What the Bible Say About the Holy Spirit (Part 5)

We looked at prophecy in the last article and we said that the New Testament counterparts to the Old Testament prophets are really the New Testament apostles. I said that a prophecy has to do in the New Testament context with the telling of something that God has spontaneously brought to mind and that the meaning of the word ‘prophet’ in the time of the New Testament had changed and become something quite generic.

Therefore, the Old Testament ‘thus says the Lord’ is not something you find in the New Testament but, rather, the prophets did not speak with equal authority to the words of Scripture in the New Testament. We said that prophecy, therefore, doesn’t replace the Scriptures. Rather, we were saying that prophecy, as a gift, would have to do with spontaneous declarations of things that a person is impressed that God is telling them to share with the congregation or in a small group, but it has nothing to do with the canon of Scripture, nor would it replace that.

We also said that this ‘spontaneous revelation’ made prophecy different from other gifts and we saw that the prophets didn’t have the same authority and, in fact, we saw in 1 Corinthians 14 that it actually urges the congregation to test, to let two or three prophets speak and let the members weigh what was said. So, this text suggested that they should listen carefully and sift the good from the bad, accepting some and rejecting the rest. The idea is that you “don’t despise prophetic utterances,” but you “…hold fast to that which is good” and reject that which is wrong.

So, there was a need for discernment; it was not the same as Elijah or Isaiah coming along and saying, ‘thus says the Lord’. It was a different kind of a picture. So, we had the foundation of the prophets from the Old Testament, but now, in the New Testament, it is with the apostles and they are the ones whose teaching produces the Scripture, the revelation, and the foundation upon which our doctrine is to be based.

The Scriptures would ultimately be the thing that Paul points to. In other words, when prophets would communicate, it would always have to be tested against the Scriptures. So, there is a difference between prophecy and teaching. I am saying that in this case prophecy has to do with an impression that one gets and communicates, but teaching has to do a good deal more with applying the word of God and communicating that.

Now, some people would say that the gift of prophecy would be too subjective in some cases, if it is used in the congregation. My suggestion here is that we have two extremes to avoid. One would be that people are so focused on objectivity that they would feel that everything has to be exactly so and doctrinally sound and so forth. These people may need a little bit more of the subjective dimension of the power of the Spirit of God. Whereas those who go off in the opposite extreme and into subjectivity can always be seeking subjective messages and really not subject their lives to the clear teachings of Scripture. So, you can go two different ways here and for them, they need a message that it is the teaching of the Word that is the primary authority in Scripture.

I also said that prophecies could include any edifying content. That is to say, a prophet, according to 1 Corinthians 14:3, “…speaks to men for edification and exhortation and consolation.” In this same chapter Paul contrasts the gift of tongues with the gift of prophecy, that it was edifying to all and there would be a variety of ways in which this could be used. He gave specific criteria as well for how they should use these particular gifts. He argues that if anyone should do this, let them prophesy one by one so that all may learn and be exhorted. The Spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets.