THIS IS PART OF AN ONGOING SERIES ON THE GIFT OF PROPHECY. Click here for the rest of the series.
“For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged.”
In the last few posts, we saw that what we call a gift (prophecy, healings, tongues, discerning of spirits, etc…) the Bible calls the manifestation of the Spirit. And that manifestation was consistent from the Old Testament (Moses and the 70 elders), to the New Testament (1 Corinthians 12), and was carried on into the life of the early church. That prophetic utterances and healings were expected was a staple of the early church and easily carried on through the first 1000 years of church history (and longer, but more on that much later).
One of the first great Christian monastics, Anthony the Great (251-356 AD), had a reputation that the Holy Spirit would move through him. After a long bout of living in silence and solitude, seeking the presence of Christ, it was said of Anthony:
“Antony, as from a shrine, came forth initiated in the mysteries and filled with the Spirit of God…Through him the Lord healed the bodily ailments of many present, and cleansed others from evil spirits. And He gave grace to Antony in speaking, so that he consoled many that were sorrowful, and set those at variance at one, exhorting all to prefer the love of Christ before all that is in the world.”
The early church correlated the presence of the Spirit of God within an individual with the supernatural phenomena that occurred around them. Anthony had such a reputation for prophetic insight, he was said to have been Spirit-borne:
“Some say of Saint Anthony that he was ‘Spirit-borne’, that is, carried along by the Holy Spirit, but he would never speak of this to men. Such men see what is happening in the world, as well as knowing what is going to happen.”
Anthony spent 20 years with one insatiable desire, to encounter the presence of Christ. He did this in relative obscurity. He came out of this season so imbued with the presence of Christ that miracles tended to happen everywhere he went. With Anthony, miracles were commonplace. This is the direct continuation that we saw earlier from Old Testament to New Testament, and on into the time of the early church fathers.
This should not surprise us today. After all, Jesus, in effect, claimed that this would be commonplace to anyone who took the spiritual life seriously:
John 16:12-15 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”
This statement is not made to an elite class of special Christians. This statement is in the same sermon as Jesus teaching the disciples that he is the way, truth, and life:
John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
In practically the same breath that Jesus said he was the way, truth, and life, he also said that the Holy Spirit would tell you things to come. This is written to every believer. Why? Because prophecy is the result of an ever-deepening relationship with the Spirit of God.
To prophesy is to hear the voice of God and speak on His behalf.
One of the great desires of the human heart is to be fully known. Paul says as much in 1 Corinthians 13:12:
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
I recall a particularly deep conversation I had with my wife in the first few years of marriage. We had been visiting friends and were on a long drive back home. I opened up and shared some deep wounds of the past that I had never shared with anyone before. My breath hung in anxious anticipation with how she would respond. Would her opinion of me now be tarnished forever, or would she accept me?
“That makes me so angry that the devil would try and do that to you and your family,” she said.
With those words I exhaled and realized that she had just shown me the Father’s heart. In what I thought were some of the deepest, most shameful parts of my past, she saw past what I thought disqualified me and loved me regardless.
We desperately crave to be known, seen, and accepted. This fathomless need is excruciatingly unfulfilled day by day, yet it is the ultimate destination of the human life. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. The human condition is basically summed up as this: the desperate need to be fully known and embraced juxtaposed with the fear of sharing the deep things of the heart.
“Everything is in conflict: our thoughts, our desires, our experiences, the circumstances of our life. We become like a man who takes up a sword, cuts down everything around him, and, when he is done, breaks the sword into pieces and throws it away. That’s what happens to our soul: it is divided into parts and dispersed. And though scattered like so much dust in a raging wind, it nevertheless remains alone, closed, and dark; unsettled and filled with fear, because it has enslaved itself to a dark, lonely power which knows no rest and no peace. ”
To be continued…