The Revelation of Law in Scripture by Patrick Fairbairn: 18. Appendix F, Page 100: Prophetical Literalism Essentially Jewish

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The Revelation of Law in Scripture by Patrick Fairbairn: 18. Appendix F, Page 100: Prophetical Literalism Essentially Jewish


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Appendix F, Page 100: Prophetical Literalism Essentially Jewish

THE essential coincidence between the Jewish mode of interpreting prophecy, and that of the extreme literalists among Christians, will force itself on any one who compares for a moment what has been written by the respective parties on the prophetical future. For the most part he will find the same passages quoted by both, and the same principle of the historical sense applied to them—only, with this difference, that while both apply it to establish the necessity of a future restoration of the Jews to Palestine, and the re-institution of the Mosaic polity and worship, the Jew also applies it, and with perfect consistence, to the rejection of Jesus Christ as the Messiah. We say with perfect consistence, for the principle is as fairly applicable to the one point as to the other, and by that principle, the evidence of prophecy in favour of the Messiahship of Jesus is not impaired merely, but annihilated. The argument from prophecy as between Christians and Jews is gone; that only remains which may serve the Jew against infidels and heathens. If, for example, the literalist school of interpreters among Christians are right in maintaining, as they do, that Christ has not yet appeared as King of Zion, or as the possessor of David’s throne and kingdom, why should not Rabbi Crool (in his “Restoration of Israel,” a work replied to by Thomas Scott), and other Jewish writers, be equally right in contending, that Jesus of Nazareth cannot be the Messiah? The passages which both parties appeal to—such as Zec_9:9; Isa_9:6-7; Mic_5:2—though they are expressly declared by the evangelists to have been fulfilled in Christ, yet speak of the Messiah under the very character and relations, which, it is alleged, have not yet been assumed by him: they represent him as going t» appear among men, to be born at Bethlehem, to ride on an ass into Jerusalem, etc., in the character of the king of the Jews, and to the great joy of his subjects. Therefore, says Crool, and with manifest right on this principle, your Jesus cannot be the Messiah; for He did not sit upon David’s throne, He set up no Jewish kingdom, and instead of finding joy and peace and union from His presence, the Jewish people only then began to experience their greatest troubles and their widest dispersions. So, of the greater proportion of prophetical passages applied in New Testament Scripture to Christ; and with equal justice on the principle of historical literalism, for they generally connect the appearance and work of Christ on earth with His destiny as the Son of David, or His relation to Zion and the covenant-people. And if certain characteristics are associated in prophecy with Messiah’s birth and appearance—if certain results are described as flowing simply from His coming, not from His coming a second time to Zion or Jerusalem, and if these are not found in the person and history of Jesus of Nazareth, the plain and obvious inference is, that the promised Messiah is yet to come. In a word, the apologetic value of prophecy as regards the truth of Christianity is gone, and instead of a means of defence we find a weapon of assault. So much is this felt to be the natural tendency of the line of interpretation referred to, that those who adopt it have, of late years, been withdrawing prophecy after prophecy from the number of those which the inspired penmen and all truly Christian writers hitherto have understood of Christ. At in regard to the first great promise to fallen man, so also here, the principle of a prophetical literalism has led to the same result as its apparent opposite—a subtilizing rationalism: the one needs as much the doctrine of accommodation as the other, in explaining the New Testament applications of prophecy to Jesus. See this proved in “Typology of Scripture,’’ Book I. ch. i., against an American Literalist: See also Dr Brown’s “Second Advent,” chap. 7 for proof of the successive abandonment of prophecies in reference to Christ, and for some able and acute remarks respecting the essentially Jewish position of the interpreters in question. Indeed, the list there given might he greatly increased. In chap. i, sec. 3, of our Second Part, when treating of the Apologetic value of Prophecy, the subject necessarily recur? again, and it is there shewn, that the literalism sought for in respect to Christ’s throne and kingdom was in the nature of things impossible, and that if He be really the Son of God, the differences between the New and Old form of things could not be otherwise than they are. It is therefore justly said by Hengstenberg (“Christology,” 2nd Edition, App. vi), that the strictly literal style of prophetical interpretation is essentially the very same as that which the Jewish commentators adopt; that its value may also be understood from the countenance given to it by many Rationalists on the continent; but that its strongest condemnation consists in its being the very method of interpretation which led to the crucifixion of Christ.