Miller's Understanding Of Prophecy

January 10  Miller's Understanding Of Prophecy

 

No prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spriti spoke from God. 2 Peter 1:20, 21, RSV.

Miller was in good company in his interpretation of prophecy. Prophetic understanding divedes into three major schools. Preterists view prophetic fulfillment as having taken place by the time or at the time of the writing of a prophetic book. Thus, for example, the book of Revelation is speaking primarily about events at the end of the first century of the Christian Era.

Futurism, a second school of prophetic interpretation, holds that the bulk of apocalyptic prophecy will come to pass in a short space of time just before the Second Advent. The immensely popular Left Behind series of our day is grounded in futurism.

The third view, historicism, regards the fulfillment of prophecy as beginning in the time ot the prophet, continuing across the spectrum of history, and climaxing at the Second Coming.

The historicist understanding of prophecy is best illustrated by Daniel 2, whose fulfillment commences during the lifetime of Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel, extends through the next three kingdoms that dominate the Mediterranean world, runs tup through the divisions of Rome, and reaches its fulfillment at the end of time with the arrival of the kingdom of God. The visions of Daniel 7, 8-9, and 10-12 replicate the historicist model, as does Revelation 12, which traces world history from the time of the Christ child up to the end of time in verse 17, thus setting the stage for the end-time events that unfold in chapters 13-22.

Miller was an historicist, as was the early church and nearly all Protestant interpreters up through the middle of the nineteenth century. Futurism and Preterism, while captureing important aspects of Bible prophecy, didn't have much of a presence in Apocalyptic study until the Reformation of Martin luther, when certain expositors of the dominant church sought to escape what they considered to be problematic historicist interpretations of such topics as the great red dragon and the whore of Babylon. The late nineteenth and twentieth centuries witnessed a surge of futurism and preterism, partly in response to the perceived failures of Millerism.

But the failures of Millerite Adventism haven't changed the obviously historicist perspective of Daniel 2 or even the year-for-a-day principle, which is so built into Daniel 9 that the Revised Standard Version translators rendered verse 24 as "seventy weeks or years" in spite of the fact that the Hebrew has only "seventy weeks." The addition was necessary even to individuals who didn't believe inpredictive prophecy if they were to make sense of a prophecy claiming to extend from the time of the restoration of Jerusalem to the Messiah.

Fathers and mothers, let your children learn from the flowers. Take them with you into garden and field and under the leafy trees, and teach them to read in nature the essage of God's love(TFMB 97).