Spiritualizing Prophecy

Sometimes things really are simple. Isn’t prophecy by definition spiritual? Doesn’t the prophecy we study come from the Spirit of God? Of course. So it might sound odd if I write something about spiritualizing prophecy—but hear me out.

What I mean when I speak against what I call “spiritualizing prophecy” is this: it’s when someone takes a passage of Scripture that clearly refers to a specific, real-world event and interprets it solely in a symbolic or spiritual way, rather than expecting it to be literally fulfilled. But some prefer a spiritualized application instead of it being literally fulfilled, physically.

But Jesus didn’t come to earth spiritually. He wasn’t crucified spiritually or raised from the dead spiritually. These were physical, real-time events. Likewise, Israel didn’t spend 70 years in captivity and then return to their homeland spiritually. These events actually happened in history. That’s the point I’m trying to make.

Just this past year, I spoke with a dear friend—someone who has led many to the Lord—who passionately told me that we are currently living in the Kingdom of God on earth. According to this view, since “Jesus now reigns”, this present age is the Millennial Kingdom. I didn’t get angry, but I was deeply saddened—and frankly astonished—that any group of believers could be so clouded in their thinking as to mistake this present, broken world for the promised Kingdom of Christ on earth.

But as often happens, it doesn’t stop there.This morning I came across another article promoting the idea that nearly all of the key elements of the end-time picture—those long held by the Early Church—should now be spiritualized. We are now being told, “There will be no Antichrist as is told us in Revelation 13, II Thessalonians 2, Daniel 7 and many other places. We are the antichrist; we are the son of perdition”. This kind of teaching is, to me, a dangerous distortion—strong delusion spreading like a poisonous fog across the world.

I try to keep my blog posts short and direct, since most people today are busy and don’t have time (or patience) for lengthy essays. But I’ll say this plainly: in the history of both prophetic and biblical interpretation, this tendency to over-spiritualize has often been a serious hindrance to understanding God’s Word.

In recent centuries, there’s been a welcome return to what many consider the best approach—taking Scripture at face value. When a passage appears to say something plainly, that’s usually the best way to understand it, unless there’s a clear reason to read it otherwise.

When we read of the “woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet” in Revelation 12, we can be pretty confident in looking for some spiritual meaning there. But when chapter after chapter and book after book, stretching over centuries point towards a time of great trouble immediately preceding the coming of the Lord to establish God’s Kingdom on earth, we do ourselves and Him no service by endeavoring to spiritualize the whole thing. Nor do we stand on solid ground when we reinterpret the Antichrist or his actions as mere metaphor.

For example, Paul in II Thessalonians chapter 2 was trying to give a specific warning of something that he knew would come to pass before the second coming of Jesus. That is, that the Antichrist will “sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” (II Thes. 2:4) That doesn’t sound symbolic. The Early Church wasn’t confused about it either. They taught it as a literal future event—just as the passage plainly says.

If you have any questions about that, get a copy of “Hippolytus of Rome’s Commentary on Daniel”, written around 211 AD. It’s as clear as can be how he saw that event to come from his Early Church vantage point.

Yet today, many insist, “We are the temple!” Yes, Paul did use that analogy when writing to the Corinthians: “You are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you.” (I Corinthians 3:16) But that’s not the context in 2 Thessalonians. There, Paul is referencing what was revealed to the prophet Daniel some 600 years earlier—the same Daniel that Jesus told us to study when He spoke about the end times to His disciples, “whoso reads, let him understand.” (Matthew 24:15)

I feel that to spiritualize key elements of the prophetic endtime picture is doing a great disservice to the Word of God and to the people of God. Jesus Christ came in the flesh, was buried and “rose again the third day, according to Scripture.”  (I Corinthians 15:4) And according to those same Scriptures, a number of critical prophetic events will happen in real time, on this earth, before His return.