Scripture and prophecy - Part 3
Following his resurrection, Jesus asked a couple of his disciples, “Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?”[1] The question sounds rhetorical on the page, but it obviously wasn’t. The text then says Jesus, “took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”[2]
If the scriptures clearly predicted what happened to him, Jesus would not have had to explain them. That he did have to explain them (and his followers would go on to do the same) suggests that while the scriptures are predictive, they are not predictive in the way we popularly understand the concept.
David wasn’t consciously predicting the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Isaiah wasn’t consciously predicting the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. They spoke and wrote about events in their own context, but their words took on a deeper level of meaning and significance—to use Jesus’ words, a “fulfillment”—when read through the lens of his life, death, and resurrection. David’s poetic utterance about God not allowing him to rot in the grave found its fulfillment in God raising Jesus from the dead. Isaiah’s reference to a woman giving birth found it’s fulfillment in the virgin birth of Jesus. Isaiah’s suffering servant found its fulfillment in Jesus’ suffering and death.
That’s one way to understand how prophecy “works.” Like Caiaphas prophesying that Jesus would die for the nation, prophets consciously understand their words to mean one thing, but they take on a fullness or completeness in Christ, a fullness or completeness the prophets themselves could not have imagined.
In this final post of my prophecy mini-series, I want to talk about one more way to understand how the writings of Moses and all the prophets “clearly” predict the Messiah would suffer and die before entering his glory: the motif of the rejected prophet.
The scriptures “predict” Jesus’ suffering and death by narrating a recurring pattern that Jesus “fulfills.” The pattern is the rejected prophet. God’s people rejected every prophetic messenger God sent to them. In the same spirit, they would eventually reject his son.
This appears to be how Jesus understood the predictive quality of his scriptures. In other words, when he said the scriptures clearly predicted what would happen to him, the motif of the rejected prophet is likely what he had mind. When Luke’s gospel says that he “took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the scriptures the things concerning himself,” I imagine him citing prophet after prophet whom their ancestors rejected and killed and then saying to his disciples, “in the same way they killed the Son of Man.”
And he tried telling his disciples this before he died. He told a parable about a landowner who left his estate in the hands of tenant farmers. At the time of the harvest, the landowner sent a representative (think: prophet) to collect his share of the crop, only the tenant farmers refused to honor the agreement. They beat the messenger and sent him away. The landowner sent several more representatives (prophets) and the tenant farmers did the same thing. Finally, the landowner thought to send his son. “Surely they will respect my son,” he thought. But they did not. They saw killing the son as their opportunity to permanently seize control of the land. So, they killed the son just as they had killed the previous messengers.
The scriptures clearly predicted that God’s incarnate son would suffer and die at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and teachers of religious law because that’s what happened to all of God’s previous representatives. What they did to God’s messengers they were doing to God. So, what would they do if God himself came to be with them?
Jesus was even more explicit about this theme in an exchange recorded in Luke 11.
Their ancestors killed the prophets, and they were now threatening to kill God’s one and only Son. Right on script. And consequently, Jesus says, they will be held responsible for the murder of all God’s prophets because their murder of God’s Son is the fulfillment of that motif, the fullest or completest example of their rejection of God.
I think the motif of the rejected prophet is also how Jesus’ disciples went on to “reason from the scriptures” that he was the Messiah. I’ve already mentioned this was their primary strategy, at least when trying to share the good news with Jews. In most cases the reader is simply told this is what they did but not given the actual content of the reasoning. For example, Acts 17:3 says the Apostle Paul “explained the prophecies and proved that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead,” but it doesn’t tell you what Paul actually said. What was his explanation? How did he prove that Jesus had to suffer and rise from the dead?
I think the answer is the motif of the rejected prophet, and one of the reasons I believe that is because of Stephen’s speech in Acts 7. Stephen is considered the first Christian martyr, but before he was stoned to death he gave a speech to his accusers. In that speech he recounts a good bit of their history as God’s people. He cites God’s covenant with Abraham, the betrayal of Joseph’s brothers, and Abraham’s descendants becoming slaves in Egypt. But his rhetorical point seems to be to get to the figure of Moses who rescued them from Egypt but whom they continually rejected. The hinge or turning point of Stephen’s speech is Moses’ prediction, “God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people.”[3]
God will raise up a prophet like Moses, someone who will save you but whom you will reject.
I think Stephen’s approach in Acts 7 is representative of how Jesus’ earliest followers “reasoned from the scriptures” that Jesus was the Messiah and that it was predicted he would suffer and die before entering his glory. And I think they learned that approach from Jesus himself.
This explains to me how it is fair to say the scriptures “clearly” predicted what would happen to Jesus. But it also explains to me why some people were persuaded but others were not. If the scriptures clearly predicted what would happen to Jesus in the way we conventionally think of that term, everyone should have believed. But if they predicted what would happen to Jesus in more of a “pattern-fulfillment” sort of way, sharing it would feel more like you were trying to prove something to someone, which is how the New Testament documents describe what they were doing.
In my pastoral experience, people struggle with prophecy. Either they struggle to accept the claim that the scriptures predicted the Jesus event with crystal ball accuracy (which I believe they are right to struggle with) or they uncritically accept that the scriptures did predict the Jesus event with crystal ball accuracy but swallow a number of interpretive problems along with it.
As for me, understanding the predictive quality of “Moses and the prophets” in terms of fulfillment, either their words taking on fuller, more complete meaning in light of Jesus or as fulfilling a specific pattern—the pattern of the rejected prophet—makes far more sense.
[1] Luke 24:26
[2] Luke 24:27
[3] Acts 7:37
If the scriptures clearly predicted what happened to him, Jesus would not have had to explain them. That he did have to explain them (and his followers would go on to do the same) suggests that while the scriptures are predictive, they are not predictive in the way we popularly understand the concept.
David wasn’t consciously predicting the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Isaiah wasn’t consciously predicting the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. They spoke and wrote about events in their own context, but their words took on a deeper level of meaning and significance—to use Jesus’ words, a “fulfillment”—when read through the lens of his life, death, and resurrection. David’s poetic utterance about God not allowing him to rot in the grave found its fulfillment in God raising Jesus from the dead. Isaiah’s reference to a woman giving birth found it’s fulfillment in the virgin birth of Jesus. Isaiah’s suffering servant found its fulfillment in Jesus’ suffering and death.
That’s one way to understand how prophecy “works.” Like Caiaphas prophesying that Jesus would die for the nation, prophets consciously understand their words to mean one thing, but they take on a fullness or completeness in Christ, a fullness or completeness the prophets themselves could not have imagined.
In this final post of my prophecy mini-series, I want to talk about one more way to understand how the writings of Moses and all the prophets “clearly” predict the Messiah would suffer and die before entering his glory: the motif of the rejected prophet.
The scriptures “predict” Jesus’ suffering and death by narrating a recurring pattern that Jesus “fulfills.” The pattern is the rejected prophet. God’s people rejected every prophetic messenger God sent to them. In the same spirit, they would eventually reject his son.
This appears to be how Jesus understood the predictive quality of his scriptures. In other words, when he said the scriptures clearly predicted what would happen to him, the motif of the rejected prophet is likely what he had mind. When Luke’s gospel says that he “took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the scriptures the things concerning himself,” I imagine him citing prophet after prophet whom their ancestors rejected and killed and then saying to his disciples, “in the same way they killed the Son of Man.”
And he tried telling his disciples this before he died. He told a parable about a landowner who left his estate in the hands of tenant farmers. At the time of the harvest, the landowner sent a representative (think: prophet) to collect his share of the crop, only the tenant farmers refused to honor the agreement. They beat the messenger and sent him away. The landowner sent several more representatives (prophets) and the tenant farmers did the same thing. Finally, the landowner thought to send his son. “Surely they will respect my son,” he thought. But they did not. They saw killing the son as their opportunity to permanently seize control of the land. So, they killed the son just as they had killed the previous messengers.
The scriptures clearly predicted that God’s incarnate son would suffer and die at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and teachers of religious law because that’s what happened to all of God’s previous representatives. What they did to God’s messengers they were doing to God. So, what would they do if God himself came to be with them?
Jesus was even more explicit about this theme in an exchange recorded in Luke 11.
47 What sorrow awaits you! For you build monuments for the prophets your own ancestors killed long ago. 48 But in fact, you stand as witnesses who agree with what your ancestors did. They killed the prophets, and you join in their crime by building the monuments! 49 This is what God in his wisdom said about you:[n] ‘I will send prophets and apostles to them, but they will kill some and persecute the others.’
50 “As a result, this generation will be held responsible for the murder of all God’s prophets from the creation of the world— 51 from the murder of Abel to the murder of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, it will certainly be charged against this generation.
Their ancestors killed the prophets, and they were now threatening to kill God’s one and only Son. Right on script. And consequently, Jesus says, they will be held responsible for the murder of all God’s prophets because their murder of God’s Son is the fulfillment of that motif, the fullest or completest example of their rejection of God.
I think the motif of the rejected prophet is also how Jesus’ disciples went on to “reason from the scriptures” that he was the Messiah. I’ve already mentioned this was their primary strategy, at least when trying to share the good news with Jews. In most cases the reader is simply told this is what they did but not given the actual content of the reasoning. For example, Acts 17:3 says the Apostle Paul “explained the prophecies and proved that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead,” but it doesn’t tell you what Paul actually said. What was his explanation? How did he prove that Jesus had to suffer and rise from the dead?
I think the answer is the motif of the rejected prophet, and one of the reasons I believe that is because of Stephen’s speech in Acts 7. Stephen is considered the first Christian martyr, but before he was stoned to death he gave a speech to his accusers. In that speech he recounts a good bit of their history as God’s people. He cites God’s covenant with Abraham, the betrayal of Joseph’s brothers, and Abraham’s descendants becoming slaves in Egypt. But his rhetorical point seems to be to get to the figure of Moses who rescued them from Egypt but whom they continually rejected. The hinge or turning point of Stephen’s speech is Moses’ prediction, “God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people.”[3]
God will raise up a prophet like Moses, someone who will save you but whom you will reject.
I think Stephen’s approach in Acts 7 is representative of how Jesus’ earliest followers “reasoned from the scriptures” that Jesus was the Messiah and that it was predicted he would suffer and die before entering his glory. And I think they learned that approach from Jesus himself.
This explains to me how it is fair to say the scriptures “clearly” predicted what would happen to Jesus. But it also explains to me why some people were persuaded but others were not. If the scriptures clearly predicted what would happen to Jesus in the way we conventionally think of that term, everyone should have believed. But if they predicted what would happen to Jesus in more of a “pattern-fulfillment” sort of way, sharing it would feel more like you were trying to prove something to someone, which is how the New Testament documents describe what they were doing.
In my pastoral experience, people struggle with prophecy. Either they struggle to accept the claim that the scriptures predicted the Jesus event with crystal ball accuracy (which I believe they are right to struggle with) or they uncritically accept that the scriptures did predict the Jesus event with crystal ball accuracy but swallow a number of interpretive problems along with it.
As for me, understanding the predictive quality of “Moses and the prophets” in terms of fulfillment, either their words taking on fuller, more complete meaning in light of Jesus or as fulfilling a specific pattern—the pattern of the rejected prophet—makes far more sense.
[1] Luke 24:26
[2] Luke 24:27
[3] Acts 7:37
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