Posted by brandon (146.163.211.139) on December 18, 2002 at 21:57:16:
In Reply to: Prophesy posted by Simon Ward on December 16, 2002 at 14:56:08:
Prophecy is a funny thing. A while back, I listened to an online archive of 'Baha'i Perspectives'. The host, Dean Martineau was discussing prophecy and his presentation gave me a bit of insight.
This exercise isn't from his program, per se, but bear with me for a sec:
Imagine if, in the Old Testament, there were a verse that said: "No one knows who the Messiah is; only the LORD knows." (or something to that effect)
Now if we lived in the time before the advent of Christ, this verse would be very true, for He hadn't been born yet. And if we had tried to construct a complete image of the Messiah based on what was prophesied about Him, we would be in a bit of trouble. Yet we (along with our Christian friends) have no trouble fitting Him into Old Testament prophecy. The key is that now we have the benefit of hindsight.
The same holds true for prophecy about Christ's return. People were welcome to guess, which they have and continue to do. They may be right, or they may be wrong. But they don't KNOW until the event comes to pass and is explained with the benefit of hindsight. That's how prophecy frequently works.
Of course in the Old Testament, there is no verse saying that no one knew who the Messiah was. But looking back at the workings of prophetic fulfillment, we see that at the time of the prophecy, no one knew. Leading up to His announcement, some people had an intimation of His station, particularly John the Baptist. But later, He explained how He fulfilled prophecy and people DID know. The Gospels HAVE a verse of this type. When Christ spoke, no one knew the time of His return. Leading up to His return, people guessed. Some were right, some were wrong. When He finally DID return and explained it, some were able to know.
I hope I didn't make any major fallacies here. It's been a while since my Logic 101 course.
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