THE PURPOSE & EFFECT OF REVELATION

PART six

Bringing Edification, Exhortation, and Comfort

1 Corinthians 14:3 But he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men.

The basic tenor of prophecy is summed up in the aforementioned verse. To edify, exhort, and comfort can be simply caricatured as to lift up, build up, and cheer up. This is a good place to start when understanding the nature of prophecy as it should be practiced in our modern age. Edification, exhortation, and comfort are the baseline principles for the activity of prophecy. 

To Edify

The word for edification (G3619) literally means to build up and implies the act of building or the building itself. The most direct reference to a building as it relates to the Christian is the temple. Paul, earlier in the epistle to the Corinthians calls our bodies the temple of the Holy Spirit:

I Corinthians 6:19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

Peter claims that we are all being built up as living stones:

I Peter 2:4-5 Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

A spiritual house with a priesthood offering up sacrifices sure sounds like a temple, does it not? What is the structure that is built through the use of the gift of prophecy? It is the temple of holiness within the inner man that houses the Holy Spirit. Prophetic ministry is to help build and establish a house of holiness within the person.

Ammonas the Bishop, a 4th century disciple of Anthony the Great, said that for someone to edify they must be healed. In speaking of the Old Testament prophets, he says:

“...they are only sent when all their own diseases are healed. For a soul cannot be sent into the midst of men for their edification if it has some defect of its own.”

To build a temple of holiness in others will require, on some level, the construction of a temple of holiness in the person prophesying.

To Exhort

Jeremiah 23:23-24 “Am I a God near at hand,” says the Lord, “And not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, So I shall not see him?” says the Lord; “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the Lord.

The word for exhort is paraklesis (G3874), it is the feminine noun that corresponds to the Greek word parakletos. Parakletos is the word that Christ uses in John 14:16 to describe the coming of the Holy Spirit:

“I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper (parakletos)…” 

In John 16, Jesus goes on to say that when the Helper comes, he will glorify Jesus and declare him. When we exhort as a function of prophecy, we call people near to Christ and remind them of his goodness. Just as when the Parakletos (the Holy Spirit, the Helper) has come, he will remind them of all that Christ has taught and who the Father is (John 16:13-15).

Oftentimes a prophetic word calls a person back to how they have been marked by prophecy in the past. Paul encourages Timothy to not neglect the prophetic word that marked him from a young age (1 Timothy 4:14). He did not need to remind him of what the prophetic word was, rather to reflect on what had happened to him.

To Comfort

The words for exhort and comfort are closely related, yet the Greek word paramuthia (G388) carries with it a greater sense of tenderness. When we prophecy, we seek to communicate the heart of God to the person. It is the tenderness of God’s heart that must mark our prophetic utterances. Syncletica of Alexandria, an early Desert Mother, said that we must especially speaks words of comfort to those who are immature in the faith:

To comfort has the end goal of strengthening our reliance and trust in the Lord.

An early disciple of Anthony the Great, Paul the Simple, was known for having a revelatory gift:

“…he had received the grace from the Lord of seeing the state of each one’s soul, just as we see their faces.”

While he was at a gathering, he noticed a particular brother whose soul was laden with darkness. Paul began weeping bitterly over the soul of this brother, to the point that it became a major distraction for the church service. Paul stood outside, his tears a curiosity to the other brothers. 

When the service ended and the people were pouring out of the gathering, Paul noticed the brother who had been full of darkness and realized that the state of his soul was completely transformed, and this brother was full of light. Paul exclaimed and praised the Lord that the brother had been so transformed. When Paul pointed out the radical transformation, the brother shared that though he had come to the service weighed down and heavy. At the reading of Isaiah 1:18-19 during the liturgy:

'Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.”

The man was filled with conviction and turned his heart immediately to Christ. The tenderness of the Father’s heart was revealed through Paul and the grace upon his life. 

Prophetic ministry has to ask the question, “How has God created this person to reflect the nature and goodness of the Father?” This is the role of every believer and a large portion of what constitutes prophetic ministry. It is to build up godliness within the person.