Your Sons & Daughters Shall Prophesy - Prophetic Gifts Today In The New Testament Church

The Reappearance of Prophecy

James D.G.Dunn feels that Jesus' strongest prophetic characteristics were "his insistence that the good news was for 'the poor' and his strong reaction against the formalism of contemporary Judaism." 19 Jesus identified Himself with the prophetic group, yet without speci fying that He was the Prophet.The gospel of John, however, picks up this thought.When the people saw the miracle sign of multiplying five barley loaves and two fish to feed five thousand men plus women and children, they said, "This is of a truth the Prophet who is to come into the world" (John 6:14}.Also, on the last day of the Jewish feast, Jesus cried out for the people to come to Him to drink so they would experience the flow of living water. "Some of the multitude therefore, when they heard these words, were saying, 'This certainly is the Prophet "' (John 7:40). As Jesus hastened toward the consummation of His earthly ministry, most of the people acknowledged Him as a prophet, and a discerning few ... as the Prophet. Jesus as the prophet became to the New Covenant what Moses as the greatest of prophets was to the Old Covenant.Moses was the foundation prophet of the Old Testament, distinguished from all other prophets by his privilege of free, open and direct communication with God.The Lord made it clear that He would speak directly with Moses and Moses with Him, not through angels or mysterious visions, and that Moses would be physically able to have such communication without perishing (Numbers 12:6-8). A general resemblance existed between Moses and all other prophets, but every other was markedly inferior.Moses, by contrast, spoke with God "face to face" (Exodus 33:11) and "mouth to mouth" (Numbers 12:8) and was used by God to structure the Law and theology of Israel. Under God he was the founder and foundation-builder of a great house the dispensation reaching from the exodus to the first advent of Christ, and in some respects even beyond.Like the other prophets, Moses spoke the words of God in the name of God and was a mediator between God and the people; but his assignment and responsibility carried him to a much loftier position unattained by the ordinary prophet. 20 It was in this sense that Moses referred to the Prophet to come as "a prophet like me" (Deuteronomy 18:15).This coming Prophet would stand out far superior to the ordinary prophets and leaders of His day.He would be like Moses in the sense of unrestricted communication between Him 139 ■ Moses and Jesus