Like God’s word communicated though symbols (which we noted last week), His word spoken through prophets was a mediated word. God called and used human instruments as channels through whom He spoke, as Hebrews 1:1 asserts, “God at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets.” In a similar manner, Romans opens with a declaration that God’s voice was heard through His prophets, when it refers to “the gospel of God” by adding, “which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures” (Rom. 1:1–2).
God’s prophetic word was not an after-thought. Long before the writing prophets came on the scene, God had spoken to Moses, saying, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him” (Deut. 18:18).
Human spokesperson
At the beginning of his book, Jeremiah testified, “The Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me: ‘Behold I have put My words in your mouth’” (Jer. 1:9). The Book of Ezekiel says, “On the fifth day of the month … the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest” (Ezek. 1:4). This same claim of a word from the Lord mediated through a human spokesperson is found in the first verse of Hosea, Joel, Micah, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.
The New Testament insists that God spoke through inspired prophets when it says, “No prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21). God was the source of the prophetic message and the Holy Spirit was its agency. The result was a sure word of prophecy (2 Pet. 1:19).
God’s word through the prophets was quite often a multi-tiered word. At one level that word from the Lord addressed the people and situations of the prophet’s own day. In this sense the prophetic word was one of “forth-telling.” Human instruments spoke forth the mind of God for their own times. At times the word of the Lord through the prophets also was one for future times. In this sense the prophetic word was one of “fore-telling.” At this level we often describe the prophetic word as predictive prophecy.
At its most significant level the prophetic word of God was a messianic word. Often speaking with significance beyond their own awareness, prophets gave messages that contained allusions and predictions about the coming Messiah. Many of these allusions are quite striking. For example Isaiah spoke of One who would be born of a virgin (Isa. 7:14). Micah’s message included that the One to come would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). Other prophetic messages indicated One who would be descended from Abraham and David. Still other prophetic proclamations mentioned One who would be betrayed, hated and spit on. Dozens of such allusions have been noted among the words and writings of the prophets.
Readers of the Gospel of Matthew have long taken notice of how it often speaks of Jesus’ message and ministry as being in keeping with words spoken by the prophets. Such is noted from its opening chapters concerning events connected with Jesus’ birth (Matt. 1:22; 2:5–6, 15, 17–18, 23) all the way to the concluding chapters and events associated with His death (Matt. 26:56; 27:9, 35), as well as in multiple chapters in between.
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