The Gift of Prophecy

The Gift of Prophecy—A Working Definition

Before proceeding to address the thinking of other groups regarding the presence of the Spirit outside the ecclesiastical authorities, we slightly diverge to a critical issue that undergirds the debate of who has the gift of prophecy, and the definition of prophecy. A common characteristic identified by all Christians previously examined about the role of a prophet is proclaiming/ teaching/professing Jesus as the Messiah. This underpins the Apostolic Fathers’ understanding of the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures as “Christian” prophets and how they label the apostles and the writings of what became the New Testament. This Christological definition was central for the argumentation of later generations of Christians. In Christianity, a true prophet teaches and lives what Jesus taught and lived. GOP 211.2

However, the existence of competing answers about what Jesus taught and how He lived (who He was) have led to a narrow definition of the gift of prophecy. Based on warnings of false prophets given by Jesus and His apostles, it was understood early on that not all who claim to have seen God have a divine message. Thus, pushed by the necessity of distinguishing the true from the false, Christian writers developed, early in history, a system that purported direct contact with Jesus through an apostolic succession. At this early stage, apostolic succession was not what we know from the medieval Catholic Church. As we have attempted to demonstrate, the early argumentation for it was to bring divine messages as close to Jesus as they could. It was the Christological principle of interpreting the Hebrew Scriptures. The consequence of this principle was that they perceived truth to reside in the correct exegesis (Christological) ²¹ that was handed down from Jesus Himself. But what is the role of a prophet in the New Testament? GOP 212.1

This is a legitimate question because the Apostolic Fathers claimed to have received truth from the apostles themselves (especially in the New Testament, but not restricted to it). Taking all the occurrences of the root prophē- in the New Testament, we find that most of its use is related to the Hebrew Scriptures telling about events of the life of Jesus, and often a passage is quoted from it. A prophet was thus a proclaimer of truth. This broad definition is also applied to individuals in the time of Jesus when the New Testament authors identify some of His followers or believers as prophets. ²² They are proclaimers/teachers/preachers sent by God (apostles) to humanity. As 2 Peter 1:21 expounds, the clearest passage on this topic in all of the New Testament, prophets are men of God carried by the Holy Spirit speaking divine messages. The aspect of proclamation is basic to a prophet, as we see its application to a pagan philosopher in Titus 1:12 and to itinerant preachers in general such as in Matthew 10:41 and Acts 15:32. GOP 212.2

Only in a few occurrences do they foretell the future or perform supernatural wonders (John 6:14—Jesus’ multiplying bread and fish; John 9:17—Jesus opening the eyes of the blind; Acts 11:25—Agabus predicting famine). Present prophets are often related to those who are sent by God (apostles) and are teachers (Matt. 10:40, 41; Luke 11:49; Acts 13:1; Eph. 2:20; 3:5; 2 Peter 3:2; Rev. 18:20). This combination of spiritual gifts, prophet/apostle/teacher, may suggest that the gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12 have functions that overlap, ²³ which is exactly how the Didache framed the gift of prophecy. This suggests that the conflation by the Apostolic Fathers of these spiritual gifts (prophet/preacher/teacher) has a New Testament basis. GOP 212.3

Regarding false prophets, the New Testament has fewer references. Clearly they are perverters of the truth. In 2 Peter 2:1 and 1 John 4:1-3 these perversions are related to the incarnation of Jesus as Messiah from God (Christological principle). Only Acts 13 provides a name and a description of false prophet behaviors. In Acts 13:6-12 Barjesus or Elymas is called a false prophet and magician (magon pseudoprophētēn), interrupting the preaching of Paul and Barnabas, who have just been called prophets and sent out by the Holy Spirit (verses 1-4). Other New Testament references are merely warnings about the existence of false prophets who pervert the teachings of God/Jesus generally (Matt. 7:15; 24:11; Mark 13:22; Luke 6:26; Rev. 16:13; 19:20; 20:10). GOP 212.4

Considering all these texts, a general understanding of a prophet in the New Testament is of a proclaimer or teacher. A true prophet teaches divine revelations (truth), while a false prophet proclaims falsehoods. This broad definition has its roots in the Hebrew Scriptures and is shared by the Apostolic Fathers. A caveat with the Christian writers is that truth is defined in relation to Jesus as the Christ (Christological principle). This understanding of prophet connected with 1 Corinthians 14:37, 38; 15:1, 8, where Paul states that a true prophet must agree with him, since he saw the resurrected Christ, it is not hard to imagine how Irenaeus and others framed the gift of prophecy as subsumed by an apostolic ecclesiastical authority who maintained the true reading of the Hebrew Scriptures. Again, this is not the fully formed doctrine of apostolic succession of bishops as developed in the medieval Catholic Church, but the beginning of it. GOP 213.1

This conception of a tradition of truth that is carried out throughout history from the time of Jesus is also argued, in an opposite mirror image, by A. G. Daniells, who rejects the appointed bishops and approved itinerant prophets as divine messengers. A few observations are needed regarding his affirmation of the existence of the gift of prophecy after the New Testament time. In chapters 17-19 Daniells provides a historical description of postapostolic Christianity, affirming that the gift of prophecy was looked down on by mainstream ecclesiastical authorities because truth was confined to hierarchical and ultimately “infallible interpreters of the Scriptures, and the only source through which added light might come to the church.” ²⁴ This concurs with our analysis of the ancient sources. Given this caveat, apostolic succession in its early phase (second century) was related to a Christological interpretation of the Scriptures, and was a hermeneutical choice that Daniells seemed to uphold. GOP 213.2

One of the deficiencies ²⁵ of Daniells’ work is that he is too quick to assume affinity with any Christian figure at odds with Rome. Since there were individuals who claimed to have the Spirit, “this furnished impressive evidence that the Christian church of the second century [and consequently for the rest of history] was still endowed with spiritual gifts such as had been bestowed upon the apostles and their converts in the first century.” ²⁶ Although Paul instructs his congregation to not quench the Spirit (1 Thess. 5:20), false prophets that were wandering into the churches needed to be exposed. Unlike Cyprian’s reaction toward the “prophetess,” Daniells was not prone to quickly shun those who claim to be prophets. Notice his evaluation of Novatian: ²⁷ GOP 213.3

Novatian showed the courage to break away from the professing Christian church, the crisis was on, and thousands took their stand with these Reformers. Truly he was led of God. It was such courageous loyalty to the teachings of Christ and the apostles that kept the channel open for the manifestation of the prophetic gift. It should likewise be remembered that a succession of the Novatians under different names continued till the Reformation of the sixteenth century. ²⁸ GOP 214.1

Similarly, Daniells argues that Montanism, Donatism, and the Waldensians²⁹ all had the gift of the spirit because they broke away from the professed Christian church (Rome). The danger in this methodology is to create a neat dichotomy of truth and error between the teachings of what became the Roman Catholic Church (false) and these para-ecclesiastical movements (true). Evaluating all of them in light of the “movement,” which in orthodox Adventist language is not a compliment. ³⁰ However, he later describes Montanism as a movement with a “burning desire for spiritual renewal.” Scriptures, Protestants, and later Adventists, have both agreed and disagreed with them. They had their epiphanies and downfalls. Montanists, Novatians, and the Waldensians were not all correct, but neither was the Roman Catholic Church all wrong. George Rice in his historiographical review of the gift of prophecy in the Handbook of Seventh-day Adventist Theology captures this tension. He first labels Montanism as “the church’s first neo-Pentecostal movement.” “The goal of its early adherents was to restore the church to its primitive simplicity, to experience again the charismata (spiritual gifts), and to have the assurance of the presence and guidance of the Paraclete or Holy Spirit,” ³¹ something worthy of emulation. GOP 214.2

Both Daniells’ and Rice’s history of the gift of prophecy exemplifies how this spiritual gift has been understood in Seventh-day Adventism. Adventism attempts to balance the biblical warnings of the existence of false prophets in the last days with the Scriptures’ witness to the continuity of this spiritual gift, as promised in Joel 2:28, 29, in Acts, 1 Corinthians 12, and Revelation 12:17 and 19:10, which is not an easy task. This is similar to what we refer above about J.N.D. Kelly’s analysis of the early church construction of the “rule of faith,” that the solution against falsehood is a hermeneutical choice that will set the parameters of evaluating truth. ³² GOP 215.1