Here’s a hard truth. In Jesus’ day, the people who read Bible prophecy most literally were often the very people who missed Him.
They expected a warrior king with a sword. They expected Rome to fall. They expected the prophet Elijah to come back from heaven. Instead, God sent a carpenter’s son riding on a donkey. He sent a cross instead of a crown. And He sent a rough preacher from the desert called John. Most people who read Scripture literally did not see it.
So how should we read Bible prophecy? Must we read every word literally? Or are some prophecies written in picture language? And if they are, who decides which is which?
Our answer is simple: we must read prophecy the way Jesus and His apostles read it. When we do this, we find God always keeps His promises—and He often keeps them in bigger and better ways than the words first seem to suggest.
KEY WORDS IN THIS POST
- Prophecy: A message from God through a prophet. It may warn, comfort or tell about the future.
- Literal: The plain meaning the writer intended. This can include word pictures.
- Literalistic: Taking every word at face value, even when the writer is using a picture.
- Symbol: A picture that stands for something else. For example, a lamb stands for Jesus.
- Fulfilment: When God does what He promised.
- Apostles: The men Jesus chose and sent to teach His church, such as Peter, John and Paul.
- Dispensationalism: A system of Bible teaching that says God has two separate plans, one for Israel and one for the church. It insists on reading prophecy as literally as possible.
1. First, What Does “Literal” Really Mean?
Many arguments about prophecy go wrong at the very first step. People use the word “literal” in 2 different ways.
Think of a mother who says, “I have told you a million times to tidy your room!” She’s telling the truth, but she isn’t giving us a number.
Table 1: 2 Ways to Use the Word “Literal”
| Aspect | LITERAL (THE PLAIN, INTENDED MEANING) | LITERALISTIC (WORD FOR WORD, ALWAYS) |
|---|---|---|
| What it means | We look for what the writer meant. If he used a picture, we read it as a picture. | We take every word at face value, even poetry and pictures. |
| Example: “All the trees of the field shall clap their hands” (Isaiah 55:12) | All creation will be full of joy when God saves His people. | Trees will one day grow hands and clap. |
| The result | We hear what God really said. | We can miss what God really said. |
The great teachers of the Reformation (the return to the Bible in the 1500s) loved the plain meaning of Scripture. John Calvin wrote:
“Let us know, then, that the true meaning of Scripture is the natural and obvious meaning; and let us embrace and abide by it resolutely.”
Commentary on Galatians 4:22
Notice: Calvin said the natural meaning, not the most physical meaning. The natural meaning of a poem is poetic. The natural meaning of a vision full of beasts is symbolic.
Even teachers who insist on literalism agree some prophecy uses pictures. As Vern Poythress, an American Bible scholar, points out, the real question isn’t whether we read literally. The real question is who decides what the plain meaning is. Our answer: the Bible itself, especially the New Testament.
2. The Prophets Often Tell Us They’re Using Pictures
We don’t need to guess when prophecy uses symbols. Often, the Bible tells us directly:
- Daniel 7:17: Daniel sees 4 terrible beasts. Then an angel explains: “These four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth.”
- Ezekiel 37:11: Ezekiel sees a valley of dry bones. God explains: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.”
- Revelation 1:20: John sees stars and lampstands. Jesus explains: “the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.”
Revelation even tells us its method in Verse 1: God “made it known” to John. Greg Beale, a leading expert on Revelation, notes the Greek word here can mean “to show by signs”, echoing Daniel 2. In other words, God is telling us: get ready for pictures.
3. Sun, Moon and Stars: The Prophets’ Picture Language
The prophets often describe God’s judgement using pictures of the sky falling apart. Read word for word, it sounds like the end of the world. But look at who these prophecies were actually about.
Table 2: “Falling Sky” Prophecies That Have Already Come True
| THE PROPHECY | WHO IT WAS ABOUT | WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED |
|---|---|---|
| “The sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light” (Isaiah 13:10) | Babylon (Isaiah 13:1) | The Medes and Persians conquered Babylon in 539 BC. The sun kept shining. |
| “All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll” (Isaiah 34:4) | Edom (Isaiah 34:5) | Edom was judged and later disappeared as a nation. The sky stayed in place. |
| “I will cover the heavens and make their stars dark” (Ezekiel 32:7) | Pharaoh and Egypt (Ezekiel 32:2) | Babylon crushed Egypt’s power. The stars still shone. |
We still speak this way. A man who loses his job may say, “My whole world fell apart.” In the same way, the prophets used “falling sky” language to say: a great nation is falling, and God is the One bringing it down.
4. How Jesus and the Apostles Read the Prophets
This is the most important section. The New Testament writers were guided by the Holy Spirit. So when they explain a prophecy, it’s God’s own explanation of His own words.
Table 3: Old Testament Promises and How the New Testament Says They Came True
| THE OLD TESTAMENT PROMISE | WHAT THE NEW TESTAMENT SAYS | WHAT WE LEARN |
|---|---|---|
| Joel 2:28–32: God’s Spirit poured out; “the sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood” | Peter at Pentecost: “this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16) | Joel was fulfilled, though the moon did not literally turn to blood. |
| Malachi 4:5: “I will send you Elijah the prophet” | Jesus about John the Baptist: “he is Elijah who is to come” (Matthew 11:14) | John came “in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17). He was not Elijah in person. |
| Isaiah 40:4: “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low” | Luke applies this to John the Baptist’s preaching (Luke 3:4–6) | Valleys and mountains are pictures of hearts made ready for Jesus. |
| Amos 9:11: God will rebuild the fallen “booth of David” | James says this is happening as Gentiles (non-Jews) turn to God (Acts 15:15–17) | David’s kingdom is rebuilt through Jesus, the Son of David, as all nations come in. |
| Jeremiah 31:31: a new covenant (binding promise) “with the house of Israel” | Jesus: “This cup … is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20); see also Hebrews 8 | The new covenant is for everyone who belongs to Jesus, Jew and Gentile. |
| The temple in Jerusalem, where God lived among His people | Jesus called His body the temple (John 2:19–21); the church is God’s temple (Ephesians 2:21–22) | God now lives among His people in Christ and by His Spirit. |
| The land promised to Abraham | Abraham would be “heir of the world” (Romans 4:13); the meek “shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5) | One small land grows into a whole new earth. |
Do you see the pattern? The New Testament never makes the promises smaller. It makes them bigger. A land becomes a whole world. One nation becomes people from every nation. A building becomes the living Christ.
Anthony Hoekema, a Dutch-American theologian, argued that the land promises find their final home in the new earth. O. Palmer Robertson, an American Old Testament scholar, showed that the New Testament treats Jesus and His people as the true “Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16). And Geerhardus Vos, the father of biblical theology, compared God’s revelation to a seed growing into a tree. The tree does not cancel the seed. It is what the seed was always meant to become.
THE KEY THAT UNLOCKS EVERY PROPHECY
“For all the promises of God find their Yes in him.” (2 Corinthians 1:20)
Every promise God made points to Jesus. He is not a footnote to prophecy. He is its centre. Augustine of Hippo, the great North African teacher, put it in a famous saying, usually translated like this: “The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is in the New revealed.”
5. Reading Too Literally Missed Jesus the First Time
Let us return to our opening point. Reading prophecy too literally is not a small mistake. In Jesus’ day, it blinded many people to the Messiah standing in front of them.
- The crowds wanted a political king. After Jesus fed the five thousand, they wanted “to take him by force to make him king” (John 6:15). He walked away.
- Even the disciples were confused. After the resurrection they still asked, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6).
- Jesus corrected them from the Scriptures. On the road to Emmaus He said, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” Then He explained “in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:25–27).
Calvin drew the lesson clearly in his comments on John 5:39: “we ought to read the Scriptures with the express design of finding Christ in them.” A way of reading that would have missed Christ’s first coming is not a safe guide to His second coming.
6. But Many Prophecies Came True Word for Word
We are not saying prophecy is “just symbols”. Many prophecies came true exactly as written:
- His birthplace: Bethlehem, just as Micah 5:2 said.
- His entry into Jerusalem: “humble and mounted on a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).
- His betrayal price: thirty pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12; Matthew 26:15).
- His clothing: soldiers cast lots for it (Psalm 22:18; John 19:24).
Some future promises are literal too. Jesus will return bodily and visibly: “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). The dead will be raised with real bodies (1 Corinthians 15).
So we reject both extremes: strict literalism, which turns pictures into physics, and wild allegory—the habit, made popular by Origen of Alexandria, of finding hidden meanings everywhere. The Reformers threw out that habit, and so do we.
OUR VIEW IN 3 SENTENCES
- Read every prophecy for the meaning God intended.
- Sometimes that meaning is word for word, and sometimes it’s a picture.
- The New Testament shows us which—and it always leads us to Christ.
7. “Without Literalism, Anyone Can Make Prophecy Mean Anything!”
This is the strongest objection. John Walvoord, a leading Dispensational teacher, argued that if we don’t read prophecy literally, there are no rules, and everyone will reach a different answer.
It’s a fair concern. But we do have clear rules, and they come from the Bible itself:
- Rule 1—What did the writer mean? We study the words, grammar, history and type of writing (poem, story, vision).
- Rule 2—Let Scripture explain Scripture. The Westminster Confession (1646) says the clearer parts of the Bible must explain the harder parts (chapter 1, section 9).
- Rule 3—Follow the apostles. Where the New Testament explains a prophecy, that explanation settles the matter.
- Rule 4—Keep Christ at the centre. All the promises meet in Him (Luke 24:44).
In fact, strict literalism runs into serious problems of its own. Look at these examples:
Table 4: What Happens When We Read Every Prophecy Word for Word
| THE PROPHECY | READ WORD FOR WORD | THE PROBLEM |
|---|---|---|
| Ezekiel 45:17: “sin offerings … to make atonement” in a future temple | Animal sacrifices for sin will start again. | Hebrews 10:18 says, “there is no longer any offering for sin.” Christ’s sacrifice was once for all. |
| Revelation 1:16: “from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword” | The risen Jesus has a metal sword in His mouth. | No one reads it this way. It pictures the power of His word (Hebrews 4:12). |
Patrick Fairbairn, a 19th-century Scottish scholar, warned a literal reading of Ezekiel’s temple would take God’s people back to shadows Christ has already fulfilled. Even literalists must call these sacrifices “memorials”—which is itself a non-literal reading!
8. 3 More Keys for Reading Prophecy
- Some prophecies have conditions. Jonah announced, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4). But Nineveh repented, and God spared it. God explains this in Jeremiah 18:7–8: if a nation turns from evil, He will relent.
- Some prophecies see near and far together. Like two mountain peaks seen from far away, the prophets often saw Christ’s first and second comings together, without the long valley of time between them.
- Prophecy comes in different kinds of writing. Most prophets wrote sermons and poems. But Daniel and Revelation use apocalyptic writing—visions full of beasts, numbers and colours, meant to be read as pictures.
9. A Short History: Where Did Strict Literalism Come From?
Timeline
- Around AD 155: Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Trypho, calls Christians the true spiritual Israel.
- Early 400s: Augustine teaches in The City of God that the 1,000 years of Revelation 20 describe Christ’s reign now, in the age of the church.
- 1500s: Calvin and the Reformers return to the plain meaning of Scripture and read the prophets as pointing to Christ.
- 1830s: John Nelson Darby, a preacher in Ireland and England, develops Dispensationalism.
- 1909: The Scofield Reference Bible spreads this view across the world.
- 1965: Charles Ryrie’s Dispensationalism Today makes consistent literalism its first essential mark.
A new idea is not wrong just because it is new. But for most of church history, faithful Christians did not read prophecy this way.
10. Why This Matters for You
- It protects you from fear and false alarms. Teachers who set dates for Christ’s return or match news headlines to Bible verses have been wrong every time.
- It keeps Jesus at the centre. The point of prophecy is not a chart of the future. It is a Person.
- It strengthens your trust in God. A father promised his young son a bicycle. Years later he gave him a car. The promise was not broken—it was kept in a bigger way. So it is with God’s promises in Christ.
Conclusion: Not Always Literal, but Always True
So, is biblical prophecy always to be read literally? No. But it’s always to be read as if it’s true—as God meant it.
Sometimes God’s promises came true to the very letter, like Bethlehem and the donkey. Sometimes they came true in pictures that grew into something far greater, like a land that became a world, and a temple that became a Saviour. Either way, the apostle Peter tells us what the prophets were searching for. They were looking for “the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories” (1 Peter 1:11).
If we read the prophets and do not find Jesus, we have not read them literally enough. We have not read them at all.
Tough Questions, Honest Answers
Is the 1,000-year reign in Revelation 20 literal?
Revelation uses numbers as symbols. The number 1,000 is ten times ten times ten, a picture of a complete and perfect period. Many faithful teachers since Augustine have understood the 1,000 years as the time between Christ’s first and second comings. During this time Satan is “bound”—he cannot stop the gospel spreading to the nations (Matthew 12:29). Believers who have died already reign with Christ in heaven. Sincere Christians disagree on this question, and it should not divide true believers.
Will the temple in Jerusalem be rebuilt?
People may one day build a new temple in Jerusalem, but it would have no place in God’s plan of salvation. Jesus is the true temple, the place where God meets His people (John 2:21). His one sacrifice ended all sacrifices for sin (Hebrews 10:18). In John’s vision of the new creation, there is no temple at all: “its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (Revelation 21:22). To look for a new stone temple is to look backwards, not forwards.
Is the modern state of Israel a fulfilment of Bible prophecy?
God rules over all history, including the founding of modern Israel in 1948. But the New Testament never repeats the land promise for one nation. Instead, it widens the promise to the whole world for all who believe (Romans 4:13). Paul does hope for many Jewish people to be saved, but through faith in Jesus, the same way as everyone else (Romans 11:23–26). We should love and pray for the Jewish people without treating any modern government as a sign of the end times.
Are the 144,000 in Revelation literal Jewish believers?
In Revelation 7:4 John hears the number 144,000. Then in 7:9 he looks and sees “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation”. This is a pattern in Revelation. In 5:5–6 John hears of a Lion but turns and sees a Lamb. The 144,000 (12 × 12 × 1,000) is a picture of the complete people of God, Old and New Testament together. Even the list of tribes is unusual: Dan is missing, which shows this is not an ordinary family list.
Will the mark of the beast be a literal mark or computer chip?
In Revelation, God’s people also receive a mark on their foreheads (Revelation 7:3; 14:1). No one thinks believers will have a visible tattoo. Both marks show who a person belongs to and serves. The forehead pictures what we think, and the hand pictures what we do (compare Deuteronomy 6:8). The real danger is not a chip but a heart that gives its loyalty to anyone other than Christ. You can read more in our post on Revelation 13.
If prophecy isn’t always literal, why read Genesis 1 as real history?
Because we use the same rule everywhere: read each part of the Bible the way God intended. Genesis is written as history, linked together by family lines (“these are the generations of…”). The rest of the Bible treats it as history too. Jesus spoke of the real creation of male and female (Matthew 19:4), and Paul treated Adam as a real man (Romans 5:12–19). Exodus 20:11 even bases the weekly Sabbath on the six days of creation. Reading by type of writing does not weaken Genesis—it confirms it.
How many prophecies did Jesus fulfil?
Lists often say more than 300, but the number depends on how you count. Some are direct predictions, like Bethlehem. Others are patterns, called types, that point forward to Him, like the Passover lamb. The exact number matters less than the big picture. Jesus Himself said that “everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44). The whole Old Testament is one great promise, and Jesus is its answer.
Related Reads
- Bible Interpretation 101: The Grammatical-Historical Method Explained
- The Old Testament in the New: Which Interpretive View Fits Best?
- Can Prophecies Have Multiple Fulfilments? The Bible’s Answer
- Malachi’s Closing Prophecy: Who Is the Promised Elijah?
- Covenant Theology Vs Dispensationalism: Bible Frameworks Explained
- Christ’s Return: A Primer on the Four Millennial Views
- Is the Church the New Israel? Fulfilment, Not Replacement
- Bible Mystery: Who Are the 144,000 Really?
- The Mark of the Beast: What Revelation 13 Really Means by ‘666’
- Will There Be a Third Jewish Temple in Jerusalem?
