Already And Not Yet

Already/Not Yet
The scripture gives many examples of prophecies that were fulfilled already and also not yet. Below are some that are quoted in the New Testament.

Mat 1:22 So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: 23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”

Matthew is quoting Isaiah 7:14. But in the context, Isaiah was talking about a sign for Ahaz. Isaiah was talking about his own son but the Holy Spirit was also speaking of Christ. Thus we see the apostolic method of interpretation. Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled already for Ahaz, but not yet for Mary. Isaiah meant it for Ahaz, but the Holy Spirit meant it for both.

Isa 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Isa 8:18 Here am I and the children whom the LORD has given me! We are for signs and wonders in Israel From the LORD of hosts.

Mat 2:14 When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt, 15 and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”

Matthew is here quoting Hosea 11:1. Hosea is referring to Israel as God’s son. But we see from this that the true Israelite is Christ. We also see this in Isaiah where Israel is called the servant of the Lord (Isa. 41:8). The context in Isaiah continues to chapter 53 that describes the servant’s suffering for our transgressions. The Jews say that chapter does not refer to Christ, but to Israel. True. But the only true Israelite is Christ. He is the Good Olive Tree. But in the context of Hosea, it is referring to the nation of Israel. So here again we see a double application.

Hos 11:1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son. 2 As they called them, So they went from them; They sacrificed to the Baals, And burned incense to carved images.

Mat 2:17 Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying: 18 “A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, Refusing to be comforted, Because they are no more.”

Clark’s Commentary says -
A voice was heard in Ramah] The Ramah mentioned here, (for there were several towns of this name,) was situated in the tribe of Benjamin, about six or seven miles from Jerusalem. Near this place Rachel was buried; who is here, in a beautiful figure of poetry, represented as coming out of her grave, and lamenting bitterly for the loss of her children, none of whom presented themselves to her view, all being slain or gone into exile. St. Matthew, who is ever fond of accommodation, applies these words, Mt 2:17, 18, to the massacre of the children at Bethlehem. That is, they were suitable to that occasion, and therefore he so applied them; but they are not a prediction of that event.

Mat 2:23 And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, “He shall be called a Nazarene.”

Which one of the prophets is Matthew quoting here? There is only one place these words are found in the Old Testament.

Jud 13:5 For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.”

It appears that the apostolic method of interpretation sees Samson as a type of Christ. The word to Samson’s mother was fulfilled in Samson already, but not yet in Christ. Jesus is the Greater Samson.

1Co 10:11 Now all these things [written in the Old Testament] happened to them as examples [Gr tupos], and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

We see this same principal in the covenant with David. The prophet Nathan promised four things, but Gabriel, to Mary, reversed the order of the four items. Observe the following. The New Testament substance is mirrored by Old Testament types just as the objects in a mirror are reversed.



Promise To David
1. Kingdom
2. House
3. Throne
4. God’s Son
The Type
2 Samuel 7:12 “When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 “He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 “I will be his Father, and he shall be My son.”
Promise To Mary
Son of God
Throne of David
House of Jacob
His kingdom
The Fulfillment
Luke 1:31 “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. 32 “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. 33 “And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

This is a good example of how the prophecy to David had a double meaning. It was fulfilled in Solomon “already,” but not yet until the Greater Solomon came. Jesus said, “a greater than Solomon is here” (Luke 11:31).

Mat 4:13 And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: 15 “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles: 16 The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, And upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death Light has dawned.”

John Gill says, “Christ's dwelling in Capernaum accomplished a prophecy of the prophet (Isa 9:1,2) and he went and dwelt there, that it might be fulfilled which he had spoken: the meaning of which prophecy is, that as those parts of the land of Israel, there mentioned, had suffered much by Tiglathpileser, who had carried them captive…”

Isa 9:1 Nevertheless the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, As when at first He lightly esteemed The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, And afterward more heavily oppressed her, By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, In Galilee of the Gentiles. 2 The people who walked in darkness Have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, Upon them a light has shined.

Mt 8:17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: “He Himself took our infirmities And bore our sicknesses.”

Here again, the prophecy from Isaiah 53 was fulfilled by Israel as the “Suffering Servant” already, but not yet as the Greater “True” Israelite at the cross.
The following is from How To Read The Bible For All Its Worth, by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart (Zondervan), which is highly recommended. The quotation concerns prophecy and second meanings:

At a number of places in the New Testament, reference is made to Old Testament passages that do not appear to refer to what the New Testament says they do. That is, these passages seem to have clear meaning in their original Old Testament setting and yet are used in connection with a different meaning by a New Testament writer.
As an example, consider the two stories of how Moses and the Israelites were miraculously given water from rocks in the wilderness: once at Rephidim (Exo 17:1-7) and once at Kadesh (Num 20:1-13). The stories are, it appears, simple enough and abundantly clear in their original contexts. But in 1Corinthians 10:4, Paul seems to identify the experience of the Israelites as an encounter with Christ. He says that "they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ." In each Old Testament story there is no hint that the rock is anything other than a rock. Paul gives the rock a second meaning, identifying it as "Christ." This second meaning is commonly called the sensus plenior (fuller meaning).
Upon reflection, one can see that Paul is drawing an analogy. He is saying, in effect, "That rock was to them as Christ is to us a source of sustenance in the same way that spiritual things are a sustenance for us." Paul's language in verses 2-4 is highly metaphorical. He wants the Corinthians to understand that the experience of the Israelites in the wilderness can be understood as an allegory of their own experience with Christ, especially at the Lord's Table.

The author enthusiastically agrees with this. But then Fee and Stuart go on to say that modern writers are not authorized to do what Paul did. With all due respect, I beg to differ. The very fact that Paul and the other apostles left us the pattern of how to interpret the Old Testament should authorize the church to follow their example. After all, are we not commanded to not be like the horse and mule that need a bridle to guide them? (Psalm 32:9) I do not believe the apostles took the Old Testament words out of their original context and assigned a whole new meaning. I believe they used the first or natural interpretation as a pattern and a guide from which to draw the spiritual analogy.
Since the Old Testament age did not end until the Temple was destroyed (70 AD), and Paul said these things were written as types, can we not also conclude that the events prophesied by Christ and fulfilled in 70 AD could also be types of a more literal fulfillment (antitype) of His return to defeat the last enemy? If we say the last enemy was defeated in 70 AD in the ultimate sense, we have the obvious problem that people still die. The whole purpose of redemption is to restore what Adam lost. The destruction of Christ’s enemies in AD 70 was simply a token of how He will finish the job. Matthew Henry seems to think so in the following quote concerning Matthew 24.

[T]his prophecy, under the type of Jerusalem's destruction, looks as far forward as the general judgment; and, as is usual in prophecies, some passages are most applicable to the type, and others to the antitype; and toward the close, as usual, it points more particularly to the latter.

If we use the hermeneutic of the full preterists, we would have to conclude, in order to be consistent, that Matthew was wrong for applying Isaiah’s prophecy of a virgin to Mary. This “wooden literalism” smacks of “private interpretation.”