The word “kingdom” is found many times in the Gospels, but what precisely is or was it? Can it’s beginning be determined? Who belongs to the Kingdom of God? What did the Jews of Jesus’ time think about the Kingdom?
The Risk of Interpreting Prophecies
We’re going to look at some Old Testament (OT) prophecies about the Messianic Kingdom. Interpreting any prophecy is fraught with risk. It seems to be the nature of prophecy that they don’t just come out and say in no uncertain terms what the future holds. The skeptic would argue that prophecy is written in this way to be intentionally vague so that any number of future scenarios can be applied. The believer might say that knowing the future is a powerful tool—so powerful that only those with a deep knowledge of God’s Word and the patterns and symbols in it can have a chance of interpreting it.
Within this article, I will be interpreting prophetic Scriptures that I’m claiming have already been fulfilled—a much easier task than predicting the future, but still very difficult. In addition I am claiming there are several different prophecies that all refer to the same event: the crucifixion of Jesus and the start of the New Covenant. And, in addition to that, I will make use of some rare prophecies for which an interpretation was actually given by God. Sometimes this is done immediately after the prophet gave the prophecy, while other times it happens through a spiritual person at or near the time of the prophecy’s fulfillment. All this is to say I’m taking fewer risks and am therefore more confident of the interpretations.
In this article let’s look at a passage from Isaiah, which was written around 740 BC. In the next few articles, we’ll look at several passages from Daniel after first trying to establish when it was written. My claim is that they all point to the same event: the start of the Kingdom of God on earth. For some this may be the first time they’ve heard of a such a kingdom—not to worry, the scriptures will speak for themselves. Also, in preparation for looking at these verses, it should be of no surprise that the coming of Jesus has something to do with it (after all, how many times did God come down to earth and live within a human?). While many Christians have heard prophecies about the coming of the Messiah, they are unaware of the related prophecies about the Kingdom of God. This series aims to supply that.
The Mountain of the Lord’s Temple
Isa 2:1-4 is the passage for this article, and is the most obscure of the prophecies. For the sake of brevity, I will not paste the passages in this article, but please take the time to read them first before reading on.
Note that the word “kingdom” does not explicitly appear. Instead we see the phrase, “the mountain of the Lord’s temple.” It is my claim that this passage (again, written around 740 years before Christ) prophesies about the Messianic Kingdom. Here are many other claims which may seem far fetched, but remember, the reader need only table these claims for now.
- Note that this identical prophecy is repeated in Micah 4 and parallel ones also appear in Joel 3 and Zech 8. I believe this indicates it is very important.
- Isaiah makes use of a rhetorical style of the period where ideas are repeated twice in adjacent sentences. Something like A1-B1, A2-B2, where “A” is one idea and “B” is the other, and “2” is a retelling of “1” in a different way.
- The “last days” does not refer to the end of the earth but instead refers to the end of an era. In this case, the claim is the era of the Old Covenant.
- “Established as the highest mountain” and “exalted above the hills” refer to how God’s kingdom would be far superior to any of mankind’s kingdoms or governments.
- “All nations will stream to” indicates that representatives of nations from around the world will make their way to where the kingdom starts (even if it’s unbeknownst to them).
- “Come let us go to the mountain of the Lord…to the temple of the God of Jacob”, and “go out from Zion…from Jerusalem” all indicate the origin of the kingdom: Jerusalem.
- “The Law will go out” and “the word the Lord” indicate the Kingdom will involve a new covenant which will start in Jerusalem and emanate outwardly.
- Verse 4 is a bit too long to quote here, but both stanzas “beat their swords into plowshares…” and “nation will not take up sword against nation” indicate the Kingdom will not be created through physical warfare. This stands in opposition to the way all earthly kingdoms are started including the way the Jews took hold of the Promised Land and became a nation. An example of the opposite, typical form is in Joel 3:10. In this form, it is a call to war, where even if you don’t have real weapons, use farming implements instead.
When reading through the Bible, one could easily read these four passages and just keep going not getting much of anything out of them. But if you focus on it and put it together with other prophecies you really can see these things. What’s even more amazing is this was written 740 years before what I’m claiming is it’s fulfillment. God’s timelessness and fore-planning are truly incredible!
In the next articles, I’m going to use passages from the book of Daniel. There is some debate among theologians about when the book was written. This will be discussed first as it has an affect on the prophecies themselves. Articles discussing the prophecies contained in Chapters 2, 7, 8, and 9 will then follow.