What About Biblical Prophecy?

The church sees prophecy in the following contexts. First, there is a past aspect to the gospel, in which Christ was foretold to be the Messiah. That is "prophecy," but prophecy fulfilled, and it points to the redemptive work of Jesus (Luke 24:25-27, 44-47 and John 5:39-47). Two examples of such prophecies are Deuteronomy 18:15 and Isaiah 53.

There is also a present aspect to the gospel. This tells us we are forgiven of our sins, we are justified and sanctified, and we live in grace as Christ lives in us. Those realities were also "prophesied" or foretold in Scripture. The teaching about salvation, in that sense, can be called a "prophetic message."

As well, there is a future "prophetical" aspect to the gospel — that Christ will return and restore the government of God to the whole world. At that future time, the dead in Christ will be resurrected and receive their inheritance to eternal life.

In previous decades, our denomination focused on only a part of the future aspect, sometimes to the detriment of the basic message of salvation. And even here, much of the teaching was of a speculative nature that eventually proved to be wrong. The church taught that there would be a "Great Tribulation" on America and Britain before Jesus returned. We claimed that the "beast power" originating in Europe would attack the United States and persecute Christians. This was supposed to occur at a definite time, or at least in the near future. Herbert Armstrong speculated that these events would occur in the 1930s. When they didn’t, a new time frame of 1972-1975 was eventually given as the years when these events would occur. We tried to use certain portions of Scripture, such as Revelation, as a blueprint or guide to the meaning of current events.

The church feels it has come to a deeper understanding of the gospel message and now holds to a broader view of prophecy. It understands that teaching the gospel message is different from trying to discover in what year or age "the end" may arrive or what specifically might happen in the world at a given time. That simply is not the purpose of biblical prophecy, as all the failed predictions during the last 2,000 years have shown.

Admittedly, the old preaching was more exciting. People took the "warning" the church preached and, thereby, hoped to escape the "Great Tribulation." The church would supposedly escape this time of trial by being taken to a place of safety in some wilderness area. This was considered "inside knowledge" that no one knew except the favored "elect."

Actually, the church’s past prophetical emphasis paralleled an old covenant message that was a national warning to Israel to repent as God’s people and nation. For this reason, the Old Testament is full of messages that are classic prophecy. Ezekiel, in that context, correctly had a "watchman function" for the nation of Israel. However, that message of national repentance and restoration to a physical land — the Promised Land — no longer applies in a literal sense since God is calling individuals from all nations and ethnic groups to spiritual salvation.

This is a fundamental reason why we no longer teach Anglo-Israelism, or what we referred to as "the United States and Britain in prophecy." Other reasons for not teaching this message have to do with our deepening understanding of the gospel, the proper place of prophecy in the church’s commission and our realization that the doctrine of Anglo-Israelism contained basic inaccuracies.

To begin with, the gospel is not about the modern identity of nations. Christ’s sacrifice is the central plank and fulcrum of God’s plan. Acts 4:12 is one of the pivotal Scriptures of the entire Bible: "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

Jesus Christ is not the property of a few nations or church fellowships. He belongs, in a manner of speaking, to the whole world. Obviously, in that context the identity of a nation is insignificant, since God is no longer dealing with a single nation. Rather, his salvation is open to individuals of all nations.

In light of the New Testament and the centrality of Christ in God’s plan of salvation, much of the relevance of the identity of nations is of no consequence. In Galatians 3:28 we read, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

Of course, as human beings we remain Americans, Chinese, Egyptians, English, Germans, Greeks, Indians, Sudanese or members of some other national group, even after conversion. Yet, in this life we are offered the opportunity to partake of God’s nature and become a part of the "Israel of God," his church (Galatians 6:16). Today, the church composed of Spirit-filled Christians from all nations, is the true Israel.

The new covenant message is one that goes to the whole world. It is a message of hope that salvation in Jesus is open to everyone who will accept him as Savior and is willing to live in faith. While this message may not have the newsworthiness and drama that the old "watchman" prophecy preaching did, it is the most important message that could be preached. After all, this message affects our eternity.

As mentioned earlier, circumstances forced us to face the fact that our attempt to pinpoint the exact years when the "end time" would occur was fundamentally flawed. (In fact, the biblical writers see the "end of the age" as beginning with the redemptive work of Christ.)

The church concluded that its theology of prophecy was erroneous. It was time to quit trying to discern when "the end" might come and leave the future in God’s hands (Acts 1:6-7; Matthew 24:36, 42, 44). As Christians, our job is to "watch" our own spiritual attitudes to be sure we are in a relationship of faithful love with our Creator. We have no need to watch world events in that sense. God is sovereign and will take care of his own. In the resurrection of the dead to eternal life, all God’s people win the ultimate victory.