knowledge of secret things was revealed, that he might declare them to
others, whether they were things past, or present, or to come. The woman
of Samaria perceived our Saviour was a prophet, by his telling her the
secrets of her _past_ life, John iv, 19. The Prophet Elisha had the
_present_ conduct of his servant Gehazi revealed to him, 2 Kings v, 26.
And most of the prophets had revelations concerning _future_ events;
above all, concerning the coming and kingdom of the Messiah: “He has
raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David,
as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the
world began,” Luke i, 69, 70. Nevertheless, in a more lax or analogical
sense, the title prophet is sometimes given to persons who had no such
revelation, nor were properly inspired. Thus Aaron is said to be Moses’s
prophet: “The Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to
Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet,” Exod. vii, 1:
because Aaron received the divine messages, which he carried immediately
from Moses; whereas other prophets receive their messages immediately
from God himself. In this respect, as Moses stood in the place of God to
Pharaoh, so Aaron acted in the character of his prophet. The title of
prophets is given also to the sacred musicians, who sung the praises of
God, or who accompanied the song with musical instruments. Thus “the
sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun,” are said to “prophesy
with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals,” 1 Chron. xxv, 1; and
they prophesied, it is said, “according to the order of the king.”
Perhaps Miriam, the sister of Aaron, may be called a prophetess only on
this account, that she led the concert of the women, who sung the song
of Moses with timbrels and with dances, Exodus xv, 20, 21. Thus the
Heathen poets, who sung or composed verses in praise of their gods, were
called by the Romans _vates_, or prophets; which is of the same import
with the Greek ϖροφήτης, a title which St. Paul gives to Epimenides, a
Cretan poet, Titus i, 12.
Godwin observes, that, for the propagation of learning, colleges and
schools were in divers places erected for the prophets. The first
intimation we have in Scripture of these schools is in 1 Sam. x, 5,
where we read of “a company of prophets coming down from the high place
with a psaltery, a tabret, a pipe, and a harp before them, and they did
prophesy.” They are supposed to be the students in a college of prophets
at גכעת, or “the hill,” as we render it, “of God.” Our translators
elsewhere retain the same Hebrew word, as supposing it to be the proper
name of a place, “Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines that
was in Geba,” 1 Sam. xiii, 3. Some persons have imagined that the ark,
or at least a synagogue, or some place of public worship, was at this
time at Geba, and that this is the reason of its being styled in the
former passage גבעת האלהים, the hill of God. We read afterward of such
another company of prophets at Naioth in Ramah, “prophesying, and Samuel
standing as appointed over them,” 1 Sam. xix, 19, 20. The students in
these colleges were called sons of the prophets, who are frequently
mentioned in after ages, even in the most degenerate times. Thus we read
of the sons of the prophets that were at Bethel; and of another school
at Jericho; and of the sons of the prophets at Gilgal, 2 Kings ii, 3, 5;
iv, 38. It should seem, that these sons of the prophets were very
numerous; for of this sort were probably the prophets of the Lord, whom
Jezebel cut off; “but Obadiah took a hundred of them, and hid them by
fifty in a cave,” 1 Kings xviii, 4. In these schools young men were
educated under a proper master, who was commonly, if not always, an
inspired prophet, in the knowledge of religion, and in sacred music, 1
Sam. x, 5; xix, 20, and were thereby qualified to be public preachers,
which seems to have been part of the business of the prophets on the
Sabbath days and festivals, 2 Kings iv, 23. It should seem, that God
generally chose the prophets, whom he inspired, out of these schools.
Amos, therefore, speaks of it as an extraordinary case, that though he
was not one of the sons of the prophets, but a herdsman, “yet the Lord
took him as he followed the flock, and said unto him, Go, prophesy unto
my people Israel,” Amos vii, 14, 15. That it was usual for some of these
schools, or at least for their tutors, to be endued with a prophetic
spirit, appears from the relation of the prophecies concerning the
ascent of Elijah, delivered to Elisha by the sons of the prophets, both
at Jericho and at Bethel, 2 Kings ii, 3, 5.
The Hebrew prophets present a succession of men at once the most
singular and the most venerable that ever appeared, in so long a line of
time, in the world. They had special communion with God; they laid open
the scenes of the future; they were ministers of the promised Christ.
They upheld religion and piety in the worst times, and at the greatest
risks; and their disinterestedness was only equalled by their
patriotism. The houses in which they lived were generally mean, and of
their own building, 2 Kings vi, 2–4. Their food was chiefly pottage of
herbs, unless when the people sent them some better provision, as bread,
parched corn, honey, dried fruits, and the like, 1 Kings xiv, 3; 2 Kings
iv, 38, 39, 42. Their dress was plain and coarse, tied about with a
leathern girdle, Zech. xiii, 4; 2 Kings i, 8. Riches were no temptation
to them; therefore Elisha not only refused Naaman’s presents, but
punished his servant Gehazi very severely for clandestinely obtaining a
small share of them, 2 Kings v, 15, &c. To succeeding ages they have
left a character consecrated by holiness, and “visions of the Holy One,”
which still unveil to the church his most glorious attributes, and his
deepest designs. “Prophecy,” says the Apostle Peter, “came not of old
time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by
the Holy Ghost,” 2 Pet. i, 21. They flourished in a continued succession
during a period of more than a thousand years, reckoning from Moses to
Malachi, all coöperating in the same designs, uniting in one spirit to
deliver the same doctrines, and to predict the same blessings to
mankind. Their claims to a divine commission were demonstrated by the
intrinsic excellency of their doctrine; by the disinterested zeal and
undaunted courage with which they prosecuted their ministry, and
persevered in their great design, and by the unimpeachable integrity of
their conduct. But even those credentials of a divine mission were still
farther confirmed by the exercise of miraculous powers, and by the
completion of many less important predictions which they uttered, Deut.
xiii, 1–3; xviii, 22; Joshua x, 13; 1 Sam. xii, 8; 2 Kings i, 10; Isa.
xxxviii, 8; xlii, 9; 1 Sam. ix, 6; 1 Kings xiii, 3; Jer. xxviii, 9;
Ezek. xxxiii, 33. When not immediately employed in the discharge of
their sacred office, they lived sequestered from the world, in religious
communities, or wandered “in deserts, in mountains, and in caves of the
earth;” distinguished by their apparel, and by the general simplicity of
their style of life, 2 Kings i, 8; iv, 10, 38; vi, 1; Isa. xx, 2; Matt.
iii, 4; Heb. xi, 38; Rev. xi, 3. They were the established oracles of
their country, and consulted upon all occasions when it was necessary to
collect the divine will on any civil or religious question. These
illustrious personages were likewise as well the types as the harbingers
of that greater Prophet whom they foretold; and in the general outline
of their character, as well as in particular events of their lives, they
prefigured to the Jews the future Teacher of mankind. Like him, also,
they laboured by every exertion to instruct and reclaim; reproving and
threatening the sinful, however exalted in rank, or encircled by power,
with such fearless confidence and sincerity as often excited respect.
The most intemperate princes were sometimes compelled unwillingly to
hear and to obey their directions, 1 Kings xii, 21–24; xiii, 2–6; xx,
42, 43; xxi, 27; 2 Chron. xxviii, 9–14; though often so incensed by
their rebuke, as to resent it by the severest persecutions. Then it was
that the prophets exhibited the integrity of their characters, by
zealously encountering oppression, hatred, and death, in the cause of
religion. Then it was that they firmly supported “trial of cruel
mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment. They
were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the
sword; they wandered about, destitute, afflicted, tormented,” evil
intreated for those virtues of which the memorial should flourish to
posterity, and martyred for righteousness, which, whenever resentment
should subside, it would be deemed honourable to reverence, Matthew
xxiii, 27–29.
The manner in which the prophets published their predictions was, either
by uttering them aloud in some public place, or by affixing them on the
gates of the temple, Jer. vii, 2; Ezek. iii, 10, where they might be
generally seen and read. Upon some important occasions, when it was
necessary to rouse the fears of a disobedient people, and to recall them
to repentance, the prophets, as objects of universal attention, appear
to have walked about publicly in sackcloth, and with every external mark
of humiliation and sorrow. They then adopted extraordinary modes of
expressing their convictions of impending wrath, and endeavoured to
awaken the apprehensions of their country, by the most striking
illustration of threatened punishment. Thus Jeremiah made bonds and
yokes, and put them upon his neck, Jer. xxvii, strongly to intimate the
subjection that God would bring on the nations whom Nebuchadnezzar
should subdue. Isaiah likewise walked naked, that is, without the rough
garment of the prophet, and barefoot, as a sign of the distress that
awaited the Egyptians, Isa. xx. So Jeremiah broke the potter’s vessel,
Jer. xix; and Ezekiel publicly removed his household goods from the
city, 2 Kings xxv, 4, 5; Ezek. xii, 7; more forcibly to represent by
these actions some correspondent calamities ready to fall on nations
obnoxious to God’s wrath; this mode of expressing important
circumstances by action, being customary and familiar among all eastern
nations. The great object of prophecy was, as has been before observed,
a description of the Messiah, and of his kingdom, Matt. xxvi, 56; Luke
i, 70; xviii, 31; xxiv, 44; John i, 45; Acts iii, 18, 24; x, 43; xiii,
29; xv, 15; xxviii, 23; 1 Pet. i, 10–12. These were gradually unfolded
by successive prophets in predictions more and more distinct. They were
at first held forth in general promises; they were afterward described
by figures, and shadowed out under types and allusive institutions, and
finally foretold in the full lustre of descriptive prophecy. The Hebrew
prophets were chosen of God to testify beforehand of the sufferings of
Christ, and the glory that should follow. See PROPHECY.
PROPITIATION. To propitiate is to appease, to atone, to turn away the
wrath of an offended person. In the case before us, the wrath turned
away is the wrath of God; the person making the propitiation is Christ;
the propitiating offering or sacrifice is his blood. All this is
expressed in most explicit terms in the following passages: “And he is
the propitiation for our sins,” 1 John ii, 2. “Herein is love, not that
we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the
propitiation for our sins,” 1 John iv, 10. “Whom God hath set forth to
be a propitiation through faith in his blood,” Rom. iii, 25. The word
used in the two former passages is ἱλασμὸς; in the last ἱλαϛήριον. Both
are from the verb ἱλάσκω, so often used by Greek writers to express the
action of a person who, in some appointed way, turned away the wrath of
a deity; and therefore cannot bear the sense which Socinus would put
upon it,--the destruction of sin. This is not supported by a single
example. With all Greek authorities, whether poets, historians, or
others, the word means to _propitiate_, and is, for the most part,
construed with an accusative case, designating the person whose
displeasure is averted. As this could not be denied, Crellius comes to
the aid of Socinus, and contends that the sense of this word was not to
be taken from its common use in the Greek tongue, but from the
Hellenistic use of it in the Greek of the New Testament, the LXX. and
the Apocrypha. But this will not serve him; for both by the LXX. and in
the Apocrypha, it is used in the same sense as in the Greek classic
writers. “He shall offer his ἱλασμὸν, _sin-offering_, saith the Lord
God,” Ezek. xliv, 27. “And the priest shall take the blood of the
ἐξιλασμοῦ, _sin-offering_,” Ezek. xlv, 19. Κριὸς τοῦ ἱλασμοῦ, “The ram
of the atonement,” Num. v, 8. To which may be added, out of the
Apocrypha, “Now as the high priest was making ἱλασμὸν, an _atonement_,”
2 Macc. iii, 33.
The propitiatory sense of the word ἱλασμὸς being thus fixed, the modern
Socinians have conceded, in their note on 1 John ii, 2, in their
Improved Version, that it means the “pacifying of an offended party;”
but they subjoin, that Christ is a propitiation, because by his Gospel
he brings sinners to repentance, and thus averts the divine displeasure.
The concession is important; and the comment cannot weaken it, because
of its absurdity; for, in that interpretation of propitiation, Moses, or
any of the Apostles, or any minister of the Gospel now, who succeeds in
bringing sinners to repentance, is as truly a propitiation for sin as
Christ himself. On Rom. iii, 25, however, the authors of the Improved
Version continue to follow their master Socinus, and translate the
passage, “whom God hath set forth a propitiation, through faith in his
blood,” “whom God hath set forth _as_ a mercy seat in his own blood,”
and lay great stress upon this rendering, as removing that countenance
to the doctrine of atonement by vicarious sufferings which the common
translation affords. The word ἱλαϛὴριον is used in the Septuagint
version, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, to express the mercy seat or
covering of the ark. But so little is to be gained by taking it in this
sense in this passage, that this rendering is adopted by several
orthodox commentators as expressing, by a figure, or rather by
emphatically supplying a type to the antitype,--the doctrine of our
Lord’s atonement. The mercy seat was so called, because, under the Old
Testament, it was the place where the high priest, on the feast of
expiation, sprinkled the blood of the sin-offerings, in order to make an
atonement for himself and the whole congregation; and, since God
accepted the offering which was then made, it was, for this reason,
accounted the medium through which God showed himself propitious to the
people. With reference to this, Jesus Christ may be called a mercy seat,
as being the person in or through whom God shows himself propitious to
mankind. And as, under the law, God was propitious to those who came to
him by appearing before his mercy seat with the blood of their
sin-offerings; so, under the Gospel dispensation, he is propitious to
those who come unto him by Jesus Christ, through faith in that blood
which is elsewhere called “the blood of sprinkling,” and which he shed
for the remission of sins. Some able critics have, however, argued, from
the force of the context, that the word ought to be taken actively, and
not merely declaratively; not as “a propitiatory,” but as “a
propitiation,” which, says Grotius, is shown by the mention which is
afterward made of blood, to which the power of propitiation is ascribed.
Others supply θῦμα or ἱερεῖον, and render it _expiatory sacrifice_. But,
whichever of these renderings be adopted, the same doctrine is held
forth to us. The covering of the ark was rendered a propitiatory only by
the blood of the victims sprinkled before and upon it; and when the
Apostle says, that God hath set forth Jesus Christ to be a propitiatory,
he immediately adds, having the ceremonies of the temple in his view,
“through faith in his blood.” The text, therefore, contains no
exhibition of any means of obtaining mercy but through the blood of
sacrifice, according to the rule laid down in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, “Without shedding of blood there is no remission;” and is in
strict accordance with Ephesians i, 7, “We have redemption through his
blood, the remission of sins.” It is only by his blood that Christ
reconciles us to God.
Unable as they who deny the vicarious nature of the sufferings of Christ
are to evade the testimony of the above passages which speak of our Lord
as “a propitiation,” their next resource often is to deny the existence
of wrath in God, in the hope of proving that propitiation, in a proper
sense, cannot be the doctrine of Scripture, whatever may be the force of
the mere terms which the sacred writers employ. In order to give
plausibility to their statement, they pervert the opinion of the
orthodox, and argue as though it formed a part of the doctrine of
Christ’s propitiation and oblation for sin, to represent God as
naturally an implacable and vengeful being, and only made placable and
disposed to show mercy by satisfaction being made to his displeasure
through our Lord’s sufferings and death. This is as contrary to
Scripture as it is to the opinions of all sober persons who hold the
doctrine of Christ’s atonement. God is love; but it is not necessary, in
order to support this truth, to assume that he is nothing else. He has
other attributes, which harmonize with this and with each other; though,
assuredly, that harmony cannot be established by any who deny the
propitiation for sin made by the death of Christ. It sufficiently proves
that there is not only no implacability in God, but a most tender and
placable affection toward the sinning human race itself, and that the
Son of God, by whom the propitiation was made, was the free gift of the
Father to us. This is the most eminent proof of his love, that, for our
sakes, and that mercy might be extended to us, “He spared not his own
Son; but delivered him up freely for us all.” Thus he is the fountain
and first moving cause of that scheme of recovery and salvation which
the incarnation and death of our Lord brought into full and efficient
operation. The true questions are, indeed, not whether God is love, or
whether he is of a placable nature; but whether God is holy and just;
whether we, his creatures, are under law or not; whether this law has
any penalty, and whether God, in his rectoral character, is bound to
execute and uphold that law. As the justice of God is punitive, (and if
it is not punitive, his laws are a dead letter,) then is there wrath in
God; then is God angry with the wicked; then is man, as a sinner,
obnoxious to this anger; and so a propitiation becomes necessary to turn
it away from him. Nor are these terms unscriptural; they are used in the
New Testament as emphatically as in the Old; though, the former is, in a
special sense, a revelation of the mercy of God to man. John declares
that, if any man believeth not on the Son of God, “the wrath of God
abideth upon him;” and St. Paul affirms, that “the wrath of God is
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of
men.” The day of judgment is, with reference to the ungodly, said to be
“the day of wrath;” God is called “a consuming fire;” and, as such, is
the object of “reverence and godly fear.” Nor is this his displeasure
light, and the consequences of it a trifling and temporary
inconvenience. When we only regard the consequences which have followed
sin in society, from the earliest ages, and in every part of the world,
and add to these the many direct and fearful inflictions of punishment
which have proceeded from the “Judge of the whole earth,” then, to use
the language of Scripture, “our flesh may well tremble because of his
judgments.” But when we look at the future state of the wicked as
represented in Scripture, though it is expressed generally, and
surrounded with the mystery of a place, and a condition of being,
unknown to us in the present state, all evils which history has crowded
into the lot of man appear insignificant in comparison of banishment
from God, separation from good men, public condemnation, torment of
spirit, “weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth,” “everlasting
destruction,” “everlasting fire.” Let men talk ever so much or
eloquently of the pure benevolence of God, they cannot abolish the facts
recorded in the history of human suffering in this world as the effects
of transgression; nor can they discharge these fearful comminations from
the pages of the book of God. These cannot be criticised away; and if it
is “Jesus who saves us from this wrath to come,” that is, from those
effects of the wrath of God which are to come, then, but for him, we
should have been liable to them. That principle in God, from which such
effects follow, the Scriptures call wrath; and they who deny the
existence of wrath in God, deny, therefore, the Scriptures.
It by no means follows, however, that this wrath is a passion in God; or
that, though we contend that the awful attribute of his justice requires
satisfaction, in order to the forgiveness of the guilty, we afford
reason to any to charge us with attributing vengeful affections to the
divine Being. “Our adversaries,” says Bishop Stillingfleet, “first make
opinions for us, and then show that they are unreasonable. They first
suppose that anger in God is to be considered as a passion, and that
passion a desire of revenge; and then tell us, that if we do not prove
that this desire of revenge can be satisfied by the sufferings of
Christ, then we can never prove the doctrine of satisfaction to be true;
whereas, we do not mean by God’s anger, any such passion, but the just
declaration of God’s will to punish, upon our provocation of him by our
sins; we do not make the design of the satisfaction to be that God may
please himself in revenging the sins of the guilty upon the most
innocent person, because we make the design of punishment not to be the
satisfaction of anger as a desire of revenge, but to be the vindication
of the honour and rights of the offended person by such a way as he
himself shall judge satisfactory to the ends of his government.” See
ATONEMENT and EXPIATION.
PROPITIATORY, among the Jews, was the cover or lid of the ark of the
covenant, which was lined both within and without with plates of gold,
insomuch that there was no wood to be seen. Some even take it to have
been one piece of massive gold. The cherubims spread their wings over
the propitiatory. This propitiatory was a type or figure of Christ. See
PROPITIATION.
PROSELYTE, Προσήλυτος, signifies _a stranger_, _a foreigner_; the Hebrew
word גר, or נכר, also denotes a stranger, one who comes from abroad, or
from another place. In the language נכר of the Jews, those were called
by this name who came to dwell in their country, or who embraced their
religion, being not Jews by birth. In the New Testament they are called
sometimes proselytes, and sometimes Gentiles, fearing God, Acts ii, 5;
x, ii, 22; xiii, 16, 50. The Jews distinguish two kinds of proselytes.
The first, proselytes of the gate; the others, proselytes of justice or
righteousness. The first dwelt in the land of Israel, or even out of
that country, and, without obliging themselves to circumcision, or to
any other ceremony of the law, feared and worshipped the true God,
observing the rules imposed on Noah. These were, according to the
rabbins, 1. To abstain from idolatry; 2. From blasphemy; 3. From murder;
4. From adultery; 5. From theft; 6. To appoint just and upright judges;
7. Not to eat the flesh of any animal cut off while it was alive.
Maimonides says, that the first six of these precepts were given to
Adam, and the seventh to Noah. The privileges of proselytes of the gate
were, first, that through holiness they might have hope of eternal life.
Secondly, they could dwell in the land of Israel, and share in the
outward prosperities of it. It is said they did not dwell in the cities,
but only in the suburbs and the villages; but it is certain that the
Jews often admitted into their cities, not only proselytes of
habitation, but also Gentiles and idolaters, as appears by the
reproaches on this account, throughout the Scriptures.