Thursday, March 5, 2020

R.B. Girdlestone (1901) on Conditional Prophecies




Among the points bearing on the nature and fulfilment of prophecy, few call for more special attention than this,--that some predictions are conditional, whilst others are absolute. Many of the utterances of Scripture (e.g. Lev. 26) present alternative prospects. If Israel followed the course of obedience, certain happy consequences would ensue. If they disobeyed, various specified evils would follow. So it was in the case of individuals. Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, “If thou wilt go forth to the king of Babylon’s princes, then thy soul shall live, and this city shall not be burned with fire; but if thou wilt not go forth to the king of Babylon’s princes, then shall this city be given into the hand of the Chaldeans and they shall burn it with fire, and thou shalt not escape out of their hand” (Jer. 38. 17, 18). Similarly, two alternatives were present before the little remnant with whom Jeremiah found himself associated after the Captivity (Jer. 42.10-13).

But the conditional nature of a prediction is not always plainly stated in Scripture. Thus, Jonah is said to have preached that within forty days Nineveh should be destroyed; the people repented at his preaching, and Nineveh was not destroyed; yet so far as we know, the people were not told that if they repented the judgment should not fall on them.

Predictions of this class are so numerous that we conclude there must have been some unexpressed but underlying condition in all such cases which justified God in departing from the literal fulfilment of the prophetic utterance. What that condition is we may gather from such chapters as Jer. 18 and Ezek. 33. After Jeremiah had watched the potter at his work and had learned the great lesson of the Sovereignty of God, a further message was presented to him: “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to build and to plant it, if it do evil in My sight that it obey not My voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them” (Jer. 18:7-10). Acting on this principle, Jeremiah speaks thus to the princes when the priests and prophets wanted to have him slain:--“The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house, and against this city all the words that ye have heard. Therefore now amend your ways and your doings and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will repent Him of the evil that He pronounced against you” (Jer. 26.12, 13). If the people would repent, in one sense, the Lord would repent, in another. And on what ground? ON the ground of the original, essential and eternal attributes of the Divine nature, and on the ground of the old promises and covenants which God had made with the fathers as a result of those attributes. Thus God says to Israel, “Return, thou backsliding Israel, and I will not cause Mine anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful and I will not keep (anger) for ever” (Jer. 3. 12). It is the goodness of God which leads to repentance (Rom. 2.4). Ezekiel’s words are most significant:--“When I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, if he trust to his own righteousness and commit iniquity, all his righteousness shall not be remembered, but in his iniquity which he hath committed, in it shall he die. Again, when I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; if he turn from his sin and do judgment and justice . . . he shall surely live” (Ezek. 33.13-15). In accordance with this fixed principle the appeal goes forth, “Repent and turn from all your transgressions, so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby ye have transgressed, and make you a new heart and a new spirit. For why will ye die, O house of Israel. For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God; wherefore turn and live ye” (Ezek. 18.30-32).

It may be gathered from these and other passages that the actual fulfilment of a prophecy depends on the moral and spiritual condition of those to whom or of whom the word is spoken. This consideration throws light on many things.

It is a fundamental principle of revealed theology that God is slow to anger and repenteth Him of the evil. “He is not slack as some men count slackness, but it longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3.9). This principle is exhibited in His dealings with the nations which inhabited the countries round Canaan. Their judgment may have been postponed or modified in consequence of some good thing which was seen in them. Similarly, in the case of individuals we can trace a relaxation or postponement of judgment. When Ahab had been convicted of grievous sin he rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted and went softly. “And the word of the Lord came to Elijah, saying, Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before Me? Because he humbleth himself before Me I will not bring the evil in his days: in his son’s days will I bring the evil upon his house” (1 Kings 21.27-29).

It is probable that hundreds of prophecies, which look absolute as we read them, were not fulfilled in their completeness because the words of warning from the prophet produced some result, even though slight and temporary, on the hearts of the hearers. God does not quench the smoking flax.

It would be interesting to enquire how far the principle thus clearly laid down is applicable to the case of our first parents. God is represented as saying to Ada, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2.17). The eternal attribute of goodness lay beneath the utterance; and in this sense, if in no other, the Lamb was regarded as slain before the foundation of the world. So it came to pass that Adam did not actually die when he ate the forbidden fruit, though the seeds of spiritual and physical death were then sown in him.

In Num. 14.34 we read, “Ye shall know My breach of promise.” The words have to do with the threat of judgment on Israel for their unfaithfulness and their murmuring, in consequence of which their carcases were to fall in the wilderness, and forty years should elapse before they entered Canaan. There is some doubt as to the exact rendering of the Hebrew word HEB, translated “breach-of-promise.” Probably the margin in the A.V. (“the altering of My purpose”) comes sufficiently near the truth. It would seem as if there were a constant reconstruction of the Divine plan, to meet the new set of circumstances brought about by human failure; so that whilst in one sense God is not a man that He should repent (Num. 23.19 and 1 Sam. 15.29), yet He does repent, in the sense of changing His course (1 Sam. 15.35). (R.B. Girdlestone, The Grammar of Prophecy: An Attempt to Discover the Method Underlying the Prophetic Scriptures [London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1901], 25-28)