But I sort of glossed over the other prophecies about how Israel continually disobeyed and fell short of keeping their covenant with God. And I mentally cringed at the awful judgments pronounced, and carried out, against God's people. Over the years, though, I began to see the justice of God's judgments and I saw how patient He had been with them. They were rarely faithful to the covenant they had made with the Lord. They committed idolatry upon idolatry, and oppression and murder and adultery for hundreds of years before God brought the "promised" judgments. I used to wonder about how God could do such "terrible" things to His people and now I wonder how He put up with them so long. Still, I have not spent much time reading about these things. Not many Christians do. It does not seem all that interesting.
Occasionally, though, someone comes up with a new idea that revives interest in a neglected part of the Bible. Recently, some scholars have begun to view the prophets in a new way. They see the prophets not as enforcers of God's covenant, but as visionaries who began to see Israelite society in a new and different way. They cried out against what they saw as social injustices and told them that God was displeased with them as a result. In other words, the prophets were creative and foreward-looking. They wanted a brand new society based upon new principles and new revelations of God's justice.
These same scholars, and their followers, believe that the church should do the same thing. Preachers and believers should have a "prophetic voice" that cries out against various injustices and inequities in our society. Some have begun to do so. Sadly, however, this so-called "prophetic voice" often sounds a lot like the secular progressives raging against things they don't like and for things society has rejected throughout history. They promote things like gay marriage and abortion "rights". They promote activism in areas like climate change. They talk about how capitalism is "oppressing" the poor.
(I am tempted to give a lesson in economics at this point. Criticizing capitalism for poverty is like criticizing a goose because she did not lay enough golden eggs for everyone. One of the leading scholars teaching this stuff is actually a Marxist - talk about ungodly! But I digress.)
I will not read the prophets that way. I must take another approach. And I am doing so. Recently, I began an in-depth study of the prophets, beginning with Isaiah, focusing on the basis on which they condemned Israel for its sins. I have discovered, thanks to some wonderful conservative commentators, that the prophets did nothing "creative". The only real, new revelations they had was of the coming of the messiah and the kingdom of God. Regarding sins, they simply applied the Law to their current situation. The Law of Moses, especially Deuteronomy 28-33 and Leviticus 26, contain curses or punishments that Israel would incur if they violated the covenant stipulations. The prophets proclaimed that Israel would suffer the exact thing that God had told them they would suffer if they violated the Ten Commandments and the other laws in the Torah.
You can go through each prophet and what they said would happen to Israel and then trace it back to an exact curse in the Law. Scholars have numbered each type of curse and often just refer to them by number. You can do this verse by verse. So, there is nothing "creative" about the prophets. They did not discover a new way to order society. They looked back to the Law of Moses and saw that the Israelites were disobedient. They told the people that God was going to punish their disobedience in precisely the way that He said they would. And we have the historical books of the OT to show us that this is what came to pass.
But those who teach that the prophets had a new vision based on some new "revelation" for Israelite society miss this key point. They also miss the point that the canon is closed. There will be no additions to the Bible. God has not changed His mind about homosexuality or anything else. I will not accept any so-called "revelation" or insight that someone gets that is contrary to the Bible even if it seems just and right to modern society. Any prophecy or revelation has to be in line with the Bible. Otherwise, it is to be rejected. God is not giving out new revelations to straighten out the church or society.
Of course, some would point out that God has raised up people like Martin Luther King Jr. to correct injustices in our society. That is true. But if you listen to his speeches and read his writings, you will discover something very interesting. He had a vision of a just society not just for his people but for all. He did it by calling people back to the Bible and to the Declaration of Independence that says that all men are created equal. He pointed out that many whites were hypocritical in proclaiming the Bible and maintaining prejudice and discrimination against blacks. King was, in this sense, a conservative calling us to live by the standards of the Bible and by the ideals of the Declaration. The problem was not that we needed a new vision of what justice is, we simply needed to apply the principles we were supposed to be living by in the first place. No new revelation was necessary.
The prophets should never be read as if they were a manual for us to become social justice warriors. They should be read for what they were: applications of the Word of God given at that point and exhortations to keep that same Word. Therefore, we should do the same thing. We should constantly harken back to what God said in His Word (mainly the New Testament) and apply it in our lives, in our churches, and in our society as we able.
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