Blog Series Intention Recap
Why Prophecy Matters: Promise, Fulfillment, Hope
Bible prophecy often gets treated like a puzzle for decoding the news. This four-week Theology Thursday series steps back to ask why prophecy matters at all. We'll look at what prophecy is, how Psalm 22 pointed to the cross centuries ahead of time, what Christians mean by prophecy today, and how to read the promises God hasn't fulfilled yet.
Along the way, we'll keep seeing that the God who spoke through the prophets keeps His word, and that He kept it most clearly in Yeshua (Jesus).
Because God has faithfully fulfilled His Word in the past, we can trust what He has promised about the future.
This page is a post in the series “Why Prophecy Matters: Promise. Fulfillment. Hope.” Click here to see the rest of the posts.
Let’s jump into Week #3:
"Does God Still Give Prophecy?"...
If you've spent time in more than one church, you've probably noticed that Christians use the word "prophecy" in very different ways. In one congregation, someone stands during worship and says, "I sense the Lord saying..." In another, the word "prophecy" only comes up in a sermon on Isaiah or Revelation. Both groups love the Bible, and both believe the Holy Spirit is active today. They simply disagree about whether God still gives the gift of prophecy.
That disagreement is real, and it deserves an honest look. So this week we'll ask what the New Testament says about the gift of prophecy, hear the main evangelical positions fairly, and then settle on the one thing that has to stay true no matter which position you hold.
Why it Matters:
The prophets of Israel spoke God's word, and the New Testament also describes a spiritual gift of prophecy in the early church.
Broad cessationism holds that prophecy and certain revelatory or sign gifts belonged to the foundational period of the church and ceased when that work was complete.
Continuationists believe the gift continues today, while Scripture alone remains the final, authoritative written Word of God.
Not every cessationist draws the line in the same place. Some hold that only apostleship and prophecy have ceased, because their foundational work is finished, while the Spirit's other gifts continue.
Each of these positions is held by Bible-believing Christians who agree that every claimed prophecy must be tested.
No supposed word from God gets to correct, contradict, or outrank the Word God has already given.
Go Deeper:
This question isn't only for theologians. Most believers will eventually hear someone say, "God told me," about a decision, a relationship, a ministry, or the future. How we respond depends on what we believe about prophecy today.
It also touches the foundation of the whole series. If fulfilled prophecy gives us confidence in Scripture, we need to know how any claim to hear from God today relates to the Word He has already given.
Prophecy in the Early Church
Acts describes prophets at work in the early church. Agabus predicted a great famine, and it came in the days of Claudius (Acts 11:27–28).
Paul valued the gift highly because it built up the whole congregation:
"On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation." (1 Corinthians 14:3, ESV)
He also gave rules for it. Prophets were to speak two or three at a time, "and let the others weigh what is said" (1 Corinthians 14:29, ESV).
So the early church valued and regulated the gift of prophecy. The question is whether it continues today.
The Cessationist Position
Broad cessationism holds that prophecy and certain revelatory or sign gifts, such as tongues, healings, and miracles, were especially associated with the apostles and the church's foundational period, and that those gifts ceased once that foundational work was complete.
Their key text is Ephesians 2. Paul describes the church as a building:
"So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit." (Ephesians 2:19–22, ESV)
A foundation is laid once. After that, the building rises on top of it. Cessationists also point to the way the New Testament ties miraculous signs to the apostles' message. Paul spoke of "the signs of a true apostle" (2 Corinthians 12:12, ESV), and Hebrews says God bore witness to the gospel "by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will" (Hebrews 2:4, ESV). On this view, the signs authenticated the apostolic message, and once that message was delivered and recorded, the signs had done their job.
Cessationists add other lines of support. Hebrews 1:1–2 says God spoke "by the prophets" in many ways but "in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son" (ESV). Jude 3 speaks of "the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints" (ESV). Some cessationists have understood "the perfect" in 1 Corinthians 13:10 as the completion of the New Testament, although cessationism does not depend on that interpretation.
The concern underneath this position is the uniqueness and authority of God's revealed Word. If prophecy is God speaking directly, then a true prophecy today would carry the same authority as the Bible. Cessationists believe the New Testament itself tells us that kind of speaking was for the church's foundation.
The Continuationist Position
Continuationists believe the New Testament gift of prophecy continues within the church today, while Scripture alone remains the final and authoritative written Word of God.
They begin with Pentecost, when Peter explained the outpouring of the Spirit by quoting Joel:
"'And in the last days it shall be,' God declares, 'that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams'" (Acts 2:17, ESV)
The New Testament treats the whole period between Yeshua's first and second comings as the last days. If the outpouring belongs to the last days, continuationists argue, so does the prophesying that comes with it.
They also point to 1 Corinthians 13:
"Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away." (1 Corinthians 13:8–10, ESV)
Many continuationists understand "the perfect" as the return of the Lord, when "we shall see face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV). Until then, prophecy remains one of the "partial" gifts that serve the church.
Most continuationists also distinguish New Testament congregational prophecy from Scripture. They see it as a word the Spirit brings to mind, spoken in human words, which the church must weigh (1 Corinthians 14:29). Scripture never needs testing in that way. On this view, a prophecy today might encourage, warn, or comfort, but it never adds to the Bible and never carries the Bible's authority.
Continuationists point out that Paul's commands to "earnestly desire" prophecy (1 Corinthians 14:1, ESV) and not to "despise prophecies" (1 Thessalonians 5:20, ESV) were given to ordinary churches. They ask why those commands would expire without the New Testament saying so plainly.
A More Limited Cessationist View
Not every cessationist draws the line in the same place. Arnold Fruchtenbaum, a Messianic Jewish theologian and founder of Ariel Ministries, argues specifically that apostleship and prophecy have ceased because their foundational work is complete, while the other spiritual gifts continue. He lays out this view in Ruach HaKodesh: God the Holy Spirit, part of Ariel Ministries' Come and See systematic theology series.
His argument starts with what the gift of prophecy was. He defines it as "the ability to receive direct revelation from God," and he notes that "a prophet could even write Scripture which would be inspired and without error." For Fruchtenbaum, the key issue is direct revelation. If biblical prophecy is God revealing His words through a prophet, it belongs to a different category from a strong impression, wise counsel, or a word of encouragement. Some prophets also wrote inspired Scripture, though not every prophecy was recorded in Scripture.
He then draws two purposes for apostleship and prophecy from Ephesians. The church is "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets" (Ephesians 2:20, ESV), and the mystery of the church "has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit" (Ephesians 3:5, ESV). The apostles and prophets laid the foundation of the church, and they received and recorded the revelation of the New Testament. Fruchtenbaum concludes that both tasks were complete by the time the last apostle died, so those two gifts "are no longer given."
For the other spiritual gifts, he writes, "there is no basis for teaching that any of them have been done away." Teaching, exhortation, giving, mercy, faith, and the rest still build the church, stone by stone, on the foundation already laid. He even allows that God can still give the biblical gift of tongues, though he defines it narrowly as speaking a real, known language.
He also reads 1 Corinthians 13:10 differently from most interpreters on either side. He argues that "the perfect" is the completed body of Messiah, which will be finished when the church is caught up to meet the Lord. So the gifts in general continue until then, but apostleship and prophecy ended earlier because their specific work was done.
Fruchtenbaum's approach is distinctive in where he draws the line: prophecy and apostleship completed their foundational work, while the other gifts continue building the church.
Common Ground
The disagreement is real, but so is the common ground. The evangelical positions described here affirm Scripture as the church's final written authority. Paul describes Scripture as "breathed out by God" and sufficient to equip the believer "for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16–17, ESV). The evangelical continuationist view described here does not treat contemporary prophecy as an addition to the biblical canon.
These positions also agree that spiritual claims must be tested. Scripture warns seriously against anyone claiming to speak for God: what a prophet predicts in the LORD's name must come to pass (Deuteronomy 18:21–22), and no prophet may lead God's people away from the God who has already revealed Himself (Deuteronomy 13:1–5). And they affirm that the Holy Spirit remains active in believers today. The dispute concerns which gifts continue and how they operate, not whether the Spirit still works.
Where I Land
Throughout my life, I have found myself in different theological camps, if you will. I grew up in the Assemblies of God, in a traditional Pentecostal environment. We believed the gifts of the Spirit continued, including prophecy, and that the Holy Spirit still gave people words from God.
But over the years, I began wrestling with what I saw.
At times, it seemed like the emotional experience of the Holy Spirit became more important than the fruit of the Holy Spirit. I worked at a church where the "manifested" gifts would show up on Sunday nights. People would dance, fall under the Spirit's power, and have deeply emotional experiences. Then I would watch some of the same people cuss out their grandkids on the way to the car. I also watched people use "God told me" to begin or end dating relationships, as though invoking God settled the matter.
That disconnect bothered me.
But I found the other side of the fence difficult too. During my time in Southern Baptist churches, I encountered a deep commitment to reading, studying, and understanding God's Word. I appreciated that. But sometimes it seemed as though we were so concerned about keeping emotion from driving our interpretation of Scripture that we didn't quite know what to do with emotion at all.
After all, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus said, "Did not our hearts burn within us...?" (Luke 24:32, ESV). Of course, Latter-day Saints have famously used the idea of a "burning in the bosom" to describe spiritual confirmation, which complicates things. And sometimes heartburn is just the macaroni you ate the night before.
But notice what was happening on the road to Emmaus. Their hearts burned as Yeshua opened the Scriptures to them. The feeling wasn't the authority. God's Word was.
That's part of why I've come to describe myself as a functional cessationist. I'm not prepared to say God cannot give direct revelation today. God is God. He can do whatever He wants, whenever He wants, however He wants. I'm not interested in telling the Holy Spirit what He is allowed to do.
But "functional cessationist" describes how I approach claims of prophecy today. Much of what I've seen called prophecy has not convinced me that direct revelation is actually taking place. An impression may be meaningful. Wise counsel may be Spirit-led. A particular passage of Scripture may come to mind at exactly the right moment. But I'm hesitant to attach the words "God told me" to those experiences.
That doesn't mean I believe the Holy Spirit is inactive. He still teaches, convicts, comforts, produces fruit, and equips His church. I don't want caution about prophecy to become caution about the Holy Spirit Himself.
I've seen what happens when too much attention goes to the gift and too little goes to the Giver.
So I want to leave room for God to work while being very careful about claiming that God has spoken. And when someone claims a word from God, I want to bring it back to the Word God has already given.
That is where I land.
The Word God Has Already Given
Whatever position you hold, the pastoral center of this question is bigger than the disagreement:
No supposed word from God gets to correct, contradict, or outrank the Word God has already given.
That principle protects believers on every side. A cessationist can't dismiss a brother or sister's experience of the Spirit simply because it's unfamiliar. A continuationist can't treat any impression, however strong, as if it carried the weight of Scripture. And everyone is safer when every claim is brought back to the Bible and weighed there.
Peter had heard the Father's voice on the mountain, yet he still directed his readers to pay attention to the prophetic Word "as to a lamp shining in a dark place" (2 Peter 1:19, ESV). We have good reason to do the same.
How Does This Help Me Understand “Why Prophecy Matters”?
So what should Christians mean when they talk about prophecy today?
We should be clear about what biblical prophecy was: God revealing His word through the messengers He chose. We should be honest that faithful Christians disagree about whether the New Testament gift continues. And we should agree that any claim to hear from God is subordinate to what God has already said in Scripture.
That keeps us anchored to the big idea of this series: Because God has faithfully fulfilled His Word in the past, we can trust what He has promised about the future. Our confidence doesn't rest on the next impression, dream, or "word." It rests on the Scriptures God has already given and already proven true. Christians may disagree about whether the gift continues, but our confidence must remain anchored in God's revealed Word.
Anchored in the Word
Know your Bible well enough to test what you hear. Paul told the church to test everything. You can't weigh a claim against Scripture if you don't know what Scripture says. Regular, careful Bible reading is the best protection against confusion.
Be gracious with believers who disagree. This is an in-house debate among people who love Yeshua and trust the Bible. You can hold your conviction firmly and still treat a brother or sister on the other side with respect.
Be cautious with "God told me." If you believe God is leading you, bring that sense to Scripture, to prayer, and to mature believers who know you. Be slow to attach God's name to your impressions, especially when other people's decisions are involved.
Keep your confidence where it belongs. The Word God has already given is enough to make you "complete, equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:17, ESV). That matters especially when we think about promises still awaiting fulfillment. God has already told us about Messiah's return, Israel's future, and His coming kingdom. We don't need a new prophetic word to tell us whether God is finished with Israel. We need to read carefully what He has already said.
Before chasing a new word about the future, learn to trust the prophetic Word already in your hands.
