Justin Martyr, Prophecy and the Christological Lens

I received some unusually studied and historical feedback from a reader about my recent article, “Did Jesus Fulfill Prophecy?” involving writing by Justin Martyr. Until this feedback, I was largely unfamiliar with Justin Martyr beyond hearing the name.

Justin Martyr was an early church philosopher, and by early, I mean quite early, most estimates of his life and writing list his birth between 90 and 100 CE and death at the hands of Rome around 165 CE. He was considered an apologist because he wrote to defend the Christian faith. His first and second apologies specifically defended Christianity against charges of atheism and argued that Christianity was superior logically and ethically to the state religion. Understandably, these arguments were not popular amongst Roman authorities and when Prefect Rusticus demanded that they sacrifice to Roman gods, Justin and his companions refused and were beheaded. I’ll let you decide for yourself if these apologies of faith were successful or not.

Regardless of the outcome for Justin, he and his writings played a very significant role in shaping the Christian intellectual tradition in the early church and remain influential today. When I wrote my article about Jesus and the fulfillment of prophecy, the main gist was that our common understanding of prophecy and fulfillment were inadequate. Prophecy has been sold to us as prediction, and so we think that fulfilling prophecy means a prediction about Jesus came true. I wrote that what it means to say Jesus fulfilled prophecy was much more complicated than that. But a reader cautioned that according to Justin Martyr, the early church did indeed understand these prophecies as predictions and Justin listed them as reasons to believe Christianity was the true faith.

This piqued my interest as I strongly believe that is not in any way the reason you should believe in Jesus. I dug into Justin’s writings a little deeper, although by, “deeper,” I mean I read some things I hadn’t paid attention to before. I’m no expert. The usual caveats apply here, I am a blogger not a scholar. I’m going to be referencing parts of Justin’s first apology which you can find at Early Christian Writings. I recommend reading it and I will probably return to it in the future because it provides a gripping peek into what faith in the early church was like.

Starting in chapter 31 and beyond, Justin specifically says that the scriptures predicted Jesus’s birth, life, death, resurrection and continued glory. That seems to be direct evidence that the early church saw fulfillment of prophecy as a prediction coming true and not as I might put it, a retelling or new understanding of Israel’s story in light of Jesus and the resurrection. I don’t think older scripture was meant as a prediction, but instead the early Christians went searching through scripture to make sense of Christ and the resurrection and were able to reinterpret those writings as fulfillment of the story. But Justin seems to be saying that one of the main reasons to believe in Christianity is that these older predictions came true.

So, I must be wrong, and Justin is evidence that early Christians shared the modern evangelical’s assessment of the fulfillment of prophecy, right? Not so fast. I’m not writing this simply to defend my position; I just think that that the situation is more complicated than a right or wrong assessment. There are most likely some very interesting ways that Justin and I would agree and disagree.

In reading the first apology, I think that my view does align with the major point that Justin is making. Justin argues that there isn’t a single mode of prophecy (e.g., predicting the future) but instead that prophecy is multivalent, multivocal and a combination of literary and divine inspiration that reshapes how Israel’s story is to be read. I also think that unlike me, Justin believed that sometimes the mode of prophecy can be predictive.

In arguing multiple modes of prophecy, I take Justin to mean that the many layers of meaning in the words that the prophets wrote weren’t always known even by their own minds. There is a “Divine Word,” spoken in them that may be revealed later. That strikes me as very close to what I’m describing. Justin would indeed believe that prophecy might foretell future events, but his take on these multiple modes of prophecy are a little more sophisticated than simple prediction. Sometimes the scriptures can speak through multiple and yet unique voices for different times and situations. They might speak as Creator, Christ, or as the people of God. For Justin, prophecy can function in many ways, including predictions, but also as a theological claim, dramatized speech that might take on new meanings in history or communal responses.

Even if the early Christians thought fulfilment of prophecy meant making a prediction come true, I still reserve my right to disagree with the early Christians. The early Christians didn’t understand many things that we do today, why shouldn’t the revelation of God progress with our greater understanding of nearly everything else in the universe? Justin believed a lot of things about the book of Revelation for example that most scholars don’t believe today, such it’s authorship and its ability to predict future events. Justin is just wrong about some things. The most important point for me in reading Justin Martyr regarding prophecy is that we can reinterpret everything in the light of Christ. This is called a Christological reading of scripture. It means we can reread what was written in ways the original author never intended. That is how Christ fulfills prophecy, we can reinterpret these writings and the story of Israel around the love and example of Jesus.

Early Christians had an enormous task in trying to answer some very reasonable questions. How could it be that God would kill the messiah and then raise Him from the dead? What could Jesus’ resurrection possibly mean? How does any of this save Israel? Searching through scripture for clues is less about thinking there was a prediction involved in the authors’ original writing and more about seeking ways for the Holy Spirit to use those scriptures to speak to us about Christ today. Justin wasn’t making a literary claim about the intent of the writing; he was making a theological and Christocentric claim about the way the Divine Word is alive. That is fulfilment.