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.
