As some of you know I have been working on a way to interpret Revelation so as to preserve the best of the preterist, historicist, and idealist approaches in a coherent view. I continue to study various commentators and writers on prophecy to assist in this endeavour. Recently I happened on a coincidence. Two sources recommended the idea of successive fulfilment. In going through Adam Clarke on Revelation I found a "conjecture" as to the design of the book, where he speaks of Revelation as fulfilling the office of a prophet to the church, which supposes there is to be a "successive fulfilment" of it. At the same time, as I have been using T. V. Moore's commentary on Malachi to assist in sermon preparation, I came across a clear explanation of "successive fulfilment" which ties together the preterist and idealist views. I am going to post them here because the two together are powerfully suggestive and work very well with what I have in mind. It will be seen that Moore's explanation clears preterism from universalist denials of a coming day of the Lord. Successive fulfilment enables the interpreter to see both a past and a future aspect to the ideal event that is being described. Meanwhile Clarke shows how it can work on the level of historical development and thus incorporate historicist insights.
Adam Clarke:
"A conjecture concerning the design of the book may be safely indulged; thus then it has struck me, that the book of the Apocalypse may be considered as a prophet continued in the Church of God, uttering predictions relative to all times, which have their successive fulfilment as ages roll on; and thus it stands in the Christian Church in the place of the SUCCESSION of PROPHETS in the Jewish Church; and by this especial economy PROPHECY is STILL CONTINUED, is ALWAYS SPEAKING; and yet a succession of prophets rendered unnecessary. If this be so, we cannot too much admire the wisdom of the contrivance which still continues the voice and testimony of prophecy, by means of a very short book, without the assistance of any extraordinary messenger, or any succession of such messengers, whose testimony would at all times be liable to suspicion, and be the subject of infidel and malevolent criticism, howsoever unexceptionable to ingenuous minds the credentials of such might appear."
T. V. Moore:
V. 1. “For behold! the day comes! burning like a furnace! and all the proud, and all the doers of evil are chaff! and the day that comes, burns them, saith Jehovah of hosts, who will not leave to them root nor branch.”
V. 1. In this verse we have a prophecy that requires the application of what we may call the principle of successive fulfilment. This is one of great importance {397} in interpreting the Bible, if we would avoid confusion. There are a number of statements by the sacred writers that are designed to apply to distinct facts, successively occurring in history. If the words are limited to any one of these facts, they will seem exaggerated, for no one fact can exhaust their significance. They must be spread over all the facts before their plenary meaning is reached. There is nothing in this principle that is at variance with the ordinary laws of language. The same general use of phrases occurs repeatedly. Thus, Berkeley’s celebrated line, “Westward the course of empire takes its way,” is fulfilled with every new advance of occidental greatness, and includes the smallest as well as the greatest facts of this nature. The expression, “The schoolmaster is abroad,” has its fulfilment in every successive teacher of youth who goes forth to his work. Every language contains these formulas, which refer not to any one event, but a series of events, all embodying the same principle, or resulting from the same cause. Hence, there is nothing in this principle at variance with the laws of language.
We find repeated instances of this species of prediction in the Scriptures. The promise in regard to the “Seed of the woman” (Gen. 3:15), refers to no one event, but runs along the whole stream of history, and includes every successive conquest of the religion of {398} Christ. The same thing is true of the promise, that men shall beat their swords into ploughshares: and kindred predictions of the peace that shall ensue in Messianic times. They refer to every advance that is made in the peaceful tendencies of the religion of the Bible, and await their fullest fulfilment in the future.
There is a class of predictions in interpreting which this principle is eminently important. It is that which refers to what the old theologians called the novissima, to which this verse belongs. When Christ speaks of these last things, he does it in terms that obviously refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, and yet as obviously transcend that event. This has led to the Universalist dogma, that there is no day of judgment, except in that indefinite sense in which every judicial visitation of God is a day of judgment, just as every gracious visitation of God is a day of grace. Relying on the indefinite use of the word day in Scripture, they seek to eviscerate these predictions of a future day of judgment of all the tremendous significance that they have commonly possessed.
They refer to the fact that Peter applied Joel’s prediction of the day of the Lord to the events of Pentecost, in Acts 2:16; and from thence infer that the formula “day of the Lord” cannot be applied to a future judgment, as it is commonly held. The difficulty which they press, however, can be wholly removed by adopting this principle of successive fulfilment. It is true that the deluge, the destruction of Sodom, Babylon, and Jerusalem, and all subsequent visitations of {399} God’s wrath, were days of the Lord, and in each one of them the proud and evil-doers were as chaff. But as each one did not exhaust these ominous predictions, so all together have not yet met the full reach of the terrors, which will only be done in that future day in which the Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and the drama of earth shall be ended. All previous judgments were but reddenings of the dawn, that betokened the coming, but did not unfold the terrible brightness of that awful day. As the prophet in this verse gazes upon its distant rising, he exclaims, as if in breathless emotion, It comes! burning like a furnace! the wicked proud are chaff! the day burns them! There is something very forcible in these abrupt exclamations, as if the prophet was elevated on some mount of vision, and actually beheld this terrible pomp come rolling up the distant skies, on its reddening pathway of fire and blood. The finality of this day is distinctly declared in the utter ruin that it is predicted to bring.
Adam Clarke:
"A conjecture concerning the design of the book may be safely indulged; thus then it has struck me, that the book of the Apocalypse may be considered as a prophet continued in the Church of God, uttering predictions relative to all times, which have their successive fulfilment as ages roll on; and thus it stands in the Christian Church in the place of the SUCCESSION of PROPHETS in the Jewish Church; and by this especial economy PROPHECY is STILL CONTINUED, is ALWAYS SPEAKING; and yet a succession of prophets rendered unnecessary. If this be so, we cannot too much admire the wisdom of the contrivance which still continues the voice and testimony of prophecy, by means of a very short book, without the assistance of any extraordinary messenger, or any succession of such messengers, whose testimony would at all times be liable to suspicion, and be the subject of infidel and malevolent criticism, howsoever unexceptionable to ingenuous minds the credentials of such might appear."
T. V. Moore:
V. 1. “For behold! the day comes! burning like a furnace! and all the proud, and all the doers of evil are chaff! and the day that comes, burns them, saith Jehovah of hosts, who will not leave to them root nor branch.”
V. 1. In this verse we have a prophecy that requires the application of what we may call the principle of successive fulfilment. This is one of great importance {397} in interpreting the Bible, if we would avoid confusion. There are a number of statements by the sacred writers that are designed to apply to distinct facts, successively occurring in history. If the words are limited to any one of these facts, they will seem exaggerated, for no one fact can exhaust their significance. They must be spread over all the facts before their plenary meaning is reached. There is nothing in this principle that is at variance with the ordinary laws of language. The same general use of phrases occurs repeatedly. Thus, Berkeley’s celebrated line, “Westward the course of empire takes its way,” is fulfilled with every new advance of occidental greatness, and includes the smallest as well as the greatest facts of this nature. The expression, “The schoolmaster is abroad,” has its fulfilment in every successive teacher of youth who goes forth to his work. Every language contains these formulas, which refer not to any one event, but a series of events, all embodying the same principle, or resulting from the same cause. Hence, there is nothing in this principle at variance with the laws of language.
We find repeated instances of this species of prediction in the Scriptures. The promise in regard to the “Seed of the woman” (Gen. 3:15), refers to no one event, but runs along the whole stream of history, and includes every successive conquest of the religion of {398} Christ. The same thing is true of the promise, that men shall beat their swords into ploughshares: and kindred predictions of the peace that shall ensue in Messianic times. They refer to every advance that is made in the peaceful tendencies of the religion of the Bible, and await their fullest fulfilment in the future.
There is a class of predictions in interpreting which this principle is eminently important. It is that which refers to what the old theologians called the novissima, to which this verse belongs. When Christ speaks of these last things, he does it in terms that obviously refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, and yet as obviously transcend that event. This has led to the Universalist dogma, that there is no day of judgment, except in that indefinite sense in which every judicial visitation of God is a day of judgment, just as every gracious visitation of God is a day of grace. Relying on the indefinite use of the word day in Scripture, they seek to eviscerate these predictions of a future day of judgment of all the tremendous significance that they have commonly possessed.
They refer to the fact that Peter applied Joel’s prediction of the day of the Lord to the events of Pentecost, in Acts 2:16; and from thence infer that the formula “day of the Lord” cannot be applied to a future judgment, as it is commonly held. The difficulty which they press, however, can be wholly removed by adopting this principle of successive fulfilment. It is true that the deluge, the destruction of Sodom, Babylon, and Jerusalem, and all subsequent visitations of {399} God’s wrath, were days of the Lord, and in each one of them the proud and evil-doers were as chaff. But as each one did not exhaust these ominous predictions, so all together have not yet met the full reach of the terrors, which will only be done in that future day in which the Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and the drama of earth shall be ended. All previous judgments were but reddenings of the dawn, that betokened the coming, but did not unfold the terrible brightness of that awful day. As the prophet in this verse gazes upon its distant rising, he exclaims, as if in breathless emotion, It comes! burning like a furnace! the wicked proud are chaff! the day burns them! There is something very forcible in these abrupt exclamations, as if the prophet was elevated on some mount of vision, and actually beheld this terrible pomp come rolling up the distant skies, on its reddening pathway of fire and blood. The finality of this day is distinctly declared in the utter ruin that it is predicted to bring.
