The Scriptures make the express claim to prophecy such as by its very character requires that the message be received because authoritative and divine—or rejected because fraudulent. The proof by fulfillment was subsequent to the delivery of the message, but this subsequent proof can be considered by “ordinary laws of evidence," and if those laws accredit the proof, the claim is established on the critic's principles.
The Ordinary Laws of Evidence Applied to Prophecy
To use the ordinary laws of evidence as if they could only be applied to what is ordinary or belong to some “other ancient literature," is to serve the interests of prejudice and unbelief.
To appeal to the ordinary laws of evidence only so far as it suits prejudice and unbelief to do so, and no further, or again to raise any objections to prophecy because its nature is beyond human comprehension and faculties whatever be the proof of its actuality, is to-reject the ordinary laws of evidence as guides, and to follow prejudice and unbelief.
It must be remembered that, for the purpose under consideration, any prophecy unquestionably established would be sufficient to prove that divine communications had been made, There is certainly no necessity of tracing all prophecy to its fulfilment and consummation. Indeed, to attempt this would be to deny that there is any prophecy yet to be fulfilled.
Any prophecy placed beyond dispute, proves that a message has been delivered which in its nature is divine and authoritative, containing truth and announcement outside the province in which a critic's judgment is valid. Frequently, too, it proves the direct interposition of a divine act and power, with results positively contrary to a critic's thoughts, because these are determined by what he considers to be usual and natural.
Fashioned by the contents of any other ancient literature, a critic's judgment will condemn, and must be condemned by, the prophetic message.
Whether or not there are or have been such communications delivered to men by human lips, must, then, be left to ordinary laws of evidence to decide. Prophecy in Scripture is moreover of so varied and extensive a character that the period which has elapsed since its utterance must either have afforded abundant and overwhelming evidence of its truth or lead to its total rejection.
(1). The main essentials in the evidence that would establish prophecy by its fulfilment may be stated, as:
(2). That the message was delivered prior to the events declared.
(3). That the subsequent events fulfilled or interpreted by the prophecy were such as to have been wholly impossible to human anticipation.
That the harmony between the prophecy and the events is plain and undeniable.
Specific Subjects of Prophecy
Some events with reference to which prophecy in the scriptures is established by evidence that answers to the above conditions, will now be considered. This will be the more satisfactory if subjects expressly and manifestly prophetic are taken, and compared with the subsequent events which have taken place. There are prophecies in scripture concerning:
(1). A divine Saviour.
(2). The world and its future, together with the history of the Jews and those nations specially associated with their past and future.
(3). Christendom, or the history of those professing Christianity in the present dispensation.
A Divine Saviour
The burden of the prophecies of the Old Testament, and that in which all prophecy was to had its consummation, was the coming of a Saviour, upon which depended all blessing, from God,—all spiritual and heavenly Blessing.
This at least will not be disputed. It is plain also that the events recorded in the New Testament which are claimed as fulfilling those prophecies, as far as they applied to that period, were beyond the power of human anticipation.
The cross meted to Him who declared the whole of the Scriptures to speak prophetically concerning Himself and who must either be accepted or rejected in. His claim to be the Son of God; is the proof that there was in that case no human anticipation. Fulfilment of prophecies—firmly held, by those who unwittingly fulfilled them, to be such—was not anticipated by man in the way the New Testament records.
"What is the reason why we, educated Englishmen, living at the end of the nineteenth century, in an atmosphere of cosmopolitan ideas, with all the latest productions of criticism on our bookshelves and on Our library tables, and able to make easy personal acquaintance with every religion of interest which has had its day in the world's history, attribute with all our hearts and souls supreme importance to the old sacred literature of the Jews? Did not Voltaire prophecy that the Bible would not be read in the nineteenth century? Did be not say, more than a. century ago, that in less than a hundred years Christianity would have been swept from existence, and would have passed into history? Certainly the infidelity which he did so much to promote ran riot through France, red-handed and impious. More than a century has passed away. Voltaire himself has passed into history. But it is a curious coincidence that his own printing-press has been used to publish the revelation at which he scoffed; and the very house where he lived is packed with Bibles, as it has become the depot of the Geneva Bible Society. Did not Tom Paine, in this country, think he had demolished the Bible by his “Age of Reason? What is the fact? Since Tom Paine went despairing to a drunkard's grave in 1809 more than thirty times as many Bibles have been produced and scattered through the world as had been produced since first Moses began the Pentateuch. Why is this? It is because, without prepossession or predilection, on a calm survey of fact:,
we have made up our minds that this unique and extraordinary literature is actually the transcript of God’s message from the unseen world of spirit, thought, and eternity, into the world of "time, space, sense, arid "action. There is no other book or literature like the Holy scriptures in the whole history of mankind. It is of no use to mention the Egyptian Ritual of the Dead, or the Assyrian Tablets, or the Maxims of Confucius, or the Hindu Vedas, or the Homeric Hymn, or the Mahometan Koran. The religious literature of all countries and ages has been brought into one focus by a great literary publication.. Even a cursory glance will show that there is no possibility of comparison of these ancient documents on the one hand and the Holy Scriptures on the other. . . . . What advantage, to use the words of St. Paul, had
the Jew in his little country, so open to attack, so frequently invaded and conquered by powerful neighbors, so poor in the endowments that made other nations great and famous? Much every way; chiefly that unto them were entrusted the oracles of God. We believe, deliberately, on an impartial survey of the whole facts, which this literature is absolutely unique in being the record of God's dealing with men, concerned from beginning to end with a unique person, the Lord Jesus. Christ. "Bring the book," said Sir Walter Scott when he lay dying. " What book?" asked his friend.." There is only olio hook," said the St. Paul, by Dr. Sinclair.)
It only remains to ask whether the application and harmony, of the prophetic word are established by ordinary laws of evidence. This has already formed the subject of' much that has been under discussion, and hence the evidence will not be here repeated.
PROPHECIES CONCERNING NATIONS OF THE WORLD
When we turn to those prophecies which, concern the Jewish people and those nations and countries connected with their destiny and compare their general condition and aspect in the present clay with that which the prophetic messages declared was to be proof of the outpouring of divine judgment upon them, the accord is so marveleously evident as to be capable of denial by none; though the partial judgments which make those nations and those countries standing witnesses in the present clay of the divine message that once was delivered to them, must not be confused with the ultimate purport and consummation of the prophecies, which are always connected with the outward revelation and establishment of the kingdom and glory of Christ. The date of those prophecies has been made the object of attack by those who reject all prophecies alike. But in this respect scholarship places some beyond dispute, while with others it is at least as available, in defense of the prophecy's claim as for attack upon it.
An answer to this charge of having been written after, not before, the events they speak of, may be given from the Scriptures themselves as an illustration of the sufficiency of their contents to maintain their own authority.
The Prophet Daniel
No prophecies have been more severely criticized as to their contents them those of Daniel.
The precision and the detail of the message, together with the perfect accord of much of it with the events, of history, have at all times been advanced as the proof that it must have been written subsequent to the events. Because of its accuracy it could not be prophetic! And yet it is in the very detail that is made the ground of attack, that this prophecy is confirmed by facts beyond any other.
In Dan. 9:24-2624Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. 25Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. 26And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. (Daniel 9:24‑26), is the following passage:—"Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going' forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined."
This prophecy certainly was written prior to the Christian era. In it Daniel prophecies expressly of the coining, and of the cutting off; of the Messiah, and moreover declares the exact date of)these events. The prediction of the coming and of the cutting off must be at least owned in its marvelous harmony with the history of the Gospels, and in marvelous contrast with the prejudices and the expectations of the people who actually possessed the prophecies.
But further, the dates given may well be examined. The periods throughout Daniel have a specially prophetic character, and hence the most natural interpretation would be a prophetic one, — i.e. a year for a day.
The year from which the coming of the Messiah must count would be that of the first Edict that recognized Jerusalem as a city and sanctioned its restoration. From Ezra (7:11-26) we learn that this was the edict in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, when Jerusalem was to be inquired for. That it officially recognized the city—which would allow the restoration—may be learned, by the prayer, (9:9). of Ezra to God who had given them a wall to Jerusalem That was in. B.C. 458.
The Messiah was to come after a period of seven and sixty-two weeks, or 69 x 7 prophetical days, or four hundred and eighty-three years. And his cutting of was to be after this, but within one week or seven-year period.
History we know has generally assigned the date of Christ's coming forward as the promised Messiah to A.D. 26. His death took place A.D. 29. The prophecy of Daniel assigned the, date of the coming of the promised Messiah to 483 years after B.C. 458 That is, 457 years bring us to B.C. 1 and a further 26 years to A.D. 26; and His cutting off was to be after A.D. 26, but at least before A.D. 33,
According to the accepted dates of history the “cutting off of the Messiah occurred in the middle of the period between the years A.D.
Reckoning also with accepted dates according to the times given in the prophecy of Daniel, the cutting off of the Messiah was to take place in the period between A.D. 26—33
But the prophecy leaves us with a week to be fulfilled, and the week is a week of special judgment, ending with the establishment of eternal righteousness in this world.
Of the cutting off of the Messiah all professing Christians have heard; and since the cutting off, prophecy has been declared anew by “the word of the Lord," and this too must either be accepted as a direct divine message or rejected as fraudulent.
But certainly the most beautiful and perfect sequence and harmony is found in the messages of these two wholly different periods and conditions of prophecy, a divine unity and completeness that is inimitable.
The relationship with God of the world and particularly of the nation taken out from it as His chosen earthly people, being broken by the cutting off of the Messiah, for which both the world and Israel, in their representative heads, and in their people, have become guilty, the line of prophecy which revealed God's purposes and ways with the world is also cut, and its reestablishment placed in abeyance.
A new dispensation, not directly connected with that which has thus been broken off, is commenced, which has its own history from the beginning to the end declared in the prophecies of the New Testament, and again (Act. iv.) it is learned from Scriptures given how the line of prophecy in the Old Testament is once more to be taken up, and how all that is unfulfilled is to have k accomplishment.
The line of prophecy in the Old 'Testament reveals God's purposes with regard to His establishment Of righteousness upon the earth; but his ways of grace with noun, culminating in that lave which gave His Son, receives as its only answer the rejection and cutting off by the world of this Great Representative in the world.
(1). In the Old Testament we have revealed a line of prophecy concerning purposes of establishing'
everlasting righteousness in connection with His ways—surely, as ever, having grace as their source— with this world,
(2). This prophecy takes us down to the rejecting and cutting oft' of God's representative in the world,
(3). This, of course, closed relationships between God and the world as such, and the remaining period is a period of judgment, terminating in the establishment of righteousness upon the earth. The next den lings of God with the world must be on account of the rejection of His Son and must in righteousness be those of judgment,
(4). Prophecy in the Old Testament thus places the world now under the coining wrath of God,
(5). Prophecy in the New Testament also places the world under the coming wrath of God-but reveals as its burden the purposes of God fulfilled during the interval pending the coming judgments
(6). Now is a day of grace; mid purposes of grace planned before the foundation of the world are being fulfilled during it.
(7). The activity of God's grace is not for the world but for the glory of His Son, for whose name He is taking out a people. The links that by nature bind them to the world, its purposes and it expectations, have been severed by His cross, and links have been formed in Christ, so that their place in the world is that of His rejection, and their place in heaven is to be with Him; accordingly, the " one hope " given to them for all times is not the improvement of the world—fur with whatever glory the world may be clothing itself, the next thing for it, from God, must be judgment—but the coming of His Son from heaven.
(8). At His coming his people will be taken out of the world. For the world, the day of grace will be closed,—the day of judgment begin.
(9). This may occur at any time. The cry certainly has already gone forth, “Behold the Bridgroom." The door will at last be shut.
Concerning Christendom
Thirdly, we come to prophecy in the New Testament with respect to the history of Christianity in the world. Here the evidence becomes that of facts and dates known to history, so that the proof of the claims of prophecy will be placed beyond controversy by "ordinary laws of evidence."
The evidence in this case must he received, in spite of prejudice, as conclusive either to establish or condemn absolutely the claim which the Scriptures make to deliver a direct message to num from God.
The Date and Circumstance of Its Beginning
All criticism concurs in giving the first century approximately as the period during which the writings of the New Testament were certainly written. The general condition of those professing Christianity at, or about that time is known; and there was no material change in their condition until sonic time after that period.
They were a people insignificant, unpopular and uninfluential as to their position in the world. Christianity, by Jew and Gentile alike, was considered " a sect everywhere spoken against " and any who zealously proclaimed it " a pestilent fellow." What future do those writings give to a beginning of such a character?
Its History Given in the Gospels
What future could reasonably be anticipated for such a "sect?" And what future is found given it as a fact in the writings of that time? We turn to the Gospels, and read that it was to have an abnormal, and unparalleled growth. It would lift itself up and spread itself abroad as a tree, and that from the seed of a herb. Secondly, it was to allow the entrance of evil, which would work in it till all was leavened or corrupted. Thirdly, the truth is given in parables the import of which being, as stated, that men having turned away their ears from the plain truth have the divine message delivered in parables, which afford the deepest instruction and teaching to those who have ears to hear, but which otherwise withhold the truth.
In the epistles precisely the same history is given prophetically to Christendom as in the parabolic teaching of the Gospels. That which is written declares its own import and purpose, and thus is not capable of any charge of misinterpretation, as parable might be. Rom. 11. For instance, is written for the express purpose of teaching those who had professed Christianity, their privileges and responsibilities because of having the truth and testimony of God transferred from the nation of the Jews to them,
Israel had failed in its trust, and being found unfaithful was as a nation severed from all blessing and 'fatness' from God, which were conditional upon its faithfulness. To the Gentiles, as such, had been given the privileged place of conditional blessing, and to this Gentile Christendom was added the remnant to be found at all times in Israel. But would Gentile Christendom be any more faithful to its trust than Israel?
The answer is, No. Israel had fallen because of unbelief. Christendom stood only by faith, and if unfaithful to this testimony, would be cut off:
Let professing Christians themselves give the answer. How many have believed God, and His Gospel concerning His Son, and being justified by the principle of faith have peace with Him?
The mystery moreover is declared that—Jew and Gentile having both failed and become disobedient—to Israel, the original root, the truth and blessing of God shall once again to be returned, on the principle of pure grace. But for Christendom there is no other portion than the utter rejection from God which its unfaithfulness to Him has fully merited.
History of Christendom in the Epistles
'But as if this was not sufficiently clear, in the Epistles we have given as the definite announcement of the character of the last days of the history of the professors of Christianity. "This know, that in the last days, perilous times shall come. For men shall he lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to Parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false-accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lover's of God; having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof . . . For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts will they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." (2nd Timothy 3) The most solemn injunction is given, " I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and. His Kingdom, Preach the word..." May it not be said that if the evidence; which proves this to have been a divinely given prophecy he not accepted, nothing will be? Surely in rejecting it, the critic has to deny his principle of being guided by the ordinary laws of evidence, and to own that his-actual guide is the subjective unbelief and prejudice, of his own heart.
In the first place, these statements were certainly written at the earliest period of Christianity. Secondly, will anyone say that the present state of professing Christianity could have presented itself to any human mind, however far-seeing or acute, at that time? There was certainly no form of godliness in that day or any likelihood of such. Thirdly, few words could be pill; together that could so fully and perfectly describe the exact condition of professing Christendom in the present day as a fact. Whether this is true, may be left to any impartial judgment. What, for instance, would be the judgment of any one not open to the charge of bias either to support or discredit the truth of Christianity? Let the criticisms of seine intelligent heathen visiting Christian lands be here pondered.
Subscription to some religious organization or benevolent institution, together with "love of pleasure," might well be given as the two chief characteristics of Christendom that he would certainly refer to. Indeed he would observe that the "ways of Christendom " required that the very lovers of pleasure had to be appealed to in order to secure support for some form of godliness. Once a week, truly, churches would be filled, but again the strange anomaly that from thousands of pulpits, preachers, divided as to religious tenets, traditions and ceremonies, were found united in teaching that which covertly or openly undermined the divine authority of the Scriptures, and the divine person and work of Him to whom all Scripture testifies.
The skeptic who would deny this prophecy, must assume that in days of historically notorious wickedness, shameless ungodliness, public rejection and hatred of Christianity, a public profession of its truths and a form of godliness without the power, was humanly anticipated; or else take the alternative and deny that the description answers to the present state of Christendom.
As if to render the denial of prophecy absolutely impossible, the Scriptures contain even further prophecy open to further test and rendering further proof.
In the Scriptures just referred to we have an exact description of the present character of Christendom; but in the Book of the Revelation, which most appropriately brings to it close and completes every subject that has been introduced in the Scriptures, we have the history of those professing Christianity in detail. Since all are able and free to compare the facts of history and the details of this prophecy, little more is necessary than to direct attention to their marvelous and manifest agreement.
In the Book of Revelation the condition of the seven churches is described. The book being professedly prophetic, and no prophecy being of private interpretation, it follows that the teaching given through the messages to these churches will have a deeper and fuller import and application than what pertains merely to the local churches.
But if nothing else awakened time thought, that “Church History " has here been prophetically and divinely written, church history as found written in human annals can hardly fail to do so by time perfect interpretation it gives to the record of Scripture.
First Period
Scripture speaks of the loss of first love. The writings of the New Testament as well as extant literature of the earliest period prove an early decline and laxity of heart-interest in the truths of the Gospel As taught hi time Scriptures. Christians contended warmly for good works, and suffered much persecution, but showed little heart for the glad tidings of the work of salvation as finished, or for the value of the glory that was to come as being Christ's.
Second Period
The second period of Church history is a well defined one. The most finely organized government, in the hands of an absolutely despotic ruler, was set in motion to crush Christianity. A series of authorized persecutions under successive Emperors ended as history states with the last and bitterest persecutor owning during the last moments of his terrible death that he was vanquished, and asking the prayers of the Christians to their God. Scriptural prophecy declares the second period to be one of persecution.
Third Period.
History records that in A.D. 312 an Emperor professed Christianity, and at once in consequence Christianity became popular, and. Christians in favor and at ease—"seated"—in this world. Prophecy describes the church at this third period as dwelling where Satan's seat is. The plain application to ease and comfort from a world which gave Christ its Cross, but Satan its throne, gill be manifest to all.
Fourth Period
Facts of history leave no doubt as to what system has by it works proved its acquaintance with “the depths of Satan"; concerning the history of Papal power, little need be said. All can read for themselves of the successful assumption of temporal power; the unspeakably low and licentious lives of popes in rapid succession; the sale of souls for money'; the recognition of fornication among the priests, indulgence in any sin if paid for, and the worship of idols.
Fifth Period
Protestantism with its successful protest against Romish abuses, followed. Its profession and the character of truth that belong to it, are summed up in the prophetic word, "I know they works, that thou halt a name that thou livest, and art dead." History gives the 15th April, 1529, as the date of the celebrated protest whose principles constitute the very essence of Protestantism. Prophecy makes this to be the fifth period of the. Church, as does also church, history.
From the era of the Reformation, general and public movements having any political significance or result in Church history, cease.
But, as most people of the present day know, there have been extensive movements characterized by intensely personal faith, and activity of a private and individual character. Especially was this true of the time during the first half of the last century, when an awakening sense of and testimony to the value of the Lord's word and His name, was so widely spread that few in Protestant lands were not in some way affected by it. The decadence of this simplicity of testimony is also the subject of prophetic warning. “Thou halt, a little strength and hast kept my word and hast not denied my name. Hold fast that thou hast that no man take thy crown."
Seventh and Last Characteristic of the Professing Church
Finally the character of the last church is so clearly defined, the application of the message so patent in the present day that little comment is required. If the general character of the mass of professing Christians in their attitude towards His name bad to be described by one word, that word could only be " lukewarmness." That which, in Scripture, is authoritatively and pointedly declared to be vital and essential, is generally now considered non-essential and of no serious consequence. It matters little, it is said what a man believes as long as he is earnest and broad minded. In other words, neither salvation nor truth depend upon the object of faith, but upon the man's own feelings. The vessel may he sound or rotten, it matters not, as long as he who puts to sea in it is pleased with himself and with those around him.
Scripture, from first to last, declares that all depends upon who and what is believed.
Prophecy thus delivered precisely the same message as to the professing Church's history as did parable and explicit teaching. According to all alike, the close of the Christian era w add be a time when Men were content with themselves, and their ways; lukewarm as to Christ, "neither cold nor hot"; and the end of the professing Church would be, to be cast out of Christ's mouth, its pride humbled and its miserable condition without Him exposed. We may well close our remarks by quoting at length this wonderful prophecy.
And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of Clod; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, urn rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou invest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore and repent.
“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh, will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His throne.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." Rev. 3:14-2214And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; 15I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. 17Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: 18I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. 19As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. 20Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. 21To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. 22He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. (Revelation 3:14‑22).