From a Biblical position, a prophesier is a interpreter on Earth who proclaims God ‘s word, uncovering things that would go on in the hereafter. This vocalization is called prognostication because it ‘s divinely inspired, and involves, disclosure or reading. This essay will exemplify a survey on prognostication in the Old Testament ( OT ) , assorted people who met the standards of being true Prophetss and place those who were known to be false Prophetss. Further, an penetration on different sorts of prognostication and there fulfillment will besides be demonstrated.
Nebiims through assorted Bibles in the bible were referred to as work forces of God or retainers of God to implicate the earnestness of their position. After the autumn of adult male, God had a Godhead program to reconstruct His love relationship with worlds and this was portrayed throughout the OT. Tholuck titled the Prophetss as the ancient sermonizers of the Church, he said, “ The Prophetss were the life depositories of the thought of the theocracy or land of God ” . In other words prophecy erected from the foundation of God ‘s jurisprudence and it was the Prophetss who imposed it. Harmonizing to the prophetic standards, bible theologists province that Enoch ( Gen. 5: 24 ) and Noah ( Gen. 6: 9 ) qualified as Prophetss, because God spoke through them, but it was Abraham whom God foremost spoke of as a prophesier when He warned King Abimelech against get marrieding Sarah ( Gen. 20: 6-7 ) .
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Harmonizing to Bible divinity, God chose the Israelites to be His representatives on Earth to whom He could uncover Himself, by talking through His chosen advocates known as the Prophetss so that all other states could be blessed and cognize the true Living God. He wanted worlds to cognize that He was their Godhead and He had Godhead programs and a intent for them to populate harmonizing to His will. He gave them His Torahs to which they were to populate by, and He was to be their God. It was those Torahs that caused struggle between God and His people.
Chris Wright believed that it was the Holy Spirit who inspired the Prophetss. He said, “ He is the Spirit who spoke through the Prophetss, animating their committedness to talk the truth and to stand for justness ” . This was affirmed by Peter in The New Testament when he contested the beginning of the OT prognostications ( 2 Pet. 1: 20-21 ) , and was apparent when Saul got anointed as male monarch and the Spirit of God took control of Him and he prophesied ( 1Sam. 10: 10 ) . Since Prophetss were the go-betweens of God, they merely spoke in the name of God, lived by religion and demonstrated the sanctity of God, as Zechariah male parent of John the Baptist said in his prognostication that, “ As He said through His holy Prophetss of long ago ” ( Luke 1: 70 ) .
The Prophetss had to be to the full obedient to what God required of them trusting in God ‘s Spirit that strengthened and worked through them. Fulfillment was a cardinal issue in the prophetic motion. Through Isaiah, God said, “ As the rain and the snow come down from Eden, and do non return to it without irrigating the Earth and doing it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and staff of life for the feeder, so is my word that goes out from my oral cavity: It will non return to me empty, but will carry through what I desire and achieve the intent for which I sent it. ” ( Isa. 55: 10-11 ) . Such prophecy took away any uncertainty about God ‘s will particularly to the Prophetss themselves, who prophesied to a dubious state. One author said, “ The standard of true prognostication is what it should be-truth, the correspondence between the prophetic word and the worlds of history. ” Any prophesier who spoke prophets of other Gods other than the God of Israel would be known as a false prophesier. So the prophesier ‘s chief function was to pass on God ‘s message in its comprehensiveness. Since it was God ‘s Godhead program to utilize Prophetss to convey His messages, He illustrated that He intentionally set them apart, He said, “ Before I formed you in the uterus I knew you, before you were born I set you apart ; I appointed you as a prophesier to the states. ( Jer. 28: 5 ) .
Nebiims were from diverse back evidences, for illustration Amos was a shepherd ( Amos 1:1 ) , Elijah was a priest and Elisha was a herder ( 19:15-21 ) . Although work forces were popularly used, adult females like Miriam ; sister to Moses ( Micah 6: 4 ) ; Deborah who served as an Israelite justice ( Judges 4: 4 ) ; Huldah ( 2 Kings 22:14 ) and Noadiah ( Neh. 6: 14 ) besides served as Prophetss. God revealed Himself and communicated to His Prophetss through visions and dreams or spoke audibly to them as in the instance of Moses. He said, “ Listen to my words: “ When there is a prophesier among you, I, the LORD, uncover myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams ” ( Num. 12: 6 ) . So this is why Prophetss had common features that identified them as God ‘s couriers. Their messages exposed the nature and properties of God to work forces ( Deut. 5:4-10 ) ; made known to work forces the Torahs of God ( Ex 20: 1-17 ) ; to name the people back in obeisance to God ‘s Torahs ( 2Chr 24:19 ) ; exhorted the people to earnestness in worship ( Jer. 7:1-11 ) ; warned the Israelites of Divine judgement upon wickedness, both personal and national and foretold hereafter events which God had willed particularly the coming of the Messiah ( Isaiah 9:6 ) .
Harmonizing to the O.T, there are three subdivisions of books which are refered to as prophetic books and they are known as ; ( Joshua to Kings ) the former Prophetss, major prophetic books ( Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel ) , and eventually the Minor Prophets ( Hosea to Malachi ) . The prophetic ministry in the O.T intensified at the beginning of the Exodus when God appointed Moses and Aaron as His Prophetss with a mission to deliver and take His people out of bondage from the land of Egypt after 430 old ages. God gave a specific prophet to Moses that His chosen people were being called to idolize him. The prophetic motion appeared throughout The Exodus 1446 BCE and the period of the Israelite ‘s imprisonment by the Assyrians and Babylonians, to the times of Zechariah who was associated with the Restoration of the temple in 521-515 BCE.
There is a reference of many false Prophetss in the O.T. God clearly warned the Israelites ne’er to O.K. of such Prophetss, and he would prove them to see if they would stay dependably ( Deut. 13: 1-5 ) . It was a warning that was repeatedly issued with an illustration of Hananiah a false prophesier in Judah in the reign of King Zedekiah. ( Jer. 28: 1-17 ) . God even approved of the decease of such Prophetss when He said, “ But if any prophesier presumes to talk anything in my name that I have non authorised him to talk, or speaks in the name of other Gods, that prophesier must decease ” ( Deut. 18: 20 ) . Prophet Elijah besides challenged Jezebel ‘s Prophetss of Baal to demo that he was functioning A Living God, unlike all other Gods that were worshiped in the land. He killed 450 false Prophetss from that confrontation ( 1 Kg. 18: 19-40 ) .
Nebiims could besides be manipulated or bribed to withstand God, as in the instance of King Balak of Moab who asked Balaam to cuss the Israelites. “ Now come and set a expletive on these people, because they are excessively powerful for me. Possibly so I will be able to get the better of them and drive them out of the state. For I know that those you bless are blessed, and those you curse are cursed ” ( Num. 22:6 ) . Balaam ‘s response indicated that he communicated with God ( Num. 22: 9-41 ) . God revealed that He could utilize anything to prophecy as was in the instance of Balaam ‘s donkey ( Num. 22: 28 ) . Another facet of prophetic experience, involved the prophesier himself who performed omens to back up the prognostication e.g. Isaiah walked naked for 3 old ages in the land ( Isa. 20:2 ) ; Hosea expressed the prognostication by being obedient to what God told him. “ Go and get married a cocotte so that some of her kids will be conceived in harlotry. This will exemplify how Israel has acted like a cocotte by turning against the Lord and idolizing other Gods. ” ( Hos. 1: 2 ) .
Though God ‘s Prophetss differed on how they prophesied, the accent of their messages was common. It was about wickedness, opinion, wrath of God, penitence, love, clemency and forgiveness of a compassionate God. For illustration Moses was a jurisprudence giver and urged the Israelites repeatedly ne’er to take on the heathen patterns of the people of the Promised Land because God Himself would raise another prophesier like him to go on a prophesier ‘s great function. ( Deut. 18: 14-17 ) . The Prophet Elijah was a religious evangelist, and Isaiah ‘s prognostications were upon the royal house of Judah. Nebiims suffered persecution, and they were frequently disregarded, despised and rejected particularly by rebellious male monarchs and people who had hardened Black Marias and continually disobeyed God ‘s jurisprudence, “ But the people would non listen and go on to follow their former patterns. ” ( 2 Kg. 17: 40 ) .
Unger ‘s Bible dictionary quotation marks, “ The mastermind of Old Testament prognostication was instead, a anticipation of the hereafter originating from the conditions of the present and was inseparably connected with the deeply spiritual and religious message the prophesier was called to proclaim to his ain coevals. ” Some prognostications of the OT were Forth stating prognostications that called back people unto their God in footings of penitence and alteration, as in the instance of Jonah when God relented and withdrew programs of catastrophe upon Nineveh ( Jonah 2 ) .
Fore stating prognostications, gave the people clip to obey, seek and pray candidly to God, a significantly of import characteristic of Biblical prognostication. Such prognostications promised Restoration and events that would be fulfilled in the hereafter declaring redemption, particularly those that announced the coming of a Messiah who would come at God ‘s appointive clip, as the concluding perfect forfeit to God who would deliver world and carry through the rapprochement of God and adult male ( Hos. 14 ; Amos 9: 11-15 ) .
Overall, Jesus was the completion of the prophetic Bibles in the OT. Jesus testified in His clip that He was the mention point of the OT prognostications. “ I will proclaim the LORD ‘s edict: He said to me, “ You are my boy ; today I have become your male parent. ” ( Psalm 2:7 ) . Bible Scholars, G and R Konig said, “ Jesus is alone among all people in history in that he is the fulfillment of centuries of Messianic prognostications, which are found in the Old Testament that foretold his topographic point of birth, inside informations of his life, his mission, his nature, his decease, and his Resurrection. ”
From a theological position, God affirms both His power and right to judge, and His staunchness in the terminal to salvage. Jeremiah prophesied of the new compact, whereas Ezekiel had a vision of a new temple Centre phase ( Ezek. 40, 48 ) . Isaiah is besides memorable for its Messianic promises ( Isa 9:2-7, 11:1-9 ) , and thoughts of new creative activity and Exodus.
If Judgement and redemption are the cloth of the OT history, it explains why so much of it was the work of the Prophetss, because God expressed His bosom through the Prophetss in order to reconstruct His relationship with adult male. Prophecy is one of the major ways in which God communicates His will to mankind even up to this age as written: Then he turned to his adherents and said in private, “ Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many Prophetss and male monarchs wanted to see what you see but did non see it, and to hear what you hear but did non hear it. ” ( Luke 10: 23-24 ) . The prophetic motion was a important phenomenon in history of Divine disclosure. Therefore, without the prognostications in the Old Testament, worlds would n’t cognize of God ‘s purposes. This can merely be summarised as God ‘s Divine love for world.
