First it was Hitler and Nazi Germany. Then it was Hirohito and Japan. Then it was Stalin or Kruschev and the U.S.S.R. Then it was Mao and Red China. Then is was Ida Amin and Uganda. Then it was the Ayatollah and Iran. Then it was Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Now it is. . .well, it really doesn't matter, because there will be new candidates at the time of the next world crisis, the next Middle East conflict, the next big breaking news story of the day, the next year, the next decade. Gog is the bad boy leader of the bad nation Magog, which is anybody's guess who or what and when that will all come to pass. Anybody's guess is the appropriate term, for anybody can do it so that anybody can be proven wrong.
Those who peddle their end-time books are banking (in more ways than one!) on the selective amnesia of fellow prophecy-imbibed Americans. The speculation game is not confined to Wall Street, nor is fortune telling just for the psychics and palm readers, nor is the ancient Gnostic heresy confined to the first century. Long before Michael J. Fox played the role, American religious crystal-ball gazers have been acting out Back to the Future every time a potential Armageddon explodes on the scene. Instead of reading people's lines in their hands to tell their future, eager beaver spiritual soothsayers will read between the lines in the pages of the Bible to tell us all our future. I am still waiting for the first modern-day prophecy author to step forward and offer a 100% money-back guarantee to all readers should his prognostications do not pan out. That still is a much better arrangement than the Old Testament method of dealing with self-professed prophecy authorities whose predictions did not come true.
But all the above does not matter, because we are so forgiving or forgetful when our favorite authors or preachers make the same mistake time and time again in their predictions. We wouldn't trust our cars to a mistaken-prone automotive mechanic, and we certainly wouldn't hand our bodies over to a clumsy physician, yet we freely turn our minds over to people who are sloppy with the Word for their own monetary gratification. We gobble up their latest end-time books quicker than we can say "sure-fire bestseller", and we soak in every word they say in person or in print without once giving any thought about being a Berean Christian (Acts 17:11) We don't need to check out the Word diligently to see if what Bro. So and So is saying is true about Iran, Israel, the European Union, the United Nations, the USA, China, et.al; all we need to do is check out the latest headlines of the day. Newspaper exegesis takes much less effort than biblical exegesis after all.
The early Gnostics believed that they were the "spiritual elite" who could discern and understand the deeper things of God that the average person could not. They had the key to seeing things that others could not see, and those who could not see stood amazed with bulging eyes and dropped jaws at those who could see. The elite have the charts and diagrams and can bring things out of Scripture things that are not clearly seen by the average Bible reader. And who says that Gnosticism is an ancient heresy that has been buried once and for all? In the realm of eschatology, it seems that Gnosticism is alive and well, and we seem to be content and happy with that. The apostle Paul in Colossians was anything but happy and content as he wrote about the dangers of any type of secretive inside knowledge that only a handful could decipher, where the rest of us ignoramuses were at the mercy of these elitists.
Now when it comes to interpreting Ezekiel 38 and 39, what does every popular error-prone prophecy expert have in common? They all see these two chapters having a modern-day fulfillment; in other words, they are yet to be fulfilled. That opens the speculative can of worms, and those worms crawl out in every possible direction. Worms make good bait for fishing, but herein lies the problem. Many people see prophecy as nothing more than a fishing expedition rather than a rigorous study in biblical theology.
We should all agree that prophecy is about the future. No argument there. Prophecy is not prophecy if it is telling about the past--that's providential history that has been made. Prophecy is about providential history in the making. But why do we think that all prophecy in Scripture, or most prophecy in Scripture, or even much prophecy in Scripture is about our future? Why can't it be about the future of the people to whom the Bible was originally written? In other words, why can't prophecy be about events and people that lived back then in the Bible times and were fulfilled in events and people back then?
In fact, going back to previous blog articles, that point has been made pretty persuasively when one considers the overwhelming biblical evidence. There were numerous prophecies made in the Old Testament that were fulfilled in the Old Testament, some of them in their near future, and some in their distant future. Other prophecies made in the Old Testament were fulfilled in the person of Christ and in the days of the New Testament. Scores of prophecies in the New Testament were fulfilled in the days of the first century.
So, here is the crux of the matter. Why can't the prophecies about Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38 and 39 have already been fulfilled sometime during the Old Testament? Why do we naturally assume that they have to be about something that is yet to be fulfilled, unless of course it might throw a monkey wrench in all our preconceived notions, cause us to toss out books and tear up notes, put an end to the speculation game, and therefore be a monetary fiasco for all those who profit from being a prophet? Outside of those few insignificant things, I can't think of many reasons why anybody would balk at the suggestion that Ezekiel 38 and 39 be already fulfilled in our past, yet it was fulfilled in other people's future.
My thesis is simply this--Gog and Magog were about people and events in Ezekiel's and his contemporaries' future. They were not about things yet to occur in our future. For me to come to that conclusion, I better have the facts with which to back it up. As in real estate, location is everything. Location, location, location. In biblical interpretation, location is everything. Context, context, context. There are thirty-seven chapters in Ezekiel before we get to chapter 38 and 39. Might it be a wise idea for us to study chapters 38 and 39 in its location? To think that Ezekiel all of a sudden in chapters 38 and 39 talks about something that is totally disconnected with what he says prior to those chapters is totally baffling, and it is being totally reckless with Scripture. Location, location, location. Context, context, context.
Ezekiel lived during the time of the downfall of Jerusalem when people's hopes were crushed beyond measure. To the Jew, it was far worse than our 9/11. We still had a nation after that fateful day. There was no nation and there was no temple after 586 B.C. when the Babylonian terrorists wrecked havoc and destruction upon the southern kingdom of Judah and precious Jerusalem. You can only understnad and appreciate Ezekiel when you put it in context. In chapters 36 on, the prophet turns the corner and begins to preach almost exclusively about the good news that was lying ahead of his people in the immediate future, his future and not ours. It would have no meaning whatsoever to the people back then if Ezekiel all of a sudden started talking about a future prosperity and blessing to come Israel's way in 1948 and on, for example. Tell me, exactly how would that bit of news encourage a distraught people back then, some 2500 years before modern-day Israel became a sovereign state?
In previous chapters, God through Ezekiel told about His judgment that had come not only upon Israel in 586 B.C. and since, but also upon Israel's neighboring nations. In chapters twenty-five and following, we find prophecies and pronounced judgments against Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, Tyre, Sidon, Egypt, Assyria, Elam, and Edom. Those were nations in Ezekiel's day and not in our day to whom God was preaching and referring. In chapter thirty-three then, God turns His attention back to His own chosen people where He explains again why Jerusalem back then, not the Jerusalem of today, was struck by God's hand of judgment. In chapter thirty-four, He rebukes the worthless shepherds, the leaders of God's people back then prior to Jerusalem's fall, and not the Prime Minister nor the Knesset of modern day Israel. He then says that blessings are about to come Israel's way again, the Israel of then and not the Israel of today. That is the focus of chapters thirty-four and thirty-six.
In chapter thirty-seven, we have that famous vision of the valley of dry bones, bones that came alive when flesh enveloped them and the breath of God revived them. After 586 B.C., Israel saw itself without any hope, just a pile of dead bones, with no chance of being back in the Promised Land with God's favor on them again. What is impossible with man is possible with God. God would bring the dead Israelites back to the land and restore them to Himself. He would breathe new life in them.
At the end of the chapter, the vision ends on a teaching point--God would reunite all displaced Israelites, whether from the northern kingdom or the southern kingdom, into one nation, and they will no longer be two kingdoms as was the case post-Solomon to the fall of Jerusalem. That was the purpose behind the two sticks of v.16 on becoming ONE stick in God's hand. That has all happened when Jerusalem and the Temple were rebuilt in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. It was ONE nation under God. None of those prophecies are in our future, any more than the birth and crucifixion of Jesus are in our future. Context, context, context.
All this brings us to the next two chapters of thirty-eight and thirty-nine. What gives us the right to leapfrog over 2500 years of history all of a sudden and think that God is now going to talk about something that is not going to have any effect upon any of the Israelites during Ezekiel's day, especially when everything He has said up to this point is about the Israelites of that day? Do we have God saying now from chapter thirty-eight to the end of the book things that do not concern at all the Jews in that time period? In essence, could God have been saying now, "Okay, you Jews, you can doze off now and not pay any attention to what I am about to say, because nothing now is going to occur in your lifetime and immediate future"? That is so incredulous, and it violates the cardinal rule of interpretation of context, context, context.
Even if that is not convincing enough, there is much, much more to come. A verse-by-verse study of these two chapters reveals some hefty arguments in favor of the Gog and Magog of Ezekiel as having already been fulfilled. (As a teaser, this is not to say that there will not be another Gog and Magog--as there was a World War I and later a World War II, there is a Gog and Magog I and a much later Gog and Magog II--which seems to be the case from Revelation 20:8-10.) What are the internals of these two chapters that tilt heavily in the direction of an immediate fulfillment from the time of Ezekiel's time period? That will be the focus of our next blog article, Lord willing, in my immediate future.
Yours in Christ,
Chris
