Theodicy Soteriology, Hermeneutics

SOTERIOLOGY : M. M. NINAN
Jewish people see Antiochus Epiphanes as fulfilling Daniel's prophecies about a tyrannical
leader who would severely persecute the Jews. But 200 years after Antiochus, Jesus took
those prophecies of Daniel and told His disciples they were yet to be fulfilled.
The same events are described in Zechariah 9:9-10
9 Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes
to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a
donkey. 10. I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war-horses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend
from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.
Here the messianic advent is again seen as a single event when Christ enters Jerusalem on
a donkey and then he rules the world in peace. But this did not happen. For some reason or
other there is a splice at the end of the messiah's entry on colt. We are still waiting for the
second part to be fulfilled. There is no explanation for this based on any prophecy. But Paul
reiterates that there had been a change of plan.
In this telescoping Jews were put aside and the church period was ushered in.
Again the Christians of the Apostolic period expected Jesus to come back after three and a
half years from his ascension. But by the rejection of messiah by the Jewish nation God was
forced to change his plan. When at the appointed three and a half years after ascension
Stephen challenged the Jewish leaders with irrefutable proofs of Jesus as being the messiah,
they stoned him to death. Then we see Stephen proclaiming that Jesus was standing ready
to come down - instead of sitting at the right hand of God interceding. The prophecy of Daniel
would have been fulfilled then. But it did not happen. Because his people did not cooperate
with his plan. So a gap was introduced and a new plan was implemented.
So we see that there is a progressive fulfillment of the same prophecy at various levels in a
spiraling fashion. Several of the messianic prophecies are similar to the above situation. In
fact the dispensation theory of history can be constructed over a seven-season cycle from the
creation to the final redemption of man and later to the final redemption of the cosmos.
In the past many Bible Scholars have interpreted history. They have all predicted their time
when Jesus will return. Many hearts have been broken when their studies and scholarship in
chronology and prophecy were proven to be wrong. Predicted end dates have been
progressively moved forward. Were they simply calling wolf or were the project simply got
delayed because the order of events in the schedule did not complete? Why because the
dates are not fixed on the calendar of solar year, but on the events that are to happen. In this
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