Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

18:20-21
They went down into the depths like a stone. . . .
Thou didst blow with Thy wind, the sea covered them;
They sank like lead in the mighty waters. (Ex. 15:3-5, 10)
Thou didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt,
And didst hear their cry by the Red Sea. . . .
And Thou didst divide the sea before them,
So they passed through the midst of the sea on dry ground;
And their pursuers Thou didst hurl into the depths,
Like a stone into raging waters. (Neh. 9:9-11)
The symbol is also based on the prophetic drama
performed by Seraiah, Jeremiah’s messenger of
judgment (Jer. 51:61-64). After reading the prophecy of
Babylon’s “perpetual desolation,” he tied the scroll to a
stone and threw it into the Euphrates, declaring: “Just
so shall Babylon sink down and not rise again. . ..”
Applying Seraiah’s words to the Harlot, the angel says:
Thus will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down
with violence, and will not be found any longer. How
was this fulfilled in A.D. 70, if “Jerusalem” is still
standing in the twentieth century? In a physical sense,
of course, Jerusalem was not destroyed forever in A.D.
70, any more than Babylon or Edom or Egypt was
destroyed “forever.” But prophecy is covenantally and
ethically oriented; it is not primarily concerned with
geography as such. For example, consider Isaiah’s
prophecy against Edom:
Its streams shall be turned into pitch,
And its loose earth into brimstone,
And its land shall become burning pitch.
It shall not be quenched night or day;
Its smoke shall go up forever;
From generation to generation it shall be desolate;
None shall pass through it forever and ever. (Isa. 34:9-10)
This is evocative language, associating the desolation
of Edom with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
In a “literal,” physical sense, the prophecy was not
fulfilled; but it has been fulfilled, in terms of its actual
meaning and intent. The ancient territory of Edom still
contains trees and flowers, portions of it are used as
cropland, and travelers continue to pass through it. As
Patrick Fairbairn observed, “Edom was to be stricken
with poverty and ruin: Edom, however, not simply, nor
chiefly as a land, but as a people. This was what the
prophecy foretold, and it has been amply verified. . . .
The Edom of prophecy – Edom considered as the
enemy of God, and the rival of Israel – has perished
forever; all, in that respect, is an untrodden wilderness,
a hopeless ruin; and there, the veracity of God’s word
finds its justification.” 13
Fairbairn explained how Edom is used in prophetic
symbolism: “In the latter stages of the history of Israel,
the Edomites surpassed all their enemies in keenness
and intensity of malice; and hence they naturally came
to be viewed by the Spirit of prophecy as the
personification of that godless malignity and pride
which would be satisfied with nothing less than the
utter extermination of the cause of God – the heads
and representatives of the whole army of the aliens,
whose doom was to carry along with it the downfall and
destruction of everything that opposed and exalted
itself against the knowledge of God. This is manifestly
the aspect presented of the matter in verse 15 of the
prophecy of Obadiah; the fate of all the heathen is
bound up with that of Edom:
For the Day of the Lord draws near on all the nations;
As you [Edom] have done, it will be done to you;
Your dealings will return on your head;
– that is, in Edom, the quintessence of heathenism, all
heathenism was to receive, as it were, its death-blow.” 14
Moreover, the prophet Amos foretold the subjugation
of “Edom” under the rule of the House of David (Amos
9:11-12), and the New Testament interpretation of this
text explains it as a prophecy of the conversion of the
nations under the government of Christ (Acts 15:14-
19). “This clearly implies that the Edom of prophecy,
which was doomed to utter prostration and eternal
ruin, is only the Edom of bitter and unrelenting
hostility to the cause and people of God; that insofar as
the children of Edom ceased from this, and entered into
a friendly relation to the covenant of God, and
submitted to the yoke of universal sovereignty
committed to the house of David, instead of breaking
it, as of old, from their necks, they should participate in
the blessing, and have their interests merged in those of
the people on whom God puts His name to do them
good. A promise and prospect like this can never be
made to harmonize with the result that is obtained from
the predicted judgments upon Edom, as read by the
strictly literal style of interpretation; for, according to
it, there should be no remnant to be possessed, no seed
or place of blessing, as connected with Edom, but one
appalling scene of sterility, desolation, and cursing.” 15
Similarly, the “forever” desolation of Jerusalem means
that Israel, as the covenant people, will cease to exist.
Jerusalem – as the Great City, the Holy City – will not
be found any longer. 16 True, as Romans 11 clearly
shows, the descendants of Abraham will be grafted into
the covenant again. 17 But they will not be a distinct,
holy nation of special priests. They will join the peoples
of the world in the saved multitude, with no distinction
(Isa. 19:19-25). By His finished work Christ “made
both groups [Hebrew and Gentile believers] into one”
(Eph. 2:14). They have been united “in one Body,” the
Church (Eph. 2:16). There is one salvation and one
Church, in which all believers, regardless of ethnic
heritage, become children of God and heirs of the
promises to Abraham (Gal. 3:26-29; cf. Eph. 2:11-22).
Old Jerusalem, the apostate harlot, has been replaced
by New Jerusalem, the pure Bride of Christ. There is no
salvation outside of the Church.
13. Patrick Fairbairn, The Interpretation of Prophecy (London: The Banner of
Truth Trust, [1865] 1964), p. 221.
14. Ibid., pp. 221f.
15. Ibid., pp. 224f.
16. This expression is used six times in verses 21-23, connoting the fact that
Jerusalem has fallen short – that, like Babylon of old, it has been weighed in
the scales and found deficient, and is about to be overthrown, with its
kingdom given to others (Dan. 5:25-28).
17. See David Chilton, Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion (Ft.
Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1985), pp. 125-31.
184