Mission Accomplished, Part II: Fill-in-the-blank

In part one, I tried to make the case that when the New Testament authors spoke of “fulfilled” Scripture, they weren’t saying the OT predicted the events of the NT, but that God’s mission was accomplished in Jesus. Jesus saw it this way himself, when on the cross he said, “It is finished,” perhaps better translated “it has been accomplished” (Gk tetelestai; Jn 19:30).

Prediction in the NT

Greek actually has a specific word, proeipon, that can be translated as “predicted.” It’s only used 12 times in the entire NT. But, even then, proeipon usually doesn’t mean to predict, as in to declare ahead of time the unfolding of specific future events. You can see from the chart below just how infrequently the verb has the connotation of “prediction.”

	NAS	ESV	NRSV	NIV	CEB	NLT
Matt 24:25	told in advance	told beforehand	told beforehand	told ahead of time	told ahead of time	warned ahead of time
Mk 13:23	told in advance	told beforehand	already told	told ahead of time	told ahead of time	warned ahead of time
Acts 1:16	foretold	spoke beforehand	foretold	spoke long ago	announced beforehand	predicted long ago
Rom 9:29	foretold	predicted	predicted	said previously	prophesied	said the same thing
2 Cor 7:3	said before	said before	said before	said before	already said	said before
2 Cor 13:2	previously said	warned before	warned previously	gave a warning	already warned	already warned
Gal 1:9	said before	said before	said before	said before	said before	said before
Gal 5:21	forewarned	warned before	warned before	already gave warning	already warned	already warned
1 Thes 4:6	told before	told beforehand	told beforehand	told before	told before	solemnly warned before
Heb 4:7	has been said before	words already quoted	words already quoted	passage already quoted	in the passage above	words already quoted
2 Pet 3:2	spoken beforehand	predictions	spoken in the past	spoken in the past	foretold	said long ago
Jude 17	spoken beforehand	predictions	predictions	foretold	spoken beforehand	predicted

As you can see, among the 12 occurrences of the verb across six modern English Bible translations, “predict” occurs only 7 times (8 if you include “prophesied”), which works out to approximately 10% of the time. In other words, it is very, very rare for the NT writers to suggest that the OT predicted the NT.

Fulfillment in the NT

On the other hand, the word for fulfill, plēroō, occurs 86 times in the NT. The chart below shows its distribution in the NT and Greek Apocryphal books.

The basic meaning of plēroō is “to fill”, as in to fill a container. It is the word most commonly  used in the Septuagint (over 70 times) for the Hebrew verb mālē’, “to be full, to fill.”

The article on the word plēroō in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament can be summarized here:[1]

This also attaches to πληρόω (→ 291, 3–9, 10 ff.), but the particular content of this word in the NT is determined by 2.–5. (→ 291–298): “to fulfil a norm, a measure, a promise,” “to complete or achieve” something, and in 1. the idea of “totality” or “fulness” is decisive. Senses 2.–5. are prepared, or at least intimated, in non-biblical Gk. (→ 287, 4–23) and further developed in the LXX (→ 288, 1–21). The multiplicity of nuances does not always permit us to integrate individual passages into a firm lexical schema. Lit. the term means “to fill something completely,” a place, Ac. 2:2 (pass. Jn. 12:3; Mt. 13:48; Lk. 3:5), a material lack, Phil. 4:19; in a transf. sense Ac. 5:28: “You have filled all Jerusalem …”

In short, plēroō simply means to fill something. In the case of the NT’s understanding of the OT, it means something along the lines of “to fill in the blanks.”

So, what blanks needed filled in? God’s mission was to bring redemption to the world (as discussed in Part I), beginning with the call of Abram in Gen. 12. Exactly how God was going to accomplish that mission was not always clear. But, the NT authors are convinced, and they wish to convince us, that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus answered that concern. He was the answer to the fill-in-the-blank question.

Conclusion

In summary, the NT writers rarely suggested that the OT predicted the events of the NT. Frequently, though, they stated that the mission of God was accomplished through the signature NT event—the Christ event—and this event filled in the blanks in terms of understanding how God’s plan would unfold.

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[1] Gerhard Delling, “Πλήρης, Πληρόω, Πλήρωμα, Ἀναπληρόω, Ἀνταναπληρόω, Ἐκπληρόω, Ἐκπλήρωσις, Συμπληρόω, Πληροφορέω, Πληροφορία,” ed. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 291.