I’ve been hearing it, in one form or another, every since I was converted as a teenager – that God has a plan for political Israel, such that the fate of the nation is intricately tied to the fulfilment of other Biblical prophecies and to the second coming of Christ! I can’t remember where I heard it first – whether I first read it in Hal Lindsey’s “Late Great Planet Earth” or whether I heard it earlier from New Zealand’s white Pentecostal evangelist, Barry Smith.
‘ There is an obvious accompanying political message too though – that we should all lend a hand to the state of Israel in her battles with her neighbours, lest the progress of the Biblical prophecies be somehow frustrated, or at least stalled.
I could be very pro-Zionist and still maintain this point; that Biblical prophecy is never normative! Biblical prophecy is never normative.
In other words, prophecies in the Bible never function as commandments – telling us directly how to determine our relationships with our neighbours.
Yes, the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC was the fulfilment of the Jeremiah’s prophecy, but it was still a great tragedy that should have been prevented, and, according to Jeremiah, could have been prevented, had the people turned to their creator in repentance and faith.
Jeremiah’s prophecies did not make the destruction of Jerusalem a morally acceptable act, and if we had been a part of his audience, the correct response would not have been to go and enlist in the Babylonian army so as to join in the looting.
No. Such prophecies have a specific spiritual purpose, functioning something like shock therapy.
The prophet paints a shocking picture of the judgement that is about to fall with a view to rattling his hearers to the point that they wake up to the fact that something is seriously wrong! This is what distinguishes Biblical prophecy from both fortune-telling and electioneering.
Biblical prophecies are not given for the sake of satisfying anybody’s curiosity about the future, any more than they are designed to help shape 21st century foreign policy.
Prophecies are given in order to call people to back to God.
Christian Zionists claim that the Biblical prophecies point to the triumph of 21st Century political Israel over its Middle-Eastern neighbours.
Biblical prophecy has never been normative for people of faith.
Do you see the distinction? Jonah’s prophecy was successful, in that it caused people to repent and come back to God.
Jonah treated his prophecy as if he were simply informing people of the inevitable.
They might have further concluded that sending arms to Ninevah’s enemies was an appropriate response to Jonah’s prophecy.
They repented, which was the purpose of the prophecy all along! Biblical prophecy is not normative! It is the commandments that are normative.
It is dangerous and can be downright wicked, because when you confuse prophecy and commandment, you run the risk of breaking the commandments for the sake of seeing your prophecy fulfilled.
Anger towards the foreign countries who make the oppression possible – countries that include Australia as well as the US. And the saddest part, from my point of view, is that much of this oppression takes place in the name of religion, and with the blessing of the many parts of Christ’s church, because it is all seen as being a necessary part of the great end-time drama, as depicted in the Biblical prophecies.
How shameful! Biblical prophecy is never normative! Jonah prophesied that Ninevah would fall.
The commandments inform our actions, not the prophecies themselves.
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