How does the Bible define prophecy?
This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1996.
In your letter, you ask how does the Bible define prophecy; then you proceed to answer this question, first from the Old Testament and then from the New Testament.
Your Old Testament definition states that, in the Old Testament, the true prophet was God's mouthpiece; hence the phrases, 'The word of the Lord came to me' and 'This is what the Lord says'. The prophet's words carried divine authority, were infallible and were to be completely obeyed. The function of the Old Testament prophet extended far beyond teaching and preaching, and the Old Testament prophets were inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Undoubtedly your description fits the great majority of cases. But not all, surely. Take 1 Chronicles 25:1, 3, 6. Verse 3 speaks of certain men whose appointed service was 'they prophesied in giving thanks and praising the Lord'. One could hardly describe these men as 'God's mouthpiece in giving thanks and praising the Lord'. God using men as a mouthpiece in order for God to praise himself hardly seems an appropriate idea.
Saul's messengers and Saul himself were certainly overpowered by the Spirit of God and prophesied (see 1 Samuel 19:20–24). I find it difficult, in this case, to think that their words were infallible and were to be completely obeyed, any more than they were when an evil spirit from God came mightily upon Saul and he prophesied (see 1 Samuel 18:10). Similarly, at 1 Samuel 10:5–6, the procession of prophets who were prophesying to the accompaniment of various musical instruments were more likely praising God—as in 1 Chronicles 25, and as the NIV footnote suggests—rather than conveying a revelation of God's mind, or of a new doctrine, in infallible words that had to be obeyed.
As for your New Testament definition of prophecy, you say that, in the New Testament, the Gospels, Acts and Epistles all give the words 'prophet' and 'prophecy' the same definition, as does the Old Testament.
Yes, but we have now seen that there is more than one meaning of 'prophesying' in the Old Testament. Are we to think, then, that the twelve recent converts of Acts 19:6, who spoke with tongues and prophesied, introduced their words with 'Thus saith the Lord'; proceeded to predict the future, and speak infallible words that had to be obeyed; or even revealed new doctrine hitherto unknown? Or even became prophets such as those on whom, as foundations, the church is built? In the comparable situation in Acts 10:46, the new converts 'spoke with tongues and magnified (Greek = megalynō) God', i.e. they praised God. In Acts 2:11–18 those who spoke with tongues/prophesied, 'spoke . . . the mighty works (Greek = megaleia) of God'.
In all these three similar cases, it makes more sense to suppose that the speakers were praising God for his wonderful works. The bystanders in Acts 19 did not have to wait for the fulfilment of a predictive prophecy before they could rightly conclude that the twelve men were now born again of the Spirit of God.
First Corinthians 14:6 mentions four different possibilities: either in a revelation, or in knowledge, or in prophecy, or in teaching. This shows that prophecy does not necessarily imply revelation of new doctrine.
First Corinthians 14:3 describes what is conveyed by someone prophesying as edification and encouragement and comfort. There is no explicit mention here of 'prediction' or 'revelation', though of course both prediction and revelation could have all three of these results. I am not denying that the term 'prophet' is used in the New Testament of those to whom, along with apostles, revelation of hitherto undisclosed mysteries and of new doctrine was given (see Ephesians 2:20), and to whom unveiling of the future was communicated—as, for example, in the Revelation. On the foundation of such prophets and apostles, the church was built. I find it difficult to believe that the church was built on the foundation of the twelve men at Ephesus.
With regard to 1 Corinthians 14:30, did prophets speak only when a revelation was given them? If so, why is the first prophet told to keep silence, if a revelation is made to another? For the first one would also have been in process of telling forth a revelation—note that verse 30 does not say 'If another revelation is made'. Can it be proved that 'revelation' in verse 30 necessarily implies objective revelation of something new, and not subjective revelation of the meaning of something already revealed but hitherto not fully understood (see 1 Peter 1:11–12)?
Affectionately in Christ,My first and major point is that I rejoice that we agree over the major issues at stake in this debate, namely that:
Scripture is given by inspiration of God;
all Scripture is equally inspired: whether it is revealing truth that we could not otherwise have known, or repeating truth already revealed, or laying down for Israel laws that had long been current in Mesopotamia, or stating facts of history that we know from secular historians, and so forth;
in Scripture we have, as Jude puts it, 'the faith once for all delivered to the saints'. No new doctrine will be revealed before the Lord comes;
our first and final authority must be, as it was for the Lord, the 'it stands written' of holy Scripture.
In the sense in which the systematic theologians use the term 'revelation', I believe that the Bible is the full and complete revelation of the mind of God to us, until we get home to heaven. It is the completed body of doctrine upon which the church is founded.
At the same time, I believe—because inspired Scripture tells me so—that God has used in the past, and still uses in the present, other means of revealing himself, particularly in the case of people who have no Bible: e.g. Romans 1:18–32. The Bible is, of course, a fuller revelation of God's power and Godhead, and of his wrath, than creation and his providential judgments are. But it would not be true to say that because we now have a complete revelation of God in the Bible, God no longer uses creation as a means of revealing his power and divine nature to men, and no longer uses his providential judgments on men's evil behaviour as a means of revealing his wrath to them.
Strictly speaking, it is Christ who is the complete and final revelation of God. Hebrews 1:1–2 makes an eloquent distinction between 'the Prophets'—a recognized group through whom God spoke in times past in different modes and in different amounts—and the Son. Every act and word of his when he was on earth was a revelation of the Father, and he did not cease to reveal the Father when he ascended. He continued that revelation through the Holy Spirit whom he sent (see John 14:17).
We do not have a full record of everything Christ did and said on earth; but we have in Scripture as much of his deeds and words as the divine wisdom has seen fit to give us (see John 20:30–31). And we have no access to Christ's deeds and words on earth other than through inspired Scripture.
Similarly, we have in the New Testament those 'many things' which Christ could not say when he was on earth, but said through the Holy Spirit after his ascension. In that sense, the Holy Spirit led the inspired writers of the New Testament into all the truth (see John 16:13). The faith has been delivered once for all (see Jude v. 3).
We have, then, on the objective side, a full and complete—for the time being until we get home to heaven—revelation of the mind of God in the Bible. But at the same time, Scripture also uses the term 'revelation' of that subjective process, by which we come to understand the objective revelation in Scripture (see Ephesians 1:17). Ephesians is one of Paul's late prison epistles. Many would regard it as being near the pinnacle of God's objective revelation. Yet, in that epistle, he indicates that he finds it necessary constantly to pray that God might give believers 'a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God, the eyes of their hearts being enlightened'. Scripture, then, by itself is not enough: to understand the objective written revelation of Scripture we need also the subjective revelation (see also Luke 24:45).
At Matthew 11:27, our Lord claims, '. . . no one knows the Father, except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal him'. And on that basis he invites us to 'come to him'.
Questions arise as to how we are to understand this claim.
- Does it mean that in his days on earth the New Testament was not yet written, so that anyone who wished to know the Father had to come to Christ and let him reveal the Father to him; but now that we have in the New Testament a full and complete revelation of the Father, we do not need to come to the living Lord and ask him to reveal the Father to us? We already have his objective revelation in the New Testament, so we do not need any subjective ongoing revelation. All we need to do is to study the Bible and we shall understand it fully without any subjective revelation by the risen Lord.
- Or does it mean that, in spite of the complete objective revelation of the Father in the New Testament, we shall not fully and truly understand that revelation unless we come to the Son and allow him—as we study Scripture, or listen to his servants, or ponder life's circumstances—to reveal the Father subjectively to us?
I hold that 2. is the true meaning of our Lord\'s claim. (See also Philippians 3:15; John 14:21; 17:26.)
Yours affectionately in Christ,
