prophecies in the bible

The Kingdom Breaks Forth

Lois Tverberg

In Matthew 2:6 we read a famous prophecy from Micah about the town of Bethlehem:

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times. (Micah 5:2)

This is one of several messianic passages in the book of Micah. Christians are largely unaware of another passage in Micah that has been considered very messianic by Jews over the ages:

I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob; I will surely bring together the remnant of Israel. I will bring them together like sheep in a pen, like a flock in its pasture; the place will throng with people. One who breaks open the way will go up before them; they will break through the gate and go out. Their king will pass through before them, the LORD at their head. (Micah 2:12-13)

This passage was understood as quite messianic in the time of Jesus. To us, it doesn’t make a lot of sense unless we understand the imagery behind it. Once you understand it, you see that it clarifies one of Jesus’ most puzzling sayings and makes bold claims to be the fulfillment some of the most important messianic themes in the Old Testament.

Regathering His People

Micah 2:12 begins by describing the gathering of the “remnant of Israel.” What does that mean? At the end of the book of Deuteronomy, God forewarns Israel that they would wander from the covenant that he made with them. He says that if they forsake him, they will lose the promised land, where they worshiped him and will be scattered to different lands, where they will serve other gods.

However, he promises that if they repent, he will regather this remnant of his people who seek him. It’s very important to realize that to “regather” doesn’t just refer to a physical gathering, but spiritual renewal too. God will regather his people spiritually, to give them hearts to worship him. Deuteronomy 30 says,

So it shall be when all of these things have come upon you, … and you call them to mind in all nations where the LORD your God has banished you, and you return to the LORD your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul…the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the hearts of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live. (Deut 30: 1-3, 6)

Even back when Israel made the covenant, God promised them that even after they broke his covenant, God would search them out and bring them back to him again if they repented. Several times in the Old Testament, God is described as a shepherd that will search for his people (see Jer. 23, Ezek. 34). When Jesus describes himself as the Good Shepherd in John 10, he is claiming that he is the fulfillment this promise.

The Flock and the Shepherd

Looking back at the Micah passage, it says the flock will be gathered together like many sheep in a pen, and “one who breaks open the way will go up before them; they will break through the gate and go out.” What does this mean? Here, you need to know how shepherds took care of sheep in biblical times.

The shepherd would lead the sheep around open land to graze all day, and at evening, would herd them into a makeshift pen made out of boulders rolled near the mouth of a cave. Sometimes the shepherd would even sleep just inside the rocks so that he blocked the exit for the sheep himself, as if he was the “gate” for the sheep (think of John 10:7-9).

In the morning, one of the shepherd’s helpers would “break open the way” by pushing aside a boulder, so that the sheep could exit from their overnight confinement. The hungry sheep wouldn’t just leave calmly, they would burst out in a stampede, breaking through the other boulders in their way. The shepherd would exit along with them, and they would follow the shepherd out to pasture.

In the time of Jesus, the passage in Micah 2 was understood to be messianic. It was understood as describing two figures who were supposed to come, a messenger who would prepare the way, and the Messiah, who was going to be a king who would reign over his people. In this passage, they imagined that the “one who breaks open the way” was the messenger, who would cause people to repent and be ready for the Messiah, and then the Messiah was the shepherd with the sheep.

Interestingly, the passage says that the Shepherd is the LORD, hinting that the Messiah is God himself! We can see how this would apply to John the Baptist and Jesus.

The picture in this prophecy is really that of a people who are full of joy at the coming of their Messiah. Like sheep that are stampeding out of their pen after a night of being confined, the “sheep” of the messianic shepherd will be exuberant at his coming, and eager to follow where ever he leads. A very similar image is used of calves in another messianic passage in Malachi:

But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall. (Mal. 4:2 )

The Kingdom Suffers Violence, or Bursts Forth?

It is not immediately clear to readers that Jesus speaks about this image in Micah 2, because difficulties in translation have obscured the meaning of the passage. Older translations of Matt 11:12 read,

From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force.

As it has been translated, it sounds as if Jesus was talking about the kingdom “suffering violence” in terms of the persecution he and John went through. Some have even hypothesized that Jesus was advocating violence in order to be a part of it.

The problem is in assuming that the kingdom is the victim of violence. The word “suffers” is not literally there in Greek at all: it is a way to explain how the kingdom and “violent” can be connected. However, the word for “violence,” biazo in Greek, can also mean “forceful,” or “bursting out.” Biazo can even mean “explosive,” poretz in Hebrew, which is the word used in Micah 2.

Instead of the kingdom being victim of violence,  Jesus was describing the bursting out of the kingdom! In the New International Version (1984) this verse is translated:

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.

Jesus appears to be alluding to the bursting out of the sheep with their shepherd, as in the Micah 2 passage. He is speaking of John the Baptist as the “breaker” who has begun the explosive effect of the kingdom of God on earth. A similar verse appears in Luke 16:

The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing (biazo) his way into it. (Luke 16:16)

What does this mean?

This is one more example of how we see Jesus using the messianic imagery of the Old Testament to describe the amazing implications of the Kingdom of God being among them. He is saying that God had begun doing a powerful new thing on earth at the coming of John the Baptist, who with his ministry called people toward repentance.

Now that he the Messiah had come, the movement was exploding outward, as people were filled with joy at the coming of their redeemer and telling others about him. This movement was like yeast or a mustard seed that had started small, but was rapidly gaining force and power. When people realized its worth, like a pearl of great price, they were excitedly forcing their way into it.

Jesus is giving us a potent picture of the fulfillment of the promise of the ages: the Lord would come to his people, to forgive their sins and restore their relationship with him. The messianic age had arrived with his coming! The Spirit of God would propel this movement outward until it would fill the whole earth.

It is easy for us to become complacent, to feel that the need to grow and expand has waned. From this passage, it seems that Jesus is reminding his followers of the force behind them, that the Spirit was bursting out on earth in an entirely new way, and they should be filled with excitement. So should we be too!

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Photos: Daniel Case [CC BY-SA 3.0]; http://mecardo.com.au/; Paul M on Unsplash

Seeing Prophecy Through Jesus

Lois Tverberg

Both the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation are apocalyptic in nature, meaning they are filled with visions of end times. Christians spend a lot of time discussing the end times and have many viewpoints on how to read prophetic material.

One way to gain wisdom about prophecy is to look at it through the life and words of Jesus. How prophecy was fulfilled at his coming? What did he himself say about it?

Surprisingly, according to Jesus, God doesn’t necessarily fulfill prophecy as we think. Many of the prophecies that describe the coming of the Messiah also describe a time of judgment by God. For instance, in Luke 1:17, the angel tells Zechariah that his son John “will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children.”

The angel was quoting a prophecy from Malachi which says,

Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse. (Mal. 4:5-6)

The Malachi passage appears to describe the “great and terrible day of the Lord” as coming right at the time of Elijah. John the Baptist knew scripture well, and in his ministry we hear him preaching that judgment is right around the corner, in accordance with his scriptures.

These prophecies are also the reason why John sends some of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one to come, or should we look for another?” John knew he was to be the “messenger” prophesied in Malachi 3, and he had expectations for the one coming after him:

See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty. But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap… So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me,” says the LORD Almighty. (Mal 3:1-2, 4-5)

John’s question for Jesus came from the fact that Jesus wasn’t fulfilling prophecy as he expected. It appears he was thinking that Jesus would be a mighty warrior who would destroy the wicked, including those who had imprisoned him.

Jesus replies by quoting other prophecies about the Messiah, that “the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor” (Luke 7:22-23). John probably still believed that Jesus was the Messiah, but he was asking the question to show how perplexed he was at how Jesus fulfilled prophecy.

Jesus specifically avoids passages about vengeance, demonstrating that his ministry is one of healing and forgiveness. In one place, Jesus selectively quotes a passage to avoid words about judgment. In Luke 4, he says,

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4:18 -19)

He is quoting from Isaiah 61, but stops in mid-sentence, because after “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,” it goes on to say, “and the day of vengeance of our God.” Jesus made a point of saying that he was the Messiah, and that his time on earth then was to bring forgiveness and a new relationship with God, but the judgment would come later. He was to suffer as in Isaiah 53, and only later come to judge and to reign.

Often, Christians say that Jesus’ people rejected him as Messiah because they just wanted a political leader, not a spiritual leader. It is more likely that many rejected him because he did not fit their reading of prophecy. They wanted vengeance and expected Jesus to come in judgment, as the Bible appeared to say.

Even Jesus’ disciples were waiting for him to announce when he would begin the war, and they would take their thrones to reign in power. They expected he would kill all his enemies, and then usher in a great messianic age where he would reign as Prince of Peace.

Instead, he fulfilled the prophecies about the “suffering one” in Isaiah 53, who by his own death would justify many and make atonement for their sins. He ushered in the Kingdom of God by his death, not by war. Only in his second coming will he come in judgment.

God surprised everyone, even the most faithful, in the coming of Jesus. It should humble us to realize that he does not use our logic to fulfill prophecy, and should make us very careful to say we have definitive knowledge about the future from Bible prophecy. Jesus said of his second coming, “of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (Mark 13:32).

One thing Jesus does say about his second coming that we often hear is the need to repent and to be prepared. He will return when he is least expected. As Peter says, God is not tarrying: he is waiting patiently for as many to come to faith to avoid judgment as possible. As we read Revelation and other prophecies about the end, it should give us a special urgency to share the gospel and live lives that are a witness to Christ.

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Photos: Dimnent Chapel [public domain], James Tissot [Public domain], Rapture sign by Marc Nozell [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]