Telescoping
Telescoping is a hermeneutical tool. Purportedly, it gives us a way to interpret prophetic passages. Prophetic passages foretell certain events in the future. But we notice that these passages not only apply to the events that are soon to come; they also apply to events much farther in the future. There is a double fulfillment. Telescoping is the theory that the prophet speaks in terms of both fulfillments.
In his commentary on Matthew, Hendrikson describes telescoping (he calls it prophetic foreshortening) in terms of a mountain range. We are looking through a telescope at a mountain range. We see the first mountain, which is the fulfillment, but all the mountains behind it (further fulfillments) look like part of that mountain. The prophecy is given in terms that describe all the mountains that the prophet sees. We might call what he sees a mash-up of different future events. (He writes this in the context of Jesus’ prophecies about the fall of the temple in Matthew 24. He sees them as applying both to the destruction of the temple and the 2nd coming.)
This phenomenon is common in Biblical literature. Isaiah speaks of a child that will come in Isaiah 7. In context, this could refer to the King of Judah’s son or even Isaiah’s son. There is a bit of ambiguity. Later Matthew applies Isaiah’s prophecy to the birth of Christ. The passage is fulfilled a second time. Arguably, the same principle is at play in Matthew 24. Here Jesus speaks of the destruction of Jerusalem. He implies a second fulfillment as well: his final coming.
Prophetic Typology
Yet I would argue that this is not the best way to think about the interpretation of these passages. I prefer what I would call “prophetic typology.” The first fulfillment really fulfills the prophecy. Isaiah’s prophecies about the birth of a son a fulfilled soon after he gave them. Then the same prophecy is applied to a later, greater fulfillment. Matthew applies that same birth of a son to Christ. It is applied typologically the 2nd time.
This allows us consistency in the way we interpret the rest of the bible and prophecy. Prophecy is not a completely unique genre with its own set of hermeneutical rules. To an extent it is unique; prophecy speaks of the future, not the present. However, the New Testament uses the narratives of the Old Testament in the same way as it uses the prophecies of the Old Testament. The narrative of David’s sufferings and Moses’ teachings are applied to Christ typologically, just like the prophecy of Isaiah.
The telescoping view contains some truth. Isaiah likely saw that a greater fulfillment was necessary when he saw the first fulfillment. The church always applied Matthew 24 to the 2nd coming of Christ, though he spoke of the fall of Jerusalem in that passage. Christ certainly kn ew that there would be a fuller fulfillment. Even the idea that there is a greater fulfillment in the later type than in the earlier type is not completely wrong-headed. Christ teaches in Luke 24 that all the Old Testament was about him.
What I don’t like is the suggestion we need to separate sections in various prophecies that apply to the first fulfillment and others that apply to later fulfillments. Seeing prophecy as typological gives us a simpler tool for working with prophecy. Advocating for the typological method in interpreting prophetic fulfillment does not completely rule out the idea of telescoping, but it does give consistency in the way we interpret scripture.