March 3

Fulfillment is the realization of some event or prediction. In the case of Scripture, fulfillment relates not to the future, but to the past. As we have learned, the New Testament cannot be truly and fully understood without the knowledge of patterns and themes throughout the Old Testament. As such, the Old Testament can be described as a template for all of God’s works and what He may do in specific situations in the future. As situations “repeat” themselves in terms of similarity to past events, so to do we expect God’s actions to parallel those that he enacted in the past. By realizing and witnessing these “predicted” outcomes of God from new scenarios, closely related in nature to ones observed in the Old Testament, we can say that the situation and event has been fulfilled. The expected outcome has come to pass. Hosea speaks of a return to the Land, a fulfillment of God’s promises, “that what the Lord said through the prophet might be fulfilled: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son’” (Mt 2:15). As Moses had led the Israelites out of Egypt and towards the promise land, so too will Joseph lead the people across the Jordan into the Land. This would be considered fulfillment of what the prophets had said. To clarify, it is not the fulfillment of the past strictly speaking, but the analysis of past moments and divine pattern in anticipating God’s providence to come. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill” (Mt 5:17). Fulfillment, like the renovation, the re-establishing of the ‘new’ covenant, brings about the new from the old. It is not a new relationship per say between the people and God, but a continuation, albeit slightly different, but with the same foundation. Fulfillment is the same. It is the continuation of God’s divine love and actions from patterns in the past translating to the present and future.