The future reign of Christ

"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim And the horse from Jerusalem; And the bow of war will be cut off. And He will speak peace to the nations; And His dominion will be from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth." (Zech. 9:9-10)

While preparing for Sunday's message on the "Triumphal Entry" of Jesus Christ, I came across this great quote, which refers to Matthew 21:4-5:

It is noteworthy that Matthew, in explaining the need of a literal colt for the King's entry, is careful to restrict his quotation to only the first part of Zechariah's prophecy. Verses 9-10 of Zechariah 9 form one continuous prophecy joined by the conjunction "and." Verse 9 tells the manner of the King's arrival, while verse 10 tells what the King will do when His beneficent reign is established. Then the "chariot," the "battle bow" and the war "horse" will be cut off; He will "speak peace unto the nations: and his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth" (ASV). Not one of these details of Messiah's reign in verse 10 is even mentioned by Matthew. Writing both by divine inspiration and from the vantage point of known history, Matthew knew that the King had arrived and also that the King had not occupied His Messianic throne. If the colt ridden by the King upon His arrival had to be literal, so also must the warfare be literal which will be abolished when He reigns. If Matthew had believed in a "present Messianic reign" ushered in by the first coming of the King, here would have been the time and place to cite in full the details of Zechariah 9:9-10, but He says not a word about the wondrous things of verse 10. (Alva McClain, The Greatness of the Kingdom, p. 347)

We see something similar in Luke 4, where Jesus stands up in the synagogue and reads from Isaiah 61:1-2a, which He says has been fulfilled in their hearing, during His first advent. But He shuts the scroll and does not read the rest of the prophecy, which mentions vengeance, and pertains to Christ's future, second coming.

Thoughts on dispensationalism

We're in the middle of Vacation Bible School at church this week, and there's no possible way I'm going to find time to read and write a chapter review of The Courage to Be Protestant. I do plan to get back to our book club, but it will have to wait until next week.

Meanwhile, here's a good article by Matt Weymeyer on covenant theology versus dispensationalism. Theopedia defines "dispensationalism" as "a theological system that teaches biblical history is best understood in light of a number of successive administrations of God's dealings with mankind, which it calls 'dispensations.' It maintains fundamental distinctions between God's plans for national Israel and for the New Testament Church, and emphasizes prophecy of the end-times and a pre-tribulation rapture of the church prior to Christ's Second Coming." [Note: not all dispensationalists are pre-millenial and pre-tribulational, though perhaps most are.]

While the rapture and millennium are not first-order doctrines essential to the core of the gospel, dispensationalism is an important subject to grapple with because it provides an interpretive grid for the whole Scriptures. How you understand this subject will determine not only whether you believe in a millennium, but such things as how you interpret prophecy, how you apply OT law, how you view the church, and how you understand Christ's teaching on the kingdom of God. It really has far-reaching implications for Bible interpretation and application.