A Prophet Among You

Old and New Testament Prophets

A gap of four centuries stretches between the last of the Old Testament prophets and the first of the New. Malachi is regarded by the Jews as the last of the prophets to write a portion of the Scriptures. They accept none later as canonical. As Christians we recognize John the Baptist as the successor to Malachi in the great prophetic line. Malachi had predicted the coming of one to prepare the way for the appearance of the long-foretold Messiah. Malachi 3:1. John also partly fulfilled the prediction of the last of the Old Testament prophets that Elijah would be sent before the coming of the day of the Lord. Compare Malachi 4:5 with Matthew 11:14. The break in the continuity of the prophetic line poses no problem when we recognize the conditions that existed during the inter-testament period, and also when we remember that there is no record of a prophet during the four-century span from the Flood to Abraham. Nor is it difficult to identify a true prophet when one arises even after a lapse of centuries. APAY 129.1

Basically there is no difference between the men and the messages of the Old and the spokesmen and the writings of the New Testament. As suggested in Malachi’s prediction, there is much of the spirit and character of Elijah in John the Baptist. It took the same kind of man with the same holy boldness to say to Herod, “It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife” (Mark 6:18), as it did to proclaim to Ahab, “As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word” (1 Kings 17:1). Paul, reasoning with Felix of “righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come,” while the governor trembled (Acts 24:25), might easily have exchanged places with Daniel to bear the testimony to the king of Babylon, “And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this” (Daniel 5:22), as Belshazzar’s “knees smote one against another” (verse 6). Ezekiel’s grand views of the glory of God on His throne would fit as well into John’s account in the Revelation as they do in the places where they are recorded. APAY 129.2

It is true that in the New Testament are detailed numerous fulfillments of Old Testament prophecies. But this does not mean that the men who served as prophets, and the messages they brought, were distinctly different from the ones who had gone before. It simply indicates that a new stage had been reached in the outworking of God’s plan; and the prophets were proclaiming that fact, and they were trying to lead the people into a correct relationship to their times as had been done in the past. The later prophets merely took up where the earlier ones left off, and continued to unfold and chronicle the development of the plan of salvation. APAY 130.1

The relationship of the New Testament prophets to those who wrote in Old Testament times is exactly the same as the relationship of the Old Testament prophets to one another. They are to be tested by the same standards. Their messages are consistent, harmonious, and progressive. They quoted the former prophets and revealed the greatest respect for what had been written. They filled their divinely appointed places as speakers for God in the same noble, faithful, God-fearing manner as had their predecessors. APAY 130.2