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Biblical Hermeneutics

Transcript - HR501 Biblical Hermeneutics Understanding Biblical Interpretation© 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

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LESSON 06 of 12HR501

Interpreting Prophecy

Biblical HermeneuticsUnderstanding Biblical Interpretation

We have a fascinating topic for our lecture and for our discussion which always raises tons of questions—[it is] prophecy. How do we interpret prophecy? I always say (my students have heard me say this over and over again so that they sort of nudge each other when I get ready to do it. They say, “Here it comes!”) I’m not a prophet. My father was not a prophet; he was a farmer, so I’m not a son of a prophet. And I work for a non-profit organization. So no way can I be able to predict [the future] for you.

But, on the other hand, prophecy in the Bible is very, very important, for it has two aspects: this word “pro” and then “phecy.” Usually, you would think of it as “the word that comes before.” But we have both foretelling—that’s the predictive kind of prophecy—and forthtelling, [which] is “telling forth” the Word of God in a proclamation that sets over against the issues of today. Foretelling is the predictive kind that really talks about what is coming up and what is important for the people of God. The whole matter of prophecy in the Bible is not slim at all.

A former colleague of mine, J. Barton Payne, in his Encyclopedia of Bible Prophecy, which came out, [by] Harper Row, [in] 1973. He argued there were 8,352 verses of predictive material out of the 31,000 verses in the Bible. There are actually 31,124 verses in the whole Bible. But 8,352 verses had some predictive matter. That’s a staggering 27 percent of the Bible, which is no small feature of the biblical text. Payne calculated that in the Old Testament there were 6,641 verses on the future out of [a total number of verses of] 23,210 to give a 28.6 percent. But overall in the Bible, it was 27 percent [prophetic]. The only books without any predictive material straight away would be Ruth and Song of Solomon in the Old Testament, Philemon and III John in the New Testament. Only four books without any predictive matter. The other 62 books are all represented in one or more of the 737 prophetic topics. Payne thought he could get together 737, which is a lot of space for argument. And some of the highest percentage of prophetic material would be Ezekiel with 65 percent of his book, Jeremiah

Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Ph.D.Experience: President Emeritus and

Distinguished Professor of Old Testament and Ethics at Gordon-Conwell Theological

Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts

Transcript - HR501 Biblical Hermeneutics Understanding Biblical Interpretation © 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.


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with 60 percent of his book, Isaiah with 59 percent of his book. This is huge. And the top three in the New Testament would be Revelation with 63 percent, Matthew with 26 percent and Luke with 23 percent of the total corpus [each]. [This is] amazing.

So that gives us sort of the rationale on “Why should I study prophecy?” It’s big and it really takes up a lot of the biblical space. How did God give prophetic material? Well through dreams, through visions, through signs, and through direct speaking at times. It is amazing how frequently we are hearing of people in the Islamic world who are coming to Jesus because of dreams. This is a repeated phenomenon in the testimonies [in the last few years especially]. And God used that in the prophetic movement too, as well.

What about the characteristics of prophecy? Well it belongs together. It has an organic nature to it in which it really has a beginning and an endpoint. It’s like in narrative [genre] in which you have the start, the middle, and the finish, so in the whole of prophecy. This is not done randomly, “here’s an idea, here’s an idea,” but they are woven together. And in that, the most important aspect is inaugurated eschatology. I heard John Stott, one time, giving a wonderful way of defining this inaugurated eschatology. Eschatology means the study of “last things,” “eschatos,” last, “ology,” the study. But he pointed out this “now and not yet” aspect [of prophecy], which is a very important aspect. “Now, are we the sons of God?” said Dr. Stott, “but it doth not yet appear what we shall be?” He was quoting I John [3:2], of course. But that more than anything else, brings out what we mean by inaugurated eschatology, because there is an [on-going] aspect. Look what we have already received in Christ Jesus, which is the promise of a whole lot more things, but which we haven’t yet seen what God is going to do. So there is often, in the prophetic material, a “now” aspect. Jesus said, “If I cast out demons by the power of God, then is the kingdom of God come upon you” (Luke 11:20). He said that, I didn’t. So there is an “now” aspect there—it is, right now, it has [already] come. But yet, have we seen what the full developmentof the rule and reign of Christ is? Not by a long shot. We’ve not [yet] seen that at all.

Another characteristic is the covenants that God made with Noah, with Abraham, and David and the new covenant and the new heavens and new earth are all unconditional covenants. Remember I told you about in the first day, that in Genesis 15, when God gave the promise there to Abraham, he was to cut the animals into one half, [each of] the three animals, and form



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an aisle [down the middle]. And then small birds were not to be cut in half. The word “to make a covenant” is literally “to cut a covenant.” And so when our Lord, by Himself, passed between the pieces, it really became an unconditional covenant—a one sided covenant, a unilateral covenant—not a bilateral covenant at all. This is true for what God promised to Noah so that as long as the earth will last, there will be summer and winter, heat and cold and things like that.

Abraham had a covenant, David had a[n] [unconditional] covenant like this. The New Covenant partakes of this—[and so does] the new heavens and new earth. All of these are unconditional; there is no condition on them. God does this for [and by] Himself.

But all other prophetic material is conditional. There is either an expressed, or just right behind the material an unexpressed, “unless.” That’s what bothered Jonah. When Jonah was told to go and preach [for] 40 days and boom! If it were just that, Jonah would have been delighted. He hated Assyrians. I’m sure. I know why. They had impaled their relatives, they had chopped off their palms of their hand, keeping a “hand count” on all that they have killed (sort of “palming off” their victories and carrying them back in their bags back home.

When Jonah was told, “Go and preach to [the] Ninevites,” he said, “I’m going to Hawaii, well at least Spain.” So he takes a trip going there [Mediterranean Sea] and has a “whale” of an experience. He comes back somewhat “down in the mouth,” but he’s a “spit up” kid. He must look like something from Mars, now a total albino, everything except antennae. And he goes there [Nineveh], 40 days and boom! Praise the Lord! Burn, baby, burn! I want to see Nineveh go [he hoped]! (some of this is marginal). Nevertheless, he told the people and they said, “What shall we do about it?” He said, “Don’t do anything. I didn’t bring any cards, the busses will not wait, so don’t bother coming forward. I just want nothing like this at all.” And, lo and behold, the king, he got out sackcloth [and repented]. And they put burlap on the cows and onto the people. I mean, they went from Hanes to burlap [for underwear]. Man, Jonah was “teed-off,” and he said, “I knew it, I knew it. Forty days and 40 nights, unless you repent.” And the crazy rascals, what did they do? They came forward [repented]. It was the only time we did not want any decisions. And, lo and behold, we just had “decisions a la mode.”

Well how do I know there is a counterpart [message of the threatened judgment]? Well the great counterpart is found in



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Jeremiah, 18:1-2. Jeremiah is the prophet God tells, “Go over to the potter’s house, and there I’ll show you [My Word].” And He watched the potter as he plunged his thumb and his index finger into that pile of clay. Then as he spun with his foot the bottom wheel, the top wheel turned on the shaft and went round and round. And up came a vessel. Ah, something was wrong. There was grit in the clay, there was too much water, it was not enough clay—something was wrong. [It was a problem] not with the potter but with the clay. Well most of us stop at that point, “Thou art the potter, I am the clay!” Let’s all sing and go home!

But not yet, because the potter took the same clay. He didn’t swipe it off [the wheel] and say, “Can’t get the good stuff around here anywhere!” But he took the same clay and he remade it—according to what principle? And in Jeremiah 18 (look at the text, it’s beautiful) he makes the point there, very straightforwardly, giving an alternative prospect. “At what time or what instant I speak concerning a kingdom or nation.” He didn’t say, “Israel.” He didn’t say, “Judah.” He applies it to any kingdom, any nation— this is in verse 7. “It’s going to be uprooted and torn down and destroyed. If that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent.” The word there is nacham in Hebrew, which means “I will repent.” God said, “I will change my action, so as not to change my character, because you changed.” God is immutable, unchangeable, until we change or unless we change; then, only then, can God change. And that’s what He does here in this particular text. Verse 9: “If at any time I announced that a kingdom or nation [how about like the United States] is [going to be] built up and planted, and if it does evil in My sight (like the United States), and does not obey Me (like the United States), then I will reconsider the good I intended to do to it.” Both are true. So here you have a conditional kind of promise, and that is, it really depends on the response of individuals. And He puts it in terms of nations, any nation—he’s already principalized the thing. He doesn’t leave it in Israel’s hands; He puts it in our hands.

Here are the [three] verbs for tearing down, destroying, breaking up. “But if the nation, that I mentioned this against [them repents] (don’t forget God called him from the womb to be a prophet to Judah and to the nations),” he said, “then I’ll not do what I said.” Then he takes two verbs of planting and building up. He said, “Suppose the people turn and no longer follow me,” then he said, “I will repent what I have said that I would do.” So that should help us enormously in making a distinction between unconditional and conditional prophecies.



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All other prophecies except those that I’ve pointed out to you—the one with Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, the new covenant and new heavens and new earth—are unconditional. These, everything else, is conditional. [The ones mentioned here are unconditional].

Now you say, “Yeah, but when the prophets got this, did they really know what they were writing? I mean, isn’t it that the prophet is a passive recipient, and the prophet is going along, and you watch him writing, and you say, ‘Psst . . . Isaiah what are you writing?’ And he says, ‘I don’t know. My hand is moving automatically.’” That would be a dictation theory [of Scripture]. No one believes that [nor is it taught in Scripture].

Or if you say, “Psst . . . Peter what are you saying here.” He says, “I don’t know. I just heard ‘propitiation.’ I don’t know how to spell that.” And so he spells out “propitiation.” See, no, no, those are mechanical ways here. But I argue that in the great text, I Peter 1:10-12, that the prophets knew what they were writing. I don’t argue that they had comprehensive knowledge. Only God knows comprehensively. But they had an adequate understanding of what they were saying. So in [1:10-12], “Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, search intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when He predicted the sufferings of Christ, the glories that would follow to whom it was revealed that not only unto themselves were they serving, but unto us to as well.”

Well [there were] five things the prophets knew. They knew they were talking about the Messiah. It says that [what he] “was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ.” Christ is the Greek word for Messiah. And they knew that Messiah would suffer. It says here, “the sufferings of Messiah.” They knew, too, that Christ will be glorified, for it speaks of “the glory that should follow.” They knew the order too. Fourthly, they knew not only about the Messiah, that he will suffer, and be glorified—but they knew, fourthly, the order. It was glory that would follow suffering. And fifthly, verse 12, “it was revealed to them (apocalypto—aorist tense here—“once in the past”) that they were not serving themselves but they were serving you all,” says Peter, writing to the church in that day, “when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who preach the gospel.” So did the prophets envisage [a meaning for] the church too? Yes, a little bit. I know I was taught they [the prophets] never did [mention the church], but what are you going to do when the Bible says the



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opposite? So you’ve got to change.

I grew up with hearing that, “the prophets wrote better than they knew.” No, no. They wrote what the Spirit of God taught them in words, I Corinthians 2:13 [instructed that God spoke], “in words taught by the Holy Spirit.” What didn’t they know? It says here the time and the manner or circumstances of time. Too bad some of the translations say here that they tried to find out what person or what manner of time. The English Standard Version, The New American [say], “what person?” The Greek expression here is very, very clear: eis tena a, or “unto what,” or “eis tena a poion kairon.” Kairon is time, so “unto what time or what manner of time.” But they try to make this say, “unto what person.” There is no word for “person.” You say, “Yeah, but look, it really could be.” But the great grammarians, Robertson and others say, “No, this is a tautological expression”; it says “what time or what manner of time.”

What was it that the prophet didn’t know? The same thing I don’t know about the second coming of the Lord (now there are some who [thought they knew]. There was one little tract, “Jesus coming [back] on September 12, 13, 1988. Eighty-Eight Reasons Why Jesus is Coming Then!” That one is on sale now and it is available. There is another one, 1994, Harold Camping, said that Jesus is coming back in 1994; that, too, is on sale). We don’t know the time. Even the Son of Man didn’t know the time—that was reserved to the Father [alone].

So there are two things we don’t know, two: what’s the time, and what are the circumstances or manner that go along with it. But on the other hand, (1) we do know that it was talking about Messiah; (2) we do know that it was talking about His sufferings; (3) we do know that it was talking about His glory; (4) we do know the order—it was glory that should follow—(5) we do know that it also had us in mind. Five things the prophets knew.

This is a very famous argument of not only involving this I Peter passage. I guess I’ve gotten into more scrapes with more evangelical theologians over this than any other passage. [Those] you sometimes meet any in the evangelical world, they will probably tell you that “Kaiser’s wrong. They didn’t know the person.” And I say, “How can that be, when they’re speaking about the person [Messiah]? If they didn’t know the person, what are they talking about here?” It’s contradictory if you are going to give that translation. F. F. Bruce gave it. He’s in heaven now, and I am sure he’s changed [his mind]. And a number of others have done the same thing. Well see why I tell you “don’t stand behind



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me in the final day.”

Principles for interpreting prophecy: here’s where it gets fun. I argue against a double fulfillment. It is very common in our day to talk about the double fulfillment; that there was a literal fulfillment in the history of Israel. And then there was a deeper meaning that really comes in the far distant future. So they talk about a double fulfillment. I think that misses it so that it seems like it gives a basis for the Bible to double speak. I don’t think there is “double speak” in the Bible. I think It is really pretty straight forward as to what It wants to say.

I introduced in our first lecture that there is, with the Antioch School (when we did the history of interpretation—Antioch, Syrai; today Antioch, Turkey) that God gave to the eye of the prophet, a vision —a sight (the Greek word was theoria) in which the eye looked out over the time and saw the near events located with one or more of the final events, so that we had the near and the distant line up. I spoke of it as lining up on the sights of a gun, in which they didn’t know the prophetic perspective [of the intervening valley between us and the distant mountain]. We speak of this as if it were a mountain range and have no idea of the perspective. We call this prophetic foreshortening. So we put this in kind of a square bracket between the two.

So I think there are multiple fulfillments (I like better than double fulfillment) in which these belong organically to the whole. And the most important thing here is to see that we do have a predictive word that comes here, and we do have a fulfillment word that comes here. Then we also have the means by which God keeps this word in action. And therefore, we have a series like—here we may have the birth of an Isaac and [then] a Jacob that point to Messiah that’s coming. But then everyone in the Davidic line is another fulfillment—both in the “now” aspect and the “not yet.” So what most people miss is how history [was the means by which God] kept this Word alive, as in their office and in their person they kept alive all that God was going to do in [concerning] the Messiah—not comprehensively but some aspect of that prophetic Word.

So we have (1) the prophetic Word; (2) the fulfillment [means by which God maintained that Word in historic events]—that’s what most say—but we add number (3) the means. That’s what my new book The Promise Plan of God is all about; trying to pull those whole things together. We really want to talk about, not a multiple sense [double fulfillment] of the biblical text [but of a



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unified, ongoing single plan of God].

We’ve tried everything [in our day] to get back to an allegorical interpretation. The most recent one came in 1927 with Father [Andre] Fernandez, which was picked up again from the doctoral dissertation in 1955 of Father Brown. And in this doctoral dissertation, he talked about a sensus plenior—a multiple sense to a biblical passage. And his idea was, “Since God is the writer or the originator of the material, then He has a right to say way beyond what the writers really thought.” Let’s suppose we take this circle, which is the divine intention, what God really wants. Many now want to say, “Here’s what the prophets got out of it.” It didn’t reach the surplusage all around here that goes beyond what the writer said. This they would call the sensus plenior, the “much or many senses”; beyond the [author’s] sense, this would be the literal sense, of what the prophet understood. [This is] a very popular theory today.

Now what I contend is that what God gave to the writers goes right out to the divine intention, all the way [to the edge of the circle]. So my model goes right to the edge of what God intended there because of the claim of the writers that this literal sense had, involved with it, both the predictive word, the historical means by which God kept that word alive, and yet still the predictive [fulfilled] word that came later on. Some would like to make this sensus plenior a deeper sense that is found from the New Testament. So what they do is they take the New Testament and run that back to the Old Testament. And they say, “We must reinterpret the Old Testament.” And therefore, many today will say that “our preaching must be always about Christ; if it is not about Christ, it is not a good sermon.” And they won’t preach it [the Old Testament] at all [if it is not about Jesus alone].

Where do we get our deeper meaning? It comes from the New Testament. But that seems to be what we used call eisegesis; that is, “reading into” the text: eis, “into,” and ego, “to lead.” So they are “leading back” [the meaning] into the text.” Now if God gave this originally, why would He want to update [it], as it were? Sure there is progress in Revelation, in which in progressive revelation you have the same “floor” in which God keeps adding to that. So we have God supplementing what He had said before, but not supplanting [it]. I argue against God supplanting what He had said before. I argue that He [God] supplements what He said, but not supplants [it].



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Moving on quickly since time is getting away from us. Some other principles of interpretation—to interpret the future, one must go back in history. I did a book some years ago, now reprinted, with Wipf and Stock in Oregon, Back Toward the Future (I wanted to call it “Back to the Future.” I wrote to Paramount, and they said, “We’ll sue you.” Little me, why would they want to sue me for just a little word too? But anyway, I already had four books with the word “toward” in it, so I liked it better, anyway). My point was this: when you want to talk about the future, where no one has been—what it is like—you go back in history. So what will the new heavens and new earth be like? Well, like Eden! You go back to the Garden of Eden. What will it be like in the days of the coming of the Son of Man.? Well, go back to “as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man.” What will it be like if God destroys cities? Well, like he did Sodom and Gomorrah! You use that terminology there. What will it be like in the battle when God intervenes? Well, Like Gideon, where Gideon stood still and they shout, “The sword of the Lord and the sword of Gideon!” And they just broke the flasks that were covering up their lights and blasted on the trumpet and stood still in their place. They used that. The end of Haggai [2:21], for example, uses the portion from Judges and the portion from the opening up of the Red Sea.

(I saw a cartoon the other day, in which you had a various religions competing in a swim meet. Our grand kids are all being turned into swimmers. Here they were, but in the Jewish lane, you know how they have these lanes laid down like in the Olympic swimming pools, well in the Jewish lane, here comes a person walking on the bottom of the pool. It’s all cleared out, and they were going way ahead because there is no water for them. It was a crazy cartoon, but that sort of brings this whole thing out.) Well in order to go ahead, you need to go back, back to the future— hints on interpreting biblical prophecy. [The book is] still available in Eugene, Oregon, Wipf and Stock.

Focus not only on the predictive word and fulfillment but also on the means. I showed you that [in the notes], number five. Note how each prophecy fits into the continuous plan of God from eternity to eternity. They are not random, they belong together. Generally, to avoid the occult, or what’s called in Greek hyponoia—“hupo” [means] underneath, the secondary meaning—unless there are clear signals in the language such as [in] enigmas, double entendre, charades and the like. Stick with the plain natural meaning of the text. And then the Antiochian School of Theoria helps us to see



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how there can be a number of aspects to the single meaning. So I argue over the top of the predictive word, and the whole series of the historical means by which God keeps that alive, and the final word [of fulfillment] that they treated that as one single whole meaning. Therefore we can see how they come together here.

Well what about schools of interpretation? This [issue] is really the benchmark of many of the schools—Post-millennial, Amillennial (or they say in England, “ay-millennial.” The “A” there is an alphaprivative in Greek, negative, “no millennial”) and Pre-millennial. Post-millennial says we are living now in that 1,000-year Church Age Period, which 1,000 years is symbolical. Few hold to that idea today because of World War I, the Depression, World War II, and what has happened subsequently has taken almost all of the “joy out of Mudville,” not only because “Casey has struck out,” but also because humanity has struck out. So it doesn’t look like the world is getting gooder and gooder, that this [20th century in the 1900s] was to be “The Christian Century,” as the Liberal magazine said, still called the Christian Century. But in the “Christian Century,” we killed more people in war than any other time. [There were] enormous numbers of people [killed]; 50 million in World War II, some 30 million in World War I. On and on it goes—Rwanda and other places. We get up to a total of over a 100 million people in the 1900s that perished in war. Since the Korean War, we’ve had another 150 wars. So this has not been the Christian Century; it has been a bad century!

Nor has it been the “Great period of Time.” There were 200 years even in which this was supposed to be, from the French with the fall of the Bastille in July of 1789, all the way up to the fall of the Berlin Wall in December of 1989. Two hundred years, from 1789 to 1989, “Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness!” This was the day of man, and of man’s achieving. And I tell you, when the wall in Berlin fell down and the whole of the USSR collapsed, we were introduced into a whole new period of time.

How that took place without any kind of military action? [It happened] at Christmas time. They had not played in Romania for 40 years, no Christmas carols on radio or TV, but that afternoon, after the Ceauşescus [Nicolae and Elena] were assassinated, for the first time they played at Christmas 1989, in Romania, Christmas carols. And the whole of what is taking place in Eastern Europe and [was now] moving through India and through China, now 1.3 billion people in China and 1.2 billion in India. [These are] two of the most populous places on earth; 2 1/2 billion out of 6.8 billion people in the world in just those two places, and yet the gospel



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is going like “gang busters.” And the way God is working—books like The Heavenly Man, with a story out of China; it reads like the book of Acts. Postmillenialism, it is not getting “gooder” and “gooder” or better and better.

Amillennial says that “there is no literal reign of Christ at the end of history. But rather, with the replacement theory [Church and Israel], all that the promises made to Israel are now made over to the church, and therefore the church has picked that up [all Israel’s blessings].” Well my complaint there is, “Why not pick up the curses too? They should go to the church as well.” And yet, on the other hand, there is still too much material. In Romans 9–11, you can’t do soteriology [doctrine of salvation] without getting into the whole plan and the question of the Jews. Romans 1:16 (NASB), “I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it’s the power of God to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” And through Romans 3–5, and you don’t have a parenthesis in Romans 8–10; it’s a part of the whole argument there. The natural branches have been cut off, but where is the church? The church is built onto the roots and the trunk; that was Israel! And the natural [Jewish] branches have been lopped off. But Gentiles, we, have been grafted in, and eventually God will graft them through belief—the natural branches [will be there] too, once again. That’s the argument and it is a good one. Well that’s the case for pre-millennial [interpretation]. There will be a literal reign of Christ on earth at the conclusion of this historic period with Israel being restored to the land [and the church ruling and reigning with Israel].

You can talk about an historic pre-millennialism, which stresses continuity and takes “imminent appearing” as meaning “any generation” the Lord could return (my preference); or dispensational pre-millennialism, which says that we have a discontinuity between two peoples and two programs. And imminent means “any moment” coming back [return of the Lord].

Why is there so much diversity in interpreting prophecy? It is because of the mass of the material—it’s huge. Who can get their arms around almost 1/3 of the bible? Secondly, the imposition of theological grids that call for definitional distinctions before we begin to examine a passage. Thirdly, the heavy use of figurative language in prophecy. That’s what drives most people crazy in the book of Revelation.And, fourthly, the presence of our own sinfulness often moves us to rely more on oral tradition than on the hard matters of the text.

Transcript - HR501 Biblical Hermeneutics Understanding Biblical Interpretation© 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

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What are some of the key interpretive clues? Key words—there are words that are used over and over again: “in that day,” “the day of the Lord,” “the kingdom of the Lord.” A number of words like that, they become prophetic formula. And there are [also] key chapters that appear as well that really have to be mastered as great “chair passages” that help us with understanding of what is involved. When we come to these great “chair passages,” I think we really have to really get down to I Corinthians [15]— the resurrection chapter. We should get II Corinthians 5—the intermediate state, the first 10 verses there. We should do Romans 9–11—Israel’s return; [the] 70 weeks of Daniel in Daniel 9; the day of the Lord—Joel 2, and so forth. These are key chapters. [In addition to that], the new heavens and new earth in Isaiah 65 and 66.

But at any rate, look at how the future continues to be expressed in the past. I have given you some of these already. Elijah will return before the great and notable day of the Lord. We go back to Elijah in order to go to the future. Jonah is [used] to describe Christ’s descent into the grave and His coming out, “as Jonah was for three days and three nights [in the sea].” David is the sign for Christ assuming the throne and His coming to rule and reign. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah for the future destruction of God’s enemies in the book of Revelation 19, and so forth. So there just are a number of many of those things.

To sum it up, the prophetic Word of God is, as Isaiah 40–49 says, “He is the Lord who knows the future.” Come on, you gods and goddesses, go ahead. If you know you are gods, say something. Don’t just sit there or stand there; say something good or bad about the future. “But I am the Lord and I have spoken before it comes to pass.” God indicates that—His divinity and deity—by the fact that He can call the shots before they come to pass.

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