The Blessed Hope: Not To Be Cancelled Through Allegory

NO ONE CAN CANCEL OUR “BLESSED HOPE”

Jonathan Brentner

The distortion of biblical prophecy through allegory lies behind much of the doctrinal error that we see in the church today.

If one can interpret prophetic passages of Scripture by applying a meaning foreign to the text, what is to stop others from applying this same methodology to other portions of Scripture they find objectionable? 

Notice the words of the apostle Peter in 2 Peter 1:20-21, “. . . knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Just as the prophets of old did not speak from their own understanding, in the same way we must not apply our own private “interpretations” to what they wrote; we must let the words speak for themselves.

The Greek word for “spoke” in verse 21 is laleo. According to Trench in in his book Synonyms of the New Testament, the “prominent notion” of this verb is “the fact of uttering articulated speech. . . it is the words uttered, and that these correspond to reasonable thoughts . . . .”[v] Biblical prophets, in both the Old and New Testament, expressed truths in words as God moved them through the Holy Spirit (see 2 Tim. 3:16; Proverbs 2:6). They did not speak in riddles or symbols that only the wise among us can discern; no, they spoke God-breathed words that communicated objective truths.

The Lord’s instructions to Jeremiah confirm this emphasis on the place of words in conveying clear and objective realities, “Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, / ‘Behold, I have put my words in your mouth’” (Jer. 1:9).

However, for me the “blessed hope” of Titus 2:13 consists of the imminent “appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” Once someone takes away this eager expectation along with our future anticipation of reigning with Jesus during the millennium, I believe they have already erased key aspects of our glorious Gospel hope.

I believe the rapture represents our “blessed hope’ or at least the start of it. The New Testament expectation is Jesus’ imminent appearing and the glorious new bodies He will give us at that time.

But there’s much more at stake with our efforts to resist the allegorization of biblical prophecy.

Today, we see this practice also extending to other passages that pastors find objectionable. Not only are a great many churches drifting away from beliefs in the rapture, millennial reign of Jesus, and our hope of dwelling in the New Jerusalem, but they are also following the trend that occurred during the Dark Ages. 

They are also moving away from the firm foundation of Justification by faith alone and in the case of many other churches, they are abandoning the clear teachings of God’s Word.

I will have more to say about this in my next post. Stay tuned!

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