Chapter # 1 Paragraph # 4 Study # 8
January 15, 2023
Broadlands, Louisiana
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Thesis: Witness-John rejected the identity of "the prophet" because he was not what that term in that setting described.
Introduction: In our study last week we looked into Witness-John's refusal to be identified as "Elijah" as he is presented in
Malachi 4:5. In that text, "Elijah" is presented as the precursor of "the great and terrible day of the Lord". John
was a precursor of the Lord, but not that coming of the Lord which will become "a great and terrible day". Gabriel told Zacharias that Witness-John was going to come "in the spirit and power" of Elijah, but he did not mean that John was the historical "Elijah" who is yet to come as Malachi prophesied.
Thus, we have seen the negative answers of two of the "identity questions" posed by those who interrogated John. He denied he was The Christ; and he denied he was the historical Elijah returned from heaven to set things up for the coming of the Day of the Wrath of The One Who sits upon the throne and the wrath of The Lamb (Revelation 6:15-17).
This leaves us to deal with their third question: "Are you the prophet?"
- I. Our First Consideration: Where Did This Question Come From And What Does It Mean?
- A. It has its origin in Deuteronomy 18:15-22.
- 1. The issues involved.
- a. The focus of the Old Testament upon "prophets" was almost non-existent until Moses.
- 1) There is one use of the word in Genesis -- it is in 20:7 and it refers to Abram as "a prophet" who would pray to God for Abimelech so he would live.
- 2) There are no other references to a "prophet" or to "prophesying" until Moses is sent by God to Egypt.
- b. The setting of the promise of "the prophet".
- 1) The people are on the verge of entrance into the promised land.
- 2) But their experience at Mt. Sinai had so terrified them that they wanted distance between them and God (see also Hebrews 12:18-21).
- 3) God granted them the "distance" they sought and promised them an on-going "office" of "prophet" to enable them to still hear from God, but not in the terrifyingly direct way that had happened at Sinai.
- 4) There is a great deal of confusion regarding how God's promise was to be taken.
- a) The confusion was the likely reason this was the "third" question (of lesser importance than the first two).
- b) Was He promising that He would raise up another, specific, person who would be "like unto" Moses, or was He promising something else?
- 2. The conclusion I draw: my take on it is that He was promising to institute "the office of the prophet" as an on-going provision for the people to be able to find out what God had to say without having to be subject to the terror of being directly in His presence.
- B. The meaning of the question.
- 1. Since it had been more than 400 years since the nation had had the "office of the prophet" as a current, functioning, aspect of God's words to the people, those from Jerusalem were asking if John was a fulfillment of the promise of the office of "the prophet" as Moses had said.
- 2. But, this meaning included the elements involved in God's promise through Moses to raise up those "like unto Moses" to make the voice of God present among the people.
- a. The most fundamental of those "elements" was that "the prophet" would be the representative of The Law of Mt. Sinai.
- b. A second "element" was the instruction regarding how to tell if "the office of the prophet" was being fulfilled by the one who called himself "the prophet of God".
- 3. Thus, the question was whether John was "the prophet who would represent the Law of God to the people".
- II. Our Second Consideration: John's Answer.
- A. The answer: "No".
- 1. John was not denying he was "a" prophet in the generic sense of "an intermediate spokesman for God to men".
- 2. John was denying he was "the prophet required for the administration of The Law".
- a. His name was "John"; meaning, he was a representative of the introduction of "Grace" into the proper theology of God.
- b. He could not be an administrator of The Law and be the one to introduce "Grace" into Israel's "T"heology of God: this the Author-John's "point" is 1:17.
- B. Thus, as Moses was the beginning of "the Office of The Prophet" for the administration of The Law, John was the beginning of the administration of Grace and, as such, was the precursor to the reality of "The Word (Voice) of God" made face-to-face with men by the incarnation so as to remove the "terror" of God as Judge and install "faith" in God as Redeemer.
