read and interpret Scripture? It’s a way that’s common to say, most evangelicals, in reading the text and coming at it. So our similarity in hermeneutics showed us that there’s a lot more in terms of agreement on the bigger issues. Where there’s disagreement—so we have minor areas of disagreement, say the question about what is meant by the millennium. Is it a literal thousand years at some point in the future? Is it referring to Christ’s [inaudible] reign now through His saints? Or is there some other sort of combination there, some non-literal thousand years that has some other sort of significance? Those are questions that really have divided the camps, and that’s where most people are categorized. Ben and I share different interpretations of those things in a charitable way, but we recognize that there’s some different understandings of our reading, say, of Revelation 20, and what is meant by that, as well as the question on the future of Israel. So those are the two that we highlighted in the appendices in the book. I would say that I think there’s still a reference in Romans 11:26 to a future conversion of ethnic Jewish people, and Ben holds a view in which it refers to the fulfillment of the people of God and the elect. There are some minor areas of disagreement, and there’s probably more that if we were to really draw some lines, we might even disagree on certain other interpretations. Ben, do you want to try and–?
Merkle
Some people might wonder, how did you write a book with somebody who holds a different millennial position?
Zaspel
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. I assume you guys are still friends?
Merkle
Yeah, we are. I guess my one ten-pence response would be: that’s what an appendix is for! You put the things we agree about, which are significant—we wrote a whole book together, you know, that’s the emphasis, that’s where we’re going to focus our attention. Those couple of places where we disagree—we threw them at the end. People can read about those and can see where we disagree. But in the end, I think it is relatively minor.
Zaspel
All right, you mentioned in the book—in fact, you had a good bit on this—that the very word “eschatology” is understood in different ways. I think it is going to be a new idea for some. Can you talk to us about that?
Bandy
Yeah, I think for me, the moment when really it was crystallized was when I was a seminary student. Eschatology had always been a subsection of my systematic theology textbook, in which it was kind of at the end, and it was like the doctrine of last things, and it was all future events. As [I was] delving into the New Testament as a Ph.D student, and doing my dissertation on the book of Revelation, I began to read heavily on eschatology and theology. What I discovered was that eschatology as just only dealing with end-times events, like the very end, really is a misunderstanding of what eschatology entails. Really, where this came home, was that when Paul refers to Jesus as the “firstborn from the dead,” and that it is through the resurrection of Jesus, that that inaugurated an eschatological age. So many of the prophecies, even in the ministry of Jesus, where He said His preaching ministry was, “the kingdom of God is near,” and in other places He said, “the kingdom of God is among us,” and in other places He said, “This is the kingdom of God.” So what we have is kind of sense in which the ministry and the death and resurrection of Jesus has implemented the eschatological age so that even our salvation is eschatological as the hope that had been promised. What we tried to tackle with that was the fact that when we talk about eschatology, there are so many ranges of meaning, that everybody means something different by it, so we tried to show some of the different ways that people use the word eschatology: future eschatology, realized eschatology and so forth, personal eschatology like what happens when you die. So what we wanted to do was just basically use the word eschatology to say, we’re talking about things in terms of big picture, those things that God has done within the space-time continuum to intervene and to bring about some accomplishment of what He is doing and what He will do to finalize that.
Merkle
Exactly. It is kind of related to the goal of history. As Alan said, if the goal of history is focused on Christ, then eschatology is almost subsumed under Christology. It becomes a focus so much on who Christ is and the work He has done in bringing the kingdom and bringing salvation and ushering in the kingdom of God, that really becomes the focus of our eschatology. Our eschatology really becomes Christology, and how we relate to that, and how we relate to Christ.
Zaspel
So rightly understood, eschatology, by the very nature of it, must be Christocentric.
Both
Absolutely. Without question.
Zaspel
All right. Give us a sense of the role of prophecy in Scripture generally. That’s a big question, I know, but can you describe the role of prophecy in broad strokes?
Merkle
Really, it depends on how you define prophecy, but if it is what the prophets did in its broadest sense, they often didn’t predict the future, but they were bringing the people of Israel to account to the covenant, because they strayed. So they’re often bringing God’s Word in correcting the people. Really, the focus of our book was to focus more on predictive prophecy, and really that has a number of functions in the Bible. It tells you the future. If we’re looking at, again, a Christ-centered approach, then it tells us in the Old Testament of the hope of a messiah. A messiah will come. There will be One who comes who redeems His people, who takes away their sins. We also have now the hope of His return. So it really is a number of functions.
Bandy
I’d just chime in on that. In fact, much of Scripture is prophecy, and at the very basic sense of what prophecy is in the Old Testament, it is divine revelation to God’s people, God speaking through a mouthpiece or through a writer to communicate His Word. In the majority of instances, as Ben said, it is addressing situations in that time period. He’s talking to a rebellious nation that has gone astray. Even in the Hebrew canon, what we see as history books, in the Hebrew canon it is called the former prophets—Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings. So even their history is viewed through prophetic lenses, so that God is speaking, and that He makes certain statements: “I’m going to send you into exile because of your unfaithfulness,” or “I’m going to restore you from exile,” or “I’m going to send One from the root of Jesse who will become the One through whom the government and the kingdom will be established.” So what we see is that the predictive element was an essential part. It was what was used as, how do you tell somebody is a true prophet versus a false prophet? Well, what they said actually comes to pass. So there is a very strong predictive sense. One of the things that we were trying to caution against was seeing that every prophecy was far off in the future to be fulfilled, so that Isaiah utters something that has to be fulfilled in the 21st century and it didn’t mean anything when he uttered it. So what we’re trying to do is kind of slice through some of that confusion—I mean, all the time people come and ask me, “Hey, look what’s happening in Syria,” or “Look what’s happening in Russia. Isn’t that a fulfillment of this prophecy and this verse?” And our answer is no, not really. If you look at what it meant in that context, and then see how it was filled out in the greater plan, it is not, as I said a fortune cookie or a crystal ball by which we interpret the nightly news. It’s God’s revelation to us on how we are to respond to Him, and it is always repentance and faith and obedience in doing what He asked us to do. That is the majority of prophecy—being faithful.
Merkle
And the reason why we focused on the predictive element, is because frankly, those are the more difficult elements. Just a call to faithfulness of the people is usually more straightforward. So we’re trying to focus on those elements that maybe are misunderstood, the prophecy that is in the future, but when is it fulfilled? How is it fulfilled? And how do the New Testament writers, when they quote the Old Testament, how do they understand it? That becomes central as well.
Zaspel
Yeah, and in a sense the Bible’s very storyline hangs on predictive prophecy and fulfillment, what is coming and how it has been realized or at least inaugurated in Christ and then how that will pan out later as well. But in a sense we’re talking about the very nature of the case.
Both
That’s right.
Merkle
In one sense, people say it’s a book on prophecy, and in another sense it’s a book about the whole Bible. It really is. It really is the crux of the Bible, because there’s the waiting of a messiah, a deliverer who will come. The messiah comes and brings the kingdom. But it’s already a “not yet,” and there’s an expectant return for this king to come back and redeem His own and make everything right. So it really is a book about the whole Bible in that sense.
Zaspel
Absolutely. I think this is an important question. You dealt with it in your book. You have a subsection of a chapter entitled “Understanding Prophecy as Applicable.” That is, there is a practical application kind of a value to studying prophecy. So I think for a lot of people, it is a mere curiosity of the end times. I think with some people it is something for the Bible scholars to fight over. But your argument is that there is something for every Christian in the pew. Tell us about that.
Bandy
Yeah, that’s right. You know it is interesting. My area is the book of Revelation. What I’ve found is that the majority of evangelical Christians don’t know what to do with Revelation, and don’t really think that it applies to every day of their life, other than believing in Jesus and waiting on Him to come back. So they see it as mostly irrelevant tot hem. One of the things that has struck me over the years, and we tried to highlight this, is that the book of Revelation as a book of New Testament prophecy, is the only book that gives a promise for obeying what it says to do. So over and over again, there’s these calls: “Be obedient. Obey. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of this prophecy.” So the question that I have is that, “If it is just about the future, then how do we obey it?” And then when you begin to read between the lines, you begin to see more, you begin to see that this is actually a message to the Church. It was a message to the Church 2000 years ago, and that same message that the Church needed to hear then, we need to hear today. A message of faithfulness to Christ, a message of resistance to capitulating to evil enforced upon us, a message of keeping our lives clean and pure as we follow Christ. All of these things are the message that the Church needs to hear, so when we approach prophecy as something that’s really is just describing global events in the future, we miss how it relates to us as the people of God. There’s a lot of action verbs of “do this” and “do that” or “don’t do this,” in all of prophecy, so that if we focus only on future fulfillment, we miss what God was saying for us to do in the process.
Zaspel
Amen. Excellent. All right, one more question. Do you have any suggestions for those who read your book as to how they might read it to the most profit? Often it’s the case that is not just the book, it is how you approach it and how you use it, that matters. Any suggestions in that regard, either the individual or group use or whatever?
Merkle
Don’t start with the appendix. That’s maybe where people want to go, but I’m not sure that’s the best place to start.
Bandy
Yeah, I think, don’t start with the appendix. The other thing I would chime in with would be if you’re looking for a book that has it all laid out and what to expect in the next few years of world history and events, you’re going to be disappointed. Our goal is not to tell you everything to think about when Christ returns. We leave that open for the reader to decide for themselves as they study Scripture. What we’re trying to do is give them the broad contours of the message of Scripture and how prophecy is woven throughout as a thread, and how you can see it consistently and thematically and applicably and all the other adjectives we could come up with.
Merkle
I was going to say there are no charts in our book, but there are a few. Maybe not as many as people would expect in a book on prophecy. It is not that kind of book.
Zaspel
I think that I would say that one of the great values of the book is to catch those, especially early chapters, well where you chart out the course and show us not only how the story is going to end, but also you’re showing us how the Bible works and how this ought to affect how we read prophecy.
Merkle
Right. It is not just about here’s the results, but here’s how to approach it to get the results that we think that we find what we see in Scripture. So in that sense it tells you how to interpret prophecy, and you can do that on your own and you can do it properly if you have the right tools to get there. So in the first part we’re trying lay that out. Here are the tools, here’s the big picture, then see how prophecy fits in there.
Zaspel
Great. You guys have any other books coming that we can keep an eye out for?
Merkle
I have an intermediate Greek grammar that I co-authored with Andreas Kostenberger and Robert Plummer called Going Deeper with New Testament Greek, coming out May 1st with B & H.
Zaspel
May 1st next year. Great. Well, it has been great to have you guys with us. I appreciate your coming. Thanks much for your good work, and thanks for your time with us here.
Bandy
Thank you very much, Fred.
Zaspel
All right. We’ll talk to you again. Bye.
Buy the books
UNDERSTANDING PROPHECY: A BIBLICAL-THEOLOGICAL APPROACH, by Alan S. Bandy and Benjamin L. Merkle