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Watch, for the Day of the Lord is coming! (Zechariah 14:1a, NLT)
I grew up in a theological environment that taught, “Prophecy about the end times is figurative.”
In seminary, I enjoyed taking classes that covered a single book of the Bible; what a blessing to spend a semester discussing the Gospel of John, the Book of Romans, or the Psalms.
When I saw a class offered by one of my favorite professors on the Book of Revelation, I was ecstatic. Later that day, while sitting in class, a fellow student asked, “Why are you so excited?” I replied, “I get to take a class on Revelation next semester.” To which he replied, “Why bother? It’s a boring bunch of meaningless lectures about figurative language. You know, Revelation just illustrates a victorious church, with none of those events mentioned in the book actually historical.”
In hippie speak of that era, I thought, “What a bummer!”
Though my classmate didn’t believe in modern-day fulfilled prophecy, he prophesied that day, as the Book of Revelation class was boring, a tonic for insomnia, as it squeezed any enthusiasm for a real rapture and an actual millennium right out of my eschatology.
My professor was good, and no one could debate him on his amillennial opinions. I attempted but ultimately conceded every verbal match. With my figurative pre-millennial tail between my legs, I joined the amillennial team for a brief season.
Then I read Zechariah 14.
I had a warmup to Zechariah 14, when I read Zechariah 11:13…
And the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—this magnificent sum at which they valued me! So I took the thirty coins [Matthew 26:15] and threw them to the potter in the Temple of the Lord.
“HHHHMMMHHM,” I thought, “If the figurative prophecies of Zechariah have literal/historical/actual/real fulfillment in the first coming of Jesus, shouldn’t it be possible for figurative prophecies about the second coming of Jesus in Zechariah also to have a literal/historical/actual/real fulfillment?”
With this renewed thinking, a few days after reading Zecharia 11, I found Zechariah 14:8a, “On that day life-giving waters will flow out of Jerusalem,” and then I remembered from my class Revelation 22:1, “Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.” My thinking became…
- Obviously, some of Zechariah’s prophecies regarding the first coming of Jesus were literally fulfilled
- How can I admit to actual fulfillment for first coming prophecies and then proclaim all second coming prophecies as figurative?
- When Zechariah says that life-giving water will flow from Jerusalem in the end times, with the same prophecy repeated in Revelation, to be consistent, I must admit that these prophecies could have a historical fulfillment, and thus many of the second coming prophecies could/can/must have a historical fulfillment.
Boom! My sojourn into Amillennialism blew up. And for any lingering vestiges of prophetic figurative interpretation, consider that with 300 Bible prophecies about the first coming of Jesus, and an actual Jesus came to earth, and with 600 Bible prophecies about the second coming of Jesus…
Expect a literal/historical/actual/real Jesus to return soon!