donbodo
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Re:Jw Reform From WithIn Or Out? - 2005/07/28 13:34
Dear BeachofEden,
The word I here used is preterism, but I am not a full preterist, because I think there are prophecies in the Bible that were not fulfilled in Bible times.
ablebodiedman,
I agree that the Christian scriptures are for the anointed, but this is not the same thing as saying that prophecies that have already been fulfilled necessarily must be fufilled again (and again). Yes, some of the early Christians remarked that prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures were being fulfilled again in their own time, but we have to ask two questions: 1) does this give us the right to do the same with every prophecy that was ever uttered? and 2) were they being literalist about it? (in other words, did they really think that the prophets were prophesying about them, or were they just noting that there was an application of the scriptures in their own time)?
I think we often have a wrong idea of what is meant by "fulfill." We suppose that it means when a prediction is literally accomplished by a fact. There is another sense in which the word “fulfill” is used in the New Testament. Jesus fulfilled Scripture in another way. To “fulfill,” in the Scripture sense, is “to carry out perfectly;” it is to develop a principle or truth to its ultimate result. Thus “love is the fulfilling of the law;” that is, it carries law out to its last results. “Fulfill my joy;” that is, carry it fully out. “He will fulfil the desire of those who fear him;” that is, give them all they desire. “It becomes us to fulfill all righteousness;” i.e., carry it all out perfectly. Thus the law is fulfilled, obedience is fulfilled, joy is fulfilled, in this way, by being carried to perfection.
Jesus and the apostles fulfilled all things in the law and the prophets by carrying each thing fully out to its perfection. “I came not to destroy, but to fulfill.” He sees a germ of good in all things; he comes to fulfill it. He destroys nothing. Thus it was that Jesus did not destroy, but fulfill, the Mosaic law. He took up its essence into his own doctrine, and dropped its accidental form. He fulfilled its morality by a higher morality. The law written on stone was fulfilled by a law written in the heart. He changed it from a law of negation and prohibition into one of attraction, of positive good. Thus, when the law said, “Do not murder,” Christ fulfilled it by saying, “Love your enemy.”
So we should be wary about assuming that when the apostles use a scripture and say it was fulfilled in Jesus or in them that it simply means that a prediction came true.
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