Pentecost 1: The Spirit Promised in Isaiah
Here’s the goal we’re working toward: Gaining a solid understanding of the Pentecost event, what it was and what it was not.
Since the pouring out of the Spirit on Pentecost was a fulfillment of promise (Act 1.4; 2.33,39), our first step toward understanding Pentecost is to investigate the OT prophecies of the then future working of the Spirit. We began last week with the prophecies regarding the Spirit in the book of Isaiah.
We saw in Isaiah 11.1-10, that a thorough anointing of the Spirit of the Lord would rest upon Messiah. The passage describes Messiah’s ministry from the time of His emergence (birth) out of the lineage of Jesse till the time when He raises a banner for the nations in the Yom YHWH (Day of the Lord). In our discussion we concluded that though this prophecy looked forward to a future agency of the Spirit during Christ’s earthly ministry and beyond, it did not describe hitherto unheard of ministries of the Spirit for Isaiah’s contemporaries, but rather a greater manifestation of already familiar ministries in the life of Messiah. The idea that the Holy Spirit gave wisdom and power was familiar and made sense to the Israelites of Isaiah’s day; the promise was that these workings of the Spirit would particularly and intensely characterize the coming Messiah.
What does this prophecy have to do with the future Pentecost event? Nothing directly, although we will see that there is a common thread having to do with the idea of “power.” What does the study of these OT passages have to do with hermeneutics? Well, as Kaj Martin pointed out, studying OT prophecies concerning the Spirit in order to understand Pentecost is an application of the principles of Context (HP 11) and Internal Consistency (HP 9), and involves us in applying the principle of the Already/Not Yet tension (HP 17).
Cumulative Fulfillment of Prophecy (HP 16)
The hermeneutical principle of Cumulative Fulfillment (HP 16) teaches that many biblical prophecies are fulfilled by a series of events, much like an artist’s canvas is filled up by multiple layers of painted objects. Just as a painting may progress from the application of a background scene, to the insertion of more focused objects in the middle ground, and finally completed by the subject in the foreground, so a biblical prophecy (P) may have multiple “background fulfillments” (f1, f2, etc.) before it is finally fulfilled by that telos (ultimate) person or event to which all other fulfillments pointed (fT).
Consider these examples of Cumulative Fulfillments of biblical prophecies:
Virgin will give birth (P, Isa 7.14) ... Prophetess bears son (f1, Isa 8.3) ... Virgin Mary gives birth to Jesus (fT, Mat 1.23).
Ruler will set up abomination of desolation in the Temple (P, Dan 9.26, 27) ... Antiochus Epiphanes desolates the sanctuary with an abomination (f1, 1Ma 1.54; 4.38; 6.7; Jwr 5.394) ... Pompey defiles the Temple by entering the Holy Place (f2, Jwr 1.152) ... The Romans desolate the Temple in AD 70 (f3, Jwr 6.266) ... The future Man of Lawlessness will proclaim himself God in the Temple (fT, 2Th 2.4).
Daniel predicts the Antichrist (P, Dan 7.8ff; 8.23; 9.26; 11.21), calling him the “little horn,” “stern-faced king,” “the ruler who will come,” and “contemptible person” ... Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164 BC) persecutes the Jews, suppresses the Scriptures, defiles and desolates the temple (f1) ... John (1st cent.) writes that many antichrists have come denying that Jesus is the Christ (f2, 1Jo 2.18,22; 2Jo 2.7) ... Adolph Hitler (1889-1945) attempts to eliminate the Jewish race (f3) ... A blasphemous Man of Lawlessness will yet come, a Beast who will exercise authority for 42 months and war against the saints until he is overthrown at the return of Christ (fT, 2Th 2; Rev 13).
It is important that we understand the principle of Cumulative Fulfillment. Otherwise we will be tempted to think a prophecy is completely fulfilled by the first event in history that has some correspondence to its details, and that the prophecy therefore has no further relevance for the future. We must not think that, because Antiochus Epiphanes fulfilled some of the Daniel’s predictions about the “Contemptible Person,” there is no more application of Daniel’s prophecy to the yet future Antichrist. We must not think that because the Romans fulfilled some of the details of Christ’s Olivet prophecy (Mat 24; Mar 13; Luk 21), that the Olivet Discourse has no further future fulfillment. The culmination of Daniel’s prophecy like that of the Olivet Discourse involves the coming in Glory of the Son of Man. Until that happens, along with any other yet unfulfilled details, these prophecies cannot be said to be completely fulfilled.
Pneumatology: God’s Law Written on Hearts
Christians have often misunderstood God’s promise to write His law on His people’s hearts, in Jer 31.33. Christians have interpreted it as a promise fulfilled by the new relationship we have with the Holy Spirit since Pentecost. This interpretation implies the erroneous idea that before Pentecost God’s people only had the external impetus of the Mosaic law to lead them in the path of righteousness, but since Pentecost we have the indwelling of the Spirit to guide us in our obedience to God. This is a serious distortion of the real history of the Holy Spirit’s ministry to God’s people.
To interpret what it really means for God to “put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts,” we first apply the rule of Context (Hermeneutics Principle 11). Remember that the rule of Context doesn’t simply point us to the verses before and after Jer 31.33, but also to the historical and cultural context within which the prophecy was given. Studying our context quickly causes us to recognize that Jeremiah did not address this prophecy to the first believers after Pentecost nor to first-century Christians in general nor to believers during the “church age.” It was addressed to the people of Israel and Judah (Jer 30.03-04; 31.01,02,04,27,31), also referred to as Jacob (Jer 30.10,18), Zion (Jer 30.17), Ephraim (Jer 31.06,09,18,20) Rachel’s children (Jer 31.15), and those with whose forefathers God made a covenant when He took them out of Egypt (Jer 31.32). While the prophecy certainly has application to Christian believers, it is primarily about the spiritual and geographical restoration of national Israel at the time when they will wholeheartedly embrace God and their Messiah whom God will raise up for them (Jer 30.09). And remember that in Jeremiah’s time, Israel/Judah as a nation was far from God. Generally, speaking their religion at best consisted only of external observances, while at worst they engaged in open idolatry. Therefore, the promise of God’s laws being written on people’s hearts is not about a new ministry of the Spirit after Pentecost, but about a revival of love and obedience toward God on the part of national Israel.
Furthermore, we must not think that since God will write His law on the people’s hearts in the future He had never written them on people’s hearts during Jeremiah’s time or before. On the contrary, all true believers throughout time have had God’s laws written on their hearts. We discover this by applying the principle of Internal Consistency (HP 9). We apply this rule when we do something as simple as checking cross references in our Bible’s margins. We look for other passages in Scripture that confirm or negate what we think our passage under scrutiny may mean. If we thought that Jer 31.33 meant that writing God’s laws on people’s hearts was a previously unknown ministry of the Holy Spirit, cross references quickly set us straight. In 1000 BC, David described his own experience of the law written in his heart in Psa 40.08:
“I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”
David also spoke of this quality of having God’s laws written on one’s heart as characteristic of the righteous man:
Psa 37.30 The mouth of the righteous man utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks what is just. 31 The law of his God is in his heart; his feet do not slip.
We may also compare the words of Psalm 119:
Psa. 119.111 Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart. 112 My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end.
Now, a proper understanding of man’s fallenness and the natural state of his heart (Jer 17.09), compels us to believe that a good heart that loves God and His laws can only be produced by the Holy Spirit (1Co 06.11; 1Pe 1.02). Therefore, we must conclude that the Holy Spirit has always been writing God’s laws on the hearts of those who manifest a devotion to God. More than that, the Spirit has even been writing God’s laws on the hearts of unbelievers, Jew and Gentile, providing all men with a conscience (Rom 2.15)!
What then does Jeremiah’s prophecy that God will write His laws on the hearts of Israel and Judah mean? Not that Israel had never had His laws written on their hearts before (see Deu 30.14)! To suggest this is to interpret the final part of Jer 31.33 as meaning that God had never been Israel’s God before and they had never been God’s people before. Rather than this absurd interpretation, we must recognize that the promise is to restore Israel and Judah to the ideal relationship with God to which they had once aspired. This restoration or return is a common theme in Jeremiah and it is a matter of the heart:
Jer. 24.7 I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.
The promise then, is for a full spiritual restoration of Israel, a complete relational healing between them and their God. This revival will differ from others in that every person in the nation will turn to God (Jer 31.34) and the externals of the law, historically so important to Israel, will become superfluous to their essential relationship with YHWH. The new future spiritual state of the nation, essentially a new covenant, will be mediated by Messiah Himself with the expectation that, as a nation, Israel will never again apostatize to hypocritical, external religion. The Holy Spirit will be the architect behind the scenes of this revival and sanctification of the nation as He has been behind every other revival and sanctifying work.
What application does this prophecy have for Christian believers? First, the prophecy serves as an apologetic to demonstrate that the Mosaic covenant as understood by the first century rabbis was inadequate (Heb 08.06-13). Secondly, Jeremiah’s prophecy serves as a reminder to both Jew and Gentile that the only effectual covenant is a covenant of the heart (Mar 07.06; Rom 02.15; 10.9; Heb 10.19-22; 1Pe 3.15; cf. 2Co 3.3; 5.12).
What does all this teach us about the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit? That, consistent with the hermeneutical principle of Already/Not Yet (HP 17), the Holy Spirit was already writing God’s law on Israelite hearts in Jeremiah’s time and before, even as He is writing it on the hearts of Jews who are receiving Messiah today, BUT He is not yet writing God’s law on the hearts of Israelites in the ubiquitous way that He will in the future when Messiah reigns on earth.
Rapture Hermeneutics No. 2: The Seven Unities
The Seven Unities of Eph 4.4-6, which serve as our hermeneutical principles 1 through 7, form the theological boundary within which our interpretations of Scripture must stay.
We discovered in our discussion that the Pre-Trib rapture doctrine impinges upon 4 of those unities. The specific idea of a Pre-Trib rapture does not itself violate the Unities, but the underlying theological system of Dispensationalism upon which the Pre-Trib doctrine relies, does, depending upon the extreme to which Dispensational ideas are taken.
An extreme (or distorted) Dispensational understanding of salvation, which proposes that people in the OT dispensation were saved by the works of the law or by performing temple sacrifices, violates the principle of One Faith (HP 5). There has only been one way by which anyone could ever be justified before God. The Pre-Trib doctrine does not depend upon a false understanding of salvation in the OT era, but it is sometimes a doctrinal bedfellow with such thinking.
Again, an extreme Dispensational interpretation of the mistranslation in 2Th 2.7 asserts that the Holy Spirit will depart the world with the believers in the Pre-Trib Rapture. Since Dispensationalism teaches that there will be people saved during the subsequent Great Tribulation, the extreme interpretation of 2Th 2.7 implies a “different spirit” by which the Tribulation Saints are saved! This idea would of course violate the unity of the One Spirit (HP 2).
In a different vein, when Pre-Trib teaching asserts that the Pre-Trib Rapture is The Blessed Hope of Tit 2.13, it thereby violates the unity of the One Hope (HP 3) by implying that anyone saved during the Great Tribulation or after must be satisfied with a different hope.
The instances above are only potential, extreme and hopefully rare cases in which Pre-Trib teaching might violate the Seven Unities. However, Dispensational thinking, hand-in-hand with the Pre-Trib idea, consistently violates the unity of the One Body (HP 1). Any doctrine of the church that emphasizes a disconnection between the present church and the saints of other eras, flies in the face of the One Body unity. However, the Pre-Trib Rapture teaching depends upon this disconnection. The reason is the last verse of Daniel. All futurists, Dispensational or not, agree that, according to Dan 12.13, Daniel will be resurrected after the final days of the Great Tribulation. If Daniel is part of The Church, then The Church cannot be raptured before the Tribulation (unless some members of The Church are inexplicably left behind). Therefore, for the Pre-Trib Rapture doctrine to stand, Dispensationalists must make Daniel part of a different group than The Church. But this violates the One Body, so Dispensational differentiation between The Church and Old Testament Saints cannot stand. And neither can the Pre-Trib Rapture doctrine.
