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Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Double Reference Principle

Double Reference Principle

             This is a passage of prophetic Scripture which applies to a person or event near at hand, but is also a reference to the coming Christ.  Two different times of fulfillment may also be referred to in one passage.  Here are some examples.
            Deuteronomy 18:15: “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken.”
            In this verse Moses was telling the people of Israel in his day that God was to raise up a prophet, like himself, in the near future.  What he did not know was that he was also giving a double reference.   
Moses’s statement is concerning a prophet to follow him.  The reference here is to Joshua (a type of Christ) and yet it looks forward to Christ also (Acts 3:22-23).
The Apostle Peter, here in the book of Acts, clearly points this out to the priests in the Temple that this prophecy was a double reference to Jesus Christ.
             2 Samuel 7:12-16: “…I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom.  He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever.”   
David’s Covenant.  It has to do with Solomon in one sentence, and the very next verse goes beyond to Christ. The psalmist in Psalm 132:11 would later reinforce this double reference.
            Jeremiah 50-51:  Predicted judgment on Babylon.  It has not yet been completely fulfilled.  There is double reference here to a future Babylon that will be destroyed in Revelation 18:9-21.
             Ezekiel 36:24-28:  In verse twenty-four it speaks of God bringing Israel back to the Promised Land from their exile in Babylon.  “For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.”
            Then, in verse twenty-seven, it turns to God giving His Spirit to man symbolizing a new promised land.  “And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”  This came to pass in Acts 2:38 where God put His Spirit into man, a double reference that continues today!
            Hosea 11:1: “Out of Egypt have I called my son.”  The Holy Spirit applies it to the experience of Christ when taken into Egypt and brought out in Matthew 2:14. The New Testament agrees that it is a double reference.
       The birth of Christ- Isaiah 7:14-16:A good example may be taken from Isaiah’s prediction concerning a sign to be given to Ahaz. The sign was needed as a way of reassuring Ahaz that God would shortly deliver Jerusalem from a siege by the kings of Israel and Syria.
  The prophet identified the sign as the birth of a child; before the child would know good from evil, the deliverance would be affected.  This prophecy must have been fulfilled already in Ahaz’ day for it to have been meaningful as a sign to him.  This fulfillment is best identified with the birth of Isaiah’s own son , Maher-shalal-hash-baz (Isaiah 8:1-4).  This could not have been the complete fulfillment, however, because the child to be born would be the child of a virgin, and his name would be called Emmanuel.  This complete fulfillment came only with Christ, as Matthew 1:22-23 clearly states.”[1]


[1] Leon J. Wood. “The Bible and future events.”  Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI.  1973; pg 25.

William J. Roop, M.A.B.S.




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