The Kingdom of Heaven
As we study the Kingdom of Heaven, one of the most challenging things is learning and using the proper tools to interpret prophetic passages in the Bible. The Bible is composed of various types of literature: narrative, poetry, Epistle and prophecy. Obviously, these various types of literature are interwoven with each other into various books of the Bible. Each part of Scripture testifies in both type and picture to Christ. Whether we speak of the Old Testament Sacrificial system or the Prophetic visions in Daniel- all is looking and longing for a coming “Son of Man” who will be the saints Redeemer and King
The difficulties in interpreting Prophecy come from the various ways the Holy Spirit wove together future events, present realities and past events. The writers employ Type and symbol, as well as literal and figurative language.
One of the greatest dangers we all face in interpreting Scripture is to read our own experience into the Text. One of the fundamental principles for proper hermeneutics is stated like this: “Do not interpret Scripture in the light of experience but rather interpret experience in the light of Scripture.” The most common way we do this in regards to prophecy is to read contemporary events and then look for Scripture that corroborates our presupposition that “the end times are upon us.” Every age of Christian has faced this temptation. Recently I was reading about 17th century expectations that the Lord’s return was imminent. The Christians of that day saw ‘Popery’ as the Kingdom of the Anti-Christ, they saw the religious wars of Europe as the conflict between Christ’s true Church and the false, and they began to extrapolate from Bishop Usher’s History of the World that the Lord was sure to return and set up His Millennial reign in 1650 or 1656- and then after the Lord’s failure to show up, they revised the date to 1666.
The point is this. Although history rhymes and thus cyclical attempts by Satan to set up his world wide kingdom will exist, the Christian must nevertheless resist the temptation to over contemporize Scripture in light of our times. Instead, we must read the text, seeking to understand its meaning while faithfully proclaiming: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come.”
“The fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all other kingdoms and shall devour the whole earth, trample it and break it in pieces…But the court shall be seated and they shall take away his dominion…then the kingdom and dominion …shall be given to the people, the saints of the Most High, His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom.” Daniel 7:23-27
Because of grace,
Tim
