Examples Of Prophetic Interpretation

Prophetic interpretation is based on heaven-sent dreams and visions rather than a “the word of the LORD.” This means that the message is in the imagery portrayed with an angel often telling the prophet what the symbol represents. These symbols are usually bizarre and quite unlike anything in the natural realm or in general scripture. Examples are animals with multiple heads or creatures with features of unlike species. To be rightly interpreted apocalyptic writing must be understood in terms of its characteristic literary structure and theological emphasis. There are four different system of prophetic interpretation these include: preterism, futurism, idealism and historicism; all of which will be discussed in this paper along with the origin

N. Darby, an earnest Christian lawyer, who had most to do with the development with that type of futurism, commonly called dispensationalism; dispensationalism is an evangelical, futurist, Biblical interpretation that understands God to have related to human beings in different ways under different Biblical covenants in a series of "dispensations," or periods in history. As a system, dispensationalism is expounded in the writings of John Nelson Darby (1800–82) and the Plymouth Brethren movement, and propagated through works such as Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. The theology of dispensationalism consists of a distinctive eschatological end times perspective, as all dispensationalists hold to premillennialism and most hold to a pretribulation

Perhaps, within traditional Orthodox Christianity, there is somewhat of a taboo associated with this view because it is embraced by certain cults (Seventh-Day Adventists, among others). Their strength in numbers date back to the medieval period, although Victorinus (A.D. 300) wrote was is considered one of the first full commentaries on Revelation and supported a historicist view (Desrosiersm,2005) The premise of this view is that the moment Jesus descended into the clouds and left His disciples staring at Him, the Great Tribulation began and has been going on ever since. References to forty-two months or 1,260 days are to be taken figuratively and many events in history have coincided with much of John’s prophetic vision, but many other prophecies within His writings have yet to be fulfilled. It is the view that understands most of Revelation’s imagery as figurative, but also sees those images as representing real people and events, some of which have occurred and some of which are yet to come. Central to this view is the interpretation of chronology within Revelation. The book, then, is made up of a historical section and an eschatological section, where the original audience would understand things that need to happen before the last thing that are yet to come. Sabuin writes about these sections, dividing the book into the historical section (Revelation 4:1 – 11:19)