The bible is written with God’s wisdom. So, it is full of His wisdom.
If we hope to understand this book, we must follow His intention or His way o
f writing the book.
What we understand from multiple reading of this book is:
Old Testament Israel is the pattern of New Testament Israel, Christians.
Scripture clearly writes these two groups as parallel:
Israel: start from 12 tribes
New Testament Israel (Church): start from 12 disciples
Israel: 70 peoples are sent to Egypt
New Testament Israel (Church):70 disciples are sent for the gospel
By the way, concerning prophecy:
If we pay attention to the prophecy concerning Old Testament Israel, God
gave them much prophecy:
In the Old Testament, there are many prophecy books. Say, the book of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel are full of prophecy about Israel. In addition, we can see other minor books of prophecy like Hosea, Joel, Micah, etc.
However, if we pay attention to the New Testament, we can not see not so many prophecies about the church’s future. In the book of Revelation, we can see the prophecy about seven churches in Asia, but it only uses one or two chapters. Not so many.
Don’t you think it is unbalanced?
Presently, we can count billions of Christians in this present world. If we are actually at the end of the world, this relates to all of these many Christians. So, there should be a lot of warning. But, only a few prophecies are written in the bible.
Contrary, if we see the number of people, Old Testament Israel, it counts only one million or around so, they are not so many people; however, they have received many prophecies.
The New Testament Christians are so many, but there are only a few prophecies. Why is it so unbalanced?
My idea is: The history of God’s people in the Old Testament will be repeated
in the history of God’s people in the New Testament. That is to say, the prophecy of the Old Testament will be fulfilled in both God’s people in the Old Testament and also the God’s people in the New Testament history.
How do you think so? This kind of idea is not biblical?
I do not think so.
If we see our Lord’s prophecy about the end of the world, we can see a similar idea.
“Matthew 24:1 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.
2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye, not all these things? verily I say unto you; there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”
This is the prophecy about the temple’s destruction. We know this one prophecy will be fulfilled on two occasions. That is to say;
1)In AD70, the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed by Roman soldiers. Many Jews (Old Testament God’s people) are killed.
2)At the end of the world, temple destruction will be repeated again.
So, this prophecy will be fulfilled twice on both God’s people in the Old Testament and also on God’s people in the New Testament.
In addition, we can see a similar case on the book of Daniel as below;
“Daniel 9: 24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations, he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. “
This prophecy will be fulfilled twice, doubly.
That is to say; this prophecy will be fulfilled on both;
The first coming of Jesus Christ and
the second coming (end of the world) of Jesus Christ
God, who describes the bible, has written this passage like so, intentionally.
And through this, I believe God gives us a hint to understand the way or rule to understand biblical prophecy. That is to say; one prophecy will be fulfilled on both God’s people in the Old Testament history and also on God’s people in the New Testament history.
So, we may now have the reason why so few prophecies provided on the New Testament.
The reason is: Most of the prophecies about Old Testament people will be fulfilled in both Old and New Testament history.
