Gifts of the Spirit: Prophecy
Gifts of the Spirit: Prophecy
1 Corinthians 12:8-11
1 Corinthians 12:28
Romans 12:6-8
1 Peter 4:10-11
And maybe Ephesians 4:11
These passages are the lists of spiritual gifts. And you’ll notice that almost every one of these lists contains either prophecy or prophets. That’s not an accident. The word of God is central to the individual Christian and to the church, and that shows up as we think about what prophecy is.
Simply put, I'm going to argue that prophecy is proclaiming the word of God. Specifically, Prophecy is divine revelation. It is “Thus says the Lord.”
Deut 18:15-20
A prophet speaks the word of God. This is what a prophet does. The people were rightfully terrified to hear directly from God at Mt Sinai, so they asked for Moses to hear from God and give them the message. That is what a prophet does. That is what Moses did, that is what all the prophets in the OT do. We could spend a long time just looking through the OT at times when a prophet said “thus says the Lord” because it happens almost every time that a prophet says anything (roughly 480 times in OT).
The warning against false prophets, that they should be put to death, only further emphasizes that prophecy is about speaking the very word of God.
Prophecy and prophets show up in the New Testament. For example, Agabus: (1)
Acts 11:28 - What Agabus foretold came true (notice this is the same as the OT prophet, you can test them by seeing if what they say comes to pass) .
Acts 21:11 - Agabus foretells what will happen to Paul. And Paul definitely thought that this prophecy was true and was fulfilled, because in Acts 28:17 he uses the same language that was in the prophecy to describe what happened to him in Jerusalem.
But by far, the passage that has been monumentally important in my understanding of prophecy is Ephesians 3:5. Look at Ephesians 3:1-6 for context:
"For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— 2 assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, 3 how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. 4 When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. 6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel."
Notice what is being said in these verses. Paul received revelation. This revelation came “by the Spirit” (v 5). This revelation had to do with the mystery of Christ, that everyone who believes in Christ through the gospel is united to Christ and a part of the people of God. But it wasn’t just Paul who received revelation, it wasn’t just the holy apostles who received revelation, it was also the prophets. Not the prophets in the OT, not prophets in other generations. Notice carefully, this is talking about prophets right then in that generation ("now"). And so here we have clear teaching from Paul that prophets are receiving and speaking revelation from God. Prophets speak the very word of God. This is consistent with what we’ve seen at other places in the Bible, both in the OT and NT. Prophets receive revelation and when they speak, it is thus says the Lord.
That answers so many questions that I had and answers a lot of the questions surrounding prophecy, especially when we think about whether or not prophecy exists today.
Prophecy is something very specific in the Bible. It means that God is declaring His authoritative message through a person. So if you think that prophecy is still happening today, you either have to claim that the Bible is not complete since we’re still getting new words from God, or you have to say that prophecy today is not the same as what happened in the Bible. And really, both of those lines of reasoning end up undermining the sufficiency of the Bible.
If you believe that God is still speaking authoritatively through people, just like He did in the Bible, then you don’t need the Bible, you just need to find a prophet and stay close to them and listen to them. I won’t spend a lot of time on why God isn’t still adding to the Bible today, because I think the Bible is straightforward in arguing against that, and I don’t think that many people who believe that prophecy still exists believe that it is on the same level as the Bible.
But if you believe that prophecy is still a thing today, but it’s just different than it was in the Bible, my first thought would be that you shouldn’t call it prophecy. Prophecy means something very specific in the Bible - it means this is the word of God, and if that’s not what you’re doing, then you shouldn’t call it prophecy. That’s at best confusing, and at worst deceptive.
Sinclair Ferguson has a helpful quote on this topic. “It is curious that evangelicals, who have so often assumed that this is a fatal flaw in the Roman Catholic doctrine of continuing extra-biblical revelation (in tradition), do not recognize the parallel within Protestantism.” (2)
What is he pointing out? He’s saying that when Catholics say that tradition has equal authority alongside Scripture, we instinctively know that’s wrong. But really, the charismatic idea of prophecy is doing the same thing. It is putting this prophecy alongside Scripture to tell us how to live our life. It’s the same spiritual danger.
If prophecy is always divine revelation of God, then it means no one today is prophesying.
We don’t need a new word from the Lord today. We don’t need a new revelation. God will not give you a new revelation. It is already here in the Bible.
What we do need is illumination. Sinclair Ferguson points out this distinction, and I think just understanding the difference between revelation and illumination would help clear up a lot of confusion and bad thinking on this topic.
There is no new revelation. Now we need illumination. God’s word is there, we need God to shine the flashlight on it so we see it clearly and understand it more fully. That is illumination. And that is what the Spirit does. That’s what it means when God says that the Spirit teaches us about everything (1 John 2:27).
We need to work hard to understand the Bible better, and God says that the Spirit works in us to accomplish that. That’s how God gives us understanding, we think, His Spirit works in us (2 Tim 2:7).
But that is not prophecy. And we should not call it that. People who teach the Bible are not prophets. Pastors and preachers are not prophesying. Our work today is not to speak a new word of God. Our work is to understand the word that God has given. And we need to make sure that our vocabulary is clear on what that does and does not look like.
(1) Sinclair Ferguson "The Holy Spirit"
(2) Sinclair B Ferguson, “The Holy Spirit,” 233.