Chapter Seven—The Voice of God to His Church

THE gift of prophecy is the infallible and authoritative voice of God in this world. It is through this medium He has chosen to speak, and what He speaks in this way is from God, not man, and therefore infallible.GoPH 51.1

Infallibility does not belong to the prophet, or the prophetess, who brings the message. It belongs to the message brought. We do not believe in infallible men or women. We do believe in an infallible God who can make Hi will known to men with certainty and exact ness.GoPH 51.2

The Hebrew name for “prophet” (Nabhi) means simply “spokesman,” God’s spokesman. It was characteristic of the prophets to announce their message by saying: “The word of Jehovah came to me,” or just simply, “Saith Jehovah.” Never does a prophet put his message forward as his own message. That he possesses the gift of prophecy at all is due not to any choice of his own, but wholly to a call of God, which in some cases was obeyed reluctantly. He prophesies or refrains from prophesying not at all in accordance with his own desires or choice but altogether as Jehovah opens and shuts his mouth and formulates his message for him, creating “the fruit of the lips.”GoPH 51.3

“I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth, that thou shalt be dumb, . . . but when I speak with thee, I will open thy mouth, and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; He that heareth, let him hear; and he that for beareth, let him forbear; for they are a rebellious house.” Ezekiel 3:26, 27.GoPH 52.1

“I create the fruit of the lips.” Isaiah 57:19.GoPH 52.2

“The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious.” Isaiah 50:4, 5.GoPH 52.3

The prophet of the Lord, in contrast with false prophets, vigorously claims that he does not speak out of his own heart (Ezekiel 13:17), but that all he proclaims is the pure word of the Lord.GoPH 52.4

This is, indeed, the fundamental claim of the prophets, that the revelations made through them are not their own but wholly from God. Peter emphasizes this when he declares:GoPH 52.5

“No prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation. For no prophecy ever was brought by the will of man; but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit.” 2 Peter 1:20, 21, R. V., margin.GoPH 53.1

Weymouth puts it: “Never did any prophecy come by human will, but men sent by God spoke as they were impelled by the Holy Spirit.”GoPH 53.2

Goodspeed has it, “No prophecy ever originated in the human will, but under the influence of the Holy Spirit man spoke from God.”GoPH 53.3

And Moffatt translates it, “Prophecy never came by human impulse, it was when carried away by the Holy Spirit that the holy men of God spoke.”GoPH 53.4

It must not be understood that the human powers of the person have no part in receiving and imparting the divine message. That is not what I desire to imply. The intelligence of the prophet is not inactive. It is by means of their intelligence that they receive the message, and it thus becomes the instrument of revelation. What I do desire to emphasize is that their intelligence has no part in producing the message. Their intelligence receives it; it does not produce it. The message is given to the prophet; the prophet has no part in creating the message. The natural powers of the prophet are active in receiving the message; but passive so far as creating it is concerned. They are in no sense co-authors with God of their messages. The messages are given them, given them entire. That is, God speaks through them. They are more than His messengers: they are “His mouth.”GoPH 53.5

At the same time their intelligence is active in the reception, the retention, the announcing of these messages. It contributes nothing to them, but constitutes a fit instrument for communicating them.GoPH 54.1

Why should it be thought incredible for God to be able to frame His own message in the language of the organs of His servants without that message thereby ceasing to be purely His message because it is expressed in a fashion natural to these organs? Certainly it seems to lie in the very nature of the case that if God makes a revelation to men He would make it in the language of men. More, He would do it in the language of the person He employs as the agent of His revelation, and that could mean not merely the language of this person’s nation, or of his particular circle, but his own particular and, perhaps, peculiar language, inclusive of all that gives individuality to his self-expression. These peculiarities of expression would in no way affect the purity of the message as a direct communication from God.GoPH 54.2

Every message coming through the gift of prophecy, then, should be viewed as deriving its intellectual and spiritual quality, and its importance as a revelation, not from the messenger but from its Divine Author.GoPH 55.1

The prophet is but an agent to bring a message. The importance is in the message, not the messenger. The message is God’s voice to men. The messenger is simply the agent selected of God through whom to send His message. The messenger is entirely human, and liable, when not under divine control, to err. The message is divine, and safeguarded from error by God.GoPH 55.2

To believe in the “infallibility of the pope” one must believe in the inerrancy of a person because of the power and authority with which that person is said to be clothed. To believe in the infallibility of the gift of prophecy is not to believe any person is inerrant, but only to recognize that God has established a gift by which He can make His will known to men without error. Authority and inerrancy are not in the person; they are in the gift, which is entirely controlled by God.GoPH 55.3

The person who has the gift is like any other person blessed with a divine gift. An evangelist has a divine gift, a pastor, a teacher. They are not, because of these gifts, separated from humanity. They are agents through whom God works. They are still human, still liable to err in all ordinary human relations and contacts. They are clothed with no super-human authority. They are worthy of no superhuman honors. But the gift they exercise is to be heeded and honored, for that is divine.GoPH 56.1