Reading: Deuteronomy
18:15,18; Acts 3:22; 7:37; Luke 24:19; Revelation 19:10;
Ephesians 4: 8, 11-13.
"He gave some...
prophets... for the perfecting of the saints, unto the
work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of
Christ" (Ephesians 4:11,12).
We are going to consider
the matter of prophetic ministry. "He gave
some... prophets." But we must at once make some
discrimination, for when we speak of prophetic ministry,
we find that people are very largely governed by a
certain mentality associated with what is called
'prophecy'. They immediately relate the very term
'prophetic' to incidents, happenings, dates, and so on,
lying mainly in the future. That is, they think instantly
of the predictive element in prophetic ministry and limit
the whole function to that conception.
Now, for the real value
of what is before us we must remove from our minds that
restricted idea of the pre-eminence of the predictive
aspect in prophetic ministry. It is an aspect, but it is
only an aspect. Prophetic ministry is a much larger thing
than the predictive.
Perhaps it would be
better if we said that the prophetic function,
going far beyond mere events, happenings and dates,
is the ministry of spiritual interpretation. That phrase
will cover the whole ground of that with which we are now
concerned. Prophecy is spiritual interpretation. If you
think about it for a moment, in the light of prophetic
ministry in the Word of God, I am quite sure you will see
how true this is. It is the interpretation of everything
from a spiritual standpoint; the bringing of the
spiritual implications of things, past, present and
future, before the people of God, and giving them to
understand the significance of things in their spiritual
value and meaning. That was and is the essence of
prophetic ministry.
Of course, what we know
about prophets in the Scriptures is that they were a
special function or faculty amongst the Lord's people,
but we must also remember that they often combined their
prophetic function with other functions. Samuel was a
prophet; he was also a judge, and a priest. Moses was a
prophet, but he was other things besides. I believe Paul
was a prophet; he was an apostle, an evangelist; he was
everything, it seems to me! So that our purpose is to
speak not so much of prophets, as distinct
people, as of prophetic ministry. It is the
ministry with which we are concerned, and we shall arrive
at the instrument better by recognising the ministry
fulfilled; we shall understand the vessel better and see
what it is, if we see the purpose for which it is
constituted. So let me say that it is function, not
persons, that we have in view when we are speaking about
prophets or prophetic ministry.
I am quite sure that
those who have any knowledge whatever of the times,
spiritually, will agree with me when I say that the
crying need of our time is for a prophetic ministry.
There never was a time when there existed so extensively
the need for a voice of interpretation, when conditions
needed more the ministry of explanation. One does not
want to make extravagant statements or to be extreme in
one's utterances, but I do not think it would be either
extravagant or extreme to say that the world today is
well-nigh bankrupt of real prophetic ministry in this
sense - a voice that interprets the mind of God to
people. It may exist in some small degree here and there,
but in no very large way is that ministry being
fulfilled. So often our hearts groan and cry out, Oh,
that the mind of God about the present situation could be
brought through, in the first place to the recognition of
His people, and then through His people to others beyond!
There is a great and terrible need for a prophetic
ministry in our time.
PROPHETIC
MINISTRY RELATED TO THE FULL PURPOSE OF GOD
Recognising that, we
must come to see exactly what this function is. What is
the function of prophetic ministry? It is to hold things
to the full thought of God, and therefore it is usually a
reactionary thing. We usually find that the prophets
arose as a reaction from God to the course and drift of
things amongst His people; a call back, a re-declaration,
a re-pronouncement of God's mind, a bringing into clear
view again of the thoughts of God. The prophets stood in
the midst of the stream - usually a fast-rushing stream -
like a rock; the course of things broke over them. They
challenged and resisted that course, and their presence
in the midst of the stream represented God's mind as
against the prevailing course of things. In the Old
Testament, the prophet usually came into his ministry at
a time when things were spiritually bad and anything but
according to the Divine mind; the state was evil, things
were confused, mixed, chaotic; there was much deception
and falsehood, and often things very much worse than
that. Here is the thing to which the prophetic ministry
all-inclusively relates - the original and ultimate
purpose of God in and through His people; and when you
have said that, you have got right to the heart of
things. We ask again, What is the prophetic ministry,
what is the prophetic function, to what does it relate? -
and the answer all-inclusively is that it relates to the
full, original and ultimate purpose of God in and through
His people.
If that statement is
true, it helps us at once to see the need in our time;
for, speaking generally, the people of God on the earth
in our time have confused parts of the purpose of God
with the whole; have emphasized phases to the detriment
of the whole. They are confusing means and methods and
enthusiasm and zeal with the exact object of the Lord,
failing to recognise that God's purpose must be reached
in God's way and by God's means, and the way and the
means are just as important as the purpose: that is, you
cannot reach God's end just anyhow, by any kind of method
that you may employ, by projecting your own ideas or
programmes or schemes to get to God's end. God has His
own way and means of getting to His end. God's thoughts
extend to and spread over the smallest detail of His
purpose, and you cannot wholly realise the purpose of God
except as the very details are according to the mind of
God.
God might have said to
Moses, Build me a tabernacle, will you? I leave it to you
how you do it, what you use; you see what I am after; go
and make me a tabernacle. Moses might have got the idea
of what God wanted and have worked out the kind of thing
he would make for God according to his own mind. But we
know that God did not leave a single detail, a peg or a
pin's point, a stitch or a thread, to the mind of man. I
only use that illustration in order to enforce what I
mean, that prophetic ministry is to present God's full,
original and ultimate purpose, as it is according to His
mind, and hold it like that for God; to interpret the
mind of God in all matters concerning the purpose of God,
to bring all details into line with the purpose, and to
make the purpose govern everything.
PROPHETIC
MINISTRY BY THE ANOINTING
(a) Detailed
Knowledge of God's Purposes
This involves several
things which are clearly seen to be features of prophetic
ministry in the Word of God. First of all, it involves
the matter of anointing. The meaning and value of
anointing is that, firstly, only the Spirit of God has
the full and detailed plan in view and can make
everything to be true in principle to God's intention. I
say only the Spirit of God has that. It is one of the
most wonderful things in Scripture, to find that, when
you get back to the simplest, earliest - shall we say,
the most elementary - expression or projecting of Divine
things in the Word of God, everything there is so true in
principle to all that comes out later in that connection
in greater fullness. It is simply marvelous how God has
kept everything true to principle: you never find later,
however fully a thing is developed, that there is a
change in principle; the principle is there and you
cannot get away from it. When you later take up a more
developed matter in the Word of God you find that it is
true to the original principle of that matter as it was
first introduced.
And God has brought
everything into line with those fixed principles. God
does not deviate one little bit. His law is there and it
is unchanging. The Holy Spirit alone knows all that. He
knows the laws and the principles, all the things which
spiritually govern the purpose of God; and He alone knows
the plan and the details, and can make everything true to
those principles and laws. And everything has got to be
true to them. We may take it as settled that if in the
superstructure there is anything that is out of harmony
with God's original basic spiritual principle, that is
going to be a defect which will spell tragedy sooner or
later. The superstructure, in every detail of principle,
has to be true to the foundation, to the original. Most
of us are not enlightened as to all that. We are feeling
our way along, we are groping onward, we are getting
light, slowly, very little at a time; but we are getting
light. But the prophetic ministry is an enlightened
ministry, and is that which, under the anointing, is to
bring things back to that position of absolute safety and
security because it is true to Divine principle.
The anointing is
necessary, firstly, because only the Spirit of God is
acquainted with all the thought of God and He alone can
speak and work and bring things about in true and utter
consistency with the Divine principles which govern
everything; and everything that is from God must embody
those principles. The principle of the Church - that
which governs the Church - is that it is a heavenly
thing. It is not an earthly thing; it is related to
Christ as in heaven. The Church does not come into being
until Christ is in heaven, which means that the Church
has to come, as to Christ in heaven, on to heavenly
ground, in a spiritual way. It has got to leave earthly
ground and really be a heavenly, spiritual thing, while
still here, in relation to Christ in heaven. That is a
Divine law and principle which is so clear in the New
Testament. It is there from "Acts" onward most
manifestly.
But this is not
something new which has come in with the New Testament.
God has put that law into everything that points in any
prophetic way to the Church and to Christ. Isaac was not
allowed to leave the land and go abroad to fetch his
wife. He had to stay there and the servant had to be sent
to bring her to where he was. There is your law. Christ
is in heaven; the Spirit is sent to bring the Church to
where He is - firstly in a spiritual way, and then later
literally; but the principle is there. Joseph passes
through rejection and typical death and eventually
reaches the throne, and with his exaltation he receives
his wife, Asenath. Joseph is a clear figure of Christ. It
is on His exaltation that Christ receives His
Church, His Bride. Pentecost is really the result of the
exaltation of Christ, when the Church is spiritually
brought into living relationship with Himself, the
exalted Christ. There is your principle in the simple
story of Joseph. You can go on like that, seeing how God
in simple details has kept everything true to principle;
you find His eternal principles are embodied in the
simplest things of the Old Testament, fulfilling this
final declaration that the testimony of Jesus is the very
spirit of prophecy (Rev. 19:10). There is something there
indicative of a great heavenly truth, which is the spirit
of prophecy pointing to Christ.
I wonder whether you
have really been impressed with the tremendous importance
of Divine principle in things. There is a principle, and
the recognition and the honouring of that principle
determines the success of the whole. Now, only the Holy
Spirit knows all those Divine principles, only He knows
the mind of God, the thoughts of God, in fullness. Hence,
if things are to be held to the full thought and purpose
of God, it can only be under an anointing - which means
that the Spirit of God has come to take charge. An
anointed ministry means that God the Holy Spirit has
become responsible for the whole thing; He has committed
Himself to it, I do not suppose anyone would dispute or
challenge the statement of the need for the Holy Spirit,
the need for Him to be in charge, for everything to be
done by Him. But oh, that means a great deal more than a
general truth and a general position.
(b) Knowledge
Imparted by Revelation
It leads to this second
thing in prophetic ministry: By the anointing there comes
revelation. We can accept in a general way the necessity
of the Holy Spirit's doing everything - initiating,
conducting, governing and being the power and inspiration
of everything; but oh! that is a life-long education, and
it brings in the necessity for everything to be given by
revelation. That is why the prophets originally were
called "seers" - men who saw. They saw what no
other men saw. They saw what it was impossible for other
people to see, even religious, God-fearing people. They
saw by revelation.
A prophetic ministry
demands revelation; it is a ministry by revelation. Later
we shall examine that more closely, but I want just to
emphasize the fact at this moment. I am not thinking now
of revelation extra to the Scriptures. I cannot take the
ground of certain 'prophets' (?) in the Church today who
prophesy extra to the Scriptures. No, but within the
revelation already given - and God knows it is big
enough! - the Holy Spirit yet moves to reveal what 'eye
hath not seen, ear hath not heard'. That is the wonder of
a life in the Spirit. It is a life of constant new
discovery; everything is full of surprise and wonder. A
life under the Holy Spirit can never be static; it can
never reach finality here, nor come to the place where
the sum of truth is boxed. A life really in the Holy
Spirit is a life which realises that there is infinitely,
transcendently, more beyond than all we have yet seen or
grasped or sensed. People who know, who have come
to a fixed place and cannot see - let alone move - beyond
their present position, represent a position that is
foreign to the mind of the Holy Ghost. Prophetic ministry
under the Holy Spirit is a ministry through growing
revelation.
A prophet was a man who
went back to God again and again, and did not come out to
speak until God had shown him the next thing. He did not
just go on in his professional office because he
was a prophet and it was expected of him. There was
nothing professional about his position. When it became
professional, then tragedy overtook the prophetic office.
It did become professional through the 'schools of the
prophets' set up by Samuel. We must not even confuse
these schools of the prophets with true prophetical
office. There was a difference between those who
graduated in the schools of the prophets and the true
prophets represented by such men as Samuel, Elijah,
Elisha. Whenever things become professional, something is
lost, because the very essence and nature of prophetic
ministry is that it is coming by revelation afresh every
time. A thing revealed is new; it may be an old thing,
but it has about it something that is fresh as a
revelation to the heart of the one concerned, and it is
so new and wonderful that the effect with him is as
though no one had ever yet seen that, although thousands
may have seen it before. It is the nature of revelation
to keep things alive and fresh, and filled with Divine
energy. You cannot recover an old position by just the
old doctrine. You will never recover something of God
which has been lost by bringing back the exact statement
of the truth. You may be stating the truth of the early
days of the New Testament exactly, but you may be far
from having the conditions which obtained at such times.
Prophetic succession is
not the succession of teaching; it is the succession of
anointing. Something can come in from God, by the
operation of God; there may be something very real, very
living, which God effects through an instrumentality, it
may be individual or collective, which is alive because
God brought it in under His anointing. And then someone
tries to imitate it, duplicate it, or later someone takes
it up to carry it on; someone has been appointed,
elected, chosen by ballot to be the successor. The thing
goes on and grows; but some vital factor is no longer
there. The succession is by anointing, not by framework,
even of doctrine. We cannot recover New Testament
conditions by re-stating New Testament doctrine. We have
to get New Testament anointing. I am not dismissing
doctrine; it is necessary; but it is the anointing which
makes things alive, fresh, vibrant. Everything must come
by revelation.
Some of us know what it
is to be able to analyse our Bibles and present, perhaps
in a very interesting way, the contents of its books and
all its doctrines. We can do that with
"Ephesians" as well as we can do it with any
other book. We can come to "Ephesians" and
analyse it and outline the Church and the Body and all
that, and be as blind as bats until the day comes when,
God having done something in us, something deep and
tremendous and terrific, we see the Church, we see
the Body - we see "Ephesians"! They
were two worlds: one was truth, exact in technical
detail, full of interest and fascination - but there was
something lacking. We could have stated the truth from
beginning to end, but we did not know what was in it; and
until we have gone through that experience and something
has happened in us, we may think we know, we may be sure
we know, we may lay down our life for it; but we do not
know. There is all the difference between a very keen,
clear, mental apprehension of things in the Word of God,
and a spiritual revelation. There is the difference of
two worlds - but it is quite impossible to make people
understand that difference until something has happened.
We shall speak about that 'something that happens' later,
but here we are stating the facts. By anointing there is
revelation, and revelation by anointing is essential to
the seeing of what God is after, both in general and in
detail.
So, building up, we
arrive at this. A prophetic ministry is that which -
although much detail has yet to be revealed, even to the
most enlightened servants of God - has, by the Holy
Ghost, seen the purpose of God, original and
ultimate.
(c) Exact
Conformity to God's Thoughts
And then there is the
third thing we find connected with this anointing. It is
that to which we have already referred in general -
exactness.
The anointing brings
about that first-hand touch with God,
which means seeing God face to face. Was it not that that
was the summing up of Moses' life? "There hath not
arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom
the Lord knew face to face" (Deut. 34:10). And when
that happens you come into the place of direct spiritual
knowledge of God, direct touch with God, the place of the
open heaven - you cannot, under any consideration, for
any advantage at all, be a person who compromises, who
deviates from what has been shown to your heart.
What is it that the
Apostle says about Moses? "Moses was faithful in all
his house as a servant" (Heb. 3:5); and the
faithfulness of Moses is seen particularly and largely in
the way in which he was governed exactly by what God
said. You know those later chapters of the book of
Exodus, bringing everything back again to the word, again
and again and again, "as the Lord commanded
Moses". Everything was done as God said; through the
whole system which Moses was raised up to constitute and
establish, he was exact to a detail. We know why, of
course; and here is that great, that grand, comprehensive
explanation of what I said just now about principles. God
has Christ in view all the time, in every detail, and
that system that Moses instituted was a representation of
Christ to a fraction; and so it was necessary that in
every detail he should be exact. It is a difficult,
costly way, but you cannot have revelation, and go on in
revelation, and at the same time compromise over details
and have things at any point other than exactly as the
Lord wants them. You are not governed by diplomacy or
policy or public opinion. You are governed by what the
Lord has said in your heart by revelation as to His
purpose. That is prophetic ministry.
Prophets were not men
who accommodated themselves to anything that was
comparative in its goodness. They never let themselves go
wholly if the thing was only comparatively good. Look at
Jeremiah. There was a day in Jeremiah's life when a good
king did seek to recover things, and he did institute a
great feast of the Passover, and the people did come up
in their crowds for the celebration of that Passover, and
it was a great occasion apparently. They were doing great
things there in Jerusalem, but with all that was going on
which was good, confessedly good, Jeremiah did not let
himself go. He had a reservation, and he was right. It
was seen afterward that this thing was very largely
outward, that the real heart of the people had not
changed, the high places were not taken away, and
Jeremiah's original prophecy had to stand. If the
apparent reformation had been the true thing, then
Jeremiah's prophecies about the captivity, the
destruction of the city, the complete handing over to
judgment, would have gone for nothing. Jeremiah held
back. He may not have understood, he may have been in
perplexity about it, but his heart would not allow him to
go wholly with this comparatively good thing. He found
out the reason why afterward - that, although it was good
up to a point, it did not represent a deep heart change,
and so the judgment had to be.
The prophet cannot
accept as full and final what is only comparative, though
he rejoices in the measure of good that there may be
anywhere. We should, of course, be generous to any little
bit of good that is in the world - let us be grateful for
anything that is right and true and of God; but oh! we
cannot say that is altogether satisfying to the Lord,
that is all that the Lord wants. No, this prophetic
ministry is one of utter faithfulness to the thoughts of
God. It is a ministry of exactness. That is what the
anointing means, and we have said why - it is a full Christ
who is in view.
That last statement in
Revelation 19:10 sums it all up. It gathers up into one
sentence prophetic ministry from the beginning. I suppose
prophetic ministry commenced in the day when it was
stated of the seed of the woman that it should bruise the
head of the serpent, and then passed on to Enoch, who
prophesied saying, "Behold, the Lord came..."
(Jude 14), and so right on from then. It is all gathered
up at the end of the Revelation in this thought, that
"the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of
prophecy." That is, the spirit of prophecy from
beginning to end is all toward that - the testimony of
Jesus. The spirit of prophecy has always had Him in view
from its first utterance - "the seed of the
woman" - to "Behold, the Lord came" (and
how beginning and end are brought together so early on!).
All the way through it was always with the Lord Jesus in
view, and a full Christ. "He gave prophets... till
we all attain unto... the fullness of Christ." That
is the end, and God can never be satisfied with anything
less than the fullness of His Son as represented by the
Church. The Church is to be the fullness of Him; a
full-grown Man - that is the Church. The prophetic
ministry is unto that - the fullness of Christ, the
finality of Christ, the all-inclusiveness of Christ. It
is to be Christ, centre and circumference; Christ, first
and last; Christ in general and Christ in every detail.
And to see Christ by revelation means that you can never
accept anything less or other. You have seen, and that
has settled it. The way to reach God's end, then, is seeing
by the Holy Spirit, and that seeing is the basis of
this prophetic ministry.
I think that that
perhaps is enough to show what I said earlier, that if we
see the nature of the ministry, we at once see what the
vessel is. The vessel may be individuals fulfilling such
a ministry, or it may be collective. Later we may say
something more about the vessel, but let us not now think
technically, in terms of apostles and prophets and so on,
as offices. Let us think of them as vital functions. God
is concerned that the man and the function are identical,
not the man and a professional or official position with
a title, whatever the title may be. The vessel must be
that, and that must justify the vessel. We
will not go about advertising ourselves as prophets; but
God grant that there may be raised up a prophetic
ministry for a time like this, when His whole purpose
concerning His Son is brought back into view amongst His
people. That is their need, and it is His.