The occasion, or moral ground, of prophecy is departure from God, who sends thereon His word, which convicts of the sin, and holds out His intervention in power to deliver those who believe, by the judgment of His and their adversaries. This we see verified in Eden from the fall of man. God at once appears on the scene, brings home to conscience the sin of each, and, in pronouncing judgment on the Serpent, points to the blessing that hangs on the triumph of the bruised Seed of woman, the bruiser of the Serpent's head. A state of innocence before, or of fidelity afterward, drew out no prophecy; which, on the contrary, laid the evil of the creature bare, and held out God's sure resource in bringing in not only judgment of the evil, but a better hope: the first man superseded by the Second.
So it is always as a general principle. If Enoch prophesied, it was, Behold, the Lord came with His holy myriads to execute judgment against all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly works, and of all their hard speech against Him, If Noah so opened his mouth, it was the wickedness of Canaan that drew out the curse, whatever the blessing to Shem and Japheth. It was the foreseen oppression of Egypt and iniquity of the Amorites that formed the background for the predicted gift of the promised land to the seed of Abraham; and it was the too plain failure of his sons which led the way for dying Jacob to tell beforehand what should befall them in the latter days, culminating in the advent of Shiloh, to whom the obedience (or gathering) of the peoples shall be, however long the interval between the first part and the second. Man's theory is that the people of Israel, their kings, and their prophets, stand forth in the history and in the prophecy of scripture as the representatives of God's cause and of goodness; and that as the history shows them imperfect representatives, so they can only be imperfectly the subjects of predicted blessings, which did or did not belong to them in the measure of their faithfulness. Thus Moab was not all evil, Israel was not all good. Prophecy spoke without reserve of God's triumphs and of His servants: if Israel belongs to God only imperfectly, her share in God's triumphs must in that proportion be imperfect also. But the theory does not hold: for it is alleged on the one hand that Moab, Ammon, Amalek, are vanished out of history; it is allowed on the other that Israel exists still unchanged. Yet what were the sins of those nations compared with Israel's, if at least we bow to the Lord's estimate (Matt. 11:21-2421Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. 23And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee. (Matthew 11:21‑24))? Jonah's case, too, is misused to prove that it all depends on circumstances whether prophecy could be fulfilled or not. In all cases the fulfillment is supposed to fall short of the strength of the prediction, because it was aimed at a more unmixed good and evil than ever was in any people. Christ, therefore, remains the real subject of all prophecy for good; the Son of David has reigned for more than eighteen hundred years, owned over all the earth as King and Lord, and of His kingdom there shall be no end!
Scripture in no way sanctions this sliding scale, and the uncertain or partial fulfillment it involves. The only thing true is that Christ is the object and security, not only of all God's promises to faith, but of executing His wrath and threats. He is the Son of God, in whom there is life eternal for those that believe; He is the Son of man, the executor of judgment on those that believe not. That God used Jonah's preaching to awaken the Ninevites to repentance for a season did not hinder. Nineveh's utter ruin ere long, as Nahum predicted, nor Nahum's going on to the last Assyrian, when Jehovah will make a full end, and affliction shall not rise up a second time. He may go forth in the pride of power, imagining evil against Jehovah; but, behold, upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! Keep thy feasts, O Judah, perform thy vows; for the worthless shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off. The Ruler out of Bethlehem shall be thy peace, when the Assyrian shall come into the land. Prophecy whatever it may take in of partial accomplishment, stays not short of the consummation at the end of the age, when He, whose right it is, takes the Kingdom. Thus what is partially accomplished amply encourages that faith which ever waits and longs for His appearing, whilst it furnishes material, because it is necessary partial till then, for the unbelief which doubts the past and disregards the future, because its pleasure and its confidence are in man, not in the true God whom it knows not.
But the thoughts even of good men are far from God's mind and counsel; and deeply interesting it is to trace how true it is that moral ruin in man's past brings out more and more God's voice in prophecy. Never were the Israelites in the wilderness lower than when Balaam was hired of Balak to curse them, after their manifold unfaithfulness in the day of temptation. His false prophet went forth to meet! But Jehovah met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth. In His moral government He passes over no fault in His people, but blames and chastises. Before the enemy He brings out His thoughts and grace and purposes of glory. Every effort of Balak draws forth a fresh blessing from Balaam, compelled to be the mouthpiece in Jehovah's hand. Israel dwell alone, are justified, and beautiful in God's eyes; they have Messiah coming to be their crown of glory and power. But even so it is Israel, and not some other people, and carrying all expressly on to “the latter days.” For no prophecy of scripture is of its own or isolated interpretation. It is part of God's revelation in view of Christ's glory on earth in that day.
So Moses' song in Deut. 32 flows from Jehovah's unchangeable purpose, whatever the undisguised failure of Israel, the center of His government of the world (ver. 8). The very call of the Gentiles is but to provoke them to jealousy (ver. 21), as the apostle drew from this long after, when it came to pass (Romans 10). No doubt, the Gentiles proved utterly unworthy, and God will take vengeance on them (vers.4o-42); but even when He restores Israel as He will (ver.36), He calls the Gentiles to rejoice with His people (ver. 43); a principle already, as we know, accomplished in the gospel, but to be fulfilled in the Kingdom of Messiah.
When the priests failed as fully as the people, we hear of Samuel raised up on God's part; as Peter says (Acts 3), “beginning With Samuel and all the prophets.” And as the prophet was raised up in sovereign grace to speak for God, so a King is held out even before this as the hope of Israel. “And I will raise me up a faithful priest that shall be according to that which is in my heart and in my mind; and I will build him a sure house; and he shall walk before mine anointed forever.” The Messiah is the key, the King in God's counsel, the new and only true Anointed, before whom the priest should walk (soon to have an earnest in David and Solomon, who rejected the house of Ithamar, and brought forward Zadok of the line of Phinehas), as will be seen fully in the Kingdom.
Then, when the kings even of David's line fail more and more palpably, the prophets proper, who were inspired to write their imperishable books whether on a great or on a lesser scale, were raised up of God. Here, if we take Isaiah as a sample of the greater, and Hosea of the less, we may see the same principle as clearly at least as ever. For the introductory chapters (1-5) of Isaiah self-evidently lay the ruin of Israel as the basis of his announcing divine intervention in judgment of evil, and mercy to the repentant remnant, as chapter 6 reveals his formal inauguration on that very ground. Nor is Hosea 1 less explicit, called during the same kings of Judah, but adding Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, with children given as signs of the kingdom ceasing from the house of Israel; of no mercy thereon; and, what was still more serious, of Lo-Ammi pronounced; yet withal of the gathering of both another day under one head; “for great shall be the day of Jezreel,” thus carrying us on to the glorious scenes of the latter day. In both the ruin was imminent and irretrievable, save provisionally, till Messiah reign over the earth.
But Christ was wholly rejected in that capacity, as the New Testament clearly shows, in fulfillment of Psalms 2 and a crowd of Old Testament prophecies. He has never reigned for one day as Son of David. Undoubtedly the cross brought in higher things, and He sits on the Father's throne, where David never did, never will sit; as by-and-by He will sit on His own throne. Then not only will the holy hill of Zion be the seat of His power, but He will ask and receive the nations for His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession, to break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel—a statement of His rule clearly future, and incompatible with His grace as now under the gospel. And though we Christians gladly own Him Lord, “King” does not express His relation to us, but Head, for we are members of His body; and the difference is as momentous in practice as in doctrine. In that day, when Israel is restored, and spiritually as well as literally in their land under Messiah and the new covenant, the nations shall be blessed, and bow before the Son of man. In that day the races that have vanished out of history will once more reappear, according to prophecy, as Isaiah distinctly declares (chap. 11:14), and others also. The mouth of Jehovah has spoken it. Infidels cry, Impossible. Good men as credulously listen to their vanity, as they fear to trust the word that lives and abides forever. But God will justify it in its time, and all the more, because not a trace appears now. Scripture cannot be broken. Races remain, whatever the shiftings of time, place, or circumstances, as Jehovah will prove in honor of His King.
John 13:31, 3231Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him. (John 13:31‑32), puts the case from His own lips in the light of God. The moral glory of the cross is the basis of the Son of man's heavenly glory, and this straightway, i.e., without waiting for the Kingdom which He is to receive, when He returns in visible power and splendor. Then only will the inhabitants of the world learn the righteousness which they dislike and disdain; while favor is shown as now in the gospel of grace to the wicked (Isaiah 26:9, 109With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. 10Let favor be showed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord. (Isaiah 26:9‑10)). Meanwhile Jesus is a world-rejected Lord, but on the throne of His Father—a seat which none ever had or can share; and He will only take His own throne (Revelation at His coming. And hence the only true place of the Christian now, according to the uniform strain of New Testament teaching and sanctioned practice, is where fellowship with Christ's sufferings and conformity to His death are the highest privileges. We who are His are called in the measure of our faith and love to share loyally His reproach in separation from the world till He comes, who is Lord of all. Then shall we be with Him where He is and forever; then too shall we reign with Him, instead of being blessed and reigned over here below: a prospect bright beyond all thought, so that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory.