Justin Martyr (c.100 - c.165)
The Scriptures of truth are at once the source and in themselves the sufficient authentication of the prophetic witness. But it is nevertheless instructive for believers to discover that down the centuries God has raised up teachers who have examined and expounded what is revealed in His Word concerning the Advent hope and the events of the end.
Their interpretations are by no means infallible, however, and may often contain a measure of chaff mixed with the wheat. But where such writers accurately reflect the mind of the Spirit as represented in the biblical record, then we can gratefully accept their teaching as confirming the disclosures of the Word.
In this series of articles we propose to consider the Advent teaching preserved in the extant writings of some of those who studied this important theme in the earliest period of the Church’s history, up to the Council of Nicaea in the year AD 325.The expectation of the Lord’s Return dominated the outlook of many Christian thinkers from the apostolic age onwards and within that framework the most striking feature, as Philip Schaff has pointed out, was the marked emphasis on the Millennium.
We start with Justin Martyr, who was the first notable Christian writer outside the New Testament to deal at any length with prophetic themes. It is true that there are relevant passages in the letters of Ignatius, Polycarp and Barnabas, in the Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.
But it is in the pages of Justin that we encounter a much fuller treatment of eschatology, or the doctrine of the last things.
A Christian Apologist
Justin is the most outstanding figure among a group of Christian scholars in the second century known as Apologists. They set out to present the case for Christianity to meet the objections and misapprehensions of those who dismissed it as unworthy of their serious attention. The same task needs to be undertaken today when the gospel is discarded by so many influential intellectuals as irrelevant.
Justin addressed his two Apologies to the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius and the Roman Senate respectively. It is in the first of these that he devotes a lengthy section (Chapters 30 to 53) to the evidence of prophecy He also published a Dialogue with Trypho in which he endeavoured to convince a distinguished Jewish enquirer that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true Messiah.
Justin hailed from Shechem, or Flavia Neopolis as it was known in his day, in honour of the Emperor Flavius Vespasianus. The modern Nablus is a corruption of Neapolis (New Town). Justin came from a Greek pagan family and in his youth had vainly sought guidance from various philosophers.
Eventually he met an old man who pointed him a different direction. "There existed long before this time,’ he said, certain men more ancient than all those who are esteemed philosophers, both righteous and beloved by God, who spoke by the divine Spirit, and foretold events which would take place, and which are now taking place. They are called prophets... Their writings are still extant, and he who has read them is very much helped in his knowledge of the beginning and end of things.’
Justin never saw that aged disciple again but, he testified, ‘immediately a flame was kindled in my soul; and a love of the prophets, and of those men who are friends of Christ, possessed me; and while revolving his words in my mind, I found this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable.’ For a time Justin taught in Ephesus and later opened a Christian college in Rome.
In the end he paid the price of faith with his life when he refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods. Hence he is known as Justin Martyr.
Predictions of First Advent
Justin goes out of his way to make it clear that his prophetic teaching is not based on any form of human speculation but is derived solely from the Scriptures. "I choose to follow not men or men’s doctrines, but God and the doctrines delivered by Him.’
He is the earliest extra-Biblical Christian writer to deploy the new familiar argument that the precision with which the predictions of our Lord’s First Coming were fulfilled item by item, as evidenced in the Gospels, is a guarantee that the prophecies relating to the Second Coming will be vindicated with equal exactitude.
The way in which so many features of Christ’s life and ministry have been anticipated in the Scriptures of the Old Testament not only substantiates the claim that the Lord Jesus Christ is indeed the unique Son of God, but also reassures us about the certainty of fulfilment so far as Biblical forecasts relating to the end time are concerned.
‘Since, then, we prove that all things which have already happened had been predicted by the prophets before they came to pass,' Justin contends, we must necessarily believe also that those things which are in like manner predicted, but are yet to come to pass, shall certainly happen. For as the things which have already taken place came to pass when foretold, and even though unknown, so shall the things that remain, even though they be unknown and disbelieved, yet come to pass.’
The crucial text in Genesis 49:10 is dealt with more than once by Justin. ‘The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes.’ Following the Septuagint, the latter phrase is taken to be ‘until He comes for whom it is reserved,’ that One being Christ.
The prophecy ‘and He shall be the desire (or expectation) of the nations’ signifies that there will be some from all races who look for Him to come again.’ And this indeed you can see for yourselves, and be convinced by the fact,’ Justin claims. ‘Binding His foal to the vine, washing His robe in the blood of the grape (v.11) is symbolic of what was to happen to Jesus on the first Palm Sunday and on Good Friday.
Quoting Isaiah 7:14 — ‘Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bring forth a Son, and they shall say for His name, God is with us’ - Justin adds: ‘For things which were incredible and seem impossible with men, these God predicted by the Spirit of prophecy as about to come to pass, in order that, when they came to pass, there might be no unbelief but faith because of the prediction.’ Moreover, he argues, if there was nothing unusual about the conception and birth of Jesus, why was it necessary for God Himself to give a special prophetic sign?
In tracing the pattern of prophetic fulfillment, Justin blazes a trail that has been followed by many commentators since his time. He draws attention to the predictions relating to the place and circumstances of Christ’s birth (Mic. 5:2; Isa. 11:1), to the way in which His teaching would be rejected by the Jews (Isa. 65:2), arid to His authority and Kingship (Isa. 9:6).
Justin finds numerous passages in the Old Testament which foreshadow the crucifixion, not only in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 but in other places as well. The conclusion of Psalm 22 is regarded as anticipating the Resurrection of our Lord.
The Goal of Prophecy
Justin dearly distinguishes between the two Advents and has no hesitation in recognising the Second Coming as the goal and climax of all prophecy. The prophets have proclaimed two Advents of His (i.e. Christ’s): the one, that which is already past, when He came as a dishonoured and suffering man; but the second when, according to prophecy He shall come from heaven with glory accompanied by His angelic host.’
After citing Micah 4:1-7, Justin notes that the rabbis admit that the passage refers to the Messiah, but affirm that He has not yet come. When He does so, it will be known who He is because His glory will be revealed. ‘O unreasoning men!’
Justin continues,
‘understanding not what has been proved by all these passages, that two Advents of Christ have been announced: the one, in which He is set forth as suffering, inglorious, dishonoured, and crucified; but the other, in which He shall come from heaven with glory.’
Perhaps rather fancifully, Justin thinks that the two Advents are signified by the two goats in Leviticus 16:7-10. These, he says, typify the two appearances of Christ: the first in which the Jews laid hands on Him, put Him to death, and sent Him away as the scapegoat, and His second appearance because in the same place in Jerusalem He will be acknowledged as the one sacrifice for the sins for ever. Psalms 72 and 110 are appealed to as indicating that the Messiah would first be humiliated and then vindicated at the end.
The Return of Christ is seen by Justin as fulfilling the prophecy of Daniel 7:13 that the Son of Man should come on the clouds of heaven to receive the Kingdom, along with His saints (cf. v.18). This will coincide with the time ‘when the man of apostasy, who speaks strange things against the Most High, shall venture to do unlawful deeds on earth.’
The reference is plainly to the Antichrist of 2 Thessalonians 2:3 who, according to Daniel, will have dominion for a time and times and half a time’ (Dan. 7:25). Justin was aware that the times of the Gentiles were now running on to their consummation,’ as indeed Christians in every generation will realise, since the precise hour of the Lord’s Return is unknown.
It is interesting that Justin not only teaches the bodily resurrection of the righteous dead, but understands that it will precede the general resurrection after the Millennium. It is significant that he refers to this as ‘a resurrection’ as distinct from ‘the general, and, in short, the eternal resurrection of all men’ which will take place ‘thereafter.’
Dispensations
Replying to objections raised by Trypho to some of his Biblical interpretations, Justin shows that Christ endured the privations and humiliations of His earthly life ‘not as being justified by them, but as fulfilling the dispensation which His Father willed.’
This term ‘dispensation’ for Justin ‘designates in whole or in part the realisation of the plan of God among men,’ as C. Archambault explains. The former dispensation under the Mosaic law was a shadow of things to come when the new Covenant in Christ superseded the old.
The New Covenant, according to Justin, is both redemptive and governmental and will reach its consummation in the Millennial Kingdom. God made His Son to be ‘King, Lord, Priest, God first subject to suffering, then returning to heaven, and again coming with glory. And He is preached as possessing an everlasting Kingdom.’
Justin informs Trypho that he himself, along with other orthodox Christians, looks forward to the establishment o an earthly Kingdom, with its centre at Jerusalem, which will last for a thousand literal years.
The city will be ‘built, adorned, and enlarged’ as the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah declare. Isaiah 65:17-25 is reproduced in full, with its promise that Jerusalem is to become a cause of rejoicing, with weeping and crying heard no more (vv.18,19).
Justin relates verse 22 to the tree of life and considers that it obscurely predicts a thousand years. He also refers to Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8, reminding us that ‘with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day,’ which he takes to infer that the Day of the Lord at the end will last a thousand years. Justin then links these passages with Revelation 20:3,5 and John’s vision of the Millennium.
There are those who seem to imagine that premillennialism is a nineteenth century invention.
Here back in the second century is a Christian teacher who sets out for the first time some of the principal features of the prophetic programme, which others who followed him would develop and refine.
We can salute Justin as a genuine pioneer in prophetic witness.
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