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

Mission: What Was a Prophet?

of the message....There is no confusion between the person who speaks the message and the person whose message is spoken." 2 Two good examples from modern politics illustrate this concept.First, the press secretary of the President of the United States.This person con veys the President's opinions,reactions,intentions and,when necessary, his very words.Often the secretary will read the message of his superior so there is no danger of mistake.When the press secretary holds a news conference,everyone expects and believes that this spokesperson will never give his own opinions.He is to express only what the President wants him to speak.This is also true of God and His prophets. Another clear illustration is found in any country's ambassadors to for eign nations.The ambassador has been appointed to convey the official decisions, reactions and opinions of his government to the government of the other nation.The agenda is not of his own making; he represents another,a power bigger than himself."The prophet," says Charles A. Briggs,"is an officer of the Deity, with a commission from the God whom he serves." 3 More than fifty years ago H.Wheeler Robinson wrote a journal arti cle of particular insight.The prophet,he said,received his message from "the intimate council of the Lord." This thought is summarized in a later article."The true prophets," Robinson wrote,"stood in the intimate coun cil of the Lord where they received his word,his direction for the situa tion at hand....Admission to the intimate council of the Lord meant special acquaintance with the will, purpose,and plans of the Eternal, which the prophet-observer,by virtue of his position,must declare to God's people.He was summoned by the Lord to announce the decisions of the council." 4 Jeremiah castigated the false prophets because they had not stood in the intimate council (or sod) of the Lord and had not seen or heard His word. "If they had stood in my intimate council," he laments, "they would have heard my words and would have turned my people from their evil ways and from their evil deeds " (Jeremiah 23:22,Myers' and Freed's paraphrase). Robinson's thought is developed by another scholar,who takes it to a remarkable conclusion.A.R.Johnson writes: "The true prophet,then, was the Messenger (mal'ak) of Yahweh; he was a member of His intimate council.Moreover ...the prophet,in functioning,was held to be more than Yahweh's 'representative'; for the time being he was an active 'Exten sion' of Yahweh's Personality and, as such, was Yahweh-'in Person"' (emphasis added). 5

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