Gospel and Kingdom, Chapter 8, "The Kingdom Revealed in Prophecy"

The Prophets as Mediators of God’s Revelation

For the purposes of our discussion, we may divide the prophets of Israel into two main groups. The first group comprises the prophets who live in the period of the kingdom in history, as described in chapter 7, and whose message is mainly oriented to that epoch of revelation, that time of history.

The second group consists of those living in the period after the schism between Judah and Israel, when the history of Israel ceases to contribute positively to the revelation of the kingdom. In other words, between the division of the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.

The old order of prophets belong to the kingdom of God, as it is revealed in Israel's history. The definitive prophet of this period is Moses. In the Old Testament, a variety of activities are described as prophetic, so that we must avoid being simplistic in the description of the prophetic office.

Nevertheless, it is fair to say that a prophet was essentially one who was called to communicate God's revelation to people. This is the aspect that we now consider. In the epoch of kingdom revelation in Israel's history, it is Moses who mediates, that is, communicates, the declared purpose of God to save Israel out of Egypt, and who is God's instrument in carrying out this purpose.

Later it is Moses who receives the covenant law of Sinai, by which the people are constituted as the people of God's kingdom. The entire history of the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham, as it is worked out from Moses to Solomon, is regulated by the kingdom ideal contained in the Sinai covenant.

The history of Israel in the promised land is given its meaning within the framework of the promise to Abraham, the release from Egypt, and the covenant of Sinai. All the prophets after Moses stand as the watchdogs of the society of God's people, working always within the framework of the covenant of Sinai.

The prophets hold the law as a mirror so that individuals and the whole nation may see how they transgress. They call people back to fateful obedience to the covenant, and, when necessary, denounce the unbelief and disobedience of their day.

The prophetic office is closely related to the conditions laid down for enjoyment of the covenant blessings. Although Israel's salvation has for its basis God's gracious acts in saving the people out of Egypt, there is a close link between enjoyment of the final outcome of salvation and Israel's obedience.

At first sight, this appears to mean that Israel's salvation is achieved by obedience to the law. But this is not so. Grace comes first in the saving acts of God, then law binds the saved people to God as his people.

Should these people refuse to accept their responsibility to live as God's people, then they must suffer removal from the land of blessing. This conditional nature of blessing is clearly set out in many parts of the Sinai covenant, not least in the Ten Commandments and in Deuteronomy.

Samuel, Nathan, Gad, Ahijah, and Shemiah are among the prophets of the age of prophecy stretching from Moses to Elijah and Elisha. All of these men are oriented towards the Sinai covenant and the maintenance of the kingdom of God as it is meant to be expressed in the history of Israel.

Even when the kingdom of Israel is divided and begins on the slippery downwards grade to destruction, the overlapping ministries of Elijah and Elisha combine in an effort to bring the people of God back to covenant obedience.

In keeping with this here and now concern of the prophets, we find that their words of judgment and grace are worked out in the context of the present kingdom epoch. With the ministry of Amos, we enter into a new period of prophecy, which both continues certain features of the old order and also introduces some significant new characteristics.

Covenant Breaking, Judgment, and the Remnant

While we must be careful not to oversimplify the prophetic message, it is possible to discern a distinct development and emphasis, particularly in the prophetic view of eschatology or the end time. There are three essential ingredients in the oracles of these later prophets.

First, there is the covenant of Sinai, which remains the rule of faith and behavior. This God-given law is never considered a temporary thing. It stands as the expression of God's character, which is unchanging, and as such, it is the point of reference when the prophets interpret events as God's dealings with Israel.

Against this law, the conduct of the covenant people is seen to be lacking and a terrible provocation towards God. Whatever specific aspect of transgression the individual prophets concentrate on, the underlying implications are always the same.

Israel or Judah has broken covenant with the merciful God who saved this people for himself. Amos, for example, emphasizes social injustices. Isaiah's opening chapters detail the formalism of Israel's worship as well as outright idolatry and apostasy.

Ezekiel stresses the apostasy in Judah before the final destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. The prophets do not really differentiate between social and religious sins any more than the Sinai covenant does.

All sin is transgression of the covenant. Secondly, the prophets are the dutiful mediators of the message of judgment. The particularizing of covenant breaking in the accusations against various forms of evil doing is the grounds for the pronouncement of impending judgment.

In so far as these prophets are still oriented to the present kingdom epoch, there is a conditional element to the message which indicates that repentance and faithful obedience may yet avert the judgment.

More and more, however, the prophets present a picture of a terrible and final judgment. This aspect partly reflects the reality of the situation in that history gave no grounds for optimism. Given the pattern of rebelliousness that can be discerned from the very moment Israel is saved from the Egyptian captivity, there is little basis for confidence in the outcome unless this sinful bent of human character is taken care of.

Consequently, we notice a growing sense of the inevitable course of history towards the self-destruction of the covenant people. Even the most concerted efforts at reform are powerless to correct the situation.

The form of the judgment to come is described in various ways, but we may discern two emphases. One is to depict a fairly immediate and local judgment of God, and even retrospectively to point to past events as warning judgments.

In the northern kingdom of Israel, the approaching doom is pinpointed as the Assyrian invasion, which subsequently brought about the end of that nation in 722 BC. In Judah, the fate of Israel is cited as a warning, an example, and a similar fate at the hands of Babylon is predicted.

The other emphasis is to portray judgment as something which is of universal or cosmic proportions. We cannot separate these emphases of the judgment oracles as if the prophets clearly distinguished the judgment upon Israel and Judah from universal judgment.

From our vantage point in time, we see separate historical events, the destruction of Samaria in 722 BC and the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC, and we may anticipate a future final judgment, but we must not think that the failure of prophecy to distinguish clearly between these two aspects is due purely to a lack of historical perspective.

Theologically, all these manifestations of judgment are inextricably bound together. God's judgment of sin in the covenant people is not, in principle, different from his judging sin in all humanity. The third major element in prophetic preaching is the declaration that God is faithful to the covenant, and on that basis, he will save a remnant of the people to be his own true possession.

Like the judgment oracles, the salvation oracles depict two related aspects of saving restoration. God will restore the covenant people to their inheritance, and he will also restore the whole universe to a glory which has not been known since man was ejected from Eden.

Judgment on the Nations and the Rise of Apocalyptic

There is another prominent feature in prophetic preaching which demands comment. Although little evidence exists outside the book of Jonah that prophets ever preached to the Gentiles, there are many recorded oracles directed against the nations although preached to Israel or Judah.

In fact, these oracles are of such significance that they have sometimes been collected and presented as a group in the formation of the prophetic books. For example, in Amos chapters 1 and 2, in Isaiah chapter 13 to 23, in Jeremiah from chapters 46 to 51, Ezekiel chapter 25 to 32.

The judgment against the nations is part of the overall judgment of God against sin, which is noted above. We should also note, however, the relationship of judgment to salvation. In judging the nations, God is putting down all rebellion against him.

This activity is integral to the establishing of the kingdom of God. Thus, the judgment of the nations is seen not only as part of general judgment, but also as the accompaniment of the salvation of God's people.

God is the warrior who fights for his people and rescues them from captivity and oppression. He will judge the nations for having directed their ungodliness at God's own people. The exilic prophets, Ezekiel and Daniel, are those who ministered to the exiles in Babylon.

The post-exilic prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, ministered to the restored community after the return from Babylon. We note them here only to point out that with the Babylonian catastrophe, either a present reality or a past event, these prophets place a greater emphasis on the universal and final acts of God, both in salvation and judgment.

It is during this period that a new way of expressing future expectations is developed in the form of apocalyptic. Actually, most Jewish apocalyptic writings appeared in the period between the two testaments, but some elements of it may be discerned in Daniel and Zechariah.

In the visions of Daniel, chapter 7 and 8, and Zechariah, chapters 1 to 6, many apocalyptic characteristics are seen, including symbolism and bizarre imagery. More important for this discussion is the highly developed sense that the present age will end and a new age will be introduced in which God's kingdom is established.

The kingdom is seen as God's new creation which cannot be brought in by reformation, but only by a radical upheaval of the whole created order. Just as the pre-exilic prophets had to interpret the failure of Solomon's kingdom and project the hope of the believer for the kingdom of God into the future, the post-exilic prophets were given the task of interpreting the manifest failure of the return from exile to produce the kingdom.

Once again, the human cause is identified as sin, and the remedy is to be a final and decisive intervention of God in the future. Now we return to the pattern of future hope to which all the writing prophets contributed.

The Future Kingdom: Return, Renewal, and New Creation

It may be summed up quite simply, the form of future history will be a replay of past history, but with a significant difference. All the hope of the future is expressed in terms of a return to the kingdom structures revealed in the history of Israel from Exodus to Solomon.

The great difference is that none of the weaknesses of the past will be present. In short, sin and its effects will be eradicated. The prophets depict a continuity from the past to the future, as well as a distinction between them.

All that God has revealed about his kingdom through Israel's history remains valid, but it is modified to the extent that the new view of the kingdom leaves no place for a further disruption and decline.

The restored kingdom will be in the context of a new heaven and a new earth, and all this new creation of God will be permanent, perfect, and glorious. The simplest way to demonstrate this characteristic of prophetic hope is to list the ingredients of Israel's history which add up to the pattern of the kingdom of God and then show how these are repeated in the prophetic futurism.

In the previous chapter, we saw the following characteristics. One, captivity is a contradiction to the kingdom. Two, the Exodus events as God's mighty act of salvation on the basis of the Abrahamic covenant.

Three, the Sinai covenant binding Israel to God as his people. Four, the entry and possession of Canaan. Five, the focusing of God's rule through the temple, the Davidic king, and the city of Jerusalem.

Why does God move at all to do a work of salvation for a rebellious nation? From the point of view of the Old Testament, it is because he is faithful to his covenant made with Abraham as an everlasting covenant.

In Genesis chapter 17, verse 7, God wills to show steadfast love or covenant love to his chosen people. Now, on the basis of this covenant love, God is doing a new work and each of the features of the historic kingdom revelation will be renewed in the last days when God acts finally for salvation.

One, the new captivity. The predictions of the pre-exilic prophets that Judah will be devastated and the people taken to Babylon provide a very obvious analogy with the Egyptian captivity, which is not overlooked.

There is one new development. The reason for this captivity is clearly stated as sin or transgression of the covenant. Two, the new exodus. The pattern of the Egyptian exodus is recalled in many oracles of the return from Babylon as in Jeremiah chapter 16, verses 14 to 15, Isaiah chapter 43, verses 15 to 21.

A number of passages in Isaiah allude to the exodus from Egypt and describing the coming exodus from Babylon. Three, the new covenant. From one point of view, it is accurate to say that the prophets see a renewal of several covenants, the Noach in Isaiah chapter 54, verses 8 to 10, the Abrahamic, which is in Isaiah chapter 49, verses 5 to 9, and Jeremiah chapter 33, verses 25 to 26, the Mosaic in Jeremiah chapter 31, verses 31 to 36, and the Davidic in Jeremiah chapter 33, verses 19 to 26.

But it is easy to see from Jeremiah chapter 33, 19 to 26, that the Abrahamic and the Davidic covenants are closely related. There is, in fact, an essential unity to all the covenants. Jeremiah shows the unity between the Mosaic covenant and the new covenant in chapter 33, verses 31 to 34.

For the new covenant is not a new thing replacing the old, but rather the old renewed and applied in such a way that it will be perfectly kept for the new nation. The prophets predict the return of a renewed people, a fateful remnant.

This is a people whose heart is changed and to whom a new spirit is given so that law is fulfilled within them. Then God will establish the nation in the land and Zion will be rebuilt. The new temple in Zion will be glorious.

It will be a work of the Spirit of God. In accordance with the covenant with David in 2 Samuel chapter 7, the new David will reign as God's shepherd king over the people. And when all this glory of the new Zion is revealed, the nations will also receive a blessing in accordance with the promise to Abraham.

Five, the new creation. We have already seen that there is a continuity between the kingdom of God revealed in Eden and the kingdom of God revealed in Israel's history. It is therefore not surprising that the prophets occasionally refer to the Edenic kingdom as the pattern for the new kingdom to come and even mingle elements of Eden and Canaan.

Isaiah speaks of the redemption of Israel in the framework of the new creation, new heaven and a new earth. In Isaiah chapter 65, 17 to 21, in the context of this cosmic recreation, the new Jerusalem is in new Eden in which the harmony of nature is restored.

All the references to the deserts becoming fertile recall the expectations that Canaan would be a land flowing with milk and honey and imagery borrowed from Eden. God will make Zion's wilderness like Eden.

When Judah is restored after the Persian takeover in 538 BC, the situation is to all intents and purposes set for the great day of salvation predicted by the prophets. In fact, such fulfillment of prophecy as does take place is only a pale shadow of the expectation.

The books of Ezra, Nehemiah, along with Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi give quite a clear picture of the reconstruction. All the ingredients of the kingdom promises are there, but far from exceeding the former glory, they do not come anywhere near to even matching it.

Hence, the need for the post-exilic prophets to explain why this is not the hope for day and to project hope into the future yet again. This hope is often to flicker like a candle in the wind as year after year sees change, but never true release from the oppressive domination of the foreigners.

The Post-Exilic Hope and the Waiting Remnant

After the close of the Old Testament era during the Persian ascendancy, the Jews underwent many trials. More than once, the covenant faith was seriously threatened by pagan philosophies and lifestyles.

The temple was desecrated by Hellenists and many martyrs shed their blood. Jewish faith developed different expressions through numbers of sects, Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes. While power in the Near East changed hands from the Persians to the Greeks and finally to the might of Imperial Rome.

Through it all, a fateful remnant waited for the consolation of Israel.