Being Fulfilled

Luke 4:21 And he began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."


21 ἤρξατο δὲ λέγειν πρὸς αὐτοὺς ὅτι σήμερον πεπλήρωται ἡ γραφὴ αὕτη ἐν τοῖς ὠσὶν ὑμῶν.

Jesus had just finished reading from Isaiah in the temple.  He quoted the commission He had to free the captives, give sight to the blind, etc.  Then He hit them with this statement.  He tells them that πεπλήρωται ἡ γραφὴ.  The verb πεπλήρωται is a perfect passive indicative.  This means that the fulfilling is done.  It has been completed.

You have to be careful when you read about things being "fulfilled" in the gospels.  In fact, I wrote a whole paper on Matthew 2:15 and Hosea 11:1.  That is one example where the term is quite puzzling.  But here it is quite clear.  Jesus fulfilled the Messianic prophecies.  He was the one for whom they were looking.

What does this mean for us?  It means that when we have doubts we can look at the record and see that Jesus is who He says He is.  He is trustworthy and true.  He is the focus of history.  Everything in the past lead up to Him and everything will ultimately be about Him.

What can we do but worship Him?

The Prophet Has Come

Mark 9:13 But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him."


13 ἀλλὰ λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι καὶ Ἠλίας ἐλήλυθεν, καὶ ἐποίησαν αὐτῷ ὅσα ἤθελον, καθὼς γέγραπται ἐπ᾽ αὐτόν.

This is something Jesus tells Peter and James after they witnessed His transfiguration.  They didn't know what to make of Elijah and Moses on the mountain with Jesus and they start asking Him questions.  They were trying to understand why it was written that Elijah must come first.  This is how Jesus responded to them.  He tells them that Elijah ἐλήλυθεν, which is in the perfect active indicative.  The most generic understanding of the aspect of the perfect is that it refers to a completed action with present effect.

Why do I quote this verse on a day when I am emerging from a blogging slumber?  I guess I'm in an academic mood, but it makes me think of hermeneutics, which is one of my favorite subjects.  It seems to me that Jesus could be referring to the fact that Elijah was with them at the transfiguration.  Or as is often supposed, it means that Jesus is referring to John the Baptizer.  For what it's worth, the ESV cross-reference points to Mark 6 which recounts why John was beheaded by Herod.

If Jesus does indeed refer to John the Baptizer here then this is something of a hermeneutical oddity for us.  It tells us that there is some sort of non-literal language being used here.  If we take this passage literally we are confused or perhaps we look for Elijah to come before the Messiah as the Jews do.  After all, if we take this passage literally then they are right.  But if we read this with an understanding to the symbolic language we see that not all is as it seems.  In fact, Jesus is explaining this with symbolic rather than literal language.

My point is that we need to be careful about being too literal.  The key is to figure out what should be taken literally and what should be taken symbolically.  It sure helps when the New Testament interprets it clearly for us, doesn't it?

The Time is Fulfilled

Mark 1:14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."


14 Μετὰ δὲ τὸ παραδοθῆναι τὸν Ἰωάννην ἦλθεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν κηρύσσων τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ θεοῦ 15  καὶ λέγων ὅτι πεπλήρωται ὁ καιρὸς καὶ ἤγγικεν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ· μετανοεῖτε καὶ πιστεύετε ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ.

One of the great things about the book of Mark is that it is all about action.  It leaps from one story to the next and there is rarely much time for background material.  Here we see a lot of time condensed into two verses.  We learned about the John the Baptizer's ministry and then we see the transition to Jesus.

Jesus says something pretty striking to His listeners.  He tells them that πεπλήρωται ὁ καιρὸς.  The verb πεπλήρωται is a perfect passive, which means that it would most literally be translated something like, "the time has been fulfilled."  What time is that?  Jesus continues with καὶ ἤγγικεν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ, which is a perfect active.  Here we see that the kingdom is near.  What does this mean?

It means that everything that the prophets wrote about were coming true in Him.  They predicted His coming and here He was.  They didn't have to keep looking through the prophets and they didn't have to keep watching and waiting.  He arrived to fulfill the prophets.  He emphasized this by explaining that the kingdom of God is near and therefore, they had to repent and believe right then.

What does this mean to us?  I think that it is a key to understanding Old Testament prophecy.  It points forward to Christ.  He is the ultimate fulfillment of prophecy.  This puts our focus on the cross and not anywhere else.  Frankly, I think that is where it should be.

The Kingdom

Matthew 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."


17 Ἀπὸ τότε ἤρξατο ὁ Ἰησοῦς κηρύσσειν καὶ λέγειν· μετανοεῖτε· ἤγγικεν γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν.

There is a lot of talk about "kingdom" in the circles in which I run.  What is the "kingdom?"  Some focus more on an upcoming thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth with the saints.  I have a hard time seeing that in Jesus' statement here.  Very literally you could translate μετανοεῖτε· ἤγγικεν γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν as "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."  The verb ἤγγικεν is in the perfect, so that generally has an aspect of "has come near" since the word means "to come near."

There are those who would then take this passage and say that there is a near/far aspect to what Jesus is saying. But it seems to me that taking this verse in its obvious sense it would mean that Jesus is telling the Jews that all of the Old Testament prophecies about the kingdom are currently being fulfilled.  And, in fact, in a few years you will see it all come together with my death, burial, and resurrection.

That seems to be the simplest sense of the text.  Maybe I'm applying Occam's Razor too closely to it, but I think that is a good rule of thumb for hermeneutics.  Jesus is telling His listeners that He represents the kingdom of heaven.  It is fulfilled in Him.

What does that mean for us?  It means that we need to repent and believe.  Jesus is sitting on the throne in heaven.  He has inaugurated the kingdom of heaven.  It means that we need to give Him the worship He is due.  We can't simply acknowledge Him as someone who can save us.  We need to acknowledge Him as Lord.