The prophet's dictionary guide to the supernatural

1 put it, He was now doing so through His Son. The God of the Jews disclosed His eternal redemptive plan through the heretofore unidentified second Person of the Godhead, Jesus Christ. In anticipation of this period, Moses made provision for Jesus’ prophetic ministry in the Law in Exodus 18. Throughout the subsequent prophets’ ministries, the word of the Lord after the Law was an ever unfolding revelation of the Messiah who would come and set it all right. Slivers of clues streamed out of each prophet’s mouth through the years, as epoch after epoch of Israel’s life and history with her God unwound. Each new prophet’s utterance, along with reinforcing obedience to the Law, promised that one day it would be fulfilled in one person. They predicted that the tedious legal requirements for appeasing Jehovah, chronically rejected or perverted by the people, would pass away. Yahweh’s prophets of the day pointed to the time when Jehovah would buy back His people, redeeming them from the grave, the evil one, and finally restore their land to its former prominence, power, and glory in the earth. Of course, we all know that was merely the beginning of the plan. The rest had to do with the coming and ministry of the Great Prophet who was to come. The one we discover in Revelation 19:10 is the Spirit of prophecy who stated that the entirety of the Law and the word of God they had been observing testified of Him. On the basis of His being the embodied word of the Creator, with prophecy being that word in the mouth of the prophets, Jesus designated who was the true and false prophet. Over the course of His ministry, He unfurled the character, preoccupations, and words of those who were not truly speaking on behalf of the Lord God, His Father. All this is not to say that the Lord never addressed the matter in the Old Testament, because repeatedly He did. What is meant is that the designation false prophet as seen in the New Testament is not made in the Old. See for example Deuteronomy 13:1, 5 and 18:20–22. The instances where Jehovah exposed a false prophet include 1 Kings 13, the account of the old prophet the Lord used to deceive the arrogant younger prophet who disobeyed God in order to gloat over his harsh ministry to King Jeroboam. During his service Jeremiah spent an entire chapter distinguishing between the false and true prophet, even if they are not so named in Scripture (see Jeremiah 23). Chapter 28 of his writings shows Jeremiah in conflict with a false prophet, Hananiah, one of the king’s staff of paid prophets who was showing off. Along this line Hosea 4:5, 9:7–8 and Micah 2:11 give us further insight on the prophet walking in falsehood, synonymous with lies in God’s mind. Still and all, it took the apostle Peter to label false prophets as such, which he was able to do after his