THEO TODMAN'S OBT DOCUMENTS

Dear Theo (if I may !)

By now I am sure you will have given up hope of receiving a reply to your letter ! I am extremely sorry that I did not acknowledge your letter of 7^th July 1984 at the time, and that I have not been able to write a detailed reply since then. I suppose the only excuse I have is that I have been somewhat preoccupied with the preparation of new lectures in the college, and have not been able to make the time to work out a detailed reply.

The first thing I would want to say is that I was deeply touched by the tone of your letter and of your whole article. I very much appreciated the careful way in which you responded to all the points at which you felt some agreement, as well as the points at which you disagreed with my argument. You certainly did not disagree in 'an ungracious spirit' and I only hope that my replies to your article will be in the same spirit!

May I then simply go through certain points in your article in turn:

1. You speak about my 'refusal to acknowledge the ultimate restoration of the Jews'. I am not sure that this accurately reflects what I believe about the future of the Jewish people, and I suspect that I did not spell it out in sufficient detail in the book. I do believe most sincerely that Romans 11 encourages us to look forward to a better future for the Jewish people, when a larger number will believe in Jesus as Messiah. But I do not think that the New Testament gives us any encouragement to link this with the restoration of Jews to the land and the establishment of a Jewish State. I am always thrilled to hear of the interest in Jesus shown by Israeli Jews today - but I don't believe that the Bible gives us a detailed scenario of how the ultimate restoration of the Jews is to take place.
2. I would not want to restrict the fulfilment of Isaiah 13 to the year 539 BC. All I would want to argue is that we must look at the fulfilments of this prophecy in this order:
1. in the immediate context.
2. in the first coming of Christ.
3. at the end of all things, with the second coming of Christ. I do not therefore believe the primary reference in Isaiah 13 is to 'the day of the Lord', or that the events of 539 BC were merely a premonition of the day of the Lord.
3. I appreciate that my interpretation of Mark 13 sounds very difficult for many people. As you will see from the references in the book, my interpretation is based on the exposition of the chapter in the book by Dick France. I personally do not feel that I have adopted it simply in order to wriggle out of the difficulty of the Lord's postponed early return. Incidentally I believe that there are considerable difficulties in the traditional interpretation of this chapter: e.g. if verses 24-27 are speaking simply about the second coming, how can Jesus say in the following verses, vv 28-30, that 'all these things' will have happened during the lifetime of those who were listening to Jesus on that occasion? The interpretation of Dick France suggests that everything in Mark 13 up to verse 31 is referring primarily to the period between the time Jesus was speaking and the events of 70 AD, and that from verse 32 to the end of the chapter he is speaking about 'that day', i.e. the second coming. This to my mind provides a more helpful solution to the problem of the timing of all the events described in Mark 13.
4. I appreciate that it is extremely difficult to talk about the interpretation of individual verses in the Book of Revelation unless there is some agreement as to how we interpret the Book as a whole. The Book is obviously full of symbols, and symbols have to be interpreted or de-coded. Thus when we read of the saints 'washing their robes in the blood of the Lamb, I don't think we are to visualise Christians laundering their robes in a bucket of blood. Rather we are to de-code the symbol and understand that it is speaking about purity, cleansing and forgiveness on the basis of the shed blood of Christ on the cross. Similarly 'the Beast' is a symbol for a state that has assumed totalitarian powers.
5. I do recognise that there is some problem as to whether Old Testament promises and prophecies are conditional or unconditional. I do believe that the Abrahamic covenant was unconditional but there are times when the promises made to David seem to be conditional, but other times when they seem to be unconditional. I do not believe however this actually solves the problem of their interpretations.
6. I was very interested to see how you concentrated on the interpretation of Amos 9 in Acts Ch 15, and I would want to press that this is a perfect example of the very principle I am trying to argue for. It seems to me that the argument of James in the situation proceeds by three stages:
1. Amos said that the rebuilding of David's fallen tent (i.e. the restoration of Israel) would lead to the Gentiles seeking the Lord.
2. We have recently seen how Gentiles have sought the Lord and been filled with the Holy Spirit therefore
3. The restoration of Israel predicted by Amos must have already taken place. The coming of Gentiles into (the) church is the fulfilment of all that Amos was prophesying about.
7. I do very much appreciate the feeling expressed in your final paragraph and agree that 'the idea that the Old Testament texts do not mean what they appear to mean …' is 'somewhat disconcerting and inconducive to Bible study' - but only if we have no criteria or guidelines for understanding the Old Testament and interpreting it today. My own understanding is that the coming of the Kingdom of God in the person of Jesus Christ was the fulfilment of the promises made to Abraham (and to David and the prophets - although there is obviously still much to be fulfilled). The coming of the Kingdom of God in Jesus is like the rising of the sun. In this context, therefore, the whole scenario concerning the establishment of a Jewish State seems to me to be like lighting a candle when the sun is already shining at full strength. The 'consolation of Israel' (Luke 2:25), the redemption of Jerusalem (Luke 2:38), 'your redemption' (Luke 21:28) and 'the redemption of Israel' (Luke 24:21) have already taken place. There is a more glorious future for the Jewish people for which we must work and pray. But I do not believe the New Testament enables us to know precisely how that will come about. I would want to turn more of my energies into Jewish evangelism at the present time than into speculation about eschatological schemes.

I do hope that you will come back at me if you feel it would be helpful to pursue the discussion. And I only hope that I will be quicker this time in replying to your letter!

Yours very sincerely in Christ

Colin Chapman

From the Revd. Colin G. Chapman, M.A., B.D., Lecturer in Mission and Religion
Trinity College, Stoke Hill, Bristol, BS9 1JP.