I’ve appreciated some of what I’ve read from Insurrection Barbie, but this claim that biblical prophecy is always fulfilled “literally” simply isn’t true.
For example, Genesis 3:15 promises a seed of the woman who will bruise the serpent’s head, even as his own heel is bruised. Most, probably all, Christians would agree that this seed of the woman is Jesus. But the prophecy of bruising a snake’s head while having his own heel bruised is not fulfilled literally. Again, traditionally Christians believe this prophecy is fulfilled at the cross – when Jesus dies at Golgotha, he crushes Satan’s head (not that of a literal serpent), and Christ’s crucifixion wounds fulfill the “bruised heel” prophecy, but not literally.
We can see how prophecy often works by looking other examples in the OT. In Genesis 37:9, Joseph has a prophetic dream in which the sun, moon, and 11 stars bow down to him. That was fulfilled, but not “literally.” Obviously, the sun and moon were symbolic of his parents and the 11 stars symbolic of his brothers. The fulfillment is real, but the language of the prophecy was always symbolic.
Isaiah 13 is a prophecy of judgment on ancient Babylon, and it includes this language:
“For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.”
This was not fulfilled literally (obviously). But God did indeed put Babylon’s lights out, after a fashion. The sun, moon, and stars (as the example of Joseph’s dream shows) are often used in prophecy as symbols of political/earthly rulers, tracing back to Genesis 1:16.
In Jeremiah 4:23f, the prophet uses similar de-creation language for judgment that will come upon ancient Israel. When Israel is judged, she will revert to being “without form and void” (cf. Genesis 1:1-2). The fulfillment is real, but not literal.
In Matthew 2:15, Matthew applies Hosea 11:1, a text originally about Israel’s exodus, to Jesus, but it’s not literal – in fact, the way Matthew places the quotation indicates that Israel is now being viewed as Egypt (complete with a baby-murdering Pharaoh-like ruler in Herod), and Jesus represents all of Israel in himself.
In Matthew 12, Jesus treats Jonah’s 3 days in the belly of the great fish as a prophetic event, pointing ahead to his death and resurrection. The story of Jonah and the fish is not literally recapitulated in Jesus, but it does establish a pattern or type that Jesus fulfills. It is a prophetic sign, but not a literal one.
In 2 Samuel 7, David wants to build a house for God but God promises to build a house for David instead. But it’s obvious this is not a literal house – it’s a nation, a lineage, a house made of people. “House” is being in a figurative, not literal, sense. While there is a proximate fulfillment in Solomon when he builds the temple, ultimately the son of David who builds the house for God is Jesus. And as of Jesus comes from the “house” or dynasty/lineage that God builds for David. So while it might look 2 Samuel promises 2 houses – a literal temple built by Solomon and a royal dynasty preserved by God, in the end they resolve into one and the same house: Jesus and the church/temple he builds through his death and resurrection.
If we want to know how promises and prophecies about say, the land and temple, are fulfilled, we have to look at how the NT actually uses those categories. The promised land becomes the promised world in many NT texts, eg, Matthew 5:5 (cf. Psalm 37:11), Ephesians 6:3 (a promise to Jewish children living in the promised land is applied to Gentiles living in Ephesus), and most importantly, Romans 4:13. The land promised Abraham was not an end in itself; it was just a down payment on much bigger promise. God has promised the whole world to Abraham and his believing seed. Canaan was the first installment; God’s ultimate plan was always to bless the whole the world, every family and every nation. Thus, in the new covenant, the promised land is expanded into the promised earth, the promised nations (cf. Psalm 2, 22, etc.; Matthew 28:16-20). Even in Genesis 12, 15, and 17, it’s clear that what God has promised Abraham goes far beyond Canaan; Canaan will be a stepping stone on the way to a much greater, global/cosmic inheritance (cf. 1 Cor. 3:21-23).
Likewise, look at how the NT uses the imagery of the temple. Jesus and the church now take on the meaning and functions of the temple. The church is called God’s temple in numerous places, such as Ephesians 2:11ff and 1 Peter 2:4ff. To go looking for some rebuilt physical structure in Jerusalem in the name of “literal fulfillment” is to actually reject what the apostles explicitly taught about prophetic fulfillment. The temple God is concerned about is being built as the church grows.
The NT repeatedly takes titles that belong to old covenant Israel and applies them to the new covenant church — including the title of “Israel” in Galatians 6:16. And so we can speak of a certain kind of literalness when it comes to the church as the new Israel. The church is literally Israel according to the NT. Unbelieving Jews have been literally broken out of the covenant tree and believing Gentiles grafted in (Romans 11). Jesus literally took the kingdom away from unbelieving Jews and gave it to the people who embraced him as Savior (Matthew 21:43). The judgments Jesus pronounced in Matthew 24 literally came to pass before the generation then living passed away (24:34). The things signified to John in his visions took place soon after the book was written for the time was, quite literally, near (Revelation 1:1-3).
Yes, there are many straight-forward literal fulfillments of prophecy regarding Jesus, eg, he would be born in Bethlehem and betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. But the way the OT, from beginning to end, on page after page, bears witness to Jesus, is far deeper, richer, and more complex than a handful of isolated “literal” prooftexts. The Bible itself trains us to read the Bible and the apostles were not always strict literalists. They understood the OT made use of types, signs, symbols, repeating patterns, and so forth to point to the coming Messiah. And so the Messiah fulfills much more than a collection of literal prophecies; he fulfills the law, the psalms, and the prophets in their entirety. All the promises of God find their fulfillment in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 1:20). All the prophecies of God find their fulfillment in Christ Jesus. Sometimes that fulfillment is literal; sometimes it comes to pass in other ways.
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