Who Are Today’s True Prophets?

In an article entitled “On Calling People ‘Prophets’ in 1970” (Interpretation, October, 1970), W. Sibley Towner draws attention to the popular designation of persuasive or provocative persons as “prophets.” He describes the style, rhetoric, constituencies, and message of Old Testament prophetism and warns against abandonment of the biblical model. “The religious community has an interest in maintaining important content in the terms prophet and prophetic,” he says, “lest they become so generally applied as to become meaningless or so wrongly employed as to become dangerous.”

There is also a need to examine prophetism as it is seen in the current charismatic movement within the Church. As Towner says, any prophetic phenomena, within or outside the Church, must be evaluated according to the sources from which they confessedly spring, the Old Testament and the New Testament.

A discussion of the gift of prophecy as revealed in the New Testament must find its roots in the Old Testament proclamation of Joel 2:28, 29: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit.” This utterance of the prophet found its fulfillment in the Pentecostal demonstration of the Spirit recorded in Acts 2:1–21. It is important to note, however, that there is no record that any of the apostles or other believers acted as prophets on the day of Pentecost except in the preaching of the Gospel by Peter (2:14–36). In other words, the first evidence of the fulfillment of Joel’s message about prophecy was the public preaching of the Word of God. Not until Acts 11:27 do we learn of the existence in the Church of persons called prophets. There are several other passages where they are mentioned (Acts 13:1; 15:32; 21:9, 10; 1 Cor. 12:28, 29; Eph. 3:5; 4:11). But these passages do not tell us much about the nature of New Testament prophetism, and other more instructive passages must be considered in detail.

The Greek word prophetes is derived from pro plus phemi, “to speak for or before,” and propheteuo is the verb meaning to prophesy. As is true of all other basic New Testament concepts, these words for prophet and prophesy have Old Testament antecedents. The principal Hebrew term for prophet is nabhi, a word that occurs more than three hundred times in the Old Testament. The etymology of this word is most uncertain, coming possibly from the Akkadian nabu, “to announce.” Historical, contextual, and theological investigations reveal, however, that a nabhi was one who served as the “mouth” or spokesman for another, higher authority (Exod. 7:1, 2; cf. 4:15, 16). Whenever the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) translates nabhi, it uses the term prophetes, the very term employed by the New Testament writers for “prophet.” That is, there is no difference between the Old Testament nabhi and the New Testament prophetes. And unless there is information to the contrary, we must assume no essential difference in the nature and function of Old Testament and New Testament prophetism. Joel had said that men would prophesy in “the day of the Lord,” and Peter declared that this prediction had been fulfilled. As a typical Hebrew prophet, Joel would undoubtedly have had no other misunderstanding of the prophetic concept than that of the Old Testament as a whole.

The Old Testament prophet of God was a conscious, active vehicle of divine revelation—he was not an ecstatic, dervish-type of automaton in the hands of a higher Power. This lack of passivity and of intense emotional display served to distinguish the prophet of Jehovah from the prophets of surrounding heathen nations; one can easily see this by reading the account of the Egyptian envoy Wen-Amon (ca. 1100 B.C.), who, while in Phoenicia, witnessed a young prophet who was seized by one of his gods and who was “having his frenzy.” The ancient Babylonians and Assyrians had their mahhu and baru prophets who, too, were “possessed” by their gods and made to act in most irrational, uncontrollable ways. A more familiar illustration of this is the account of the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, who, in their contest with Elijah, cut themselves with knives and lances “after their manner” (1 Kings 18:28). We find demon-possessed Saul “acting like a prophet” by becoming semi-conscious and immobile when attempting to apprehend David at Ramah (1 Sam. 19:23, 24). The context of this passage makes it clear that Saul’s behavior was not the ordinary behavior of the true prophets of God. Only in the case of later apocalyptics such as Ezekiel and Daniel can there be any suspicion of ecstaticism, and even there, there is no evidence of irrationality or subconsciousness. Reactions such as those of Ezekiel at Tel-abib (Ezek. 3:15), where he sat “overwhelmed” for seven days, seem due not so much to an extreme psychical experience as to the import of the divine revelation he had been given.

A second important characteristic of Old Testament prophetism was its emphasis on proclamation as well as prediction. And that proclamation was generally not in cryptic, esoteric terms but in language of eproof, correction, judgment, comfort, and encouragement that the least initiated could well understand. The oracles of the prophets were nearly always expositions or reminders of the Mosaic Law, centered in revelation that had already been propounded in Israel’s past. This is not to deny the predictive element; virtually all the writing prophets speak of the future, both immediate and eschatological. But the emphasis was decidedly historical, contemporary, and practical for the personal and national life.

With this Old Testament orientation in view, let us consider again the New Testament teaching on prophetism, remembering that it will be essentially a continuation of that revealed in the Old. In the early Church, the gift of prophecy was shared only by those upon whom God was pleased to bestow it (Rom. 12:6; 1 Cor. 12:10; 13:2; Eph. 4:11). Everyone could share the Gospel with others (Acts 8:4), but only those with the prophetic gift could herald it with prophetic authority and ability. It seems quite likely that though all prophets were not apostles (in the narrow sense), the apostles were all prophets (Eph. 3:5). An interesting point is that in the four recorded instances of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts (2:1–4; 8:17; 10:44–46; 19:6), on only one occasion (19:6) is prophesying a result. This would certainly suggest that the gift was selectively given, in this case to the Ephesian church leaders. Other persons who are named and designated prophets are Barnabas, Symeon, Lucius, and Manaen (Acts 13:1); Agabus (Acts 11:28; 21:10); Judas and Silas (Acts 15:32); and perhaps the daughters of Philip (Acts 21:9).

Although the word prophetes occurs more than twice as many times in Acts as in all of Paul’s epistles (thirty times in Acts, fourteen in Paul), and propheteuo occurs twenty-eight times in Acts and the rest of the New Testament and only eleven times in Paul, the meaning of the two words is unclear except in Paul. And practically all the Pauline teaching on the subject is in First Corinthians.

The Apostle first discusses the matter with the Corinthians in reference to the man who prays or prophesies with his head covered and the woman who does so with her head uncovered (1 Cor. 11:4, 5). All that can be learned here is that praying and prophesying were not synonymous and that women had the right to do both. In chapter 13 of First Corinthians, where Paul expounds on the primacy of love, he maintains that prophecy is inadequate without love. But of more interest to us here is his definition of prophecy—it is the apprehending of “all mysteries” (13:2). In its technical, New Testament sense, “mystery” suggests information available only through revelation, i.e., the Gospel itself. Prophecy, in this sense, is the clear understanding of the Gospel, a sharpened understanding that comes as a special gift of God to certain of his saints. This peculiar insight will one day be done away with, however; the time will pass when only a limited number clearly understand the revelation of God (13:8, 9).

In chapter 14 we find the fullest expression of Paul on prophetism; indeed, along with and in contrast to the gift of tongues, prophecy is there predominant. The Apostle declares the superiority of prophecy compared to other gifts, its purpose, its nature, and its controls. Because we cannot judge the validity of any spiritual manifestation in today’s Church on its own intrinsic or extrinsic worth but only on the basis of the Scriptures, let us examine this chapter.

In his opening argument, Paul urges the Corinthians to seek spiritual things, especially the ability to prophesy (14:1). This is to be preferred to tongues, for example, for which speaking in tongues enables a man to thrill in his private understanding of the Gospel (mysteries), prophecy allows him to share his comprehension with others (14:2–5). A crucial teaching in the present passage is in verse six, where there are four means of understandable communication as opposed to unintelligible tongues. One of these four, prophesying, is obviously considered different from the other three (revelation, knowledge, and teaching). This means that prophesying does not necessarily involve the reception of revelation. One could be a prophet even if he had not received revelation. Furthermore, a revelation could be different from a prophecy and no doubt often was. In any case, Paul states that he would rather speak five words with understanding (that is, to prophesy; cf. 14:1, 19) than ten thousand words in a tongue.

The purpose of prophecy in the New Testament Church was to persuade believers of the authenticity of their Christian faith (14:22) and to convince unbelievers of the credibility of the Gospel of Christ (14:24, 25). If an unbeliever should come into an assembly of the saints and hear everyone speaking with tongues, he would doubt the sanity of the group. If, on the other hand, he should find the body of believers prophesying, he perchance would repent of his sin and turn to Christ. There is only one message that can so convict and convince—the Gospel, so prophesying here most surely means the proclamation of that message.

The nature of prophetism, as we have seen, was principally proclamation of revelation and not reception of revelation; however, it is also apparent from First Corinthians 14 that prophets could and did receive revelation (14:29–33). Whether or not all did we cannot know. What is certain is that at any given service only two or three prophets were to share their revelations while the others sat in judgment upon them and their messages. This judgment was not so much to determine whether the utterance was true as to reveal whether or not the speaker was in fact a man of God (cf. 14:37, 38). And the speakers were to take turns. This could be done because the “spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets” (14:32). The New Testament prophet, as much as the Old, was an active participant in the revelatory and proclamatory process; he was not merely an instrument upon whom God played, one who was rendered incapable of self-control. He might not be able to conjure up his revelation, but he was obligated to announce it in an orderly, democratic way.

The basic control over the content of prophetic revelation was the need for its absolute harmony with the apostolic Word of God. Any prophet who preached a revelation in a way that ran counter to the commandment of the Apostle, either in method or in content, was to be considered spurious (14:37, 38). This, too, was the criterion by which the Old Testament prophet was judged. Did or did not his message conform to the Law of God as revealed through Moses? He or the New Testament prophet might be able to perform signs and wonders in abundance, but if his message should contradict the Word of God written it was to be ignored and the prophet rejected as a divine messenger (Deut. 13:1–5; 18:20–22).

Such warnings against false prophets were necessary in the light of the widespread sorcery and divination of the day. Paul and Barnabas encountered a sorcerer on Cyprus, Bar-jesus by name, as had Philip at Samaria years before (Acts 8:9). Both sorcerers had supernatural power, but they received their inspiration from the spirit of Satan. It was to avoid counterfeit spiritual movements within the Church that Paul outlined to the Corinthians such detailed instructions concerning the gift of prophecy. The sorcerers just described could easily be exposed because of their infidelity to truth. Quite a different case is that of the Philippian maiden who, demon possessed, followed Paul and Silas about, announcing that they were servants of the Most High God. This they were in every sense, but though her statement was true and biblical, she was nonetheless false because falsely motivated. She became a means of harassment and an impediment to the apostles, all the while preaching a true message. The truth of the proclamation alone, then, was an insufficient guide to the godliness of the prophet. Paul had to have the witness of the Holy Spirit to enable him to perceive and contend with this error of divination.

The biblical teaching or prophetism suggests the following principles concerning the possibility of prophetism in the contemporary church:

1. Any prophetic gift must be evaluated in the light of the Word of God and not on the basis of personal or attested empirical observation.

2. Any person who claims the gift of prophecy (a) cannot fail to have a predictive prophecy come to pass (Deut. 18:20–22); (b) cannot say anything contrary to the Word of God (Deut. 13:1–5; 1 Cor. 14:37); (c) must follow biblical procedure in its application and practice (1 Cor. 14:29–33). On the basis of (a) alone many well-known “prophets,” both within the Church and outside it, stand exposed as something less than divine messengers because many of their predictions have not been fulfilled in the designated time. And any modern “prophet” who mishandles written revelation in any way or who is methodologically unsound in his use of the gift similarly discredits himself.

3. Because the Word of God written is an eternally completed document, there is little likelihood that further revelation is either needed or possible. John makes it clear in his epistles that by the time of their composition (ca. A.D. 90) it was already difficult to distinguish true prophets from false (1 John 4:1–6). By the end of the post-apostolic period, few of the Fathers recognized the continuance of the gift of prophecy as a vehicle of revelation. The perversions of Montanism, with its insistence upon post-biblical inspiration and revelation, caused the coup de grace to fall upon prophecy. Men of God saw more and more clearly that the inability to distinguish true prophets from false rendered revelatory prophetism well nigh obsolete and, indeed, potentially dangerous to the well-being of the Church. Only sporadically throughout subsequent church history, as now again in recent years, has there been serious re-examination of the possibility of prophetism as a gift. This writer suggests that because there are no absolutely adequate standards for evaluating such a spiritual movement, the safer course is to question its authenticity and to limit oneself to the clear teaching of Scripture on any given matter. The gift of prophecy, as it relates to revelation, was, it would appear, necessary only until the canon was complete and men thus had the fullness of revelation.

God’s gift to the Church of the prophet as a herald of the kerygma (Eph. 4:11) continues, however. In an age when men are called prophets because they overturn, disturb, and confuse, it is reassuring to know that there are genuine spokesmen for God—men who are prophets not because they proclaim creative messages of the imagination but because they rightly divide the word of truth. And they preach it with the conviction that comes from knowing they have been divinely chosen and ordained minister in and to the Church functions in society. we conceive of modern prophecy in these terms, then we can devoutly wish that all God’s servants were prophets.

Eugene H. Merrill is professor of Bible at Berkshire Christian College in Lenox, Massachusetts. He has the Ph.D. from Bob Jones University and is now enrolled in a doctoral program in Semitics at Columbia University.

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