Paige Bier_April 20_Unlocking the Scriptures

In “Prophecy and Revelation—Judgment with Hope”, Finzel discusses a type of biblical literature called prophetic books, which includes the Old Testament Prophets and the New Testament Book of Revelation (p. 147). Finzel talks about why the prophets spoke, when the prophets spoke, and what the prophets spoke.

Israel was constituted as God’s chosen people in the Mosaic covenant. God sent the prophets throughout Israel and condemned them to wander in the wilderness for forty years due to their disobedience. Due to the disobedience of the Israelites, “God appointed these judges to rule over His people and help them maintain their covenant faithfulness” (p. 149). The mission of the Prophets was to “keep the nation faithful to its covenant with Yahweh” (p.149).

Finzel refers to Revelation 1:19 when he says, “The Book of Revelation comes closest to fitting our definition of prophetic books” (p. 150). Although the messages in Revelation may vary from church to church, they are usually threaded around one idea: remaining faithful to God. The Israelites were advised to be faithful to God, just as John calls to the church to remain faithful to Jesus Christ until He returns. “To those who are faithful to Christ—those who overcome—there will be rewards, but for those who are unrepentant and disobedient, there will be judgment” (p. 150). Since John uses many symbols and images from the Prophets, we must remember the difference between pictures that express a reality and actually are reality.

“We need to learn that pictures of the future are just that—pictures. The pictures express a reality but they are not themselves to be confused with reality, nor are the details of every picture necessarily to be ‘fulfilled’ in some specific way. Thus when the first four trumpets proclaim calamities on nature as part of God’s judgment, we must not necessarily expect a literal fulfillment of those pictures.”

- Fee & Stuart

This reminds us that we must not confuse our own picture of how we see the future with God’s picture of what our future actually is. We must constantly remind ourselves that life on Earth is temporary and God has a plan for us to spend life in eternity: “His saints will share in His victory and receive the reward of eternal blessing and joy” (p. 151).

Finzel, Hans. (2003). Unlocking the Scriptures. Cook Distribution: Canada.

Fee, D. Gordon and Douglass, Staurt. (1981). How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth