The Purpose of Prophecy and Miracles in the Church

(Essay #7 – God’s Prophetic Spirit)

KINDLE VERSION

God never acts without a purpose. His power is unlimited and so whenever He moves, the power used in that movement is, by definition, a measured and intentional use of that power. Further, He is not fascinated with His own majesty and determined to “show off” to humanity just for the passing pleasure that so consumes the human mind at times. God’s work is always precise, purposeful, and fruitful.

It follows then that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to “all flesh” about which Joel prophesied must have been needed to accomplish God’s purpose in the church. As we have seen in previous essays, Joel’s prophecy which promised the power of the Holy Spirit to the church was not a change in the demonstration of God’s power, but a change in the extent to which that power was made available to mankind.[1] As God moved His focus from the national kingdom of Israel to the universal kingdom of His dear Son, He also moved from the prophecy, dreams, and visions that His Spirit provided to a few of His people to gifting “all flesh” of His people with those same prophetic abilities. There were specific reasons God chose to make use of the Holy Spirit’s power in this way.

The New Testament reveals at least four main functions the outpouring of the Holy Spirit played in the establishment and growth of the church in the first generation of Christians. In this essay, it will be shown that the Holy Spirit’s power was given to all the saints in order to accomplish these four critical steps in building and maturing the church of Christ:

1. The Holy Spirit was Needed to Reveal the New Testament
2. The Holy Spirit was Needed to Confirm the Truthfulness of the Revelation
3. The Holy Spirit was Needed to Equip the Early Church in its Service
4. The Holy Spirit was Needed to Produce Unity Among the Saints

Perhaps one of the biggest expositional missteps made by students of the Bible today is the direct application of passages speaking about the Holy Spirit’s work in one of these four areas to themselves today. In the discussion of this essay, it will be shown that each of these four points was temporary in its demand and has already been fulfilled by the work of the Holy Spirit. The completion of these steps was the reason for the Spirit’s outpouring in Joel 2. Once all of the reasons for the Spirit’s outpouring were completed, God’s purpose for providing the Holy Spirit in that manner also ended. As God does nothing without purpose behind the action, once the purpose for the Holy Spirit’s prophetic action ended, it necessarily follows that the Holy Spirit’s prophetic work (the work promised in the last days of Joel 2) also ended. As a result, the specific work described in verses in the New Testament which are founded on the prophecy of Joel 2 also ended. It is critically important then that we understand why the Holy Spirit was needed in each of the four steps above. That understanding will be a powerful interpretive tool in our further study of the Holy Spirit’s work as described in the verses of the New Testament.

The Holy Spirit was Needed to Reveal the New Testament

Revelation of the will of God has always been a practical necessity for man. The Bible is consistent in its statements of two things: 1) Man cannot direct his own steps; 2) On his own, man cannot know the will of God. Jeremiah stated the first of those points in this way: “I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps”(Jeremiah 10:23).[2] Paul would build on those thoughts and state the second of those points in this complementary way: “For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:11). It has always been a truth that man needs revelation from God.

In that sense the Bible is both the content of the revelation and the account of how man received that revelation from God. The whole of the Bible is attributed to the revelatory work of the Holy Spirit. Peter makes that statement about the production of the Old Testament: “For 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 Peter 1:21). Paul completes the picture by affirming that the revelation of the New Testament through the apostles was also a work of the Spirit: “But, as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him’ these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10).

That Joel 2 would promise that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the “last days” would produce gifts of revelation is not surprising then. The direct statement that in those latter days the Holy Spirit would provide “prophecy, dreams, and visions” is a promise that the content of God’s revelation and the protection of inspiration would guarantee that God’s message was perfectly received by man.

However, there is more to be considered than just that the Holy Spirit gifted the early saints. God was able to accomplish the revelation of the entire 39 books of the Old Testament with a relatively small number of prophetically empowered men and women. Why would He need to pour out gifts of prophecy and revelatory visions and dreams to accomplish the same function with the New Testament?

Much of the answer can be seen by examining the difference in the audiences of the Old and New Testaments. Even though the Old Testament’s revelation took more than a millennium to finish, nearly all of it was directed to a single physical nation.[3] When the books of Moses were written, the entirety of that nation was in a collective body wandering throughout the Sinai Peninsula. The rest of their books of history were penned while the nation lived in the Promised Land. Their prophets wrote mostly in that same circumstance. Even during the period of Israel’s exile in Babylon and Persia, their prophets still had easy access to most of their population. However, the intended nature of the church in New Testament times required a different approach. Jesus told His apostles that their witness to Him would need to be carried into the entire world (Acts 1:8). Further, once the persecution of the saints in Jerusalem began, those saints scattered themselves throughout that world (Acts 8:4). After that point, no one prophet or even a small group of prophets could possibly keep the whole Christian community informed about the ongoing revelation of God’s new covenant in the gospel.[4]

His solution to that dilemma was to have His apostles empower “all flesh” in His church with the revelatory powers of the Holy Spirit. That action by God made it possible for all that were scattered abroad to “go everywhere preaching the word” (Acts 8:4). They could do so because they were prophets. Every place the gospel went it went through the ever-growing number of prophets that existed in the church.

Evidence of the growing sources of revelation in the New Testament church is seen in the biblical text. In 1 John 4:1, John gives the following admonition to his readers: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” John is exhorting his readers not to believe everyone who claims to be a prophet. Why does John have to make that warning to his readers? As we saw in the last essay, the presence of a prophet other than Moses caused an uproar in Israel (Numbers 11:27-29). However, in the early church, not only were prophets widely accepted, but John must also warn his readers against accepting all prophets. What this means is that the church was conditioned to expect the “spirit” in the world to be from God. The experience of every early saint was that every other Christian they encountered was a potential prophet.

As the church spread across the ancient world, it encountered all of the languages, cultures, and customs of the nations that existed at the time. God’s wisdom concluded that prophetic abilities would need to be widely distributed to meet the demands this geographic and demographic diversity placed upon the church. So the Holy Spirit was needed, and needed by all the early saints, to ensure that the revelation of God was equally given to all nations.

The Holy Spirit was Needed to Confirm the Truthfulness of the Revelation

Just as God always provided man a divine source to know His revelation, He also provided evidence to show that the revelation that was provided was divine. Any man can claim to speak on the behalf of God and many have throughout the history of mankind. The passage quoted above from 1 John 4:1 shows God’s expectation that man think critically as he accepts a message as prophetic. In other words, we should never accept any person’s claim that God has spoken to him without some form of evidence that indeed such revelation has taken place.

In the Bible, there are two ways in which a prophet is to be tested.[5] The first test that is to be applied to him is whether or not his words come true. A true prophet from God will never be wrong about the events that he is predicting. All of those who have predicted the return of Jesus or some other action of God in the modern world have shown themselves to be false prophets. There is no reason to give them a second chance. There is no reason to hold to their doctrines. The first moment they are wrong, one can know for a certainty that they are not speaking on the behalf of God. The Bible applies this test to prophets in this way:

But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. (Deuteronomy 18:20-22)

It is fortunate for many modern-day preachers who make the claim that God is “laying things on their hearts” by His Holy Spirit that God’s people no longer live in the theocracy of Israel. If we did, according to Deuteronomy, their preaching careers would be much shorter in duration. If all the “prophets” of our day who have spoken words that did not “come to pass” would simply stop speaking, much of the confusion in modern religion would dissolve in the silence of their muted lips.

The second test given to prophets is more directly tied to the work of the Holy Spirit referenced in Joel 2. To prove the truthfulness of His word through His prophets, God provided confirmatory miracles, signs, and wonders. While any man can claim to be a prophet, only one who is truly speaking on the behalf of God can confirm the veracity of that boast with miraculous deeds. In John 9 the account is given of Jesus’ healing of a man who had been blind since the time of his birth. After his miraculous healing the newly sighted man was brought before the Pharisees to explain what had happened to him. In defense of Jesus before his hostile examiners, the man made use of the connection of Jesus’ demonstrated miraculous powers and the legitimacy of his prophetic ministry:

The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” (John 9:30-33)

To the recipient of the miracle, the connection between true miracles and true prophecy was self-evident. To him it was “amazing” that men as astute as the Pharisees could not make the connection that a man able to cure blindness was from God. True prophets are able to work true miracles.

This truth is established in the Old Testament as well. While at the burning bush, Moses stated the obvious problem with going to a group of people and announcing that God has spoken to you: “Then Moses answered, ‘But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you'” (Exodus 4:1). And why should the enslaved Israelites have believed the disgraced former Egyptian prince? Why should anyone believe the claim that God has spoken to any man?

God accepted Moses’ objection as legitimate and provided Moses with an answer. In the next several verses God provided Moses with a series of signs that would prove his prophetic credentials. Pay special attention to the function that God says the “voice” of the signs would serve for Moses:

And the LORD said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod. And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it. And the LORD said unto Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand: That they may believe that the LORD God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee. And the LORD said furthermore unto him, Put now thine hand into thy bosom. And he put his hand into his bosom: and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow. And he said, Put thine hand into thy bosom again. And he put his hand into his bosom again; and plucked it out of his bosom, and, behold, it was turned again as his other flesh. And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign. And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe also these two signs, neither hearken unto thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water of the river, and pour it upon the dry land: and the water which thou takest out of the river shall become blood upon the dry land. (Exodus 4:2-9, KJV)

The signs given to Moses would prove that he was truthful in claiming that God had spoken to him.

In the earthly ministry of Jesus these confirmatory signs are attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit. Peter calls Jesus “. . . a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him . . .” (Acts 2:22).[6] Later, Peter specifically stated that those mighty works were done through the power of the Holy Spirit: “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”(Acts 10:38)

The same attribution is made during the days of the early church. The Holy Spirit was responsible for the confirmatory witness to the true gospel of Jesus Christ:

How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. (Hebrews 2:3-4)

Mark records that Jesus confirmed the message of His apostles with the “signs” that followed those who believed in Him: “And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs” (Mark 16:20). Paul used the same argument to prove the superiority of his “gospel” to that of the Judaizers: “Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? . . . Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?” (Galatians 3:2, 5).[7] Along the same lines, Paul defended his apostleship to the Corinthians by his ability to produce the “true signs” of an apostle among them: “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works” (2 Corinthians 12:12).

In an environment where the church grew geographically to a size larger than would allow for the apostles to provide direct oversight of each congregation, there existed a real danger that false prophets could infiltrate those congregations in their infancy. Additionally, since as we have noted, prophets were common among the early saints, those bodies of believers would be conditioned to receive revelation from inspired individuals. The mixture of a lack of direct oversight and a receptive, inexperienced audience was fertile ground for false teaching to grow. That potentially dangerous condition made the confirmatory gifts absolutely critical. The early saints needed a way to “test the spirits” that came to them (1 John 4:1-2). They needed a way to verify that men who claimed to be apostles actually were apostles (Revelation 2:2). The miracles of the Holy Spirit provided the church the ability to sort through the true prophets of God and the false prophets.

The Holy Spirit was Needed to Equip the Early Church in its Service

Planting a new congregation in a new location is never an easy task. However in a modern context, we have an almost unlimited supply of tools and resources at our disposal. First, we have the completed Bible and can provide lost-cost copies of it in nearly any language to as many individuals as we need. Second, we have all the supporting literature and supplies that we could need. We have Bible school materials, hymnals, periodicals, and more books on church growth and organization than we could ever use. Third, we have the expertise of dozens of generations of Christians from which to draw. That experience gives us a history of successes and failures, of apostasies, reformations, and restorations to guide us. Fourth, we have the support of established congregations of God’s people. Every mission point today can find mature Christians that can provide counsel and spiritual and financial aid to help in the growth of an infant congregation. Perhaps, living so intimately with these blessings, we can forget sometimes how blessed we are.

For just a moment, imagine all of those blessings were stripped away. The New Testament is no longer in written form. No hymnals exist. In fact, no Christian hymns have even been written. There are no mature Christians or established congregations in the world. All of the expertise that exists is the experience of man in the three-year long studies of the apostles during the earthly ministry of Jesus. You have been with them for a time in Jerusalem, but the persecution that began to grow caused you to flee Jerusalem for your hometown. You are one of those who was “scattered abroad” as is described in Acts 8. Soon after your arrival at your home, the first Sunday of your new life rolls around. In Jerusalem you had been with the saints who had “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and of prayers” (Acts 2:42).  But you did all of those things under the direction of the apostles. Now you are on your own with maybe a small handful of disciples who had fled back home with you. What do you do now?

The problem would have been a very real one. Who would preach? What would he preach? How would you sing and what songs did you have to sing? Do you really know the proper way to pray? Do you think you could instruct someone else about the true significance of the Lord’s Supper? If a personal problem or doctrinal difference arose, are you equipped to know how to address it? You would quickly realize that you are not equipped to address any of these issues fully. Worse yet, other than twelve men located hundreds of miles from you, no one in the world has been a Christian longer than you have. There is no one in your congregation, in your town, or even in all of your country that knows more about Christianity than you do. There is no way for you to find a quick and reliable answer to all the problems facing you and your fellow saints as you try to strengthen your congregation and tell others about the gospel of Christ.

That is of course, unless God has provided a way to overcome those problems. If every saint who left Jerusalem in the dispersion of Acts 8 was gifted through his receiving of the Holy Spirit to be a tongue-speaker, an interpreter of tongues, a prophet, a teacher, a healer and/or a host of other functions then your small fellowship of believers would have access to a divinely provided lifeline of support to help grow your faith and congregation. It is that function that the miracles of the Holy Spirit would have played in the early church. For the day-to-day existence of the early congregations, the constant presence of the spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit would have been the most impactful effect of the Spirit’s work among the saints.

In both 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4, Paul describes the function of the spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit in relation to this purpose. In Ephesians 4:12 the gifts are said to be given “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” In similar fashion in 1 Corinthians 12:7 the gifts are said to be given “for the common good” and in verses 23-24 the gifts are said to have been granted to shower more honor upon those parts that were lacking. In summary of their purpose, Paul’s argument states that the gifts should be used “so that all may learn and all be encouraged” (1 Corinthians 14:31). The first-century saints would have called upon these gifts every day and at every assembly of service and worship to empower them to act as God desired them to act.

The Holy Spirit Empowered Every Function of the New Testament Church

In reading the New Testament, modern Christians sometimes overlook how this kind of demonstrable relationship with the Holy Spirit would have impacted the early church. When Paul rhetorically asks the church in Corinth, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you . . .” many people today see in that question a reference to an indwelling which has no tangible, perceptible external effect on them (1 Corinthians 6:19). Yet for the early saints the concept that the Holy Spirit’s work among them was a wholly internal experience would have been foreign to them. Their familiarity with what the Holy Spirit did for them would have been that He directed nearly every activity in which the church was engaged.

The Holy Spirit Provided the Church Its Early Leaders

The first leaders of the church were the apostles. From the first moment of their ministry they were “all filled with the Holy Spirit” and that indwelling immediately produced the miraculous demonstration of tongue-speaking among them (Acts 2:4). Every Christian knew that to be an apostle a man must have access to the prophetic empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

However, the Holy Spirit’s direction of the leaders of the churches of Christ in the first-century extended beyond just the apostles. Its elders or pastors were also men who were gifted by the Holy Spirit. Paul includes “shepherds” among the list of gifted individuals Jesus placed in the early church:  “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers” (Ephesians 4:11).[8]

Given that these men were responsible for guarding the flock of God against dangers from within and without, of giving “instruction in sound doctrine,” and silencing the mouths of those who were insubordinate and contradicted the teaching of that sound doctrine, it is understandable why they are included in the list of those specially gifted individuals (Acts 20:28; Titus 1:9).[9] Their work required a full knowledge of God’s word and in the early church that could only come through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Until the church could stand as a full-grown man against “every wind of doctrine” before it (Ephesians 4:14), it would have needed prophetically-gifted leaders in every congregation to stop the mouths of false teachers seeking to pull it away from the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit Provided the Church Its Early Teachers

This function of the gifts is perhaps most readily seen in this area. The gospel was previously unknown (2 Corinthians 2:8-9). Its teaching beginning in Acts 2 was new revelation to man. It was only through revelation provided by the Holy Spirit that men received their knowledge of this message. It is natural that the New Testament makes reference to the presence of prophets in the church in many places.[10] The Bible also lists “teachers” and “evangelists” among the gifted people in the church (1 Corinthians 12:28-29; Ephesians 4:11). Prophets and teachers of God’s word lived in every place the gospel went.[11] Without the presence of these teachers the gospel could never have spread throughout the entire world as quickly as it did.

The Holy Spirit Provided the Church Its Early Servants

The specific role given to gifted people in the church was in the administration of the daily food to the widows of the church. In Acts 6, the seven men chosen to serve in that function had the same relationship to the Holy Spirit as did the apostles: They were “full of the Spirit” (cp. Acts 2:4; 6:3).[12] Having men gifted to serve in various capacities in the church is more commonly referenced in the New Testament than some might have realized. The thought is found in at least the following verses:

1. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; (Romans 12:6-7)
2. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; (1 Corinthians 12:4-5)
3. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. (1 Corinthians 12:28)
4. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, (Ephesians 4:11-12)
5. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4:10-11)

The church needed more than just empowered pastors and teachers. The life of a congregation of God’s people is often in the hands of people beyond just that select group. The church in Jerusalem needed men who could distribute the foods without partiality and uphold the universal nature of the gospel message by serving the Hellenistic widows with the same care as they did the widows of Jerusalem. Later, Paul would emphasize the same qualification of impartiality in deacons in the church: “They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience” (1 Timothy 3:9). The mystery was about the unity of all men – specifically Jew and Gentile – in the kingdom.[13] That mystery was made known to man only by the revelation of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 3:3-4). In the early days of the church, before the letters of the apostles were distributed so that men could learn the fullness of the mystery by reading, the only path of a deacon holding that mystery in a pure conscience was through a connection to the revelation of the Holy Spirit. A man gifted by the Holy Spirit would be the most natural candidate to fulfill a role with the requirement placed upon it by Paul.

God gifted men and women in the early church to guide them in their service. He did this for the sake of the upholding of the mystery and for the practical reality that no man had ever served in the Lord’s church before. There was no pattern in place to know which works the church should and should not do (and how those works should and should not be done).

The Holy Spirit Provided the Church Its Worship

Perhaps no area highlights the church’s reliance on the Holy Spirit in the early days than in the area of worship. To us, worship comes as a natural thing. Our services are practiced. The expressions within them are most often expected. Week to week our prayers have the same form, our sermons follow a structure and timing, and our songs are most familiar to the point of memorization. Even a new convert to Christianity can be acclimated to our culture quickly because of the support system that is around him. However, the early church had none of those advantages. No one had prayed a Christian prayer before. None of its “preachers” had formal training in Christian homiletics. The church had no song-writers so had no hymns or songs of praise of its own. Just as a parent teaches a toddler to experience the world around him, God had to train his youthful church how to experience the privilege of worshipping Him. Jews knew only the worship in the temple. The Gentiles knew only the festivals of paganism. Both needed God, through the direction of the His Holy Spirit to guide them in the ways of a true worship.

An examination of the Holy Spirit’s interaction with man in the New Testament reveals that He was involved in the church’s worship in an intimate way, directing them at each step.

Preaching and Teaching

We have just seen that the Holy Spirit provided teachers and prophets to the church so I will just mention this in passing. However, 1 Corinthians 14 should be noted in this specific context. The chapter is Paul’s attempt to help the saints properly use the gifts of the Spirit in the assembly. His desire for them was that all should be able to prophesy (14:5). But to ensure an orderly service, he limited the number of prophets to speak in each assembly to no more than three (14:29, 40). Even in that, the reliance of the church on its prophets is highlighted. When the church came together, its prophets spoke to them. In other words, the Holy Spirit provided the content of the sermons preached in the church in Corinth and all the other churches as well. Without the gift of prophecy in a congregation, that congregation would have been helpless in learning God’s word.

Singing

What is singing? It is the vocal proclamation of God’s word and praise of His glory. Its function within the assembly is both praise and teaching: “. . . teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16). If the Holy Spirit provided the early church its ability to teach one another with the spoken word, why would He not have done the same through the word in song?

At the beginning of the church the Jewish Christians could have turned to the psalms of Judaism, but no Christian hymns would have existed for them. The Gentile Christians would have been in a far worse condition. It is unlikely that many of the songs of paganism would have been appropriate for use in a Christian assembly. The Holy Spirit would have been needed to teach Christians how to teach each other in song.

Does the Bible ever speak of “inspired songs” of the Holy Spirit? Indeed, it does. In fact an entire book of the Old Testament contains nothing but inspired songs: Psalms. The man known as the “sweet psalmist” of Israel, David, proclaimed the Holy Spirit as the source of his music: “. . . the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel: ‘The Spirit of the LORD speaks by me; his word is on my tongue’” (2 Samuel 23:1-2). The first “hymnal” of God’s people was a compilation of songs given directly from the mouth of the Holy Spirit.

The New Testament also speaks of inspired song at least twice in the writings of Paul. In his admonition to the Ephesians to sing, he appeals to the work of the Spirit:

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, (Ephesians 5:18-20)

Before they were to address one another in song, they were to be “filled with the Spirit.” Just as Bezalel needed to filled with the Holy Spirit before crafting the furniture of the tabernacle for the first time (Exodus 31:2-5); just as the apostles needed to filled with the Holy Spirit before the gospel for the first time (Acts 2:1-4); the saints in Ephesus need to be filled with the Spirit in order to instruct one another in hymns for the first time. Ephesians 5:18 is a statement of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit within their singing.[14]

In 1 Corinthians 14:26, Paul describes the actions of the gifted Corinthians in their assembly with these words: “What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up” (1 Corinthians 14:26). We know the source of their lessons, revelations, tongues, and interpretations. All of those we acknowledge came through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. What of their “hymns?” They were provided through the same source. They came as a result of the gifts of the Spirit present in the church.

The first hymn writers of the New Testament, just like the hymn writers of the Old Testament were inspired Christians empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Prayers

At one point in Jesus’ earthly ministry, His disciples approached Him with this request: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). The same need would have existed among the early saints. If the Jewish disciples of Jesus, who had access to the prayers of the Old Testament, did not know how Jesus would want them to pray, what chance would a pagan Gentile have in understanding how Christian prayer should be offered? Just as with the other acts of worship, the Holy Spirit was needed to direct the prayers of the early church.

Once again, the New Testament does speak of the need of the Holy Spirit to be involved in the prayer life of the church. Both Ephesians 6:18 and Jude 20 reference the idea of “praying in the Spirit.” However, they do so without much indication as to what that action would mean. It is in 1 Corinthians 14 again that the answer is provided:

For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also. (1 Corinthians 14:14-15)

At least some of the prayers in Corinth were prayers made in tongues. They were prayer made through an act of prophecy. They were prayers made “in the Spirit.” That phrase is consistently a statement of prophetic utterances dozens of times in the Bible.[15]

Paul also references the Holy Spirit’s involvement in prayer in Romans 8:26.[16] Of note in that passage is the reason for the need of the Spirit’s help in prayer: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). The saints of that time had a weakness. They did not “know what to pray for as we ought.” Their understanding of the “ought” quality of prayer was lacking. The language is most reminiscent of the disciples’ address to Jesus: “Lord, teach us to pray.” Both groups of disciples had a deficiency in their understanding of prayer. The apostles had Jesus with them and so could ask Him to meet their need. The saints of Rome did not.[17] Those saints needed the Holy Spirit to help fill in their weakness in prayer. Just as the saints addressed in the book of Jude, the saints in Corinth, and the saints in Ephesus, in order for the prayers of the Romans to be complete, they needed to pray “in the Spirit.”

In every way of worship, service, and administration of the early church the direct involvement of the Holy Spirit was needed to equip the saints to live as God would have them live. It strains credibility that Paul’s rhetorical question to them: “. . . do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you . . .” was intended by Paul (or understood by the Corinthians) to refer to anything other than the overflowing and daily miraculous manifestation of the Holy Spirit upon which those saints intimately depended for survival. In our attempt to make such passages apply to modern Christians in a universal and direct manner, we have robbed them of the meaning they were intended to have to the saints to whom they were originally written. Those saints knew the Holy Spirit not in some nebulous, uncertain way. They knew Him as the Giver of revelation and the Sustainer of their service to God.

The Holy Spirit was Needed to Produce Unity Among the Saints

The miracles of the Holy Spirit provided one last critical service for the early church. It is the evidence of the unity that existed because the gospel had supplanted the Law of Moses. This topic is the focus of three essays on the mystery and so will only be addressed briefly at this point.[18]

In short, it should be noted that the kingdom of God was intended to bring all nations into it (Isaiah 2:2-4). However, as long as the Law of Moses stood, the Jews’ claim of primacy before God could not be overcome. It served as the “dividing wall of hostility” between the Jews and the rest of the world so long as it stood (Ephesians 2:14). The work of the Christ broke down that wall and allowed for all men to be unified in one body in Christ (Ephesians 1:10-11; 2:15). That concept is known in the New Testament as the “mystery” (Ephesians 3:1-6).

The Holy Spirit is the one who is credited with revealing the truth of the mystery to man (1 Corinthians 2:8ff). So it is in this sense that through the Holy Spirit the unification of all man in one body is called the “unity of the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3). When Christ ascended he left the gifts of the Holy Spirit behind to equip the saints in the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4:11, 12). It is that equipping that has been much of the discussion in this essay. Those gifts proclaimed and defended the truth of the gospel against all attacks, especially those of the Judaizing teachers who denied that the Gentiles could be saved.

However, in time the claim of the Judaizers was defeated and the nation of Israel was destroyed by the armies of Rome in A.D. 70. At that time the fullness of the wisdom of God in his eternal purpose was seen clearly by all (Ephesians 3:9-11). Paul describes the realization of the true unity of all mankind in Christ as the saints coming in the “unity of the faith” (Ephesians 4:13). With the fullness of God’s plan revealed, the church had “grown up” to the fullness of the stature in Christ that God had intended for it and so the gifts, having completed their purpose, were ended. The church was ready to put away the “childish” things of prophecy and live as a “grown man” before God (1 Corinthians 13:9-11). The visible manifestation of the prophetic empowerment of both Jews and Gentiles in the early church provided a strong witness to the true nature of unity among all people that God intended for His kingdom.

Conclusion

It is in that unified condition that we now live before God. The complete revelation of the word of the Holy Spirit is ours to enjoy. The truthfulness of His words has a full confirmation for us. Through the words of Scripture, we are fully equipped in every act of worship and service before God. As one body, the bride of Christ, we proclaim in agreement with the Spirit, “Come. And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” (Revelation 22:17)

Every need that the church had for the prophetic works of the Holy Spirit has been accomplished. His body, the church, is a full-grown body. The purpose behind the miracles and prophecies of the Holy Spirit in the church has been completed. And God does nothing without a purpose.

[1] Please see Essay #6: “The Extent of Prophecy in the Church.”

[2] All scripture quotations taken from the English Standard Version (ESV) unless otherwise noted.

[3] A few of the prophets (i.e. Jonah, Nahum, Obadiah) were addressed to foreign nations. Also portions of other books were aimed at other nations (i.e. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel).

[4] It should be noted that there is a difference in the ability of “a small group of prophets” (i. e. the apostles) to distribute the gifts to a growing church and keeping that church informed about the ongoing revelation. To distribute gifts to every member of a congregation would take an apostle a few days, at most, in each city. The act of laying hands on a person does not take a long time. However, to teach that same church all of the new revelation the Holy Spirit was delivering could take months, years or even a lifetime in each place. A modern parallel would be the time it would take a missionary to distribute Bibles in a new city versus teaching that new city all that is in the Bible. One is done quickly. The other most certainly is not. That distinction is one reason that a wide distribution of the gifts was necessary. A few men could readily handle distributing the gifts to the church. But teaching this new gospel to the whole world in one generation needed an untold number of prophets to accomplish.

[5] A third method of testing the work of prophets is found in Deuteronomy 13:1-3. The method described there is simply to ignore any “prophet” who taught Israel to turn away from the true God to follow any idol. In that case the message itself was sufficient evidence to show that the prophet in question was a false prophet.

[6] Both Nicodemus (John 3:1-2) and the blind man of John 9 (vs.30-33) used the same line of reasoning to conclude that God was with Jesus in His ministry.

[7] For a examination of the Judaizers, please see Appendix A: “Who were the Judaziers?” at the end of this volume.

[8] The Greek word translated here “shepherds” is the same word that is rendered “pastors” in other places in the New Testament. It describes the same office as those that many call “elders.” 1 Peter 5:1 calls the same men “elders” that verses 2-4 of that text calls “shepherds” or “pastors.”

[9] It should be noted that the elders are especially charged with silencing the Judaizers: “For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced . . .” (Titus 1:10-11).  In the essays addressing the work of the Holy Spirit and the mystery (Essays #9-11) the importance of the Holy Spirit’s work in overcoming the doctrine of the Judaizers will be discussed at length. That necessity would have required elders in each church empowered to stop the mouths of those who were deceiving whole houses to follow after their doctrine.

[10] Acts 11:27; 13:1; 15:32; 21:10; 1 Corinthians 12:28-29; 14:29, 32, 37; Ephesians 2:20; 3:5; 4:11

[11] Please see Essay #7: “The Extent of Prophecy and Miracles in the Church” for a full discussion of this point.

[12] Please see Essay #12: “The Work of the Holy Spirit in Acts” for a discussion of how these seven men were “full of the Spirit.”

[13] Please see Essay #9: “What is the Mystery?” for a discussion of this topic.

[14] Please see Essay #16: “’Filled with the Spirit” for a discussion of the use of this phrase in the Bible.

[15] Please see Essay #3: “The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel Accounts” (Comments on “in the Spirit” found in Matthew 22:43. Jesus’ use of “in the Spirit” demands that this phrase can refer only to an inspired utterance. If prayer “in the Spirit” is not inspired, then David’s preaching “in the Spirit” could also be uninspired. Jesus’ application of that phrase to Himself limits its use to only inspired utterance and actions.

[16] Please see Essay #16: “The Work of the Holy Spirit in Rome and Galatia (Romans and Galatians)” for a discussion of the Holy Spirit in Romans 8.

[17] It should be noted that while the disciples’ request instruction in prayer in A. D. 30 or so, the saints of Rome would not have had record of that teaching of Jesus until Luke wrote his account of the gospel. There are few dating systems that would date Luke substantially before the writing of Romans. Unless the Holy Spirit directly provided the Romans the teaching about the form of prayer contained in the “Model Prayer” independent of Luke, they would not have known what the “Model Prayer” teaches about prayer. If the Holy Spirit did provide that teaching to the Romans through some prophet in Rome, the very point being made would be strengthened. In order for these early saints to know how to pray, the Holy Spirit had to “help their weaknesses.”

[18] Please see Essays #9-11 for a full discussion on the Holy Spirit and the Mystery of God.