_SPEAKERS FOR GOD--III. THE PROPHET_
DEUT. xviii. 9-22
The third of the Divine voices to this nation was the prophet.
Just as in the other Semitic nations round about Israel there were
kings and priests and soothsayers, there were to be in Israel kings
and priests and prophets; and the first two orders having been
discussed, there remains for consideration the prophet, in so far
at least as he was to be the substitute for the soothsayer. That
this parallel was in the mind of the writer, and that he probably
intended only to deal with certain aspects of the prophetic office,
is witnessed by the fact that he introduces what he has to say
regarding the prophet by a stern and detailed denunciation of any
dealings with soothsayers and wizards. In the earlier codes the
same denunciation is found, but the catalogue of names for those
who practised such arts is nowhere so extensive as it is here. In
the Book of the Covenant the _mekhashsheph_, or magician, alone
is mentioned (Exod. xxii. 17); while the peculiar code which is
contained in the last chapters of Leviticus,[94] mentions only five
varieties of sorcerers. The Deuteronomic list of eight is thus the
most complete; and Dillmann may be right in regarding it as also the
latest. But the special indignation of the writer of Deuteronomy
against these forms of superstition would be quite sufficient to
account for his elaborate detail. If he lived in the days of
Manasseh, he would have before his eyes the passing of children
through the fire to Moloch. That was connected with soothsaying
and was the crowning horror of Israel's idolatry. The author of
Deuteronomy might, therefore, well be more passionate and detailed
in his denunciations than others, whether earlier or later.
[94] Only two in any one law; Lev. xviii. 21, xix. 26, 31, xx. 6, 27.
Nor let any one imagine that in this he was wrong and unenlightened.
Whether we believe in the occasional appearance of abnormal powers
of the soothsaying kind or not, it is evident that in every nation's
life there has been a time in which faith in the existence of such
powers was universal, and in which the moral and spiritual life of
men has been threatened in the gravest way by the proceedings of
those who claimed to possess them. At this hour the witch-doctor,
with his cruelties and frauds, is the incubus that rests upon all
the semi-civilised or wholly uncivilised peoples of Africa. Even
British justice has to lay hands upon him in New Guinea, as the
following extract from a Melbourne newspaper will show: "Divination
by means of evil spirits is practised to such an extent and with
such evil effects by the natives of New Guinea that the Native
Regulation Board of British New Guinea has found it necessary
to make an ordinance forbidding it. The regulation opens with
the statement, 'White men know that sorcery is only deceit, but
the lies of the sorcerer frighten many people; the deceit of the
sorcerer should be stopped.' It then proceeds to point out that it
is forbidden for any person to practise or to pretend to practise
sorcery, or for any person to threaten any other person with
sorcery, whether practised by himself or any one else. Any one found
guilty of sorcery may be sentenced by a European magistrate to three
months' imprisonment, or by a native magistrate to three days'
imprisonment, and he will be compelled to work in prison without
payment." Through the sorcerer attempts at advance to a higher life
are in our own day being rendered futile; at his instigation the
darkest crimes are committed; and because of him and the beliefs he
inculcates men are kept all their lives subject to bondage. So also
of old. The ancient soothsayer might be an impostor in everything,
but he was none the less dangerous for that. To what depths of
wickedness his practices can bring men is seen in the horrors of
the secret cult of the negroes of Hayti. Even when soothsaying and
magic were connected with higher religions than the fetichism of the
Haytian negro, they were still detrimental in no ordinary degree. No
worthy conception of God could grow up where these were dominant,
and toleration of them was utterly impossible for the religion of
Yahweh.
The justice of the punishment of death decreed against wizards
and witches in Scripture was, therefore, quite independent of the
reality of the powers such persons claimed. They professed and were
believed to have them, and thus they acquired an influence which
was fatal to any real belief in a moral and spiritual government
of the world. They must therefore be an "abomination" to Yahweh;
and as, in any case, by the very fact that they were soothsayers
and diviners they practised low forms of idolatry, those who sought
them must share the condemnation of the idolater in Israel. In the
earlier days of the sacred history there was no enemy so subtle,
so insidious, so difficult to meet as magic and soothsaying.
Only by actual prohibition, on pain of death, could the case be
adequately met; and under these circumstances there is no need for
us to apologise for the Old Testament law, "Thou shalt not suffer
a witch to live" (Exod. xxii. 17). What is aimed at here is the
profession on the part of any woman that she had and used these
supernatural powers. This was a crime against Israel's higher life.
The punishment of it had no resemblance to the judicial cruelties
perpetrated in comparatively modern times, when the charge of being
a witch became a weapon against people, who for the most part were
guilty only of being helpless and lonely.
But it is characteristic of the large outlook of Deuteronomy that
not only is the evil protested against; the universal human need
which underlay it is acknowledged and supplied. Behind all the
terrible aberrations of heathen soothsaying and divination the
author saw hunger for a revelation of the will and purpose of
God. That was worthy of sympathy, however inadequate and evil the
substitutes elaborated for the really Divine means of enlightenment
were. So he promises that the real need will be supplied by God's
holy prophets. Nothing that savoured of ignorance or misapprehension
of God's spirituality, or of unfaithfulness to Yahweh, could be
tolerated; for Israel's God would supply all their need by a prophet
from the midst of them, of their brethren, like unto Moses, in whose
mouth Yahweh would put His words, and who should speak unto them all
that He should command him. This is the broadest and most general
legitimation of the prophet, as a special organ of revelation in
Israel, that the Scripture contains. By it he is made one of the
regularly constituted channels of Divine influence for his people.
For it is evidently not one single individual, such as the Messiah,
who is here foretold. That has been the interpretation received from
the earlier Jews, and cherished in the Church up till quite modern
times. But as Keil rightly says, the fact that this promise is set
against any supposed need to have recourse to diviners and wizards,
is in itself sufficient proof that the prophetic order is meant.
It was not only in the far-off Messianic time that Israel was to
find in this Divinely sent prophet that knowledge of God's will
and purposes which it needed. Israel of all times, tempted by the
customs of its heathen neighbours to go to the diviners, was to have
in Yahweh's prophet a continual deliverance from the temptation.
That implies that this _Nabhi_, or prophet like unto Moses, was to
be continually recurring, at every turn and crisis of this nation's
career.
Further, the direction in the end of the passage for testing the
prophets, whether they were really sent of God or not, confirms
this view. It would be singularly out of place in a promise which
referred to the Messiah in an exclusive and primary fashion.
He would never need testing of this sort, for He was to be the
realisation and embodiment of Israel's highest aspirations. But if
the passage means to give the prophets a place among the national
organs of intercourse with Yahweh alongside of the priests, the
necessity of distinguishing these true and Divinely given prophets
from pretenders was urgent. The context, both before and after the
promise, seems, therefore, to be decisively in favour of the general
reference; and the phrases "like unto me," "like unto thee," _i.e._
Moses, when carefully examined, instead of weakening that inference,
strengthen it. They are not used here as the similar phrase is used
in Deut. xxxiv. 10: "And there hath not arisen a prophet since in
Israel like unto Moses, whom Yahweh knew face to face." There the
closeness of Moses' approach to Yahweh is the point in hand, and it
is clearly stated that in that regard Moses was more favoured than
any who had succeeded him. But here the comparison is between Moses
and the prophets, in so far as mediation between Yahweh and His
people was concerned. At Israel's own wish Moses had been appointed
to hear the Divine voice. Israel had said "Let me not hear again the
voice of Yahweh my God, neither let me see this great fire any more,
that I die not." The prophet here promised was to be like Moses
in that respect, but there is nothing to assert that he would be
equal to Moses in power and dignity. On all grounds, therefore, the
reference to the line of prophets is to be maintained.
Still, the interpretation thus reached does not exclude--it
distinctly includes--the Messianic reference. If the passage
promises that at all moments of difficulty and crisis in Israel's
history, the will of God would be made known by a Divinely sent
prophet, that would be specially true of the last and greatest
crisis, the birth of the new time which the Messiah was to
inaugurate. Whatever fulfilment the promise might receive previously
to that, it could not be perfectly fulfilled without the advent
of Him whose office it was to close up the history of the present
world, and bring all things by a safe transition into the new
Messianic world. That was the greatest crisis; and necessarily
the prophet who spoke for Yahweh in it must be the crown of the
long line of prophets. There is still a higher sense in which this
promise has reference to the Messiah. He was to sum up and realise
in Himself all the possibilities of Israel. Now they were the
prophetic nation, the people who were to reveal God to mankind; and
when they proved prevailingly false to their higher calling, the
hopes of all who remained faithful turned to that "true" Israel
which alone would inherit the promises. At one period, just before
and in the Exile, the prophetic order would appear to have been
looked upon as the Israel within Israel, to whom it would fall to
accomplish the great things to which the seed of Abraham had been
called. But the author of Second Isaiah, despairing even of them,
saw that the destiny of Israel would be accomplished by one great
Servant of Yahweh, who should outshine all other prophets, as He
would surpass all other Israelite priests and Davidic kings. As
the crown and embodiment of all that the prophets had aspired
to be, the Messiah alone completely fulfilled this promise, and
consequently the Messianic reference is organically one with the
primary reference. They are so intimately interwoven that nothing
but violence can separate them; and thus we gain a deeper insight
into the wide reach of the Divine purposes, and the organic unity of
the Divine action in the world. These form a far better guarantee
for the recognition of Messianic prophecy here than the supposed
direct and exclusive reference did. By not grasping too desperately
at the view which more strikingly involves the supernatural, we have
received back with "full measure pressed down and running over" the
assurance that God was really speaking here, and that this, like all
the promises of the Old Testament when rightly understood, is yea
and amen in Christ.
But for our present purpose the primary reference of this passage
to the prophetic line is even more important than the secondary but
most vital reference to the Messiah. For it sets forth prophecy
as the most potent instrument for the growth and furtherance of
the religion of Israel. The prophet is here declared to be the
successor of Moses, to be the inspired declarer of the Divine will
to His people in cases which did not come within the sphere or the
competency of the priest. The latter was, as we have seen, bound to
work within the limits and on the basis of the revelation given by
Moses. He was to carry out into execution what had been commanded,
to keep alive in the hearts of the people the knowledge of their
God as Moses had given it, to give "Torah" from the sanctuary in
accordance with its principles. But here a nobler office is assigned
to the prophet. He is to enlarge and develop the work of Moses.
The Mosaic revelation is here viewed as fundamental and normative,
but, in contrast to the views of later Judaism, as by no means
complete. For the completion of it the prophet is here declared to
be the Divinely chosen instrument, and he is consequently assigned a
higher position in the purpose of God than either king or priest. He
is raised far above the diviners by having his calling lifted into
the moral sphere; and he excels both the other organs of national
life in that, while they are largely bound by the past, he is called
of God to initiate new and higher stages in the life of the chosen
people. The ascending steps of the revelation begun by Moses were to
be in his hands, and through him God was to reveal Himself in ever
fuller measure.
Viewed thus, the prophetic order in Israel has a quite unique
character. It is a provision for religious progress such as had no
parallel elsewhere in the world; and this public acknowledgment
of its Divine right is almost more remarkable. Wherever elsewhere
in the world religion has been supposed to be Divinely given
through one man, though modifications have indeed been made in
later times, yet they have never been anticipated and provided for
beforehand. Save in the case of Mohammedanism, which borrowed its
idea of the office of the prophet from Judaism, there has never
been a deliberate admission that God had yet higher things to
reveal concerning Himself, still less has provision been made for
the coming of that which was new to fulfil the old. And in modern
times the revealer of new aspects of truth finds nowhere a welcome.
Instead of being received as a messenger of God, even in the
Christian Church he has always to face neglect, often persecution,
and only if he be unusually fortunate does he live to see his
message received. But in Israel, even in such ancient days as those
we are dealing with, the progressive nature of God's Revelation of
Himself was acknowledged, the reception of new truth was legitimised
and looked for, and the highest place in the earthly kingdom of
God was reserved for those whom God had enlightened by it. It is
true of course that the nation as a whole never acted in accordance
with this teaching. They did not obey the command given here, "Unto
him shall ye hearken," and reiterated still more solemnly in the
words, "And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken
unto My words, which he shall speak in My name, I will require of
him." The prophets for the most part spoke to their contemporaries
in vain. Where they were not neglected they were persecuted, and
many sealed their testimony with their blood. But the thought that
Yahweh was educating His people step by step, and that at all times
in their history He would have further revelations of Himself to
make, is familiar to this writer. Therefore he welcomes the thought
of advance in this region of things, and here solemnly enrols those
who are to be the instruments of it among the ruling powers of the
nation.
Now in religious thought this is quite unparalleled. Tenacious
conservatism, based on the conviction that full truth has already
been attained, has always been the mark of religious thinking.
That a religious teacher should be able to see that the light of
revelation, like the natural light, must come gradually, broadening
by degrees into perfect day, and that he himself was standing only
in the morning twilight, is a thing so remarkable that one is at a
loss to account for it, save on the ground of the special nature of
prophetic enlightenment. It was part of the office of the prophets
to foresee and foretell the future. Smend is certainly in the right,
as against those who have been teaching that the prophet was merely
a preacher of genius, when he says that "in Amos and his successors
prophecy is the starting-point of their whole discourse and action,"
and that "all new knowledge which they preach comes to them from the
action of Yahweh which they foretell.... Consequently the greatness
of a prophet is to be gathered from the measure in which he foresees
the future."[95] This statement gives us the truth that lies between
the two other extremes; for according to it the prophet proclaims
and preaches religious truth, but he does so on the basis of what he
perceives that God is about to do in the future. In other words, he
proclaims new truth on the ground of the revelation God is about to
make of Himself, which he is inspired to foresee and to interpret.
His business is neither all foreseeing nor all teaching; it is
teaching grounded upon foresight. Consequently it was impossible
for the prophet to believe that change in religion was in itself
evil. He _knew_ to the contrary. Only change which should remove
men from the Divinely given basis of the faith was evil; and such
change, whatever credentials might accompany it, even though they
might be miraculous, every faithful Israelite had been already
warned most sternly to reject (Deut. xiii. 5). But when the impulse
to advance came from Yahweh's manifestation of Himself, change was
not only good, it was the indispensable test of faithfulness. They
were not the true followers of Isaiah who, on the ground of his
prophecy that Zion, as Yahweh's dwelling-place, should be delivered
from destruction, rejected the prophecy of Jeremiah that Zion would
fall before the Chaldeans. The really faithful men were those who
had taken to heart the lessons Yahweh had set for His people in the
century that lay between these two prophets; who saw that the time
when the deliverance of Zion was necessary to the safety of the true
religion was past, and that now the capture of Zion was necessary
to its true development. And that is not a solitary case; it is an
example of what was normal in the religious history of this people.
[95] _Lehrbuch der Alt-Testamentlichen Religion's Geschichte_, pp.
169 ff.
This did not escape the quick eye of John Stuart Mill. He says
the religion of Israel "gave existence to an inestimably precious
unorganised institution--the order (if it may be so termed) of
prophets.... Religion, consequently, was not there, what it has
been in so many other places, a consecration of all that was once
established, and a barrier against further improvement." There
always was the movement of pulsing life within it, and under the
Divine guidance that movement was always upward. At some times
it was comparatively shallow and slow, at others it was a deep
and rushing tide. But it was always moving in directions which
led straight to the great consummation of itself in the coming of
Christ, who gathered up into His own life all the varied streams of
revelation, and crowned and fulfilled them all. At no point in the
progress from Moses to the Messiah do we touch rounded and completed
truth; nor, according to the teaching of Scripture in this passage,
were we meant to do so. The faithful among Israel had as their
watchword the _disio_ and _pace_ of Dante. They saw before them a
world of Divine "peace," which they knew lay still in the future,
and the "desire" and yearning of their souls were always directed
towards it. With inextinguishable hope they marched onward with
uplifted faces, to which light reflected from that future gave at
times a radiant gladness; and always they kept an open ear for those
who saw what God was about to do at each turning of the way.
But granting that religion was thus progressive before men were
spoken unto "by the Son," can we say or believe that, now that He
has spoken, progress in this way is still possible? At first sight
it would seem necessary to answer that question in the negative. The
progressive revelation of God has come to its perfection in Jesus
Christ; what then remains to us but to cling to that? Are we not
bound to make resistance to progress, to any new view in religion,
our first duty? Many act and speak as if that were the only possible
course consistent with faithfulness. But we must distinguish. The
revelation of God has, according to our Christian faith, reached not
only its highest actual point, but also its highest possible point
in Christ. God can do nothing more for His vineyard than He has
done. As a manifestation of God, revelation is completed and closed
in Christ. For it is impossible to manifest God to men more fully
than in a man who reveals God in every thought and word and act.
But it is quite otherwise with the interpretation of the
manifestation. In the earlier days this was provided for by
a special inspiration of God, which made the holy men of old
infallible in their interpretation of the revelation received up to
their day, and that continued till the establishment of the Church.
Since then the Holy Spirit is to be the guide of faithful men into
all truth. Now in the way of interpreting Christ and His message
progress is as much open to us as it was to Israel. A complete
revelation of God must necessarily, at any given time up till the
consummation of all things, contain in it a residuum of significance
which, at that point of their experience, mankind has not felt the
need of, nor has had the capacity to understand. As the world grows
older, however, new outlooks, new environments, new circumstances
continually appear, and they all insist upon being dealt with by
the Church. In order to deal with them adequately and worthily, a
faithful Church must turn to Christ to see what God would have it
do; and if Christ be what we take Him to be, there will issue from
Him a light, unseen or unnoticed before, to meet the hitherto unfelt
need. Moreover, while our Lord Jesus Christ reveals God completely
as the God of Redemption, and throws light upon all God's relations
to man, a light which needs and admits of no supplementary addition,
there are other aspects of the Divine character which He does not
so entirely reveal. For example, God's relations to the world of
nature, which are now being unveiled in a most striking manner, are
dealt with comparatively rarely in the Gospels. Are we to shut our
eyes to these as of no importance, and to allow them no influence
upon our thoughts? Surely that cannot be demanded of us; for, to
speak plainly, it is impossible. No one can remain unmoved when God
and man are revealing themselves in the wondrous panorama of the
world's life.
Even those who most profess to do so in no case take their stand
simply and solely upon the truths believed and held by the first
Christians. All of them have adopted later developments as part of
their indefeasible treasure. Some go back to the theology of the
great Evangelical Revival only; some to the Reformation; some to the
pre-Reformation Scholastics; others to the first five centuries. But
whatever the point may be at which they take up Christian theology,
they take up, along with the original creed of the first believers,
some truths or doctrines which emerged and were accepted at a later
date. Themselves being judges, therefore, additions to the primitive
deposit of faith have to be admitted; and it is a purely arbitrary
proceeding on their part to say that now we have attained to all
truth, and stolid conservatism is henceforth the only faithful
attitude. No, we have still a living God and a living Church, and a
multifarious and wonderful world to deal with. Interaction of these
cannot be avoided, nor can it occur without new truth being evolved.
To have ears and not to hear, to have eyes and not to see, must be
as offensive to God now as it was in Old Testament times. Though we
have now no inspired prophets to foresee and interpret, we have in
all our Churches men whose ears are better attuned to the celestial
harmony than others, whose eyes have a keener and surer insight
into what God the Lord would speak; and we ought to hear them, to
see at least whether they can make their position good. To reject
their teaching, only because some element or aspect of it is new,
is to deny the guiding providence of God, to turn our back upon the
rich stores of instruction which the facts of history, both secular
and religious, are fitted to impart. That can never be a Christian
duty. Even if it were possible it would be futile. The light will be
received by the younger, the fresher and less stereotyped natures in
all the Churches; and those who refuse it, in holding obstinately
and with exclusive devotion to what they have, will find it shrink
and shrivel in their hand. Only in the rush and conflict, only amid
the impulses and the powers which are moving in the world, can a
healthy religion breathe. Doubtless new teaching will come to _us_
in ways congruous to the completed Revelation of our Redeeming
God; but it will come; and it should be welcomed as gladly as the
teaching of the prophets was welcomed by faithful men in Israel. If
it be not, then the Divine threat will apply in this case as fully
as in the other: "Whosoever will not hearken unto My words which he
shall speak in My name, I will require it of him."
Many say now, and at all times many have said, to those who had
caught glimpses of some new lesson God was desiring to teach: "You
admit that souls have been renewed and character built up and
spiritual life preserved without this new teaching. Why then can
you not let us alone? In your pursuit of the best you may destroy
the good; and no harm can happen if you keep the improved faith to
yourself." But they have forgotten Yahweh's solemn "Whosoever will
not hearken, I will require it of him." If we refuse to hear when
the Lord hath spoken, evil must come of it. Indeed, though the evils
of heresy may be more dramatically and strikingly manifest, those
of stagnation and a refusal to learn may be much more destructive
of the common faith. For refusal to acknowledge truth has far wider
issues than the loss of any particular truth. It indicates and
reinforces an attitude of soul which, if persisted in, will allow
the Church that adopts it to drift slowly away from living contact
with the minds of men. So drifting, it shrinks into a _coterie_, and
its every activity becomes infected with the curse of futility.
On both sides, therefore, there is danger for us, as there was for
the Old Testament Church; and we turn with quickened interest to the
test, the criterion, by which Deuteronomy would have the prophets
tried. It puts the very question which the line of thought we have
been pursuing could not fail to suggest: "How shall we know the
word which Yahweh hath not spoken?" If a prophet spoke in the name
of other gods he was to die; that had already been determined in
the thirteenth chapter, and it is repeated here. But the prophet
who should speak a word presumptuously in the name of Yahweh, which
He had not commanded, was to be in the same condemnation. It was,
therefore, of the last importance that there should be means of
detecting when this last evil occurred. The test is this: "When a
prophet speaketh in the name of Yahweh, if the thing follow not,
nor come to pass, that is the thing which Yahweh hath not spoken."
The strange notions of Duhm and others in regard to this have been
already dealt with (_vide_ pp. 248 f.). There, too, it has been
shown that the prophecy here spoken of must have been prophecy in
its narrower sense, prophecy dealing with promises of _immediate_
judgment and deliverance. Furthermore, this is set forth here as a
test applicable to prophets in all ages of the history of Israel. It
lies, too, in the nature of the case that it must always have been
the popular test. The announcement of things to come before they
came was made, at least partially, with the view of impressing the
populace, and of gaining their confidence and attention. They must
consequently have been continually on the alert to apply this test,
and all that is here done is to acknowledge it in the fullest manner
as a right and Divinely approved criterion.
But the way in which it ought to be applied is best exemplified by
Jeremiah's own method of applying it, which, as Dr. Edersheim[96]
has pointed out, is to be found in the twenty-eighth chapter of
that prophet's book. There we read of Jeremiah's conflict with
"Hananiah the son of Azzur the prophet," in the beginning of the
reign of Zedekiah. Just previously Nebuchadnezzar had carried away
Jeconiah the king of Judah, with all the treasures of the house of
Yahweh and the strength of the people. Jeremiah had prophesied that
they would not return; nay, he had foretold a further calamity,
viz. that Nebuchadnezzar would come again and would take away
the people and the vessels of the house which still remained. In
opposition to that, Hananiah declared, as a word of Yahweh, "Within
two full years will I bring again into this place all the vessels
of Yahweh's house that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away
from this place, and carried them to Babylon; and I will bring
again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah,
with all the captives of Judah that went to Babylon, saith Yahweh."
Jeremiah's conduct under these circumstances is noteworthy. He
did not immediately denounce his rival as prophesying falsely. He
seems to have thought that possibly he might have a true word from
Yahweh, since, as we see in the Book of Jonah, the most positive
prophecies were conditional, and Jeremiah would seem to have thought
it possible that personal repentance was about to bring upon the
captive king and people a blessing, instead of the evil he had
foreseen. He consequently expressed a fervent wish that Hananiah's
prophecy might come true, but reminded his rival that the causes of
the evil prophecies of himself and previous prophets were far wider
than the ground which the personal repentance of the captives could
cover. Because of that he evidently felt the gravest doubt about
Hananiah; but he disposes of the matter by saying, "The prophet
which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come
to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that Yahweh hath truly
sent him." Only afterwards, when he had himself received a special
revelation concerning Hananiah, did he denounce him as an impostor
and a false prophet.
[96] _Prophecy and History in Relation to the Messiah_, p. 150.
The whole narrative is of extreme importance, for it shows us how
the prophets themselves regarded their own supernatural powers, and
how they used the tests supplied in Deuteronomy. In the first place,
they asked how the new word of Yahweh stood in regard to the older
words which He had certainly spoken. If there was any possible way
in which the new and the old could be reconciled, they gave the
new the benefit of the doubt, and left the decision to the event.
Obviously had there been no way of reconciling Hananiah's prophecy
with the mass of contrary prophecy which had gone before, Jeremiah
would have denounced him under the law of Deut. xiii. 5 as leading
away from Yahweh. As it was, he fell back upon the test in this
twenty-eighth chapter, and would have maintained an attitude of
watchful neutrality until the event had justified or condemned his
rival, had not Yahweh Himself settled the question.
For our own day and in our different circumstances the tests are
radically the same, though, as prophecy is extinct in the Church,
they must to some extent act differently. The New Testament parallel
to the criterion in Deut. xiii. 5 is to be found in 1 John iv.
1, 2, and 3: "Prove the spirits, whether they are of God: because
many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye
the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit which confesseth
not Jesus is not of God: and this is the spirit of the antichrist,
whereof ye have heard that it cometh." Under the Christian
dispensation to deny "that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh" is
the same as it was to say under the earlier dispensation "Let us
go after other gods," so completely do God and Christ coincide in
our most holy faith. In each case the ultimate test of prophecy is
to be the fundamental principle of the faith. Whatever credentials
teachers who deny that may bring, they are to be unhesitatingly
rejected. They belong to the world, that scheme and fabric of
things which rejects allegiance to the Spirit of God. Least of all
is popularity with the world as distinguished from the Church, or
with the worldly portion of the Church, to stand in the way of its
rejection. That is only the natural consequence of its being "of
the world." Within the Church no quarter is to be shown to such
teaching, for it really carries with it the absolute negation of the
faith.
But what of erroneous teaching which acknowledges that "Jesus
Christ is come in the flesh"? To it the Old Testament parallel is
the utterance of the prophet who "speaketh in the name of Yahweh,
and the thing followeth not nor comes to pass." According to Old
Testament precept and example, that was to be left to the judgment
of time. In our day a corresponding course must be found. The case
supposed is that of teaching believed to be erroneous, but neither
fundamentally subversive of Christianity nor destructive of the
special principles of a Church. If so, earnest opposition by those
who hold the opposite view, and adequate discussion, are the true
way of meeting the case. For the rest, the final decision should be
left to experience. In time, even subsidiary error of this kind,
if important, will manifest itself by weakening spiritual life in
those who hold it; they will gradually dwindle in numbers and their
influence in the Church will die away. They begin by promising
renewed strength and insight in spiritual things, renewed energy in
the spiritual life. If that "follow not nor come to pass," when due
time has been given for any such development, then that is the thing
which the Lord hath not spoken, and it should be dealt with as the
fundamental heresy is to be dealt with. But probably by that time it
will have judged itself, and will need no judgment of men at all.
These then were the connecting links between Yahweh and His people,
and the organs by which the life of the Israelite nation was guided:
the Kingship, the Priesthood, and the Prophetic Order. The first
gave visibility to the Divine rule, and stability to national
and social life; the second secured the stability of religion,
and built up the moral life of the nation on the basis of Mosaic
law; the third secured progress and averted stagnation, both in
religion and in social and individual morals. In fact, order and
progress, the two things Positivist thinkers have set forth as
those which can alone secure health to a community, are provided
for here with a directness and success which it would be difficult
to parallel elsewhere. When we remember how small, how obscure,
and how uncivilised the people was to whom this scheme of things
was given, and how little their surroundings or circumstances were
calculated to suggest such far-reaching provisions, we see that
the source of it all was the Revelation of the Divine character
given by Moses. Yahweh as revealed through him did not permit His
worshippers to believe that they could, at one moment, receive all
that was to be known about Him. They were taught to found their
conduct and their polity upon what they did know, and to be eagerly
on the watch for that which might be revealed at new crises of their
history. Now that teaching finds its most complete expression in
the laws concerning the three institutions we have been reviewing.
Behind all healthy national life and all stable institutions there
was, so had this people learned, the power and the righteousness of
Almighty God. In His eagerness to draw near to men, He had changed
the priest, the king, the prophet from being, as they were among
the heathen, merely political and religious officials appointed
for purely earthly ends, into channels of communication with
Him. Through them there were poured into the life of this nation
wholesome and varied streams of Divine grace and enlightenment,
and a just balance between conservatism and reform in religion was
admirably secured. Consequently, amid all drawbacks, the Israelites
became an instrument of the finest power for good in the hands of
their Almighty King; and even when their outward glory faded, they
were inwardly renewed and pressed onward age after age. "Without
hasting and without resting," the purpose of God was realised in
their history, guided by these three organs of their national life.
Each contributed its share in preparing for the fulness of the
time when He came who was the Salvation of God, and each supplied
elements of the most essential kind to the mingled expectation which
was so marvellously satisfied by the life and work of Christ. They
wrought together in the fullest harmony, moreover, though they were
not always conscious of doing so. For they all moved at the bidding
of the still small voice wherewith God speaks most effectively to
the souls of men. Because of this their purposes took a wider sweep
than they knew, their hopes received wings which carried them far
away beyond the horizon of Old Testament time; and, starting from
the remotest points, all the streams of the national life converged,
till, at the close of the Old Testament time, they were running in
such directions that they could not fail in little space to meet.
It was therefore no surprise to the faithful in Israel when, at the
beginning of the New Testament, they were found to have met in Jesus
the Christ. Once that point was reached, the whole former history,
which was now lying completed before the eyes of all, could be
fully appreciated. Everything in the past seemed to speak of Him.
If, in that first burst of joyous surprise, Messianic references of
the most definite kind were found where we now can see only faint
hints and adumbrations, we need not wonder. So much more had been
spoken of Him than they had thought, it would have been strange had
they not swung a little to the opposite extreme. But that need not
hinder us from acknowledging that the history of Israel, viewed
from their standpoint, was and is the most conspicuous, the most
convincing, the most inspiring proof of the Divine action in the
world. The finger of God was so manifestly _here_, harmonising,
directing, impelling, that the evidence for Divine guidance in much
more obscure regions becomes irresistible. With this history before
us we can believe that it was not only in those far-off days, and in
that little corner of Asia that God was active for the production of
good. Now and here, as well as then and there, there are Divine and
guiding forces at work in the world; and the only safe politics, the
only truly prosperous peoples, are those in which rulers and priests
and prophets are secured, to whom the secret of God is open.