Misuse of the Old Covenant Prophets

Messianism’s misuse of Paul’s poetic olive tree illustration and its use of prophecy-based subterfuge to circumvent Hebrews speak to its largest interpretive problem under the Mary veil. It is the elevating of prophetic interpretation over apostolic teaching.

Instead of beginning with the New Covenant apostles to build their understanding of the New Covenant, Messianics look to the Old Covenant prophets to build an independent case for exalting Jewish heritage and evoking spiritual allegiance to a fleshly State in Israel—and then either ignore or else try to box the New Covenant apostles into their prophetic framework. But there are serious problems with this.

First is the problem of restorational interpretation, which we already examined in the first treatise. Reconstructive expectations based on the prophecies have always failed and will continue to fail. The mind of the Spirit is regenerative, not reconstructive.

Second, steadfast appeal to Old Covenant prophecies for reinforcing reconstructive visions of ancient Israel does not answer apostolic assertions. Truth demands straight forward verdicts on Paul’s teachings of Jurisdictional Nullification and on Hebrews’ plain declaration of the abolition of the Old Covenant—something which the prophecies cannot provide. This is because apostolic teaching can only be refuted by superior apostolic teaching, not by prophetic interpretation.

Messianics can only use the prophecies to ignore or walk in creative denial of the apostles’ teaching, but they can’t overcome it. Retrenched appeal to the prophecies and clever interpretive subterfuges does not overcome the contradictions. It only hides from them. Lacking apostolic class answers for refuting Paul and Hebrews, intellectual honesty demands that Messianics deny the validity of the apostles’ writings if they are not willing to accept them at face value.

On the other hand, where reconstructive prophetic interpretations are powerless to bend apostolic teaching, prophecy is quite capable of bending regeneratively to conform to apostolic teaching. Just for instance, when Zechariah prophesies about the “Feast of Booths” in the next age, nothing demands this be the same Feast of Booths instituted under Moses, any more than it was required that Elijah the Tishbite be the “Elijah” that heralded Yeshua’s coming. And so it is with all the prophecies.

Hebrews says that the Mosaic was a shadow of “things to come.” So when the prophets speak of future things that sound Mosaic, they are speaking of yet unknown realities to be manifest in the glorified age that conform with Yeshua’s unfathomable transcendence—toward which the Law and they only dimly pointed. These will indeed include real feasts and other ordinances the Lord will give to the peoples of that time. By admitting of “things to come,” Hebrews acknowledges their reality. They are not just “spiritualized” concepts. But whatever they are, they will not be reconstructive restorations of the Mosaic shadows.

Viable, real (not “spiritualized”) regenerative interpretations of millennial prophecies conformable to apostolic teaching do exist for interpreting Ezekiel’s Temple and the apparent return to Levitical sacrifices. (We’ll cover this in depth later.) But ultimately, it is not incumbent on us to know or to have to prove what these realities will be like. It is enough to know on the authority of the apostles that they will not be reconstructions of the Mosaic order, and that reconstructive interpretation of prophecy has no power to bend or supersede the apostles’ meaning.

Third, Messianic dependence on prophecy for establishing doctrine is dangerously out of divine order. Prophecy is not given for establishing doctrine. The Apostolic ministry of revelational teaching is given to that end.

The prophets are extremely fluid and even cryptic in their words. Often times, their meaning can only be recognized after the fact of their fulfillment—something which is true about many of the original prophetic fulfillments by Yeshua. Because of this, it is impossible to use the prophets as the final plumb line for establishing doctrine.

Of greatest import is that the prophets did not even see the coming of the church—a revelation Paul said was reserved for his time. Because this is so, it is impossible to use what the prophets could see to contradict the truths taught from a platform of later revelation they could not see.

Yeshua said the prophets were being proclaimed “until John,” but that since John “the gospel of the kingdom is being preached” (Lk. 16:16). In other words, with Yeshua’s arrival, the prophets ceased as the reference point for predicting the nature of the coming kingdom. They were superseded by the new kingdom gospel about Yeshua, the same message defined by Paul.

This means the prophets must be interpreted on terms agreeable to the transcendent deific description of Yeshua as enunciated by Paul’s kingdom gospel and by Hebrews—and all explanations of their millennial fulfillments must conform thereto.

Paul tells us the church is built on the apostles and the New Covenant prophets. Not simply on the prophets; and definitely not on “the Law and the Prophets” which were only “until John.” The apostolic holds primary authority for instructing us in the mind of Christ and God’s plan for the ages. All prophetic is secondary—whether of New or Old Covenant origin—and is tested in light of the apostolic.

All restoration prophecy therefore must be interpreted in terms of the apostolic, not vice versa. (Amazingly, in contending for the transcending of the Mosaic covenant, the apostles are entirely unfazed by the Old Covenant prophecies regarding Israel’s future restoration.) One can appeal to “hundreds of prophecies” about something. But hundreds of prophecies must take a back seat to even one simple statement of apostolic teaching. To interpret otherwise is to court error and cultism.