Understanding the prophets
This article is based on a talk that was first given by David Couchman at Above Bar Church Southampton on 22nd February 2004. It may be used on web sites or in print subject to the copyright notice below.
Introduction
This article is an overview of the prophetic books of the Old Testament. These begin with Isaiah and go through to the end of the Old Testament. If you look at a Bible, you will see that they account for about a quarter of the whole book. So obviously, in a brief article, we are not looking at too many individual details, but we are trying to get the big picture of what these books mean, and what God could be saying to us today through them. What can we learn about how God dealt with his people then, and how he deals with us, his people today?
What do we think of when you think of the Old Testament prophets?
If we think of anything at all, whart comes to mind for most of us is probably the passages that we often read at Christmas, such as Micah chapter 5 verses 2 - about the promised Messiah being born in Bethlehem, or Isaiah chapter 9 verses 1-7 - the 'wonderful counsellor, mighty God' passage.
Now this is right - there are these Old Testament passages that Christians have always understood as pointing directly and specifically to Christ. It is quite remarkable that these prophecies, written hundreds of years earlier, should be fulfilled in such detail.
But we can easily get the idea that most of what the prophets said is not relevant to us, and just occasionally there are a few verses that point to Christ.
One of our key themes in 'Facing the Challenge' is that the whole Bible points to Christ - the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. I hope that in the rest of this article we shall see that the Old Testament prophets point towards Jesus Christ in a much deeper and more systematic way than just a few well known but isolated verses.
Background
We need a bit of historical background to make sense of what's going on with the prophets:
The kingdom of Israel was at its greatest under King David and his son Solomon. In many ways, David is presented to us as God's ideal ruler: this is what God's people living under his rule and blessing should look like - aAlthough David never fully measured up to the ideal.
But then, under Solomon's son Rehoboam, things went seriously pear-shaped, and the kingdom split into two: there was the northern kingdom of ten tribes, usually called Israel, and the southern kingdom including the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, usually just called Judah.
The Old Testament kings repeatedly failed to model what a good leader should be. Because of their failure, the people fell into spiritual ruin. Their ruin was marked out by worshiping false gods - by idol worship, and by immorality. (The two things often went together then, just as they do now).
So we have to see that the historical model of the kingdom of God - God's people, living in God's place, under his rule and blessing - was a failure.
The Word of the Lord
Then, in 1 Kings chapter 15 verse 32 - chapter 16 verse 7, there is a new development in what God is doing:
In the third year of Asa king of Judah, Baasha son of Ahijah became king of all Israel in Tirzah, and he reigned twenty-four years. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, walking in the ways of Jeroboam and in his sin, which he had caused Israel to commit.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jehu son of Hanani against Baasha: "I lifted you up from the dust and made you leader of my people Israel, but you walked in the ways of Jeroboam and caused my people Israel to sin and to provoke me to anger by their sins. So I am about to consume Baasha and his house, and I will make your house like that of Jeroboam son of Nebat. Dogs will eat those belonging to Baasha who die in the city, and the birds of the air will feed on those who die in the country." ...
Moreover, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Jehu son of Hanani to Baasha and his house, because of all the evil he had done in the eyes of the LORD, provoking him to anger by the things he did, and becoming like the house of Jeroboam - and also because he destroyed it.
For the first time, we see the Word of the Lord coming to someone - in this case, it is Jehu. In 1 Kings chapter 17 verse 2, it is Elijah - the great 'father figure' of the Old Testament prophets.
Something new is happening here. God begins to speak his words directly through individual people who are not - or not usually - part of the religious establishment. They are not part of the system.
This is the core definition of a prophet: someone to whom God's word comes; someone who speaks not just as an individual, but as a spokesperson for God.
God's Word
What does it mean to say that God's word came to them?
We certainly should not think of it as some kind of divine dictation.
You may have heard the definition of a lecture: it is the process by which information is transferred from the lecturer's notes to the students' notes without passing through the mind of either.
But prophecy was not like this. It was not an automatic process that bypassed their human character and abilities. Rather, God gave his message to them, and he spoke through them, through their natural personalities, using the abilities he had given them. They did not become robots.
The prophets were first of all preachers: They were not so much foretellers as forth -tellers. They spoke God's word to God's people. So what was their message? We can summarise it under three headings:
1. A Message of Judgment
The prophets encouraged the people to turn away from their idol-worship and immorality and turn back to God.
They also warned of God's judgment if the people would not turn back. There were various smaller judgments and warnings along the way, but the 'last word' in judgment was that God would throw his people out of the Promised land - the land he had given them; the land where his temple was (the visible sign that he was with them). If they would not live under his rule, they would not experience his blessing, and ultimately they would not live in his place.
So what happened? The Northern kings were a collection of rebels and upstarts. They turned away from God, and things went from bad to worse. In the end, the Northern kingdom of Israel was wiped out by the Assyrians in 722 BC.
The southern kings were the descendants of king David, and they were a mixed bag. There were some bad leaders, but there were a few who were good, and there were a couple of notable revivals where the people as a whole, under the leadership of a good king, turned back to God.
But still the overall trend was always downwards. You might think that when they saw what had happened to their northern neighbours, that would have given them pause for thought. Apparently not. Things continued to get worse, and it ended with the destruction of Jerusalem in the Babylonian invasion of 586 BC, and the exile of God's people to Babylon.
Some of the prophets preached and wrote before the Exile - particularly Isaiah and Micah. Others spoke at the time of the Exile - Daniel was one who was taken away, Ezekiel lived his whole life in exile in Babylon; Jeremiah went through the siege of Jerusalem and lived to tell the tale.
We need to grasp what it felt like to be an Israelite in 586 BC: Israel as a nation is at an end: they have been thrown out of the land. The temple has been destroyed. God seems to have left the receiver off the hook. They are not in God's place. They are not under his rule and blessing. They cannot help asking, are they even still his people?
So before the Exile, the prophets have had this message of judgment - a warning that the people never really took any notice of.
2. A Message of Hope
And then, just when things were as bad as they could be, the message of the prophets changed: where they had been talking about judgment, they started talking about hope, and God's restoration.
In Isaiah, the change of message between the first half of the book and the last half is so distinctive that some scholars have argued that the two parts of the book were written by different people. There is no need to go that far, but the change is startling. Chapter 40 is the beginning of the second part of Isaiah:
Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lord's hand
double for all her sins.
Now, in Israel's despair, the prophets have a message of hope. It is all about being brought back to the land, about a new temple, and about a new king. There are three things to notice about this king:
1. An unqualified success
This new king will not be like the rulers of the past. He will be wholeheartedly faithful to God. He will be victorious militarily. He will rescue his people, and his throne will never end. He is the Messiah - God's promised deliverer. He is a figure like Aragorn in 'The Return of the King.' For all the historical kings, there is this sense of 'he was a good king, but...' For this new king, there will be no 'but...'
2. An unlimited kingdom
He will not only be king over the Israelites, but he will rule the nations. Isaiah chapter 49 verses 5-6:
And now the Lord says-
he who formed me in the womb to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him
and gather Israel to himself,
for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord
and my God has been my strength- ,
he says:
"It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth."
So here we begin to see hints that God's kingdom will spread beyond the nation of Israel, to the whole world. It is the fulfillment of the promise God made to Abraham back in Genesis: "All nations on Earth will be blessed through you."
3. Unexpected grief
There is another strand to the prophecies of Messiah: although some prophecies describe him as a victorious military leader, others describe him as a suffering servant. Isaiah chapter 53 verses 4-6:
Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
So the Messiah will be both a worldwide king-deliverer and a suffering servant. The picture was so perplexing that later Judaism thought there might even be two or more different Messiahs.
So after the exile, the message of the prophets changes, from a message of judgment to a message of hope and restoration.
In fact, the Israelites do return to the land, led by people such as Ezra and Nehemiah. And some of the prophets live after the return - Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. But it is obvious that this return is not the fulfilment of the prophecies - it is very inadequate, and very incomplete:
- They rebuild the temple, but the people who are old enough to remember the previous temple weep when they see how small the new one is.
- They are back in the Promised land, but they never rise to be an independent kingdom again - they are always under a foreign power.
So there was a message of judgment, and then there was a message of hope. And then, about 400 BC, the voice of prophecy falls silent. For four centuries, it looks as if God does not speak, and God does not do anything. But it is only the gap between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder.
3. A message of fulfillment
Until one day, in the desert of Judea, a new prophetic voice is heard: someone who describes himself, in Isaiah's terms, as a
voice crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord.
And John the Baptist comes. He is where the New Testament begins - all four of the Gospels lay great emphasis on his testimony. But he is also the last and greatest of the Old Testament prophets.
(Incidentally, there can be no doubt that John was a real historical figure: he is mentioned outside the Bible by the Jewish historian Josephus).
And John's message is different. In Matthew chapter 3 verses 11, he says:
I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
He says, in effect: 'the waiting is over. Now is the time. Messiah is here. This is what all the prophets have been telling you about, and finally it's happened.' And of course, the New Testament equivalent of 'Messiah' is just 'Christ.' Jesus himself is the deliverer promised by God's Old Testament prophets. The whole sweep of Old Testament prophecy comes down to him.
Application
So what do the prophets have to do with us thousands of years later?
(1) The first part of the prophets' job description was to warn people of God's judgment - and their warnings were fulfilled.
The idea of judgment is an unpopular one today, and a politically incorrect one, but it is still there in the Bible, and it is a reality. God's judgment on Israel and Judah is a graphic picture of a far more definitive and final judgment that is yet to come.
If I were to ask you 'what is your greatest problem?' I wonder what you'd say. It might be a health issue, or a relationship difficulty, or something going badly in your work.... but in reality, the greatest problem for all of us is that we are all rebels against God, and we deserve his judgment. And the Bible is very clear that God will not allow people to reject him for ever. Just as the ancient Israelites faced God's judgment, so do we. The writer of the New Testament letter to the Hebrews spoke people being destined to die once, and after that to face judgment - Hebrews chapter 9 verses 27.
So the first way the prophets apply to us is that they are warnings of coming judgment.
When we are inclined to think that everything is going well with us, we need to ask where is God in our thinking? Have we taken notice of his judgment?
(2) But the second part of the job description was to speak of God's promised deliverer, the Messiah. To point to the one who would bring deliverance from God's judgment, and restoration for God's people.
Of course, they did not know the whole story. We today know much more about Jesus than the prophets did. The challenge is, what do we do with that knowledge?
The Bible speaks of the need to turn away from the rebellion that provokes God's judgment - the worship of false gods (whether they are money, sex, power, success, or whatever), and turn to God, trusting him and his deliverer, Jesus Christ. For some of us, it will take a crisis to get us to stop and think.
When we are inclined to think that everything is going badly with us, and perhaps even that God has abandoned us, we need to remember God's deliverer, and turn back to him.
(3) Finally, yes, many prophecies have been fulfilled. But when you read the Old Testament prophets, it is clear that although Messiah has come, many of the prophecies have not yet been fulfilled. We have seen in history something of the Messiah as the suffering servant; but we have not yet seen his final victory, when his people will finally be restored to his place, and his rule, and his blessing.
We have not seen it yet.
But we will - and this is the hope that we live by today.
Chapter 5 of Vaughan Roberts' book 'God's Big Picture' has a very helpful discussion of the prophets.
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