The Doctrine of the Word of God

Table of Contents

Preface
Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Titles

Part One: Orientation

1. The Personal Word Model
2. Lordship and the Word

Part Two: God’s Word in Modern Theology

3. Modern Views of Revelation
4. Revelation and Reason
5. Revelation and History
6. Revelation and Human Subjectivity
7. Revelation and God Himself

Part Three: The Nature of God’s Word

8. What is the Word of God?
9. God’s Word as His Controlling Power
10. God’s Word as His Meaningful Authority
11. God’s Word as His Personal Presence

Part Four: The Media of God’s Word

12. The Media of God’s Word
13. God’s Revelation Through Events
14. God’s Revelation Through Words: the Divine Voice
15. God’s Revelation Through Words: Prophets and Apostles
16. The Permanence of God’s Written Word
17. God’s Written Words in the Old Testament
18. Respect for God’s Written Words in the Old Testament
19. Jesus’ View of the Old Testament
20. The Apostles’ View of the Old Testament
21. The New Testament as God’s Written Words
22. The Canon of Scripture
23. The Inspiration of Scripture
24. The Content of Scripture
25. Scripture’s Authority, its Content and its Purpose
26. The Inerrancy of Scripture
27. The Phenomena of Scripture
28. Bible Problems
29. The Clarity of Scripture
30. The Necessity of Scripture
31. The Comprehensiveness of Scripture
32. The Sufficiency of Scripture
33. The Transmission of Scripture
34. Translations and Editions of Scripture
35. Teaching and Preaching
36. The Sacraments
37. Theology
38. Confessions, Creeds, Traditions
39. The Human Reception of Scripture
40. The Interpretation of Scripture
41. Assurance
42. Person-revelation: The Divine Witness
43. Human Beings as Revelation
44. Writing on the Heart
45 Summary and Organizational Reflections
46. Epilogue

15. God’s Revelation Through Words: Prophets and Apostles

When Israel no longer wished to hear the word of God directly from God’s lips, they turned to Moses: "You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die" (Ex. 20:19). So they called on Moses to speak as a prophet. A prophet is someone who has God’s words on his lips, as we see from the virtual definition of prophet in Deut. 18. In that chapter, God forbids Israel from seeking revelation from pagan fortune tellers, wizards, necromancers, diviners (verses 9-14). But how are they to learn God’s will? Here, God approves Israel’s desire to hear his word indirectly rather than directly, and he promises this to Moses:

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him (verses 18-19).

Evidently Moses himself is something of a model for the whole series of prophets that appear through Israel’s history. Let us look further at his prophetic office.

When Moses first met God at the burning bush, God commissioned him to bring a message to Israel and to Egypt (Ex. 3:7-22). Moses complained to God, however, that he was not an eloquent speaker (4:10). God replies:

Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? 12 Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak (Ex. 4:11-12).

God is sovereign over Moses’ speech. God will supply the words. But Moses still is not satisfied: "Oh, my Lord, please send someone else" (verse 13).

Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses and he said, "Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. 15 You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do. 16 He shall speak for you to the people, and he shall be your mouth, and you shall be as God to him. (verses 14-16).

In this extraordinary exchange, God establishes a hierarchy: God, Moses, Aaron, Israel. God gives his words to Moses. Moses gives these divine words to Aaron. Aaron gives them to the people. Throughout the hierarchy the words are God’s. Indeed, in verse 16, Moses is called "God." 2 He functions as God, because he gives God’s words to Aaron, his prophet. There is no decrease in authority between God himself, Moses (Aaron’s God), and Aaron. 3 Moses and Aaron have the authority of God, because they speak God’s words.

Here, as in Deut. 18, the prophet is one who has God’s words in his mouth. Note similar language in the call of Jeremiah:

Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations." 6 Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth." 7 But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a youth'; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. 8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD." Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, "Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. 10 See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant." 11 And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, "Jeremiah, what do you see?" And I said, "I see an almond branch." 12 Then the LORD said to me, "You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it" (Jer. 1:4-12)

Like Moses, Jeremiah pleads his own inadequacy. God remedies that inadequacy with his own adequacy: the words are to be God’s own, in Jeremiah’s mouth. Here the emphasis is on the power of the word, rather than its authority as in Deut. 18, though of course the two are inseparable. Because Jeremiah has God’s words in his mouth, he has powers that belong only to God, to build up or destroy nations. Jeremiah sees a vision of an almond branch. God interprets this vision: "I am watching over my word to perform it." 4 The word in Jeremiah’s mouth is God’s, and so God will see that whatever the word declares will be done. The word has the same power in the prophet’s mouth as in God’s own.

So the prophet is a divinely approved substitute for the divine voice itself. When Moses spoke to Israel in the name of God, his speech was less frightening than God’s own, but no less authoritative or powerful. Earlier, in Ex. 19:9, God told Moses, "Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever." To hear Moses is to hear God. When Moses speaks to Israel, he speaks "according to all that God had given him in commandment to them" (Deut. 1:3). Moses teaches Israel the statutes of God that bear the covenant sanctions: those who obey are blessed, those who disobey are cursed (Deut. 4:1-8). Moses’ statutes are God’s. Compare 5:1, 22-33, 6:1-9. Israel promises to obey all of God’s words; but those are words they hear from Moses’ lips, not directly from the divine voice.

Jesus himself acknowledges the authority of Moses’ words. He tells the Jews:

Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. 46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. 47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" (John 5:45-47)

So it is clearly wrong to think that there is a decrease in power, authority, or divine presence, between the divine voice and the word of God in the mouth of the prophet. If we may not criticize the divine voice, no more may we criticize the prophetic word. The prophetic word is human in ways that the divine voice is not, but the additional humanity of the prophetic word does not inject any fallibility or weakness into the message. Nor does the speaker’s sin impart error to the divine words. By whatever means (and such passages as Ex. 4, Deut. 18, and Jer. 1 leave no question that it is miraculous), the prophet speaks God’s word perfectly well, and we must not find fault with it.

Though Moses is the biblical paradigm for the office of prophet, he is neither the first, nor the last to have the prophetic gift. Certainly Noah spoke prophetically when he declared many centuries in advance how God would deal with the descendants of his sons Shem and Japheth and his grandson Canaan (Gen. 9:24-27). Isaac’s blessings on Jacob (Gen. 27:27-29) and Esau (verses 39-40) were prophetic, as were Jacob’s final blessings on his large family (Gen. 49:1-37). Whether we construe these utterances as foretelling the future (divine knowledge) or as bringing about future states of affairs (divine power), they are clearly divine words.

Elijah begins his prophetic ministry by announcing that there shall be no rain "except by my word" (1 Kings 17:1). As with Jeremiah, the prophet’s word has the power that only God’s word has. Then "the word of the Lord came to him" (verse 2) as throughout his career. God cleanses Isaiah’s lips (Isa. 6:5-7) and gives to his words the power to harden the hearts of the people (verses 9-10; compare Matt. 13:14-15, Mark 4:12, Luke 8:10, Acts 28:26-27).

There are prophets also in the New Testament church. These are numerous, and of both sexes, fulfilling the prophecy of Joel 2:28-32, which Peter cites in his Pentecost sermon (Acts 2:17-18). These prophets predicted the future (Acts 11:27-28, 21:9-14), received orders from the Holy Spirit (13:1-3), encouraged and strengthened fellow believers (15:32), identified spiritual gifts in people (1 Tim. 1:18, 4:14), 5 witnessed for Christ amid persecution (Rev. 11:3-13). Paul urges the church at Corinth to give more emphasis in worship to the gift of prophecy, less to uninterpreted tongues, because prophecy brings edification to the congregation (1 Cor. 14:1-40). The Book of Revelation is a specifically prophetic writing (1:3, 22:7). Other texts simply mention prophets, or the prophetic gift, without mentioning a specific function (Acts 19:6, Rom. 12:5, 1 Cor. 11:4-5, 12:10, 1 Thess. 5:20).

I see no reason to understand these prophets any differently from the prophets of the Old Testament. The concept of a prophet, one who has God’s word in his mouth, was familiar to Jews and Christians of the New Testament period. There is no explicit indication in the New Testament that the office of prophet had changed in any way. Certainly the presence of the word of God in their mouths adequately accounts for the functions of the New Testament prophets in the texts cited above, 6 and it would be difficult to account for those functions otherwise than by their unique access to God’s word. But the New Testament does not contain a passage like Deut. 18 specifically setting forth the meaning and power of the prophetic gift.

The New Testament, however, is more explicit about the apostles, who are certainly true successors of the Old Testament prophets, and more. 7 Jesus at the beginning of his ministry chooses twelve, who are to have a special relationship to him, during his earthly ministry and beyond. 8 Anticipating their later persecution, Jesus assures them:

When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. 20 For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. (Matt. 10:19-20)

They are to have divine assistance when they are called to witness for Jesus. That assistance comes specifically in a divine gift of extraordinary speech. They are to be supported by God’s people both as prophets and as righteous men (Matt. 10:40-41).

In the Johannine passion discourses, Jesus is more explicit about the apostles’ role in revelation:

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. (John 14:26)

But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. (John 15:26-27)

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. (John 16:13)

From the first two passages, we learn that the Spirit will empower the memories of the apostles, so that they will remember Jesus’ words. Recall from Chapter 14 of this book the great importance of Jesus’ words for the salvation of his people. Jesus, as the divine voice, has given to his disciples teaching that is an absolutely necessary foundation for their life and ministry. Remember Peter’s "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68). But Jesus wrote no books. So the question is urgent as to where the words of Jesus can be found, since his ascension to heaven. If we cannot identify them, we have no hope. John 14:26 and 15:26-27 answer that urgent question. The words of the apostles preserve the words of Jesus. When we seek the precious words of Jesus, it is to the apostles we must go.

John 16:13 enlarges this view of the scope of apostolic revelation. Here the Spirit not only reminds the apostles of what Jesus said. More than that, he will guide them into all truth. And he will show to the apostles things that are to come in the future. As the prophets were both forthtellers and foretellers, so the Spirit empowers the apostles to proclaim the truth and to foretell events to come in the future. So the Spirit gives them revelation about the past (the words of Jesus), the present ("all the truth") and the future ("things that are to come").

When God pours out the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the apostles begin to preach Christ. 9 The coming of the Spirit empowers the church for its worldwide witness (Acts. 1:8). When the Spirit comes down in wind and fire, "they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance" (2:4). I cannot here discuss the meaning of the gift of tongues, except to say that it enables the disciples to preach the gospel to Jews of many cultures who are gathered in Jerusalem for the feast. The tongues partially reverse the curse of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9), bringing people together under the word of God. When the Spirit comes on the Christians, they speak of Jesus. Spirit and word come together. The Book of Acts often presents that correlation (4:8, 31, 6:3-5, 10, 7:55-56, 9:17-20, 13:9-10).

After his miraculous conversion in Acts 9, Paul joins the group of apostles. He is, by his own admission, "untimely born" (1 Cor. 15:8), and an unworthy apostle because he once persecuted the church (1 Cor. 15:9). Some in the church questioned his apostolic authority, perhaps on those grounds, perhaps out of their opposition to his doctrine, an issue to which he responds in Galatians and elsewhere. But Paul has seen the resurrected Lord and is therefore a witness to the Resurrection, even though he has not been with the disciples from the beginning (Acts 1:22). More significantly, he claims to be an apostle by special appointment of God himself and by the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:1, Gal. 1:1, 12). Sixteen times in his writings, he applies the title apostle to himself. In time, even his opponents accepted that title, so that he was able to ask them as a rhetorical question, "Am I not an apostle?" (1 Cor. 9:1). In the post-apostolic age, Paul’s status as an apostle was unquestioned, and it has been recognized by the church through all ages, together with his writings that comprise most of the New Testament.

The apostles themselves teach that their message comes from God and therefore has divine authority. In 2 Cor. 4:1-6, Paul claims that the apostles never tamper with God’s word, but rather state it openly and honestly. God who brought light out of darkness has, Paul says, "shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (verse 6)

In Gal. 1:11-12, Paul insists against his opponents:

For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. 12 For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

Since God has appointed him an apostle, his message also comes from God by revelation. (Compare also the reference to revelation in 2:2.)

Speaking for all the apostles, Paul in 1 Cor. 2:10-13 says of the wisdom of his gospel:

…these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

Note that for Paul the Spirit’s revelation not only gives "understanding" of divine mysteries, but also the "words" in which the apostles teach these mysteries. Paul also appeals to the Spirit as the source of his counsel in 1 Cor. 7:40, to revelation as the source of his knowledge of God’s mystery in Eph. 3:3. The apostles are "stewards of the mysteries of God" (1 Cor. 4:1). "Mystery" in the New Testament does have some of the connotations of our modern English word—something hard to grasp, beyond our usual understanding. But it also designates more precisely those elements of God’s revelation that have been hidden for centuries, now made known through the apostolic preaching and writing. See Rom. 16:25-26.

So God gives to the apostles, like the prophets of the Old Testament, revelation in words, which they communicate in their proclamation. In this revelation, their words are words of God (1 Thess. 2:13). So they display the same qualities displayed by the divine voice itself: power (Rom. 1:16-17), authority (Gal. 1:9), and divine presence (1 Thess. 1:5). There is no decrease in any of these qualities when the word of God moves from the lips of God to the lips of the prophets and apostles.

Now one problem arises at this point that we also discussed in connection with the divine voice in Chapter 14. That problem is that of identifying the true revelation. We asked, how did Abraham know that the one who spoke to him was the true God? And, how can we identify the true voice of God among the counterfeits? In Chapter 14, my response to that problem was to emphasize God’s sovereignty in revelation. God is sovereign, not only to speak as lord, but also to assure his hearers that they are hearing the Lord.

When we pass from the divine voice to the words of prophets and apostles a similar problem emerges. Just as there are lying spirits who counterfeit the divine voice, so there are false prophets (Jer. 14:14, Lam. 2:14, Matt. 7:15, etc.) and apostles (2 Cor. 11:13, Rev. 2:2). As with the divine voice, our ultimate assurance of who speaks truth is supernatural. So Paul attributes the persuasiveness of his gospel to the Holy Spirit’s testimony (1 Thess. 1:5). But Scripture also provides tests of prophetic claims that help the people of God to discern which are authentic. Recall that Deut. 18 established the basic definition of a prophet, a person with the words of God in his mouth. The passage also says this:

But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.' 21 And if you say in your heart, 'How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?'-- 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. (verses 20-22)

Here there are two sure marks of false prophets: (1) speaking in the name of a false god, 10 (2) making predictions that don’t come true.

These are marks of false prophets, however, not tests of true prophets. If someone speaks in the name of the true God, and he makes a prediction that comes true, does that mark him as a true prophet? Or what if he makes no predictions at all? Deut. 18 does not anticipate all possible situations. It does not give us infallible marks of all true prophets of God, though it excludes some prophetic claims as false.

Beyond Deut. 18, signs and wonders attested the prophetic ministry of Moses, and later of Elijah and Elisha. Certainly the same was true of Jesus’ prophetic ministry. Paul speaks too of the "signs of a true apostle" that God performed for him (2 Cor. 12:12). But there are no miracles mentioned in the ministries of many of the Old Testament prophets or New Testament apostles. And as we mentioned in Chapter 14, Satan counterfeits God’s signs and wonders so that some (not the elect) will be deceived (Matt. 24:24). And Jesus rebukes people who demand a sign (Matt. 12:38-39, 16:1-4). If people will not hear Moses and the Prophets, he says, they will not believe the word of a resurrected saint (Luke 16:31). 11

So, evidently the attestation of the prophets and apostles, like the attestation of the divine voice is fundamentally supernatural. God comes with the prophetic and apostolic word and convinces hearers that that word is his own. Miracles and predictions give the hearers a nudge, alert them that something remarkable is happening. But they are not the ultimate argument that identifies a true prophet. God’s Spirit is the one who persuades.

This is all the more evident when we consider that true prophecies often seem to break the rule of Deut. 18:22. They make apparent predictions that do not come to pass; yet the prophets are accepted, by God and by God’s people, as true prophets. The most obvious example is the Book of Jonah, where the prophet proclaims "Yet forty days, and Ninevah shall be overthrown" (3:4). But Ninevah is not overthrown, at least at that time. Rather, the king and the city repent (3:6-9) and "God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them; and he did not do it" (verse 10).

The apparent failing of this prophecy does not arise from the humanity of Jonah as God’s messenger. The passage identifies Jonah’s words in verse 4 with God’s in verse 10. As is the normal pattern in Scripture, the words of the prophet are the words of God, even when that relationship is problematic. If Jonah is a false prophet, then the divine voice is also false.

But the passage offers no solution to that problem. It does, however, see this pattern as rather typical of God and his prophets. The king of Ninevah urges repentance, based on the possibility that "God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish" (verse 9). God’s response showed that the king had supposed rightly (verse 10). Jonah himself is displeased, probably because Ninevah was a great enemy of Israel. But he himself suspected that this might happen:

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the LORD and said, "O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. (Jonah 4:1-2)

Jonah here is quoting Yahweh’s description of his covenant lordship in Ex. 34:6-7, adding the reference to God’s "relenting." He sees God’s action as typical of God, not some odd exception to God’s general behavior.

Jer. 18:5-10 formulates this "relenting" as a general principle of God’s action and of his announcements through prophets of covenant blessing and curse:

Then the word of the LORD came to me: 6 "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 8 and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. 9 And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 10 and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it.

The reversal of God’s intent for Ninevah is an instance of this principle, as are similar instances in Ex. 32:9-14, Joel 12:13-14, Amos 7:1-6. Compare Jer. 26:3, 13, 19, 42:10, Isa. 38:1-5.

In this discussion, I am relying on Richard Pratt’s important article, "Historical Contingencies and Biblical Predictions." 12 In that article, Pratt discusses a wide range of biblical data that display the above principle. He argues that Israelites and New Testament believers regularly took account of the possibility that historical circumstances might prevent the literal fulfillment of prophetic prediction. He believes this principle provides a possible understanding of the New Testament passages that appear to predict a very soon return of Jesus Christ.

But does this principle, then, make prophecy a dead letter? If prophecy does not necessarily find literal fulfillment, is it then the case that anything can happen, following a prophecy? Does this mean that prophecies can safely be ignored? Pratt argues that the prophets’ messages must be understood in covenantal terms. The covenant is conditional: it promises blessings for obedience, threatens curses for disobedience. The prophets are God’s prosecuting attorneys, bringing the "covenant lawsuit." The people must listen, because God himself, through the prophets, is calling them to repent of their disobedience. They know that the predictions of blessing and judgment are subject to historical contingency, as in Jer. 18. But they must obey the prophet’s words. They must repent, or they can be sure that the worst will happen. And if they do repent, they can expect the best. Sometimes, to be sure, prophecies are qualified by divine oaths or assurances that limit the possible variations in the results of the prophecy (Amos 4:2, 6:8, 8:7). In Jer. 11:11, 14, God excludes even the possibility that people can save themselves by repentance. But even in these cases the details of the fulfillment may be subject to historical contingency.

Pratt points out that the content of the prophecy limits what can happen even when historical contingencies are relevant. Jonah’s prophecy indicated that destruction, not mere famine or defeat, would result if Ninevah did not repent. The prophecy does not specify how Ninevah would be destroyed, or how long it would take, or by what means. Nor does it indicate specifics about Ninevah’s future if Ninevah does repent. But it does limit expectations on either alternative. It is therefore a meaningful word from God.

But how, then, can Israel determine what prophets are true and which are false? On a literal reading of Deut. 18:22, it seems fairly simple: if the prophet predicts something, and it doesn’t happen, he is a false prophet. But on Pratt’s view, a true prophet may predict something that doesn’t happen, because of a historical contingency.

We should remember here that prophets are primarily forthtellers, only secondarily foretellers. Only a very small amount of biblical prophecy contains specific prediction of the future, and most of that is clearly subject to the principle of historical contingency. But at times there are specific predictions. 1 Sam. 10:1-7, which describes the anointing of King Saul by the prophet Samuel, is an example:

Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him and said, "Has not the LORD anointed you to be prince over his people Israel? And you shall reign over the people of the LORD and you will save them from the hand of their surrounding enemies. And this shall be the sign to you that the LORD has anointed you to be prince over his heritage. 2 When you depart from me today, you will meet two men by Rachel's tomb in the territory of Benjamin at Zelzah, and they will say to you, 'The donkeys that you went to seek are found, and now your father has ceased to care about the donkeys and is anxious about you, saying, "What shall I do about my son?"' 3 Then you shall go on from there farther and come to the oak of Tabor. Three men going up to God at Bethel will meet you there, one carrying three young goats, another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a skin of wine. 4 And they will greet you and give you two loaves of bread, which you shall accept from their hand. 5 After that you shall come to Gibeath-elohim, where there is a garrison of the Philistines. And there, as soon as you come to the city, you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre before them, prophesying. 6 Then the Spirit of the LORD will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. 7 Now when these signs meet you, do what your hand finds to do, for God is with you.

Samuel tells Saul that when he leaves he will encounter precisely three men, bearing precisely three goats and one skin of wine. He mentions other precise details. Verse 9 tells us that "all these signs came to pass that day." Clearly, Samuel is giving to Saul a group of signs to validate the anointing of verse 1. These signs verify to Saul that Samuel is a true prophet of the Lord and that the Lord has truly anointed him to be king. Samuel’s ability to describe precisely such future events vindicates his prophetic office, as Deut. 18:22 indicates. The kinds of historical contingencies we have mentioned are unlikely to affect the outcome of this particular set of predictions; so they serve as an unambiguous example of the prophet’s ability to predict the future. Another example is the first recorded statement of Elijah, "As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew not rain these years, except by my word" (1 Kings 18:1). This prediction is literally fulfilled. Prophets may have often employed literal predictions of the future in order to establish their divine credentials.

But the usual work of the prophet is different. At times it may be appropriate him to display his power of detailed, unconditional prediction; but generally it is not. As forthtellers, prophets are covenant attorneys. The historical contingencies are understood to be part of the prophecy. So when a prophet says "God will judge you," the audience understands implicitly, "unless you repent." Interpreting the prophecy must take this conditionality into account. So that if a prediction made by a prophet does not literally take place, because of a historical contingency, believing hearers may legitimately judge that the prophecy has nevertheless "come to pass or come true" (in terms of Deut. 18:22), and that result confirms the authenticity of the prophet.

So, identifying true prophets is more difficult than Deut. 18:22 might appear to suggest. But the ultimate test is whether the prophet truly represents God’s covenant sanctions. Only then does he speak in the name of the true God (the first test of Deut. 18:20), and only then do his words, understood in the covenant context, "come to pass or come true" (verse 22).

But someone who wishes to test a prophet by this means must bring to his evaluation a subtle understanding of God’s covenant and the condition of the prophet’s audience. There is therefore a certain level of spiritual maturity and discernment needed here, as Paul suggests in 1 Cor. 14:29, "Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said." The weighing or authenticating of prophecy is not a simple task.

But that difficulty underscores the importance here of God’s own witness to himself. We saw in Chapter 14 that in his divine voice God not only speaks, but also identifies himself as the speaker. In prophecy too, it is God’s Spirit who identifies the true prophets and distinguishes them from the false. There are marks of true prophecy (Deut. 18, 1 John 4:1-6), but those are not easy to apply. But, as with the divine voice, so also with the prophets and apostles, somehow God drives his message home to the hearts of God’s people. Would any Christian believer today seriously doubt that Isaiah was a true prophet, that Paul was a real apostle?

By his Spirit God sovereignly opens the eyes of his people to the signs of true prophecy, such as true prediction, miracles, and orthodox content (1 John 4:2-3), pressing our minds to see in these an authenticity that goes beyond mere probability, an authenticity that can only be the self-authenticating voice of God. When we receive that supernatural verification by God’s grace, we confess that the words of the prophets and apostles are nothing less than the word of God, bearing supreme power, authority, and divine presence. In these lordship attributes there is no difference between the words of prophets and apostles and the voice of God himself. These words are, therefore, God’s personal words to us.

Notes:

1. Here, "listening" is not just physical hearing, but obedient hearing. In verse 14, by contrast, God says they may not "listen" to the wizards and diviners. The older English term "hearken" conveys better the idea of hearing with an obedient disposition.

2. Compare Ps. 82:6 in the light of John 10:35: even wicked rulers can be called "gods" because the word of God comes to them.

3. Compare Ex. 7:1-2. This is the background of the idea that people "to whom the word of God came" may be called gods (Ps. 82:6, John 10:34).

4. The interpretation of the vision is based on a pun in the Hebrew language. Both "Almond tree" and "watch" are from the root shaqad.

5. Or did the prophets rather predict the course of Timothy’s ministry? In either case they displayed supernatural knowledge.

6. To the contrary, see Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 1049-1061, who believes that prophecy in the New Testament had less authority than prophecy in the Old Testament. He says that the New Testament apostles, however, are the true successors of the Old Testament prophets, in that their word was supremely authoritative.

7. The apostles rank higher than the prophets, according to 1 Cor. 12:28.

8. The "beyond," of course, does not include Judas, the betrayer.

9. Recall in Chapter 9 my discussion of the regular biblical correlation between word and Spirit.

10. Notice how 1 John 4:2-3 brings this principle into the New Covenant: "every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God." And believing that Christ has come in the flesh includes believing in the whole apostolic witness (verse 5).

11. The relation between signs and faith is complex. See my discussion of miracles, Chapter 13 in DG.

12. http://reformedperspectives.org/newfiles/ric_pratt/TH.Pratt.Historical_Contingencies.html.