Prophecy and Literal Fulfillment

This is an excerpt from Ron Rhodes great book: The 8 Great Debates of Bible Prophecy: Understanding the Ongoing Controversies.

Theologian Charles C. Ryrie is spot-on in his assessment:

In the interpretation of unfulfilled prophecy, fulfilled prophecy forms the pattern…The logical way to discover how God will fulfill prophecy in the future is to discover how He fulfilled it in the past. If the hundreds of prophecies concerning Christ’s first coming were fulfilled literally, how can anyone reject the literal fulfillment of the numerous prophecies concerning His second coming and reign on the earth?5

We may therefore expect that the prophecies of the end times will be fulfilled just as literally as the prophecies of the first coming of Christ. Theologian Charles Feinberg summarizes the point this way:

Take the words of Gabriel in the first chapter of Luke where he foretells of the birth of Christ. According to the angel’s words Mary literally conceived in her womb; literally brought forth a son; His name was literally called Jesus; He was literally great; and He was literally called the Son of the Highest. Will it not be as literally fulfilled that God will yet give to Christ the throne of His father David, that He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and that of His glorious kingdom there shall be no end?6

Editor: One of my favorite passages to show this switch from literal to allegorical is found in Zechariah 9:9-10. 

9. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey. 10. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim And the horse from Jerusalem; The battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations; His dominion shall be ‘from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth.’ (NKJV)

The interpreter is faced with quite a dilemma in this passage. We are faced with the decision to make a literal or figurative interpretation right in the middle of a clearly prophetic text. Most all interpreters believe that verse 9 refers to the literal entry of Christ into Jerusalem. Some interpreters then stop, go over to the hermeneutic wall and flip a switch so they can mover forward with an allegorical interpretation in verse 10. Note the battle language, literal Jerusalem, nations and a kingdom that will stretch upon the whole earth. This is a grave error for a normal reading of the text. We should see both the entry of Christ into Jerusalem as literal and in his second return a literal kingdom from Jerusalem that speaks peace to all nations and peace over the entire earth. CAM

5 Ryrie, The Basis of the Premillennial Faith.

6 Charles Feinberg, Premillennialism or Amillennialism? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1936), p. 39.

Ron Rhodes, The 8 Great Debates of Bible Prophecy: Understanding the Ongoing Controversies (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2014), 19.